Category Archives: GLBT

Suffering for the Wrong Reasons


The Christian life is not an easy one…but then, what life is?

“Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal,” wrote Longfellow in “A Psalm of Life”. Prophets and preachers can be stung to harshness at the thought of people wasting that one precious life on trivia, when they could be growing in the knowledge and love of God. But I also see a lot of Grape-Nuts religion; woe to you who prefer Frosted Flakes to a bowl of unsweetened gravel, because you are still selfish enough to want God to make you happy. 

That is not the God I am encountering in the Gospels and the Psalms. God is always making promises to people, very concrete ones involving food, shelter, the birth of children, and livestock, as well as the ones we can reframe as acceptably “spiritual”, like justice and salvation. “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

The issue of homosexuality puts this kind of “No pain, no gain” religiosity on display.  Requiring gays to be celibate — the last-ditch response now that the existence of an unchosen, unchangeable gay orientation can no longer be denied — imposes a suffering far greater than lack of sex. It is about depriving a whole class of people, through no fault of their own, of even the hope of a loving family life. Not even single straight Christians, who are remaining chaste until marriage, face this certainty of a lonely future.

The typical response by celibacy advocates is to sidestep all appeals to compassion by saying that every Christian is called to suffer and sacrifice. This is my cross, this is yours, end of discussion. Chris at Betwixt and Between deconstructs this position admirably in his August 6 post; boldface emphasis mine (scroll down; the permalink feature is not working for me right now):


At heart, Christianity is NOT a sado-masochistic religion. It’s not about suffering for suffering sake. Or even “giving up” something. It’s about “responding unto”. It’s about response to the God who is love.

But some straight Christians and gay celibates can sure turn Christianity into that when discussing what is good for gay Christians in general. It often happens through an argument from the extreme case (celibacy) to every particular case….

All too often I run into posts across the internet about gay people and our needing to “give up something”, take up our cross, meaning that we’re automatically called to celibacy in toto. That a little more suffering is a good thing in and of itself even when nothing shows for it. But Christianity is not about suffering for suffering sake, or that a little more suffering will get you closer to God, after all, at heart, our faith makes clear that suffering can destroy and we can do nothing of ourselves to get us closer to God, rather God draweth nigh to us amidst the sundry realities of life, especially in our suffering….

Good and WISE spiritual discernment and direction knows that we have to be careful in determining another’s call or what from they are called to abstain, and even more careful in making carte blanche generalizations for an entire class of persons in this regard, and particularly so, it seems that while it is suspect to draw conclusions from gay individuals who claim celibacy is NOT their call and partner, it seems many heterosexuals are quick to glom on to those gay individuals who claim it is the call of every gay person simply because it’s working for those gay persons….

It’s my opinion that such efforts to make such determinations are ego-driven rather than driven by a concern to love the other as ourselves or to bring them the Good News of Christ Jesus and let the response be truly a working out of God in the gay person’s life. And this egoism can be hidden under all sorts of pious declarations and considerations.

In the case of gay people, I think the want to tell all gay people their calling is celibacy by virtue of being gay, is at heart, so that these people don’t have to deal with the uncomfortable reality of another orientation existing and making space for that orientation as ordinary even if abnormal statistically with appropriate means for the vast ordinary majority in that class to live as such with the possibility of growing in love and virtues. It’s about ego. Even when they see virtues arising from the vast majority of gays who will simply cut down the middle–just like them, in partnership. Give it up! Because the law says… It’s stifling to behold.

It’s like the bottom-line basis by which we discern is taken out from underneath us–fruits of the Spirit (virtues), and stamped on, simply because we’re told, the extreme (celibacy) would show that we truly loved God and would do us better because God requires more of us. And if we have to suffer a bit more. Oh, well! Quit that intimacy with your partner, and then we know you love God. But what if the relationship shatters and virtue slides away? I’ve seen this happen in ex-gay situations when one of the partners gets “saved”. No answer. Or some damn platitude, “Well God has a better plan…” Or another smarm about suffering. But that’s the whole point. Such argument from the extreme to the most of us who are ordinary and not gifted in celibacy can destroy. It’s bad spiritual direction and poor pastoral understanding.

