Being Gay is gift: Change is in the air

One of the biggest challenges to GLBT rights is organized religion. Prop8 in California, denying marriage rights to a minority, was passed in large part by the unholy alliance of conservative Catholics and Mormons (especially Mormon money). Many gay people see their lives in opposition to religion, thanks to the ascendance of fundigelical Christianism under successive Republican administrations. There has been a defacto establishment of conservative evangelicalism as a state religion. And yet, along with other changes, perhaps that is changing too.

Progressive Christians are finding their voice on a national stage and offering a radical welcome to all. Will their voices finally be heard in Washington and in the wider culture?

Item 1 :Just this week, Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, went on Oprah Winfrey's show and announced "being gay is a gift from God". As documented by Susan Russell's blog, Rev Bacon then on successive occasions defended and extended his comment, explaining that "I meant exactly what I said". He went on to say that his mail was running 30:1 in favor of his inclusiveness and affirmation. "Ironically," he lamented, "some of the most meanspirited email I received was from Christians".

Item 2: Apparently in response to the outrage over Rick Warren giving the invocation at the Inauguration, the Obama transition team invited Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire to give an invocation for another inaugural event. Robinson is an out gay man who recently celebrated a civil union with his partner. On an interview on Rachel Maddow's show , Bishop Robinson reminded the audience that "Jesus had the biggest tent of all," scolding those who choose to exclude.

Item 3: In a series of screenings around the country, the award-winning film For the Bible Tells me so challenges the Christian Right's attack on homosexuality by showing the lives of faithful GLBT people and their families.

Item 4: The California Council of Churches filed an amicus curiae brief against Prop 8. This group represents over 4000 congregations of different mainstream traditions as well as ecumenical allies from other faiths.

Item 5: Finally, today, the estimable Mary Frances Berry of the Commission on Civil Rights takes on the subject:

To help resolve the issue of gay rights, President-elect Obama should abolish the now moribund Commission on Civil Rights and replace it with a new commission that would address the rights of many groups, including gays.....

There is no need to analogize the battle for the rights of gay and lesbian people to the struggle of African Americans to overcome slavery, Jim Crow and continued discrimination. But as Coretta Scott King said to me as she tried to imagine what position the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would take on “don’t ask, don’t tell”: “What’s the yardstick by which we should decide that gay rights are less important than other human rights we care about?”

We know that the anti-gay rights people are on the losing side of demographics. They are fighting savagely as a result. But perhaps with other changes, they are losing the battle to define Christianity by their exclusionary rules. And perhaps with the progressive Christians increasingly and vocally on our side, we can win this battle and offer the positive side of change, with peace.

Cross posted at StreetProphets, at Daily Kos and TPM Cafe

Ed Bacon on Oprah

The Rev. Ed Bacon, All Saints, Pasadena - being gay is a gift from God:

Radical Welcome

As you may recall me telling you previously, the Episcopal Cathedral of San Diego has been a strong advocate for gay rights and BP has been there a couple of times (once with me). A friend of ours also started attending after their ecumenical post-prop8 service, and has really gotten into the community. She phoned us this weekend to ask if we were going, because there was a "newcomer's informational brunch" after the 10.30 service that she wanted to attend. BP was interested, so we went.

A couple of noticeable things. First of all, there were many more "newcomers" at the brunch than they had anticipated so there was a scramble for chairs and tables. Second, based on our chats and eavesdropping, quite a large number of these potential newcomers are, like BP, Roman Catholic, and several of them explicitly dismayed and injured by Prop8. The inclusiveness of TEC is a huge, huge draw. (The familiarity of the liturgy doesn't hurt.) And third, the Dean explained the simple message of the Cathedral thus:

Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here. Whether you are passing through, or this is the beginning of a longer relationship, welcome. You are today part of our family.

Simple but to the point. Not a dry eye in the house.

Our journey continues.


Update: welcome to visitors coming here from Fr Terry's site, and the HOBD list. If you click on the label "welcome" at the bottom of this post, you will find the other posts I've made about our visits to TEC churches recently.

+Gene to pray at Opening Inaugural Event

From Episcopal Cafe:

We received this email from Bishop Robinson this morning:

I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural Week activities, “We are One,” to be held at the Lincoln Memorial, Sunday, January 18, at 2:00 pm. It will be an enormous honor to offer prayers for the country and the new president, standing on the holy ground where the “I have a dream speech” was delivered by Dr. King, surrounded by the inspiring and reconciling words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It is also an indication of the new president’s commitment to being the President of ALL the people. I am humbled and overjoyed at this invitation, and it will be my great honor to be there representing the Episcopal Church, the people of New Hampshire, and all of us in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
+Gene

Read more here.

Disciples of Christ president to preach at inauguration

The New York Times reports:

President-elect Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins to deliver the sermon at the national prayer service that is held the day after the inauguration.

Ms. Watkins, the first woman ever selected to lead the service, is the president and general minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a small, liberal-leaning Protestant denomination with 3,754 congregations and about 690,000 members in the United States and Canada. Ms. Watkins was elected to the post in 2005, the first woman ever chosen to lead a mainline Protestant denomination.
...
Ms. Watkins has spoken out against torture and the war in Iraq, but as church president she has not taken a position on same-sex marriage. Like many mainline Protestant churches, the Disciples is not unified on the issue. As a congregational church, each church in the denomination is free to set its own policies.

Ms. Watkins said in a telephone interview that the church in Bartlesville, Okla., where she served as minister before becoming president, could not reach a consensus on whether to allow gay union ceremonies and decided to hold off on a decision