How do we find middle ground?

We are so deeply polarized as a people.  How do we re-establish relationship with those who think it's okay to imprison children, who are afraid of Muslims, and who think that poor people are taking their hard-earned cash.  (It's not clear how illegal migrants can simultaneously be taking all those farm jobs that people want, and sitting around on welfare rolls for which they aren't eligible.)

Let's take same sex marriage as an example.  As the Evangelical leaders fulminate about Chik-fil-A deciding to stop donating to the anti-gay groups, how do we honestly come to a middle ground?

if someone tells me that they do not approve of my marriage to another woman, and/or that they approve of legal discrimination, I experience that as deeply painful, personal, and dehumanizing. I understand that they equally deeply feel that my marriage is wrong and against their own values.  But I'm not telling them that THEY can't marry.  I'm not directly interfering in THEIR lives. 

How do you find a resolution between those viewpoints, beyond acknowledging they both exist? 

There's a difference between using your viewpoint to exclude other people from participation, and choosing to exclude yourself. It's the live and let live doctrine. if you don't like same sex marriage, don't enter into a same sex marriage. But don't impose your attitude on others who disagree.

There really isn't a compromise between the view that gay people shouldn't marry, and that gay peopleshould have full civil rights.

Okay, generally, if someone doesn't want to "participate" in a same sex marriage (vendor),well I don't think I'd want them anyway. But follow it to the extreme expressed in Washington State during the marriage battles a few years back:

""What are rural gays supposed to do if the only gas station or grocery store for miles won't sell them gas and food?" The staffer, who refused to identify himself, reportedly told Castro that if such a scenario were to unfold, "gay people can just grow their own food." [Needless to say, the bill did not pass....and the staffer backtracked.]" 

And in the current climate, hate crimes and threats against the LGBT community are rising.

How do I find a middle ground with a person who thinks I shouldn't exist?

Enforcing gender norms in the bathroom

Well, as we all predicted, there have been now numerous cases of self-appointed bathroom police going after interlopers in the women's room.  However,  those "interlopers" are actual cis-gendered women.

You see, for the bathroom police,  any woman who does not match their ideal of what a woman should look like, is Not Allowed.  And apparently if you have short hair and wear boy's clothes, that's a bad thing.

Indeed, I know at least one woman with very short hair who is concerned now about using the restroom in public spaces at all.  I know a graduate student, who presents in a very androgynous way, who sparked a panic in our building last year simply by using the restroom because another student thought she was male. Even me, with my long hair and a very curvy figure-- I've occasionally been thought to be a guy, because I like to wear jeans and I have a deep voice.

Let us be clear, this is not about trans people.  It is not about predators.  It is all about enforcing gender norms.

The fear of trans people is almost entirely the fear of trans women, who have unaccountably (to some) given up the privilege of maleness to be women.  That's a broken gender norm right there.

Those androgynous women, with short hair and male clothes, they are a threat because they challenge the norms themselves.  And of course, if a guy finds them attractive, is it because he secretly thinks they are guys?

There's no accident that the really conservative sects impose a strict dress code on women:  long hair, dresses.

Does this all tie in  to the victory of marriage equality? Because nothing challenges gender norms (which really means, male privilege) like a same-sex partnership. Some same sex couples do have a gender-binary type of relationship, of course, but many do not, leading to discomfort in some straights.  "Which one of you is the man?"  is a question every lesbian couple faces, either spoken or unspoken.

A great article from the Atlantic today thinks so...

America is experiencing a period of profound gender anxiety. Mainstream understandings of “gender” are changing, which may be why Mississippi legislators felt the need to codify concepts that have always seemed culturally implicit. .... 

Non-traditional notions of gender have finally become widespread enough to foment a sustained backlash....The fact that legislators in overreach-hating, small-government-loving states like Mississippi and North Carolina have resorted to the law to protect their notions of gender shows the depth of their panic about these ambient cultural shifts.

Of course this is impossible to separate from Bible-thumping conservative Christianity, that opposes anything that doesn't fit their ideal binary men-and-women model. So, they claim that same sex marriage and transgender rights somehow affects their religious "freedom" (which is really religious privilege).

But more broadly, this is also a question about gender roles. In a recent PRRI / The Atlantic poll, 42 percent of Americans said they believe society is becoming “too soft and feminine.” Thirty-nine percent said they believe society is better off “when men and women stick to the jobs and tasks they are naturally suited for,” including 44 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants. These numbers suggest nervousness about fluid gender identities—and that America isn’t even close to a consensus that men and women should choose the way they act.

And, again, not so much religious privilege, as MALE privilege.

If transgender people are able to use the bathroom of their choice, that suggests women are perfectly safe when former men, or women who have masculine characteristics, enter their intimate spaces. “Part of the threat here is that women are saying they do not need protection from men. That has long been a source of anger for men and women who believe in this notion of female submission to male authority,” said Griffiths. At least in part, “men who are supporting this are reasserting a protective role.”

Read that again:  men are "reasserting a protective role".  Because how DARE women think they don't need the protection, the authority, of straight cis-gendered men.  Isn't it telling that the bathroom wars are ostensibly to protect women from assault by straight cis-gendered men?

