March 2006 Archives

By comparison to the Star Tribune's puff pieces on the state anti-marriage amendment issue, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press ran a relatively informative article last Monday:

Amendment could reach far beyond marriage: A variety of rights for couples, gay or straight, are in doubt

The Pioneer Press discusses the 'legal equivalence' language present in the various proposed constitutional amendments, asking mumerous legal scholars what the effect of such language might be. The article points out that ramifications extend beyond same-sex couples to potentially include all unmarried couples — gay and straight.

Some of the areas were unmarried partners might be impacted or face legal challenges include:

• Health care and other domestic partner benefits (from state employers)
• Health care and other domestic partner benefits (from private employers)
• Domestic partnership registration (City of Minneapolis)
• Health care directives
• Insurance claims
• Adoption rights
• Nondiscrimination in employment
• Child support
• Other financial arrangements
• Other contracts between unmarried couples

Apparently she's been fooling us all this time, but Barbra Streisand's not really Jewish. At least not according to Don Feder, founder and president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation.

The Washington Post reports today that Feder was a featured speaker at this week's conservative evangelical 'War on Christians' conference in Washington, DC. Forget for a moment the strangeness of an alliance between a politically conservative Jew and a group of evangelical Christian wingnuts. Lay aside the incongruity of a Jew sharing a platform with a group of individuals complaining about 'Christophobia', whose public beliefs are fundamentally anti-Jewish, asserting as they do that any Jew who does not convert to Christ is eternally destined for hell.

Here is the real shocker: Secular Jews are not really Jewish at all. The 'real' Jews (or at least the 'more Jewish') are fundamentalist Christians who embrace 'Jewish' values.

Feder...urged the crowd not to blame "the liberal, self-hating Jews in Hollywood. Remember, the people in this audience are more Jewish than people like Barbra Streisand, because you embrace Jewish values, she doesn't," he said.

Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany. "You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington...

Here we have two Jews claiming that Christians, not Jews, are the real Jews! Embracing 'Jewish' values apparently means being opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, not actually having any respect for the spiritual values of Jews who do not believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Maybe Feder and Horowitz are actually ExJews. They seem to have renounced their own Jewishness and joined the ranks of Christian Zionists who believe that the church is the one and only 'true Israel'.

Would it matter if acceptance of gay marriage did lead to acceptance of polygamy (either socially or legally)? Should civil marriage be separated from the religious rite of matrimony, with the former being guaranteed by the state regardless of the gender of the two partners? Shouldn't GLBT couples have the same rights as different-sex married couples?

I think what is sometimes forgotten in such arguments (and deliberately ignored by the religious right) is that the prospect of marriage equality is largely academic in most US states (since same-sex unions are for the most part generally illegal already) and therefore not much of a serious threat to the status quo, Massachusetts and Vermont notwithstanding.

On the other hand, the orchestrated right-wing movement to enshrine anti-gay discrimination in every state constitution through amendments that prohibit state recognition of marriage’s ‘legal equivalents’ presents a very clear and present threat to the preservation of previously won GLBT rights. If such amendments continue to pass around the nation, more and more people will lose the parenting, adoption, inheritance and domestic partnership benefits they currently see as secure. The religious right, emboldened by their legislative successes, will not stop at constitutional amendments but will press on to strip further rights and ultimately recriminalize same-sex relationships through whatever means available.

I want to encourage people to stay smart (or get smarter) about what are the real tactical issues of discrimination vs. the important but longer term issues of achieving total civil equality. We have to keep our energies and attention focused on combatting these very real threats (already realized in Ohio at least) while continuing to advocate for the longer term goal of marriage equality. If we don't manage to successfully reframe the present debate in terms of what is at threat should such amendments pass, we might very well convince half the electorate that gays should be allowed to marry and still end up having much of our existing relationship and parenting rights snatched out from under our very noses.

The so-called 'liberal' television media has banned inclusive religious advertising, again. The United Church of Christ's new ad, scheduled to air on cable starting April 3, will not be screened on ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX due to those networks' position that such advertising constitutes controversial issues advocacy.

The new 30-second 'Ejector Pew' ad features several people — a black woman, a gay couple, a Middle Eastern man, an elderly man in a walker — who are ejected from their church pews at the press of a button. This is followed by a voiceover which says, "God doesn't reject people, neither do we."

What a remarkable world we live in, when the American Family Association or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints can run ads on network TV, but a mainline church cannot — because its message of welcome is considered too controversial or political. Considering the filth and smut that gets passed off on FOX as news and entertainment, this is absurd in the extreme.

Or as the UCC asks, "Mainline churches should be silent while right-wing extremists get to speak their mind? Do you care?"

Some related links:

• Chuck Currie - UCC seminarian and blogger
• UCC To Networks: Stop Playing Favorites
• Are Christians Being Silenced? How about the United Church of Christ?

I wonder if it's directly in response to the flood of complaints the Star Tribune must have received following Katherine Kersten's recent columns against 'gay marriage'? Anyhow, they have come clean with an admission (of sorts) of bias — or at least of inadequate and inaccurate coverage of the issue.

