Here we go again, Albany edition

The Bishop of Albany, who is remarkably named Love, refuses to accept the results of General Convention and the resolution B012. To remind you, this was widely viewed as a compromise on the issue of same sex marriages.  As the ENS described it,

The resolution provides for:

• Giving rectors or clergy in charge of a congregation the ability to provide access to the trial use of the marriage rites for same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Resolution A054-2015 and the original version of B012 said that clergy could only use the rites under the direction of their bishop.
• Requiring that, if a bishop “holds a theological position that does not embrace marriage for same-sex couples,” he or she may invite another bishop, if necessary, to provide “pastoral support” to any couple desiring to use the rites, as well as to the clergy member and congregation involved. In any case, an outside bishop must be asked to take requests for remarriage if either member of the couple is divorced to fulfill a canonical requirement that applies to opposite-sex couples.
• Continuing trial use of the rites until the completion of the next comprehensive revision of the Book of Common Prayer

Of course, no priest or parish can be required to marry LGBT people,  or indeed anyone else.  But for those who want to , they will be able to.  Of the 100 dioceses in the US Episcopal Church, this really applies to the 8 holdouts, those few bishops who are opposed to same sex couples marrying in the church.  Seven of those bishops have indicated that they will live within these rules, and their choices range from a temporary and limited role for a fellow Bishop, to refusing to have anything to do with the inclusive parishes (except presumably accept their money).  But still, progress, particularly for gay people yearning to be recognized in their faith community, and cover for the bishops who don't have to have anything to do with them.

And then there's Bishop Love of Albany NY.  He released a letter refusing to allow ANY LGBT people marriage in his Diocese, resolution or no resolution.  As the Episcopal Cafe notes, this is a direct challenge to the authority of convention.

The letter is hard and hurtful.  He uses the term "same sex attracted" which is the conservative's current favorite in their attempt to deny our lived reality and make us into a sickness.  (I wrote years ago here about the effort to make us a pathology, rather than a normal human variant.)

Bishop Love writes,

The fact that some in today’s sexually confused society (to include 5 of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court Justices in2015) may have broadened their understanding of marriage to be more inclusive, allowing for same-sex marriages, doesn’t mean that God, “the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth”(BCP 96) has changed His mind.....B012 by its very intent of making liturgies available for same-sex marriages, (while perhaps well intended) is in fact doing a great disservice and injustice to our gay and lesbian Brothers and Sisters in Christ, by leading them to believe that God gives his blessing to the sharing of sexual intimacy within a same-sex relationship

There is the usual citation of Levitical and Pauline clobber passages, and he defines us as distorted and unnatural, struggling with this apparent illness of "same sex attraction". And there are threats:

There are many in the Diocese of Albany who have made it clear that they will not stand for such false teaching or actions and will leave – thus the blood bath and opening of the flood gates that have ravaged other dioceses will come to Albany if B012 is enacted in this Diocese.

Given that Albany and surrounding areas are not backwards or ignorant, I'm going to assume that there are just as many who are outraged at this letter.

And this:

To engage in sexual intimacy outside of marriage between a man and women, is against God’s will and therefore sinful andneeds to be repented of, NOT encouraged or told it is ok.

So, about all those straight couples who are having sex before or outside of marriage--what 's he doing about them?

But what I really want to do is focus on this attempt to minimize our marriages and our relationships.

the Bible does not forbid two people of the same sex from loving one another in the sense of caring deeply or having a strong sense of affection for one another. Strong friendships are a blessing and gift. As already mentioned, God commands us to love one anotherboth male and female. The Bible doesn’t forbid two people of the same sex from sharing a home or life together. It doesn’t forbid two people of the same sex from being legal guardians for oneanother or health care proxies for one another. All God has said through Holy Scripture regarding relations between two men or two women is that they should not enter into sexual relations with one another, and that marriage is reserved for the joining together of a man and woman. 

As we have gone over and over, marriage is not about sex.   Many married couples cannot or choose not to engage in genital behavior, for one thing.  For another, even a sexually active couple spends far more of their time out of bed than in it, and if they are sensible, always working on all the other aspects of relationship that make a marriage.

Moreover, we are not suddenly un-gay when we are not having sex.

Dear Bishop Gene Robinson addressed this lunacy a number of years ago, when the Church of  England decided that gay priests could have civil partnerships as long as they promised to be celibate:

I don't care whether any couple, gay or straight, has sexual intimacy or not. That's not my business. That's their business. But to require someone to give up this piece of one's life, which is so central to who each of us is as a human being, just seems, it seems cruel, and it also, it bespeaks something that I think is not talked about enough around the issue of gay sexuality, which is that gay is not something you do, it's something we are. 

I'm not just gay when I'm making love to my husband. I'm gay all the time. I'm gay right this minute talking to you. And it affects how I relate to the world, how I relate to people. And it comes out of this notion that, you know, it's OK to be gay as long as you don't act on it. 

Well first of all, I don't think that's - I think that statement is disingenuous because the people who say that don't act as all as if it's OK to be gay. But taking them at their word, you know, when do you become gay? I laughingly will say to a more conservative audience, you know, OK, so if it's OK to be gay but not act on it, could two men live together? Could we sleep in the same bedroom if we slept in twin beds? 

Well, could we sleep in the same bed if we didn't touch each other? Well, could we touch each other as long as we only held hands? I mean, at what point, at what point is it gay? Do you know what I mean? It just doesn't make any sense. And it comes out of what I think is a very male understanding of sexuality, which is you're only being sexual when you're making love. 

But the fact of the matter is we are sexual all the time, and this bifurcation of, you know, being gay versus acting on it just seems to me ludicrous at best and cruel at worst.

Indeed.  But here we are, again, with one last holdout.  Bishop Love has drawn a line in the sand, to the dismay of some, but not all, of his flock.  He stands defiant, waiting to see what will happen.  Bishops in neighboring Dioceses offer support to those affected. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry writes that he is considering the implications, and reminds us

As members of the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12), we also are committed to respecting the conscience of those who hold opinions that differ from the official policy of The Episcopal Church regarding the sacrament of marriage. It should be noted that the canons of The Episcopal Church give authority to all members of the clergy to decline to officiate a marriage for reasons of conscience, and Resolution B012 of the 79th General Convention does not change this fact. 