The Atlantic article isn't very hopeful that we will figure this out any time soon.  Meanwhile, I have no issue with who uses what bathroom.  There are stalls and they are private, and I'm indifferent to the plumbing details of the person in the stall next to me.

Everyone needs to be free to pee.

Nuns walk out

In Marin County CA, nuns who teach in a Catholic high school walked out, because they were offended that students were handing out flyers about GLSEN's Day of Silence. For those who don't know, this is a nationwide day of protest against bullying, where students who support LGBT rights simply say.... nothing. The nuns, however, feel that it is offensive and anti-Catholic. That is, that standing up in silence somehow is offensive to the nuns.

When some Marin Catholic High students began handing out Day of Silence-related stickers and flyers on campus Friday morning, the five nuns felt “felt compromised, offended and uncomfortable,” Sister Clare Marie, one of the teachers, later wrote in a lengthy e-mail to her students.

She said the sisters “do not support bigotry or any kind of prejudice,” but that they were compelled to act out against an event promoted by a group that “believes actively in promoting homosexuality in all classrooms, K-12.”

Her e-mail also accused the group’s members of speaking out “against Christians who do not share their views” and handing out materials that “say that any church which teaches homosexuality is sinful is an 'oppressor’ and should be opposed.”
....

 Okay, first of all, this is not about recruiting kids to be gay.  They are, or they aren't.  It's standing up to bullying, like the anti-gay flannel shirt bullies in the school in Pennsylvania.

The next day, a group of students walked the halls at McGuffey High raising awareness of what they unimaginatively dubbed “Anti Gay Day.” Some had “anti-gay” scrawled on their hands and a Christian cross etched on their flesh with a black marker to show how committed they were to being Jesus’ truest disciples.

Others let their freaky flannel fly on social media, where they “tagged” known and suspected LGBT students at their school with homophobic insults and Bible verses. A few GSA-affiliated students found pithy, but hateful, flyers saying “ANTI-GAY” stuck to their lockers....

.... What had a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person ever done to them except get out of the way whenever these boys strutted en masse down the hall?

 But more than that, the sisters personify something identified by Irish equality campaigner and drag queen, Panti Bliss:

So now ... gay people find ourselves in a ludicrous situation where not only are we not allowed to say publicly what we feel oppressed by, we are not even allowed to think it because our definition has been disallowed by our betters.

.... And a jumped-up queer like me should know that the word “homophobia” is no longer available to gay people. Which is a spectacular and neat Orwellian trick because now it turns out that gay people are not the victims of homophobia – homophobes are.

Cross-posted from Gay Married Californian.

"I don't approve of your lifestyle"

After the march that nobody attended (NOM's poorly attended anti-gay marriage march in Washington last week), there was the usual effort by NOM and its friends (I'm looking at you, Abp Salvatore Cordileone) to pretend that they aren't against LGBT people, but just trying to defend the specialness of marriage from Teh Gayz.

It's not personal. They just "don't approve of our lifestyle".

But we know what that really means, and this article, 5 things you REALLY mean when you say I don't approve of your homosexual lifestyle nails it.

First,

You assent that nothing else about me is part of my "lifestyle"; not the job I do, not the worship I attend, not the food I eat, not the gardening I enjoy, not the children I am raising, and most certainly not the palpable and inescapable love I have for God and my neighbor. Next time, just be honest and say "I am grossed out by thinking about your sex life."

That's the biggest one, because it all comes down to an obsession with sex (particular sex between men, because we know that most straight men are turned on by the thought of women having sex.)

Second,

You have decided to ignore all social sciences that inform us that human sexuality is on a spectrum and that some people are in fact built (Created) to be attracted to, fall in love with and desire to make a life with people of the same gender. ....Next time, just be honest and say "I don't believe in science."

Because it's perfectly natural to be gay, a normal human variation like having red hair or being left handed, and yes, lots of animals are gay too.

Third

what you are really saying is DO approve of forcing me to live either a dark and dangerous lie or to be completely alone, forever.....Next time, just be honest and say "I don't  approve of you being whole and loved."

#3 particularly applies to the Catholic bishops who are happy to inflict loneliness on complete strangers, whether or not they are Catholic, by demanding that they live celibate and alone.  Funny how it's so easy to lay that cross on someone else.

Fourth

...you approve of me being persistently a second class, slightly fearful citizen living on the same street, shopping in the same community, worshipping at the same church and subject to the stricter laws than you. ... Next time, just be honest and say “I don’t approve of equal rights for all.”

Because really, what effect does my having the right to marry have on anyone else, except my spouse?  Does it hurt any other person that I have full rights of citizenship?

Fifth, for all the believers out there

what you are really saying is you don't trust God to generously create and extravagantly love an amazing array of differently configured children. What you are saying is that God's love is limited to people like you. And sweetie, we can call it blasphemy or we can call it heresy, hell I am happy to call it willful ignorance, but in truth it is just plain old, small-minded, narcissistic religiosity that denies the radical grace and is terrified of the incomprehensibility of God.....Next time, just be honest and say “I don’t believe in your sacred worth."