This admission appeared in the reader's representative section (Kate Parry), not the editorial, but the message is pretty loud and clear:

The newspaper needs to do a better job fully describing the scope of legislation to ban same-sex marriage and its legal equivalent...

It's the job of journalists to sniff out spin and do their best to expose it and neutralize the language... But the Star Tribune has done poorly so far this session neutralizing spin on legislation to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and "its legal equivalent" on the fall ballot...

Those words mean the amendment would "clearly include domestic partnerships and civil unions" as well as same-sex marriage... It also allows for judicial interpretation of other rights often associated with marriages that could be banned... This has potential impact on adoptions, inheritance and many other issues facing gay couples...

The newspaper has not made this clear, allowing the language to spin in a direction favoring those who want to see the amendment on the ballot. It's more likely to get there if lawmakers and citizens believe it applies only to marriages. But that's not the case, and the newspaper needs to quit implying that it is, through the language it uses -- not to defeat or support the bill, but to make sure everyone knows exactly what's up for a vote...

I was inspired today by the following passage, from Psalm 119:25-40 as paraphrased in The Message.

I've been somewhat ill the past week, and this time has also been an opportunity for me to consider more closely the call that God has placed on my lif. The psalmist brought both issues into focus for me: 

I'm feeling terrible--I couldn't feel worse!
    Get me on my feet again.
    You promised, remember?
    When I told my story, you responded;
    train me well in your deep wisdom.
    Help me understand these things inside and out
    so I can ponder your miracle-wonders.
    My sad life's dilapidated, a falling-down barn;
    build me up again by your Word.
    Barricade the road that goes Nowhere;
    grace me with your clear revelation.
    I choose the true road to Somewhere,
    I post your road signs at every curve and corner.
    I grasp and cling to whatever you tell me;
    GOD, don't let me down!
    I'll run the course you lay out for me
    if you'll just show me how.

GOD, teach me lessons for living
    so I can stay the course.
    Give me insight so I can do what you tell me--
    my whole life one long, obedient response.
    Guide me down the road of your commandments;
    I love traveling this freeway!
    Give me a bent for your words of wisdom,
    and not for piling up loot.
    Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets,
    invigorate me on the pilgrim way.
    Affirm your promises to me--
    promises made to all who fear you.
    Deflect the harsh words of my critics--
    but what you say is always so good.
    See how hungry I am for your counsel;
    preserve my life through your righteous ways!

We were on vacation in Orlando a few weeks ago. Much to our dismay, only a few block from where we were staying, the infamous Exodus billboard loomed over the main road. Every time I saw it, it made me quite uncomfortable.

It disturbs me that an anti-gay organization like Exodus can run a public campaign of disinformation targeting gays and lesbians, without eliciting comment from the mass media. If the KKK were to run a series of anti-black or anti-Jewish billboards based on similarly sterotyped views, there would be an outcry.

So I was pleased to see that a few clever wits have turned the tables, with parodies of the Exodus billboards:

There are more delightful parodies over at Zortnac's Primer. Hat tip to Exgay Watch for this one!

"In a society marked by deep political and ideological alienation, where the fabric of the commonwealth is frayed to the point of tearing, communities that find ways to tolerate difference and live creatively with diversity may be their own form of redemption not simply for themselves, but for all of us."

-- Rev. John Thomas, UCC General Minister & President, March 12

Read the complete text of John Thomas's address on Red State / Blue State religion. 

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. They don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

-- Jamie Raskin

GLBT rights movements across the nation are beginning to discover what many of us gay Christians have known all along - God matters.

If GLBT and allied political organizations want to build a broad consensus and achieve lasting progress toward equality, then they need to join hands with justice-minded people of faith. Hat tip to Rick for this article on the NGLTF merger with the Institute for Welcoming Resources.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the country's oldest gay rights organization, announced Monday that a religious organization representing 1,400 Protestant congregations that unconditionally welcome gays and lesbians has merged with the task force. Over the next five years, the task force wants to increase membership in the Institute for Welcoming Resources to 10,000 congregations ...

The merger means organizations working for acceptance of gays and lesbians in several denominations -- including the Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran churches -- will be part of the task force ...

This activity shows that the religious right is not the only religious voice on gay and lesbian issues, said Jay Johnson, programming director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. 

These alliances are beginning to take root across the nation, at every level from federal to state and local. Most well known is the HRC's religion and faith program. Here in in Minnesota the Faith, Family Fairness Alliance (FFFA) is a partnership between OutFront Minnesota and communities of faith to oppose an anti-GLBT consitutional amendment.

These developments signal an encouraging trend as we mobilize against the religious right and their unbiblical, un-Christian 'Christian vs. homosexual' wedge politics.

For one reason or another lately I've had little time nor inclination to write. You (rhetorical reader) might have wondered if I had given up blogging for Lent...

Things have been pretty hectic, with tons of travel and work deadlines. Plus I haven't been that inspired to take the time to write anything intelligent. Or to read a lot of other blogs for that matter.

Let's face it, I've just been too lazy...