Indeed it is Bishop Love who does not respect the conscience of those who disagree.

PB Curry also says, “In all matters, those of us who have taken vows to obey the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church must act in ways that reflect and uphold the discernment and decisions of the General Convention of the Church.”


Discussions on the Episcopal Cafe suggest that due to differences in New York state law, we aren't going to see an attempt to walk away with the whole Diocese a la Mark Lawrence in South Carolina.  It appears that Bishop Love wants to martyr himself on Title IV, which will bring scandal and bad press on the church he presumes to love.  He should do the honorable thing, and resign.  But I'm betting he wants to be a martyr to the Big Bad Gay Agenda.

Meanwhile, Down Under

Australia is one of the last of the major Western nations to grapple with marriage equality. After endless to-ing and fro-ing, they settled on have a non-binding postal referendum, asking the people yes or no. Only then will Parliament bring marriage equality up for discussion.

As you might imagine, there has been a lot of the usual stuff, with conservative religious figures barking for a "No" vote and a diverse and apparent majority going for "Yes". This isn't going to be as tear-jerking as the Irish referendum, but the pundits are predicting "Yes" will win.

But as with Prop 8 here in California, there has been a substantial amount of abuse from those of faith, including a A$1 million donation from the conservative Anglican Diocese of Sydney.  More on the fight  detailed here:

Sin and damnation have figured little in the arguments of the last months. The deliberate strategy of the no campaigners has been to muffle their profound hostility to the LGBTQI whose lives are in question here.

It’s only a gambit. Nothing has changed. In the eyes of these warriors, my lot are still bound for hell. They just don’t want to say so right now.

Fortunately, they don't seem to be winning.

The polls in Australia are unequivocal: Christians strongly support equal marriage.

But in August, Shelton brought a dozen faiths and factions of faiths together in the Coalition for Marriage to fight reform. They were an odd bunch from very different traditions with not much in common but this: a deep commitment to the old hatred of homosexuality.

It’s always been a great ecumenical cause.

The real question is, of course, what role to these rump Christian conservatives see for faithful LGBT people?  Considering the Anglicans, the author submits

Forget marriage. Sydney Anglicans are talking no sex for life. “For many, this is a struggle and a frustration. It is one of the many painful consequences of living in a broken and fallen world … ”

Is that bigotry, hatred or simply cruel?

It’s certainly the most fundamental argument of the clerical opponents of equal marriage. All of them come to the same point: no sex ever for gays and lesbians. In a truthful contest that demand should have been a prime focus of debate.

As for the Roman Catholics, the author ponders,

Catholics are directed to accept homosexuals “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” 

So what just discrimination does the church wants to exercise? We asked the archbishop for a brief list. Again we were disappointed. No reply. Surely they have a list somewhere? It seems Australians will be told what freedoms the rest of us are expected to give up for the church only when the votes have been counted.

The referendum concludes on Nov 7. Let us hope for a resounding "YES!"

Flip-flopping evangelicals

So apparently Eugene Peterson is a Big Thing in Evangelical Circles.  He's an older man, and while he is Presbyterian minister, he definitely swings on the Evangelical side.

Last week, in an interview, he allowed as how he has come to appreciate gay people as (gasp!) actual people with solid values and spiritual lives.  And, when asked by the interviewer, he said that he might actually marry a gay couple should they request it.

Apostate!  All hell broke loose upon his head, and within a day or two he backtracked.  Seems that his books would be dumped by a major publisher, etc etc.

Similar responses have befallen other major figures who have come to admit the humanity of gay people.  Some of them reverse themselves, but others (Rob Bell, Brian McLaren) stick to the values of inclusion.

Fred Clark at Slactivist theorizes that this wasn't so much about gays marrying, as it was about something else in the interview:

The pretext for him getting Ciziked is his belated, lukewarm “change of mind” on marriage equality. That is what the gatekeepers and their toadies are seizing on and elevating as the cause for their pearl-clutching and their threats of banishment from the tribe and from the shelves of LifeWay. 

Granted, I’m sure the gatekeepers didn’t like those comments from Peterson, but that’s not what really infuriated — and terrified — them. What has them truly shaken is another bit from his interview with Merritt, in which Peterson directly challenges the bedrock core of their faith and doctrine:

I think we’re in a bad situation. I really do. Donald Trump is the enemy as far as I’m concerned. He has no morals. He has no integrity.

....

It doesn’t matter that Peterson’s criticism was directed only at Trump and not at the entire Republican Party. (Ask Russell Moore whether that distinction matters.) Nor does it matter that his statements about Trump’s lack of integrity and morals are demonstrably true. All that matters to the Righteous Defenders and to the traumatized followers kept within their gates are these five words: “Donald Trump is the enemy.”

That’s intolerable to them. It’s a direct challenge to their identity, to their faith, to everything they believe about what it means to be faithful to the Word of God. It’s an existential threat, and it must be destroyed.

The "gay thing" is a proxy for the Republican orthodoxy of Christianist belief, which is Pres. Trump as One of Theirs.  Somewhere, someone weeps.

Marriage under attack

Unfathomably, the Texas Supreme Court has decided that just because obergefell finds that gay people can marry each other, they aren't necessarily entitled to the same BENEFITS as straight people.

"The Supreme Court held in Obergefell that the Constitution requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages to the same extent that they license and recognize opposite-sex marriages,” according to Justice Jeffrey Boyd’s opinion, “but it did not hold that states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons.”

The case comes from whether or not Houston should give its employees equal benefits regardless of whether they are in a same-sex or opposite-sex marriage.  But two men claim that as taxpayers, they shouldn't have to "subsidize" marriages they view as obscene.

Honestly, it's no wonder the fastest growing religious group in this country is the "nones", with this sort of bile being spewed by so-called "Christians".