Abp Cordileone's God is a very small God, don't you think?

The President on ENDA

From the Huffington Post, an OpEd by POTUS:

Here in the United States, we're united by a fundamental principle: we're all created equal and every single American deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. We believe that no matter who you are, if you work hard and play by the rules, you deserve the chance to follow your dreams and pursue your happiness. That's America's promise. 

That's why, for instance, Americans can't be fired from their jobs just because of the color of their skin or for being Christian or Jewish or a woman or an individual with a disability. 

That kind of discrimination has no place in our nation. And yet, right now, in 2013, in many states a person can be fired simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
As a result, millions of LGBT Americans go to work every day fearing that, without any warning, they could lose their jobs -- not because of anything they've done, but simply because of who they are. 

It's offensive. It's wrong. And it needs to stop, because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense. 

That's why Congress needs to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, also known as ENDA, which would provide strong federal protections against discrimination, making it explicitly illegal to fire someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This bill has strong bipartisan support and the support of a vast majority of Americans. It ought to be the law of the land.

Catholic Doctrine has not changed

So Pope Francis "won't judge" a gay priest.  As a commenter in the Advocate points out,

Pope Francis is seen as this amazing disruptor of the Catholic establishment because he's from South America, and doesn't have a penchant for pricey Pope-mobiles or fancy shoes. ...
"If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?" he said to reporters on Monday. "The catechism of the Catholic Church says clearly that we must not marginalize these people who should be integrated into society." 

Hey, that's fantastic. For LGBT Catholics and Catholics who support LGBT rights, this is a nice development. As the pro-LGBT Catholic organization Equally Blessed points out, Francis's words are a nice break from his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who actively argued that gay men can't be priests. 

But we shouldn't be fooled. Pope Francis's words don't mean that the church's policy has suddenly shifted.

Just because the words are nicer, doesn't mean anything has changed.  Catholic doctrine still considers gays to be "gravely disordered".  The mendacious Timothy Cardinal Dolan lays it out:

Dolan insisted that the Church has long embraced gay people and that Francis’ answer did not represent a new tone or establish a more liberal precedent. “Homosexual acts,” he said, are still a sin. “Homosexuality is not a sin, right? Homosexual acts are,” Dolan said, “just like heterosexuality is not a sin outside of marriage, that would be sinful.” “While certain acts may be wrong, [the Pope] would always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity and not judge them,” Dolan continued.

Right.

Nothing to see here, move along....

Voices of Faith Speak Out: new series at GMC

On Saturdays I am starting a new series at Gay Married Californian that specifically highlights voices of faith speaking out against bullying and in support of LGBT youth. My goal is to show that the anti-gay bigotry of the Christianist right does NOT define Christianity's response to LGBT people. I am starting with Christian denominations, because in the peculiar marriage of religion and politics in the US, Christianity is the Big Kahuna. However, I will be happy to highlight positive statements from non-Christian faith groups as well. Coming up in the next few weeks, I will have examples from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, to name a few.

Why am I doing this? Because I know there are straight, religious allies who walk the walk with us. Too often their voices are drowned out by the strident shouts of the haters--I'm hoping to amp them up. LGBT adults and youth of faith, who have been deeply injured by churches need to know that the haters don't speak for everyone or all faith groups. There are many churches that offer radical welcome.

And as a practical matter, whether we are individuals of faith or not, the LGBT community needs to build alliances with religious allies to defeat the opposition. Religion isn't our enemy.

This came to me this weekend, appropriately enough at church. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary last week, in honor of which we donated the Sunday flowers. Our anniversary was further recognized and celebrated by the congregation as we were asked to be the Oblation Bearers and carry the bread and wine to the altar for the choral Eucharist. Numbers of people came up to us afterwards to congratulate us. And it occurred to me (not for the first time) that too many LGBT people are unaware of the explicit support of many communities of faith. I mean, we attend a church that not only welcomes us as a married lesbian couple, but as a mixed marriage of atheist and Christian! Whoa. Pretty radical stuff. Time to get those voices of welcome out there, don't you think?

In any event, I'm going to try to educate everyone and hope to build bridges. If you run across relevant statements or citations that can be identified with particular faith groups, send 'em along and if they are appropriate, I'll queue them up.

Words do hurt: living and dying while gay in America (updated)

Grandmere Mimi has been keeping grim count of the horrible spate of suicides of gay youth recently. Writer and Activist Dan Savage is trying to provide hope for gay youth, especially those who may lack real-life role models, with his It gets better project.

Responding to the suicide of musician and college student Tyler Clementi, whose roommate filmed him having sex with another man and then streamed it on the internet, John Aravosis writes:

Gay civil rights isn't a "social issue." It's our lives. A lot of us, myself included, grew up thinking we'd never see the age of 30 because we'd have to kill ourselves once people found out we were gay. A lot of people have no idea how hard it is to grow up being gay. To grow up thinking God made you wrong. Thinking you will never find love. Thinking your own family and friends will disown you once they know who you really are. And hearing the President of the United States - one of the "good" guys - say that you don't deserve the right to marry the person you love.

This brought to my mind the damage that the haters do.

You may recall our discussion of evangelical Andrew Marin, and his Marin Foundation. He claims to be a friend to gay people, and got noticed by apologizing at a gay pride parade. This is what Andrew Marin says when his audience is other evangelicals:

Because you have to understand, you have to think big picture. And the funny thing is if you bring up --- because I'll tell you, a lot of fifteen year olds don't think about what their life is going to be like when it's thirty-five. Especially for a kid who's like, 'hey I'm fifteen and I'm a gay Christian' -- I don't think that quite resonates with what that's going to be when you're thirty-five years old and you can't be married and you can't have kids and, you know, it's a lot different of a life than at that point fifteen year olds can grasp, you know? And so, even if you throw something like that out there, about, well this is for the long haul and you have to think about the big picture and thirty-five and you know with all of this other stuff happening, the great part is, if they're willing to come to you and say something like that, you can provide that hope in Christ [and] take away the whole sexuality issue. Take it away, you know?

You see, Marin (who claims he loves gay people) works by trying to create hopelessness and fear in the young. That's bad. That's dangerous.

As an op ed writer said in the Houston Chronicle, in response to the suicide of Asher Brown,

[T]here’s an even broader and more insidious force at work in our country when it comes to gay teen suicide. Granted, gay rights may be inching slowly forward in the court system, but that progress has contributed greatly to unprecedented levels of self-esteem battering rhetoric in the media and from the pulpit. ....

Yes, the bullies and their despicable behavior are responsible for Asher’s death. But so is the toxic, virulently anti-gay environment that continues to swirl around all of our children.

NOM, Andrew Marin, the "intrinsic disorder" preached by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the anti-gay pro-bully policies of the Focus on the Family....all of them contribute to facilitate an environment of fear and despair. It's long past time for people to stand up against that environment, and to remind everyone that every life is precious, and a child most of all.


Update:

Homophobes, Hypocrites, and Redemption

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse

In 1996, a research team recruited a group of straight men and used a questionnaire to determine how gay-friendly they were. They divided them into two groups: homophobic, and non-homophobic. Then they showed them straight and gay porn videos, while monitoring their sexual response. Remarkably, the firecely straight, homophobic men were sexually stimulated by gay porn, while the gay-friendly men were not. Adams HE, et al, J Abnorm Psychol. 1996 Aug;105(3):440-5

Lots of writers are wondering if that study explains the spectacular crash-n-burn of fulminating anti-gay activists, preachers, and politicians: people like George "Rentboy" Rekers, Ted "Meth-n-Sex" Haggard, Larry "wide stance" Craig, and Roy "gay clubber" Ashburn. These men make careers out of attacking GLBT individuals and families while at the same time seeking gay sex. (In fact, Rekers may have found this particularly lucrative; I'll tell you about that soon, over at GMC). Ashburn at least now admits he's gay, which could put him on a path to recovery (think the former Governor of NJ, Jim McGreevey, who also came out and is now studying theology).

Writing in the Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg says,

Rekers deserves a measure of pity as well as scorn. If he portrayed homosexuality as a life-destroying temptation that only the strictest of measures could contain, that’s because, for him, it was.

I think this is the kernal of truth in the matter. These men all have internalized homophobia. They have denied who they are, and made that denial at the root of their being. How much they must resent the healthy gay men who are open and happy, while they have deeply invested in the worst type of self-loathing closet.

Moreover, it is probably significant that these men were all engaged in the most soulless sexual encounters. That's all they know, so of course, that's what they think describes all gay relationships. The absolute bile and bigotry they spew makes some twisted sense if you realize that to them, pickups and prostitutes and anonymous sex are all there is to it. They don't experience healthy sexuality, faithfulness in relationships, or family life. Homosexuality to them really is only about furtive, hidden, and dirty sex. Of course that's counter to what any of our goals are for healthy lives. Sadly, their own secret desires lead them to attack those who disprove their own experience.

For many of us in our middle years, the dawning awareness of our sexuality came late. And for a variety of professional reasons, many of us lived in the closet for some period of time. It seemed safer in there, though absolutely suffocating. Coming out in mid-life is therefore nothing new, though it can be painful and messy. Yet the serenity that comes from the freedom to live honestly cannot be overstated. No career is worth the lies of the closet.

Let's compare the difference in two preachers. Longtime Jerry Falwell associate Mel White was an active participant in Falwell's anti-gay evangelical movement. But he acknowledged his sexuality, was cast out of Falwell's sphere, and now lives as an openly gay man. White founded the progay religious group Soulforce. Redemption, new life, happy ending.

In contrast, Rekers, who is also a Baptist minister, is still twisting in the breeze as his name is erased from all the gay-phobic right wing groups that he helped found, while bleating unconvincingly that he is not, and never has been, a homosexual. This story is pretty dark right now. Any bets on whether he'll find the light?

Can Justice be Gay?

We know that Justice is Blind. Can she be gay?