To be fair, the court just turfed the issue back down to a lower court.   They didn't elminate benefits.  But it shouldn't remain a question, surely, and seems clear that they should have trounced it once and for all.

Of course, now that we have Neil Gorsuch on the SCOTUS, the federal appeal to this may not be a slam dunk.  Lots of people claimed he was a good guy, that he wasn't opposed to LGBT rights.

Yeah, not so much.

On Monday, Gorsuch indicated that he opposes equal rights for same-sex couples, dissenting from a ruling that requires states to list same-sex parents on birth certificates. (Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined his dissent.) That, alone, is startling: In Obergefell v. Hodges, the court held that the Constitution compels states to grant same-sex couples “the constellation” of “rights, benefits, and responsibilities” that “the states have linked to marriage,” including “birth and death certificates.” Obergefell, then, already settled this issue. Gorsuch’s dissent suggests he may not accept Obergefell as settled law and may instead seek to undermine or reverse it.

Apparently, the FACT that over 60% of Americans support marriage equality means nothing, when there's a vile group of so called Christians able to attack our rights.  Funny, first they attacked us because we were a minority, and now that support is in the majority, they attack us because of that.

How is it that a minority of Christians who identify with this stuff are still winning legal battles in their intent to do me harm?

Anniversaries: reflections on the journey

7 years ago, we married. Just 7 years—a short time, but a lifetime.

Let’s set the scene. In May 2008, the California state Supreme Court was considering whether it was legal to prevent same sex couples from marrying. BP and I had been sharing a home together for 4 years at that point. California had a “domestic partners” policy but we did not want to participate. As our lawyer said, DPs were an unknown entity; they for-certain didn’t bring the benefits of marriage, and they were too new to know what advantage, if any, they provided. To us, both very traditional, DPs were meaningless, simply a legal slip of paper notarized at Kinko’s. They certainly weren’t marriage. So we had an anniversary of the date we moved in together.

We were gay. We were used to being less-than, a subject of hysteria on the political scene. We just wanted to stay under the radar and live our lives in peace.

Then the unexpected happened. One of my students told me, “The Court overturned the ban! you can marry BP!”

I phoned BP  at work. “Wanna get married?” I said. “We’ll talk,” she said. So we talked. We talked over and around. “You haven’t proposed,” she said. so I did. And then she proposed to me. And we thought, okay, we’ll get married! Our lawyer was not a fan, saying “you are entering a legal limbo. Thanks to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as far as the federal government is concerned, you are still single.” But we insisted.

By then the hideous Proposition 8, intended to amend the state Constitution to block marriages, was on the ballot. Having little faith in our fellow Californians, we made sure to marry before election day, and I have told you elsewhere how amazing that was. We had never expected the possibility of marriage. It was remarkable.

Sure enough, PropH8, as we call it, passed. We were one of 18,000 couples who got in before.

Naturally, it wound up in court. First, the State Supreme Court decided with regret that Prop8 was legal under the laws of California. However, because it had not been in effect when we married, the 18,000 would be “grandfathered in.” This was significant, because Prop8 supporters had asked for the 18,000 marriages to be annulled; it wasn’t until May 2009 that we knew that we were still married in California.  The sword of Damocles, indeed.

Meanwhile, as I have detailed here, BP was moving from her Roman Catholic roots to become an Episcopalian. And in 2010, our Bishop approved blessings of same sex couples. In Feb 2011, we had an intimate celebration of the blessing of our marriage in the Cathedral. We had never expected the possibility of blessing in church. It was remarkable.

Then Prop8 went to federal court, under US constitutional grounds. The land-breaking Perry case worked its way through district court, where there was a powerful trial at which equality opponents could find hardly any witnesses on their side; the court of appeals, and ultimately to the US Supreme Court who punted the case on a technicality so that in summer of 2013 marriage came back to same sex couples in CA.

More significant for us, however, was the other case the court decided that summer: Windsor, which was a challenge to DOMA that had prevented recognition of Edie Windsor’s marriage leading to death duties when her wife died. The Court, in a stirring opinion by Justice Kennedy, decided that DOMA ’s provision that made our marriage federally invisible, was unconstitutional. In 2013, then, we suddenly became “really” married, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. We had never expected the possibility of federal recognition. It was remarkable!

Fueled by the Windsor decision, same sex couples across the country challenged marriage bans and court by court, they fell, with the SCOTUS content to watch. Only when one court of many decided to uphold a ban did the Supreme Court take up a consolidated marriage equality case, Obergefell, from Jim Obergefell’s effort to have his name listed on his husband’s death certificate in Ohio. Another opinion from Justice Kennedy, and as of June 2015, now marriage equality exists in all 50 states. We had never expected the possibility of marriage equality in our lifetime. It was remarkable.

Of course, there is still litigation. After all, court cases kept going for years after the Loving decision allowing inter-racial marriages too. But the arc of our 7 years of marriage has been filled not just with our personal joy, but our amazement at living through a time of history that has seen us, finally, equal.

And that is an remarkable journey to have shared.

The clerk goes to court and Christianity loses (updated)

The Rowan KY county clerk, Kim Davis, believes that her religiously-founded disdain for same sex marriage entitles her to refuse to do her job.  Her office is refusing to provide marriage licenses to any couple, straight or gay.  Religious freedom, you know.

Think about that.  She is saying that her religious beliefs entitle her, a public servant, to deny her fellow citizens legal civil rights.

Susan Russell writes, 

What if I'm a Muslim and my understanding of my religion is that women shouldn't drive? Can I refuse to issue drivers' licenses to women? Or if I'm a Hindu and a vegetarian -- can I refuse to issue fishing licenses because killing/eating fish is against my religion? Of course not. Likewise, your personal opinions and beliefs about who should or should not be getting married has absolutely no bearing on who you issue marriage licenses to as a county clerk. Period.

Exactly.  And just to make it sweeter, Ms Davis has been divorced three times.  But wait, there's more!

She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second.