There is speculation that Elena Kagan, nominated to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court may be gay. Part of this is the usual speculation about the sexuality of unmarried women (which I find very offensive, myself).

And part of it is the expectation that only straight white Christian men can be objective. Somehow, it is assumed that a minority, a woman, or a gay person can't see the world apart from their membership in those groups. (Our friend Mike in TX has some examples of how being straight, male Christians can lead to its own judicial perversions.)

So there is some fuss when the White House seems upset at a rumor last month that Elena Kagan may be a lesbian. (Hint: the proper response to a rumor is, "so what?")

And then the American Family Association of stupidity and bigotry comes out with this (quoted via Andrew Sullivan, I will not link to a hate site):

With an active homosexual on the bench, Lady Justice will no longer even pretend to be blind. She will be peeking out from under her blindfold to determine the sexual preference of those standing before her, then will let the fold slip back into place before ruling in every case to legitimize sexual deviancy. Bottom line: the American ideal of absolute equality before the law will inevitably be shredded by a homosexual judge. Neither the Constitution nor the American people should be subjected to that kind of judicial malpractice. We can and should expect more from those who occupy seats on the highest bench in the land...

Next, replace the word "gay" with "Christian" and "sexual preference" with "religion" and see how offensive that really is.

Now the AFA has updated its comments (H/T RightwingWatch; I will not link to hate sites):

Speculation continues to swirl about the sexual preference of likely Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. She is apparently out to her friends and others in her academic and social circles, but not out to the public at large.

The White House has flatly stated that she is not gay, which could prove a tad embarrassing if the open secret of her lesbianism is confirmed at some point. ...It's time we got over the myth that what a public servant does in his private life is of no consequence. ....The stakes are too high. Social conservatives must rise up as one and say no lesbian is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Will they?

I don't care if Kagan is gay or not. (If she were, I wish she were out, but that's another issue). I DO care that rightwingnuts are somehow pretending that orientation is a litmus test. It would be offensive for faith, or race, and it's offensive for sexuality.

UpdateAndrew Sullivan writes:

And yet we have been told by many that she is gay ... and no one will ask directly if this is true and no one in the administration will tell us definitively.

In a word, this is preposterous - a function of liberal cowardice and conservative discomfort. It should mean nothing either way. Since the issue of this tiny minority - and the right of the huge majority to determine its rights and equality - is a live issue for the court in the next generation, and since it would be bizarre to argue that a Justice's sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment of the issue, it is only logical that this question should be clarified.....

To put it another way: Is Obama actually going to use a Supreme Court nominee to advance the cause of the closet (as well as kill any court imposition of marriage equality)? And can we have a clear, factual statement as to the truth? In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell.

And From Slate:

Whether or not the strategy works politically, the White House's announcement that Kagan isn't gay should end the matter, unless and until someone come up with some real proof to the contrary. The unfounded insistence that Kagan is a lesbian isn't about lies or hypocrisy (shades of, oh, Larry Craig and John Edwards) or even journalistic ethics. It's about making things up. There's simply no evidence that Kagan's pretending to be anything she's not. The underlying lesson may be that the confirmation wars are so completely toxic that we have come to assume every nominee reflexively lies about everything, up to and including his or her sexuality.

Kerry Eleveld at the Advocate puts it away: Not Gay.

Imprison the gays

Last night on Hardball, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council said that gays should be imprisoned.

"I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided," said Sprigg. "I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior."

"So we should outlaw gay behavior?" asked Matthews again.

Yes,” said Sprigg.

And then he laughed.

As Rob Tisani writes,

You know, it’s the laughter that gets me. I live in L.A., where I can pretend this sort of thinking is limited to the extreme, bigoted fringes of society. But this is on MSNBC, and Sprigg is a spokesperson for a group that brings in over twelve million dollars a year. We see what their position is — and how can you compromise between full civil equality and being thrown in prison? What would that compromise even look like?

No matter what we do, no matter what we offer, it won’t be enough for these folk. If we agree to everything-but-the-word, they’ll go to work on the “everything.” They’ll chisel away at civil unions and domestic partnerships until they strip us of even the right to claim the dead body of your partner from the morgue. They’ll keep chiseling — chiseling until we’re in prison.

Let's be very clear what we are up against. It's hatred, ignorance, and violence all wrapped up with a veneer of religion.

Rowan Williams responds to LA election

Let's just be clear, shall we? Rowan Williams has nothing to say about the Gay Death Bill in Uganda, nor the African bishops who support it.

But about LA, he says,

The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

From this, i take his message to be: Kill gays if you must, anything so long as you don't make them Bishops.

As Rev Barbara Harris, the first woman Bishop in the Episcopal Church, said memorably

"If you don't want GLBT folks as bishops, don't ordain them as deacons, better yet, be honest and say 'we don't want you, you don't belong here' and don't bestow on them the sacrament of baptism to begin with," said Harris to applause. "How can you initiate someone and treat them like they are half-assed baptized."

Update: Andrew Brown, writing the Guardian, nails it:

Consider the case of two Anglicans of the same gender who love one another. If they are in the USA, the Anglican church will marry them and may elect one of them to office. If they are in Uganda, the Anglican church will have try to have them jailed for life, and ensure that any priest who did not report them to the authorities within 24 hours would be jailed for three years; anyone who spoke out in their defence might be jailed for seven.

Under Williams, the church that marries two women who love each other is to be thrown out of the Anglican Communion. The church that would jail them both for life, and would revile and persecute their defenders, stays snugly in his bosom. Not even the Archbishop's remarkable gift for obfuscation can conceal these facts forever.

Or, as the irrepressible MadPriest put it, "Surely what's good for the gUSe should also be good for Uganda."

Update 2, another excellent piece in the Guardian:

The consecration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people as bishops, and blessing of same-sex partnerships, have been hotly debated in Anglican circles in recent years. Most provinces disapprove of such relationships, at least publicly, though some – such as the Church of England – rely heavily on LGBT clergy and layworkers. The Episcopal church, with the Anglican Church of Canada, has gone further than most towards including LGBT people at all levels.

Some see this as arrogance, others as bold prophetic leadership. Yet the Episcopal church is more in tune with traditional Anglicanism than many of its critics and supporters would admit.

Read the whole thing to find out how.

The Manhattan Declaration: intolerant conservatives claim Christianity

The Forces of Ill have put together something they call The Manhattan Declaration stating their opposition to marriage equality with all the same, tired slippery slope arguments and self-righteous victimhood. From The New York Times:

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.
“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says....

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush.......
The document says, “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other antilife act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent.”

It's a pretty creepy document. You can read the whole thing at Good As You. (I won't give the haters' site any hits)

One of the signatories is Abp Peter Akinola of Nigeria.

Thus providing yet another link in the chain between right-wing anti-gay extremists in the US and the African churches that has led to the Ugandan Gay Death Bill. I blogged on this and so has Fr Jake as well as many others.

The signatories of the Manhattan Declaration purport to represent Christianity. We know they represent conservative Christianists, Roman Catholics, and Mormons. It's PAST TIME for the forces of good to stand up to them and say NO MORE. It's PAST TIME for the leadership of liberal, progressive Christian denominations (Yes I am talking to you PB Jefferts Schori, yes I am talking to you ABP Williams) to SPEAK OUT against intolerance and divisiveness and hatred masquerading under God's name.

Because, truly, this is a matter of life and death.

Rhode Island: GLBT can't plan partners' funerals

From the Advocate:

Gov. Don Carcieri vetoed legislation Tuesday that would have given same-sex couples in Rhode Island the right to plan funerals for deceased partners.

The socially conservative Republican said the proposed protection represents a “disturbing trend” of the incremental erosion of heterosexual marriage, reports the Associated Press. Rhode Island does not recognize same-sex marriage.

The mind boggles, doesn't it? Because obviously, letting a grief-stricken partner take care of their loved one's arrangements is a chink in the door of HUMAN DECENCY and we can't have that, now, can we?

How can anyone pretend this kind of thing comes from principle rather than cruelty?

No Health care for GLBT families?

So much for including all Americans. From the Washington Blade:

[T]he bill, H.R. 3962, uses the terms “family” and “dependent,” and advocates say the new Health Choices Commissioner — a position established in the legislation to oversee the insurance exchange — could interpret this language to mean someone’s opposite-sex spouse, but not a same-sex spouse.

For example, the section describing the retiree reinsurance program — for which employer-based programs could submit claims to the government — says claims could be made on “employment based health benefits provided to a retiree or to the spouse, surviving spouse, or dependent of a retiree.”

Brian Moulton, the Human Rights Campaign’s chief legislative counsel, said the term “dependent” and “family” in the bill are “fairly open-ended” and “leave a lot of discretion to the new commissioner to define them.”

“Certainly, there is some use of the term ‘spouse’ in the bill in some of the provisions, and certainly DOMA would control that definition of spouse,” he said. “I think there are some areas where there’s a potential there won’t be access to some of the benefits.”

You see, my marriage doesn't count. And neither do Domestic Partnerships, right now. But thanks to DOMA, it's even possible that my legal marriage would be explicitly excluded, even if DPs are allowed. How's THAT for a cruel irony?

Meanwhile, Dick Durbin and others are doing a chicken little with respect to GLBT rights. THey are running hard from our community, and are shutting the door on a repeal to Don't Ask Don't Tell aka DADT.

You see, apparently a couple of Republican governors getting elected outweighs two new Dems in the House. NOw, remember, most people (even straight conservatives) support a repeal of DADT. Domestic Partnerships won in Washington State, and anti-discrimination protections in Kalamazoo. There were several gay people elected in contests around the country. But the beltway bias is that we are poison and even the Democratic National Committee wouldn't support us. Back under the bus, boys and girls.

As David Mixner writes,

How can we have any dignity, honor or pride in ourselves if we validate this continued process of ballot box terrorism? How can we stand tall next to each other if we explain away another's cowardliness? How can we allow people to dehumanize our relationships and our very integrity if we give people passes to sit out the battle for our very freedom? No longer are political timelines a reason for delay, no longer are incremental approaches acceptable and no longer can the political process expect us to be patient and wait our turn. Our turn came long ago and there will be no more waiting.