She has since found JAYSUS and has been absolved of sin.  Wiped clean.  Like it never happened.  Of course it doesn't work that way for the Roman Catholics, who consider a couple married following divorce to be living in adultery.  Good thing she's not Catholic, then.

But regardless of her past, even if she were pure as snow, that would not justify her actions.

She has lost in federal court.  While her appeal is pending, she asked for an extended stay of the decision so that she didn't have to sign the licenses.  The 6th circuit said, no, no stay.  The Supreme Court said no, no stay.  You have to start giving out the licenses while your appeal is pending.

GOD! cries Davis and won't do it.  Clerk Davis is facing contempt charges, fines, maybe jail.

Even anti-gay Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation thinks she's nuts.  Quoted in Think Progress, 

“The citizens of Rowan County have a right to receive in a timely and efficient manner the various government provisions—including licenses—to which they are entitled,” Anderson writes for one of Heritage’s websites. 

He adds.... that “[s]aying your religion requires your entire office to stop issuing marriage licenses to everyone . . . cannot be reasonably accommodated without placing undue hardships on the citizens unable to receive their licenses in their county and forced to drive to another.” 

.... the fact that as prominent an anti-gay luminary as Anderson believes that Davis has gone too far is a sign of just how thin a limb the Kentucky clerk now finds herself upon.

Joe Childers makes the constitutional point:

Religiously neutral civil mechanisms are the only possible way for true religious freedom to exist for multiple religions simultaneously. Civil servants who are religious ought therefore to be even more scrupulous about preserving religious neutrality in their duties than non-religious servants, for they are more directly enjoying religious freedom in their own lives and have more to lose from threats to that freedom.

 So what's up?  Everyone agrees that this is wrong at many levels.

Is she merely a puppet of the lawyers who are fundraising wildly? Mark Stern in Slate:

I’m growing a bit concerned about Davis’ lawyers. Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right fringe group that specializes in anti-gay litigation. (Naturally, it is also a Christian ministry and a tax-exempt nonprofit.) Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has used Davis’ case to raise money and boost publicity for his group, going so far as to hold a rally for Davis..... 

When a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licenses or be held in contempt of court, the Liberty Counsel advised her to disobey the ruling. Good lawyers don’t usually tell their clients to defy lawful court orders, especially when jail time is a real possibility. Yet the Liberty Counsel didn’t mind putting their client at risk—perhaps because the idea of a middle-aged woman being hauled off to jail for purportedly following her conscience would send thousands of anti-gay Americans reaching for their pitchforks (and checkbooks).

Liberty Counsel, which gallingly is funded by tax-deductable donations and grants, stands to gain.  The  Lexington KY Herald-Leader agrees:

So, why is Liberty Counsel marching alongside Davis in this losing cause? It takes a lot to keep that marketing machine humming and those executives paid, and the only way to keep those donations coming is to stay in the news. For that purpose a losing cause is just as good as, perhaps better than, a winning one.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/08/13/3987637_time-for-davis-to-do-her-job-or.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

It's always about money.  Dan Savage sees a method to Kim's madness: t he greed of martyrdom:

....this isn't about Kim Davis standing up for her supposed principles—proof of that in a moment—it's about Kim Davis cashing in. There's a big pile of sweet, sweet bigot money out there waiting for her. If the owners of a pizza parlor could rake in a million dollars just by threatening not to cater the gay wedding no one asked them to cater... just imagine how much of that sweet, sweet bigot money Kim Davis is going to rake in. I'm sure Kim Davis is already imagining it.

Regardless of who is using whom, money and martyrdom go hand in hand.  But Dan goes on,

.... This pathetic bullshit is what passes for Christianity in America today. Thanks to the efforts of hate groups like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council ....,, the 700 Club, the Moral Majority, the National Organization for Marriage, the National Association of Evangelicals, etc., and the mousy, near-complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians, "Christian" is now synonymous with "anti-gay bigot."

"Mousy, near complicit silence of left-wing and progressive Christians".  Yup.  Because if you don't defend the brand, the brand becomes Kim Davis.  Dan continues,

To be a good American Christian like Kim Davis—or a good Alaskan Christian like Bristol Palin—you don't have to stay in your first marriage, ....you don't have to deny marriage licenses to straight people who are remarrying or marrying outside the faith or obtaining marriage licenses for Godless secular marriages. Nope. You just have to hate the homos. ....You don't have to feed the sick, clothe the naked, house the homeless—you don't have to do any of that shit Jesus actually talked about—you just have to hate the homos hard enough to go to jail for for your beliefs cash in on your bigotry.

That, my friends, is Christianity in America today.  And all the gay friendly mainlines, the ELCA, UCC, PCUSA, TEC, you all are being so NICE about it, while your brand is going down the drain.   You quietly wring your hands or comment on Facebook, so politely, "you know, we're Not All Like That (NALT)."  Oh, but remember, you pretty much don't have any friends on Facebook who don't already agree with you.

Why isn't anyone saying assertively and publicly, "this woman DOESN'T SPEAK for Christianity"?  Why isn't anyone speaking out?  Why are you letting this once more be cast as the mediatainment narrative likes it, as a battle between Teh Gayz  and the Christians?

Can anyone wonder why the Nones are the fastest growing religious group in the country?

Update:  Found in contempt of court, Ms Davis was taken into custody.  She apparently intends to stay there, and refuses to allow her clerks to administer licenses.  The fundraising no doubt will pick up, until it doesn't,  and no one will marry in Rowan County.

On religious clerks, complicity, and public morality

In Kentucky, a county clerk is in court, over her refusal to allow her office to provide marriage licenses to same sex couples.

She choked back tears at times as she argued that issuing licenses under her name would violate her religious beliefs even if a deputy clerk performs the task in her stead..... 

.... If [the judge] orders Davis to issue licenses, she said she would deal with that when it comes, but resigning is not an option because it would only leave the matter to her deputies.

Because nothing is more important than making sure THOSE PEOPLE can't get married in her county.  Really?  I'm sorry, but your religious beliefs do not trump the law you are sworn to uphold.  Otherwise, Catholic clerks could refuse o issue licenses to previously married people, or refuse to file divorce papers.