I'm still waiting for "fierce advocacy". ::crickets:: Meanwhile, my wallet will be open only for causes and candidates who share ALL my values.

Are gays people? Christian? American?

NO ONE should put the rights of a minority to the ballot. They will always lose. NO CIVIL RIGHTS BATTLES ARE WON AT THE BALLOT BOX. It's outrageous that we have to beg our fellow citizens for citizenship. And they aren't going to give it to us now, any more than the majority would have voted to end slavery, to give women the vote, to give African-Americans full civil rights, or to allow mixed race marriage.

We did not vote on any of those issues. Why is MY citizenship up to the ballot? Why are gay people uniquely required to be approved by a majority vote?

As quoted by Susan Russell,Harry Knox wrote,

Once again, when American voters have had an opportunity to affirm my humanity and the loving commitment I have made to my husband, a majority of those voters have made a conscious decision to deny my humanity and treat me as if my citizenship and my marriage mean nothing; all the while patting themselves on the back for their piety. The slap they intended is received. I am made to wonder – Am I human? Am I an American? Am I a Christian? Am I married?

It is clear that most voters in Maine, like majorities in other states before them, intend for me to feel less than human. People we respect as sisters and brothers in the human family, we treat as equals. Those majorities have reserved to themselves a legal right they feel specially entitled to – in spite of the fact that my husband and I face all the health, financial, familial and social challenges they do, and need the same supports they enjoy.

Once you dehumanize, it's not a long step to seeing no problem with imprisonment, or even death. Here's a sample of the hate language from the Maine Campaign: "evil", "sickness", "perversion", "unspeakable".

Let's look at a few issues in the broader world/Anglican-Episcopal flavor on these lines.

Item 1: The nation of Uganda plans to increase the criminal penalties for "homosexual behavior" up to and including the death penalty. There are also penalties for "advocacy". This "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" has been met with surprising silence. US Rep Tammy Baldwin has written Hilary Clinton asking for a response. THe US and French Embassies have decried it. But there appears to be no response from TEC or the Anglican Communion overall, outside of the blogs.

Item 2: In the almost-schismatic Dio South Carolina, which is holding its breath so as not to be contaminated by the cooties of the rest of TEC, they had a resolution as follows:

Whereas the Diocese of South Carolina recognizes we have all been created in God‟s image and are precious in his sight, and
Whereas we acknowledge we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and stand equally in need of his mercy and grace, we thankfully and humbly,
Resolve that this Diocese will not condone prejudice or deny the dignity of any person, includingbut not limited to, those who believe themselves to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. Nevertheless, we will speak the truth in love as Holy Scripture commends for the amendment of life required of disciples of Christ. It is love of neighbor and the abiding concern for their spiritual well being that compels such honesty and will never allow us to remain silent.

Despite basically being a resolution allowing them to slap around gays with the literalist bible, this nevertheless was defeated, 182-117. As commented by LIsa at My Manner of LIfe, this makes it official: the Dio South Carolina WILL condone prejudice and deny the dignity of gay people. (Of course the "believe themselves to be" is another slap in the face, but given that South Carolina is a hotbed of anti-science creationism, perhaps not surprising).

The official TEC responses to these? ::crickets::

But at least there are a few bright lights. The Episcopal Bishop of Maine has a sad statement of regret about Question 1,

Many faithful Episcopalians are deeply grieved at this decision. They had hoped that they and their families might enjoy the recognition and protections afforded heterosexual couples. The rejection of the law also feels like rejection of them as persons. I join in their grief that the right of same gender couples to enter into a lifelong, monogamous marriage has been denied. ....

The Episcopal Church in Maine will continue to offer a warm welcome to all people including those for whom the results of this referendum are disappointing. Especially in this tender time, I offer our assurances to gay and lesbian Mainers that you, your relationships, and your families have our support and blessing.

Yay, Bishop Lane. We saw in California a number of RC seeking solace from their church's institutional hatred in the Episcopal Church. Look for Mainers to do the same thing, I think, especially because their Roman Catholic Bishop of Maine was the major supporter of the anti-equality alliance (a view not necessarily shared by Maine Catholics).

The gay marriage issue is challenging Christianity's credibility just as it is challenging Constitutional credibility. Really, the challenge of radical love, just like the challenge of true American liberty, is applying those principles to those who are distinctly Other.

Equality Now: the March on Washington

For more about the March, go here for a video of Julian Bond's great speech.

Demographics: who are these Episcopalians?

A while back a question came up asking how religious denomination correlates with education. The data exist, thanks to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public LIfe. I downloaded the data and processed it for you.

Due to how the data are collected, the Episcopalians are generally lumped with "Mainline Protestant" on the big comparisons and broken out separately only on sub documents that focus on Protestants. But I pulled the Episcopal data and added them to the Big Table for your interest. I named these a little differently from the Pew data: "Unaffiliated" means people of faith without traditional affiliation; "None" means no religion/atheist/agnostic, etc.

The first graph looks at levels of education, from no school, to high school, some college, college degree, or post-graduate work. The chart is sorted in descending order from those with most education (College + postgrad combined) to those with least. As you can see, the highest levels of education are non-Christian faiths (Hindu and Jewish), but the 'piskies are pretty high. More conservative Christian denominations such as the Roman Catholics or Evangelicals are much further down the chart, indicating that a larger fraction of those belonging to this group have lower levels of education.
The second chart takes the same groups and asks whether they have a positive or negative view of gay people. Although there is some expected agreement, this chart does not completely correlate with the education chart; for example, Hindus are much less favorable to gay people, although very highly educated. The unaffiliated group is most gay-positive, and the Roman Catholics are right up there with the Episcopalians. Perhaps someone should tell the RC Bishops, who are busy attacking gay marriage around the country, that they've lost the people

Still, a recent study from Florida notes that more educated people are more favorable to gay rights.

The study found education was about five times as important as race in determining whether a county's residents favored the ban. .....
"There's a lot of evidence showing increased education leads to greater tolerance," Smith said.

I don't think any of us are surprised with that. But it is interesting how different the denominations are, don't you think?

Why it's easy to be anti-gay

We've commented here before that there's a real conflict between how Chrisitian denominations of all sorts treat divorce, and how they treat homosexuality. The Biblical strictures against divorce are far more numerous, and far less ambiguous, than those against homosexual behavior. And yet, with the conspicuous exception of the Roman Catholics (although even they have an "out" through the annulment process), pretty much everyone allows divorce, allows remarriage, and allows the divorced to be priests and bishops (or pastors and elders, as the case may be). Everyone can find it in themselves to understand and forgive the marriage that didn't work out, or even more, to imagine themselves in a situation where they need that potential relief.

Matthew Yglesias nails it:

I think this explains a lot about the appeal of anti-gay crusades to social conservative leaders. Most of what “traditional values” asks of people is pretty hard. All the infidelity and divorce and premarital sex and bad parenting and whatnot take place because people actually want to do the things traditional values is telling them not to do. And the same goes for most of the rest of the Christian recipe. Acting in a charitable and forgiving manner all the time is hard. Loving your enemies is hard. Turning the other cheek is hard.

Homosexuality is totally different. For a small minority of the population, of course, the injunction “don’t have sex with other men!” (or, as the case may be, other women) is painfully difficult to live up to. But for the vast majority of people this is really, really easy to do. Campaigns against gay rights, gay people, and gay sex thus have a lot of the structural elements of other forms of crusading against sexual excess or immorality, but they’re not really asking most people to do anything other than become self-righteous about their pre-existing preferences.

Human nature being what it is, we can pretty easily imagine the anti-gay crusaders having NO problem with taking up the banner for this cause, probably in a sense of relief that they aren't asked to really address anything that might actually affect them.

It's very easy to tell someone else to suck it up and carry a cross--as long as you don't have to carry it with them.

My mom used to exhort me to consider "walking a mile in the other person's moccasins" (something I'm still not very good at; BP will tell you that I am an opinionated and fierce partisan). But really, isn't that what we all have to struggle to do before we judge anyone?

Yglesias in turn points us to a column by Ross Douthat in the NY Times:

More than most Westerners, Americans believe — deeply, madly, truly — in the sanctity of marriage. But we also have some of the most liberal divorce laws in the developed world, and one of the highest divorce rates. We sentimentalize the family, but boast one of the highest rates of unwed births. We’re more pro-life than Europeans, but we tolerate a much more permissive abortion regime than countries like Germany or France. We wring our hands over stem cell research, but our fertility clinics are among the least regulated in the world.

In other words, we’re conservative right up until the moment that it costs us.

Yeah. the easy out of convenience.

Bp Spong, bête noir, speaks out

From the WaPo (Hat tip Grandmere Mimi)

The battle over homosexuality in the Episcopal Church is over......

I rejoice in this for many reasons. First, it is right. Homosexuality is not a choice anymore than heterosexuality is. It is part of our human individual identity just like skin color, ethnic background, gender and right or left-handedness. The discrimination of the past has been the result of prejudice based on ignorance. Second, it brings honesty to this church. We have blessed gay and lesbian unions for decades, but only secretly. We have had countless gay clergy and gay bishops, but pretended that this was not so. It was one of our worst kept secrets. .....Dishonesty has eaten at the soul of this church's integrity, as indeed it still does in those churches where dishonesty still reigns supreme.....

The Archbishop's argument that this step is improper because the whole communion is not ready to move as a whole is a tragic misreading of history. The whole church was not ready to end slavery, apartheid or segregation, but significant part of it were not willing to continue these practices until their prejudices were finally overcome. In a similar manner parts of the church today will not postpone justice for homosexual persons until all of the homophobic and prejudiced-based ignorance is finally gone. That is not the way prejudice and ignorance ever die.

I am proud of the Episcopal Church ....I want my church united in truth. I do not want to be part of a church united in homophobia or one that pretends it can preserve unity by excluding any group of human beings.

Of course the problem with this for some is that Spong said it! So the other side won't hear it.