An excellent article in the American Prospect looks at the leveraging of religion to allow discrimination in the ongoing culture wars regarding abortion and gay rights.

Laws authorizing health-care providers to refuse patient care illustrate how conservatives are now using the ideas of conscience and religious liberty. States like Mississippi could accommodate the conscience objections of health-care providers while ensuring alternative care for patients. But health-care refusal laws rarely require institutions to provide alternative care; many even authorize providers to refuse to inform patients that they are being denied services that they may want.

That is, the laws privilege the views of the person claiming religious freedom over any rights of the individual being denied service.

Now, as laws recognizing same-sex marriage spread, religious conservatives have begun to look to health-care refusals as an inspiration and a model for restraining another development they could not entirely block.

But there's a switch.

Today’s conflicts over marriage and health care feature a special kind of conscience claim—claims about complicity. The employers in Hobby Lobby objected that the ACA forced them to provide “insurance coverage for items that risk killing an embryo [and thereby] makes them complicit in abortion.” Similarly, businesses in the wedding industry object to “facilitating” same-sex weddings. ....

So the issue, then, is not what the person himself is doing, it's that he wants to have a bright line between himself and that Other One of whom he disapproves.

Because complicity claims single out other citizens as sinners, their accommodation can inflict targeted harm. Complicity claims are increasingly entangled in culture-war politics as a means of mobilizing the faithful against the practices of people who depart from traditional morality. For these reasons, accommodation of the claims is fraught with significance not only for the claimants but also for those whose conduct the claimants condemn. These third-party effects need to be taken into account in weighing whether and how the government should accommodate complicity-based claims of conscience.

Is there a way around it?  The authors think that Hobby Lobby actually was written sufficiently narrowly that it will help. They conclude (my emphasis)

One group of citizens should not be singled out to bear significant costs of another’s religious practice. The government may have to limit complicity-based conscience claims to avoid harming third parties who do not share the claimants’ beliefs. This approach respects claims to religious freedom and the rights of other citizens—standing by conscience while recognizing its new role in culture-war conflicts.

Meanwhile, we'll see what happens in court in Kentucky.

We're better than this

One of the reasons I do not identify as a leftist or a progressive is the lock-step rigidity and political correctness that pervades the left.

For example, the Brendan Eich case was a purge of political correctness.  For those who don't remember, Eich was the presumptive head of Mozilla, who was hounded out of office because he gave a donation to Prop8 back in 2008.

Now, I fought damn' hard against Prop8, and I don't like that people supported it.  But 6, 8 years later, we need to realize that we've moved on.   I believe hounding Eich out of office is no different than when the Romney campaign firing an employee (Richard Grenell) because he was gay. Eich did not act against the law.  He did not change policies of his company.  He made a legal political donation to a cause years before he was hired, as a private citizen.  Truly, if Eich could be fired for that, why couldn't a conservative firm fire me for making a donation to the other side?  Should a boss who supports Hilary be able to fire someone whose car sports a Jeb! bumper sticker? 

 I also have a problem when the left surges around calling for boycotts of celebrities who stay stupid stuff.  Stop watching their TV shows, if you want, but let their declining ratings be a reason to take them down, and not an employer-enforced political correctness.  Regrettable though it is ,some people do have a religious objection to marriage equality and they are entitled to that viewpoint even if it is offensive.  We would do better to try to persuade them by example, to encourage them to evolve.  And so I'm uncomfortable about the left's litmus tests. It's wrong to say that people on the opposite side of the political spectrum shouldn't be employable because of their personal beliefs, all other things being equal.

However, all other things are NOT equal when you are a government employee.  And you don't get to use your religious beliefs to interfere with the civil rights of others, when you have sworn to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution.  It wasn't allowable for inter-racial marriage, and it's not allowable now.

Multiple federal courts have decided that, for example, law-enforcement officials don’t get to decide which people they serve and protect, which means they are not entitled to opt out of assignments to patrol abortion clinics, protect casinos or investigate pacifist groups because of religious objections. Under similar logic, marriage clerks don’t have the right to choose not to serve gay men and lesbians, just as they also can’t refuse to serve interracial couples (something that a Louisiana public official, citing matters of “conscience,” attempted as recently as 2009; he was forced to resign).

Incidentally, the courts also say private businesses can't use religious excuses:

In other cases where people tried to exempt themselves from otherwise generally applicable laws on the grounds of religious belief, the courts said no dice, at least when there was third-party harm. In perhaps the most awesomely named Supreme Court case of all time, Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises , the court affirmed the principle that a barbecue chain could not refuse to serve African American customers because the owner sincerely believed that the Bible mandated segregation of the races. The owner’s free exercise of religion did not get to trample the civil rights of others.

(Oh, and remember the bakers in Oregon?  They were found in violation of the state's non-discrimination ordinance.  That's not the same thing as having an opinion;  they can have all the opinion they want, but they can't actively discriminate.   Note, though, that they weren't fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake.   They were fined $135,000 in damages for publicizing the names and address of the lesbian couple such that the couple got death threats and could have lost their foster children. )

So, meanwhile, there are a number of county clerks around the country who are refusing to provide marriage licenses to gay couples.  (It's not clear they also refuse licenses to the previously divorced.... ;-P ), on the grounds of religious freedom. But as government employees, they don't get to do that.

As the New York Times says,

However they justify these tactics, their conduct is illegal and they must stop.

Even after Loving v. Virginia, it still took court cases to get the antimiscegenation laws fully overturned. 

Mopping up over the next few years required federal court intervention regarding the obtaining of marriage licenses in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as a state court ruling in Florida 

So, back to where I started about the left's lockstep.  One of the clerks in question is a woman in Kentucky whose religiously-based refusal of a marriage license to two men went viral.  In a bit of delicious hypocrisy, she's reportedly been married 4 times.

She's being excoriated by the left wing, including cruel attacks on her looks.

The couple she refused is not pleased about this.

David Moore and David Ermold are denouncing the attacks on Davis, saying their fight isn't about her marriages, but their right to get married.

"I don't like that," Ermold says on camera with Moore agreeing. "That is not what this is about, at all. We just want a marriage license, that's what we want."

They add their county is filled with "good people, all around."

Especially David Moore and David Ermold, who, despite being denied their constitutional right to marry, are big enough and honorable enough to not want the one person standing in the way of their right to marry, to be subjected to attacks.

The nature of the attacks against this woman simply fuels the religious right's meme that they are being oppressed. It hardens hearts all the way around.   Surely, surely, we are bigger and better than this.  If we want people to evolve on this issue and move ahead, we have to provide a civil way to share our communal space.

Otherwise, we are just as bad as they are.

Equal marriage in the Episcopal Church

So i kept that Twitter window open....aw, hell, I gave up any pretense of working and just watched the tweets, as the House of Deputies considered the resolutions that would equalize marriage rights (on a trial basis, technically, but still) and bring the canons up to speed wth gender neutral language, while allowing any clergy or bishops who are uncomfortable to "opt out" yet preserving the right of gay couples to marry in church.  

And I have been watching news from General Conventions for years, one way or another, as I rooted for the Episcopal Church to live up to its promises, and to become a safe space for me to push my wife.  And slowly, slowly, it has, and I pushed her, and she swam, and now she's like Uber Episcopalian and I'm spending my afternoon tearing up at twitter feeds on arcane points of order in a triennial assembly of people I love even though I don't share faith with them.

Because the House of Bishops voted to make marriage liturgy equal, and to change the canons, while preserving some Anglican fudge so that clergy and bishops who are not comfortable, have some cover.

And then the House of Deputies did the same.

And both votes were substantial.  Let your yes mean yes, indeed.

And there were General Convention jokes, ranging from the jokes about being Nimble (aka Bonnieball) from the last GC and you KNOW you are a church nerd if you remember that three years down the line, to the delegation from Texas handing out prunes to "move things along", and the OMG moment when....

The Episcopal Church, the Republican Party at Prayer, the Old Establishment, voted for marriage equality.

Oh, yes, and then there is that absolutely FABULOUS preacher Michael Curry they voted in for the next PB.... but we'll talk about him separately...

From CBS:

The Episcopal Church, with nearly 1.9 million members, has included many of the Founding Fathers and presidents.

Among mainline Protestant groups, only the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), both of which are smaller than the Episcopal Church, allow same-sex weddings in all their congregations....

The Episcopal Church has already made history during the convention, electing its first black presiding bishop. Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina won in a landslide over the weekend.

Curry has allowed same-sex church weddings in North Carolina, and he said the Supreme Court "affirmed the authenticity of love" by legalizing gay marriage.

Resisting marriage equality because "religious freedom"

Several states are resisting implementation of the Court's decision on same sex marriages, by throwing up the "religious freedom" meme.

The most extreme example is this, in which a lawyer under Alabama Justice Roy Moore claims

Public officials are ministers of God assigned the duty of punishing the wicked and protecting the righteous.

Well, that's patently not true.  Alabama is NOT a theocracy and neither are these United States, and the oath to uphold the Constitution that they all took is not predicated on "when it agrees with my religious views."

In Michigan, efforts to protect "religious freedom" are renewed, including a demand that marriages only exist in religious settings.

Conservatives in the House have introduced legislation that would only allow religious clergy to perform marriage ceremonies and remove that responsibility from local clerks and judges. Other couples who don't want to use clergy for their nuptials could provide an affidavit of marriage to county clerks. The legislation also would allow marriage certificates to be shielded from public record laws.

"If this legislation becomes law it will protect our public officials from having to perform same-sex marriages and put the marriage licensing business back in the position of being in the realm of the churches and religious leaders," said state Rep. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, in a statement explaining the bill he sponsored.

But that is putting religion front and center in a CIVIL contract.  That is WRONG.

In Texas, the Attorney General has suggested that clerks are free to refuse licenses on religious grounds.  The Dallas Morning News correctly states,

 Top Texas leaders must stop standing in the way by encouraging government employees to invoke a personal religious exception when asked to provide marriage-related services, such as issuing licenses or officiating at civil ceremonies.

Denton County Clerk Juli Luke struck the right tone regarding Friday’s ruling by stating, “Personally, same-sex marriage is in contradiction to my faith and belief. … However, first and foremost, I took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law, and as an elected public official, my personal belief cannot prevent me from issuing the licenses as required.”

Exactly.

State employees do not have discretion to selectively embrace the constitutional protections they agree with while rejecting those they object to, even on religious grounds. Constitutionally, governments — including their employees — must present themselves as religiously neutral. 

Look, this is not a religious issue.  Civil marriages are civil contracts.  I haven't noticed Roman Catholic clerks refusing licenses to previously divorced people, although such marriages are disallowed by their faith.  Nor devoutly orthodox Jews refusing licenses to interfaith couples.  This is only about bias against LGBT people.  And it needs to stop.


Cross posted from Gay Married Californian

Marriage resolutions progress and Cantaur is annoyed

 I guess the definition of a church nerd is someone who keeps a window with the twitter hashtag #GC78 open on the side of their workspace.  Yesterday, I followed the tweets as the House of Bishops (#HOB) debated A054 and A036, which address liturgy, access, and canons around marriage.  

Some of the comments were just plain loony, with one Bishop calling for same sex married couples to be celibate.

But in the end, the Bishops approved both measures and sent them to the House of Deputies for approval.

This is quite big.  Basically, the canonical change says that marriage is between two people, and does not specify their sex.  The resolutions also say that same sex couples in every diocese must have access to marriage, even as their Diocesan may be uncomfortable with this, still giving space to that discomfort.  Tobias Haller writes that this is not the status quo:

[T]he bishop who disagrees with this will have to find a way to make the liturgy accessible to every couple. I’m sure many creative ways can be found to do this in the small number of dioceses in which this will be true. The glass is half full, and we are in a time of evolution. Give it a chance — this offer of toleration is a principle reason these resolutions passed by such a large majority in the House of Bishops, as a recognition of generous pastoral outreach to the conservative bishops who now feel like beleaguered outcasts in their own church. Same shoe, other foot, some might say — but aren’t we able to be better than that. People can change, but forcing them is not the best way.

 Meanwhile,  Archbishop Justin Welby and the Church of England are Not Happy.

While recognising the prerogative of The Episcopal Church to address issues appropriate to its own context, Archbishop Justin Welby said that its decision will cause distress for some and have ramifications for the Anglican Communion as a whole, as well as for its ecumenical and interfaith relationships.

But that train has left the station.  Episcopal churches are already marrying gay folks.  And now it is the law of the land that gay folks can marry in every state.  In contrast, Welby's own Church of England is hardly an example to follow, forbidding priests from celebrating same sex marriages,  forbidding gay priests from marrying and punishing them if they do.  Basically, Welby is content to leave the LGBT in that "crucified place" (if you remember these debates from nearly a decade ago) in a misguided attempt to assuage the bigotry of certain African prelates.

Thankfully, TEC has moved on.

Now to the House of Deputies! 

Evangelical reactions to marriage equality

Amidst the flurry of responses from Evangelical opponents, some are a bit unhinged. 

•Mike Huckabee calls for "civil disobedience" (but of what, exactly?)

• Texas could refuse to allow licenses; the governor appears obsessed with the subject.  (But does this mean Catholics can refuse to serve people on their 2nd marriage, and orthodox Jews can refuse to serve those in mixed faith marriages?)

• Tony Perkins insists "we're going to see more children born out of wedlock,

While the fringe of opponents will be there, they are like the fringe of racists who also remain as we sadly were reminded in the last few weeks.  Others will grapple with the subject and occupy a place of tension and discernment. 

“I’m very conflicted about it,” he said. “I believe, as our church does, that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but I don’t believe in discrimination, and I can’t say how I would deal with it if I had a son or a daughter in that situation.”

And then there are the sensible ones:

It boggles the mind that evangelicals in America have long seen this ruling coming, but we have fought tooth and nail in what many suspected to be a losing cause. So many millions of dollars and hours were tossed into legal battles that were a long shot at best.

And yet, we have always had financial resources, competent charities, and passionate workers who are more than willing to travel to the ends of the earth to fulfill the very words of Jesus. If we collectively gave these most basic causes just a fraction of the time and energy that we had devoted to fighting same sex marriage, who knows how many thousands or millions of lives could have been saved.

We have been given a gift: The Supreme Court ruling means we can stop throwing our time and money into fighting same sex marriage and fulfill the words of Matthew 25.

....

The longer we engage in legal fights against same sex marriage, the more apparent it becomes that we’d rather throw ourselves into any losing cause than obey the most basic commands of Jesus.

Something we all could do together.

Being magnanimous in victory

Andrew Sullivan:

I think the main issue now will be protection of religious liberty. Many of us have no problem allowing religious institutions to run their own organizations as they see fit, as long as they are sincere and in good faith. I don’t think they have anything to fear. What we need to express at this point is magnanimity. We’ve got to let people who genuinely find [same-sex marriage] disconcerting the space and time to deal with it. That’s what I would caution and urge.

Meanwhile about that religious liberty...

Also from the opinion.  Link in the post below.

Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate. The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.

We know that the "religious liberty" issue is going to be major.  Several of the dissents touch on this.  While no church can be forced to marry anyone (if they could, many divorced Catholics would marry in the church!), things get murkier with schools and other institutions.  Catholic schools have been firing gay employees who marry.  The courts have found this to be legal, if regrettable.   I actually agree with those findings.  But a baker who is Catholic and offers a public service, cannot discriminate (in venues that include sexual orientation in anti-discrimination statutes).  That said, would you really want an angry baker making your wedding cake?

We must seek to respect those who oppose us, even as we disagree.  Let us be gracious in our victory.

Can we just call it "marriage" now?

Justice Kennedy for the Majority, 5-4, in Obergefell v. Hodges.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people be- come something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Marriage on the GC agenda

So, off to General Convention they go, and whether or not there will be changes regarding  marriage  remains to be seen.

The estimable Tobias Haller has a lengthy post about the arguments going back and forth in advance of GC to which I direct you.  He points out that a distinction between the two views of marriage is that one "side" views marriage as an institution, while the other looks at individual marriages as real examples. Certainly, this is often the case in arguments with anti-equality folks.  They REFUSE to acknowledge that they are talking about real people and real  lives.

Thus, Tobias writes,

The TF [Task Force on Marriage]  made this point in its overall thrust towards focusing on the moral values that make a particular marriage holy, rather than in what might make marriage holy as an institution....

This comes to a head in the discussion of procreation, which appears to be, for many, the stumbling block. From the TF perspective, procreation can be understood as a purpose or good or end of marriage as an institution but need not be understood as such for an actual or particular marriage, and may be an impossibility for any number of specific actual marriages. It seems glaringly obvious to the TF that procreation can take place apart from marriage, and marriage from procreation. It is fine to say, as we have, joining the consensus of the church, that procreation should take place within marriage, but we have rejected the valuation of any given marriage as somehow being less than marriage when the couple do not, or cannot procreate.

and

The fact that procreation is ideally a purpose for the institution or establishment of marriage has absolutely no impact on the fact of the a real couple's marriage being fully a marriage, whether they procreate or not.

Amen, brother.

In any case, for those who persistently argue that the pro-equality side "hasn't done the theology", Tobias's essay and the resources to which he links will be of great help.

Polls show most Christians support equality

Several polls out recently from Pew and PRRI show the expected:  nearly 60% of Americans favor marriage equality, with similar numbers opposing RFRA acts (religious freedom exemptions) and supporting anti-discrimination laws.

From the PRRI news release

“As national opinion has shifted toward support for LGBT rights, including among religious Americans, white evangelical Protestants are increasingly becoming an island of opposition amidst a sea of acceptance,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “Today, white evangelical support remains below the level of support from a decade ago in the general public, and they are also less likely than other religious groups to acknowledge that LGBT Americans face discrimination.”

The issue of same-sex marriage continues to divide religious Americans. Majorities of religiously unaffiliated Americans (79 percent), white mainline Protestants (60 percent) and Catholics (58 percent) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Conversely, only 29 percent of white evangelical Protestants and 35 percent of non-white Protestants support making same-sex marriage legal; majorities of white evangelical Protestants (62 percent) and non-white Protestants (54 percent) oppose it.

So, it is no longer a "Christian" value to oppose marriage equality.  Mainstream Media, take note.

Thinkprogress digs in a bit:

The curious outlier of white evangelicals appears rooted in their comparative unwillingness to acknowledge that LGBT people already face discrimination. Only 44 percent of white evangelicals told PRRI that gay and lesbian people endure “a lot” of discrimination, compared to 54 percent of non-white Protestants, 59 percent of white mainline Protestant, and 70 percent of Catholics who said the same. White evangelicals were slightly more willing to say that transgender people face systemic prejudice (49 percent), but still lagged behind the American populace as a whole (62 percent).

The findings reflect a trend that has become more and more evident over that past few years: that religious people actually generally champion LGBT rights, with only a few holdout groups (e.g., white evangelical Protestants) remaining staunchly opposed. Some of this support comes in direct defiance of established religious hierarchies such as U.S. Catholic bishops, who consistently oppose same-sex marriage and LGBT rights even as lay Catholics have become more supportive of marriage equality than any other American Christian group. This spiritual disagreement over LGBT acceptance has pushed many young Americans to abandon organized religion, but it has also inspired an whole new generation of progressive people of faith, many of whom are speaking out against anti-LGBT theology and citing holy scripture as their motivation for accepting people for who they are.

A call for marriage at GC2015

General Convention is coming up and we all hope this will be the endgame for marriage issues. BP and I only became officially part of TEC in 2009, and we went to the Integrity Eucharist and GC that year in Anaheim as part of a Friends of Jake / Father Jake meetup. The momentum was changing and there was hope in the air, and progress has been made, but we're six years further along.

By the end of this month, a decision from the Supreme Court on marriage will come down, and most are cautiously optimistic it will legalize same sex marriage  throughout the nation.  Where is the Episcopal Church in this? Right now, LGBT couples depend on "pastoral latitude" from their Bishops, and if they do marry or receive a blessing, it is in a special liturgy (very lovely, but clearly "special").  The Rev Mike Angell calls for equality, in part in solidarity with the milennial generation:

Doing less than amending our canons to allow same-sex couples to marry would communicate that we think that same-sex marriage is “less than” equal. .... 

In ministry with young adults, I have been at pains to explain the current position of our denomination on marriage equality. While the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church in the USA have approved marriage equality, we’re not there yet canonically. I find myself saying something like: “Yes, we support civil marriage equality broadly as a denomination, but because we are liturgically conservative tradition, and it takes a long time to amend our Prayer Book, we have a separate provisional rite for blessing unions.” That’s a mouthful, and our stance is an obfuscation. Our current liturgical position says, “we’re really not sure whether same-sex love is equal.”
....
Our road toward equality has been marked by half measures and deferments in The Episcopal Church. We should not defer again. To put off the decision for marriage equality may help relationships with the few remaining conservative parishes and dioceses, but such a decision could also harm our relationships with younger generations. Do we care about young adults enough to be bold for marriage equality?

Well, what's your expectation for GC this year?

 

A Higher Law? Not so much.

Mike Huckabee and other professional conservatives who are upset about marriage equality (and the 60% of Americans who support it) are trying to arrogate unto themselves the mantle of civil rights and Martin Luther King.  They are calling for civil disobedience to resist marriage equality (even as they struggle to articulate how my marriage affects them in any way all).

Ed Kilgore nails it:

In claiming to emulate King's prophetic stance, people like Huck and the other signatories of yesterday's Pledge of Solidarity to Defend Marriage are engaging in a huge act of bad faith. They are not pointing to a constitutional anomaly, but are instead arguing for a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution that sneaks in conceptions of divine and natural law that happen to justify their particular policies. They are not appealing to the consciences of the majority, but claiming those are irrelevant. And most of all, it's insanely laughable that they imagine themselves as self-sacrificing heroes like those of the civil rights movement; they struggle constantly to come up with a single way in which same-sex marriage actually affects them.

Beyond the phony civil rights parallels, what's most annoying about the new "religious liberty" line is that it purports to represent a defense of freedom of conscience when it is actually an assertion that the "higher law" should trump the civil law for all of us.....

"Higher law" appeals are perverse coming from someone running for President of the United States. If Huck wants to stand in the courthouse door and defy a Supreme Court decision declaring marriage equality a constitutional right, he should let his freak flag fly and suffer the legal consequences of following his conscience. Using such arguments to troll for the votes of people upset by social change isn't in the spirit of Martin Luther King, but is entirely consistent with the thinking and behavior of the scofflaws on the other side of the firehoses at Selma claiming a God-given inalienable right to discriminate.

Now, we wait

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the marriage equality cases from the 6th circuit, which will determine whether or not marriage is legalized across the country, by what means, and potentially whether LGBT people qualify for heightened scrutiny and greater protection from discrimination.

Most people think we will get some form of marriage equality, but it may be found on narrow grounds.  We are hoping for 5-4, but it might be 6-3.  There is no way that we can get Alito, Thomas, or Scalia, all conservative Catholics.

If the court found against equality, there would be chaos as bans were re-instated, and potentially, marriages annulled.

We went through that worry as we waited, after the passage of Prop8, as the first court case played out in California and the pro-H8 side argued that the 18,000 marriages that occured in that brief window should be annulled.  It was a like a kick in the stomach.

Even though our marriage is safe now, it is still a degrading feeling to be talked about and argued about. We are people, with a real life and a real marriage, not a theoretical construct.  And as the opponents of equality lose, they become more shrill and hate-filled against LGBT people.

And in this time of hope, we are still afraid.