Instead, what is good for us is ascertained by the extreme (celibacy)—well the Desert Elders did some claim for example so why can’t you gays, rather than recognizing most will likely find themselves, just like straights, needing a middle path….A path, partnership, that even many of those, who advocate that we are automatically called to the extreme, recognize leads to virtues. Many who say we should nonetheless take on an extra helping of suffering simply to suffer or to appease God because God calls us to give up the good (for what purpose in toto isn’t clear besides maintaining the rules) nonetheless admit that such partnerships show virtues. Perhaps that which is pleasing to God isn’t simply to increase suffering, but doing that which in a particular life leads to holiness?

…The danger in all of this is that gays will come to understand that the God of Jesus is a body-soul divider, opposes the Spirit to the flesh, a Manichaean God so often the image I get from straight people who make such suggestions but wouldn’t deign to turn that same suggestion on themselves (nor do they offer an equivalent to they’re generalized, “well heterosexuals suffer too” response when queried) or from the gay people who it seems have a vocation to celibacy so they universalize their vocation to all gay people (or the worst, apparently straight people called to celibacy who then have lots of suggestions for the gays while making snide comments about our parnterships)—not some tricky slide, well I give up x, y, z, so you need to give up partnership, but a humanizing, we’re more similar than different in this so most likely and reasonably speaking not all of you would be asked to give up partnership. It’s an argument from the extremes, that ironically, is at odds with monasticism in its healthiest forms and its focus on practice–that most practice will be in the middle not on the edges. To suggest that all gay people should be just like the Desert Elders or monastics is an extreme arguing into practice for the general population–of gays in this instance.

Instead, a blanket policy makes life easier—for the straights and the gay celibates who advocate this. And connecting that policy to the cross gets such people off the hook of examining what looks an awful lot like sado-masochism. Asking of an entire class of people what they wouldn’t ask for themselves, and being unable to think in terms of the particular in ways that would be unthinkable for straight people. The rules say, and so it goes… You will need to suffer a little more because…God needs appeasing. While we have tangible and good things in our lives, we’ll tell you about all of the non-existant ones you’ll inherit in the next. But instead in following Jesus, what we’re giving up is the story these people have told us about ourselves, and that puts us in some difficult jams. We get plenty of crosses coming our way by doing so everyday. The suggestion that we don’t already face crosses simply by living life is a form of blindness to what gay people face just for existing and living in ordinary ways.

I could understand this argument from the extreme if always and everywhere gay partnership failed to blossom in virtues or positively led to vice. But even many of these folks admit it doesn’t. Virtues arise. Which tends to tell us that the desire itself is not the problem, but rather what we choose to do with it, just like heterosexuality. And that those of either orientation given the GIFT of celibacy are not “giving up” but “responding unto” in the will God has for them rather than tending to put God and humans at odds, in competition.

In his 1974 tome On Being a Christian, renegade Catholic theologian Hans Kung helpfully distinguished between seeking suffering for its own sake (a misunderstanding of the cross) and bringing forth spiritual fruit from the suffering that inevitably comes our way:


Following the cross does not mean copying the suffering of Jesus, it is not the reconstruction of his cross. That would be presumption. But it certainly means enduring the suffering which befalls me in my inexchangeable situation — in conformity with the suffering of Christ. Anyone who wants to go with Jesus must deny himself and take on himself, not the cross of Jesus nor just any kind of cross, but his cross, his own cross; then he must follow Jesus. Seeking extraordinary suffering in monastic asceticism or in romantic heroism is not particularly Christian.

…It is likewise not a true following of the cross to adopt the Stoic ideal of apathy toward suffering, enduring our own suffering as unemotionally as possible and allowing the suffering of others to pass by while we remain aloof and refuse to be mentally involved. Jesus did not suppress his pain either at his own or at others’ suffering. He attacked these things as signs of the powers of evil, of sickness and death, in the still unredeemed world. The message of Jesus culminates in love of neighbor, unforgettably instilled in the parable of the good Samaritan and in the critical standard of the Last Judgment: involvement with the hungry, thirsty, naked, strangers, sick and imprisoned. (pp.576-77)

In my opinion, what makes universal gay celibacy a false cross is that the sacrifice benefits no one. Unlike chastity before marriage, it is not preparation for a relationship of mutual self-giving and fidelity. Unlike priestly or monastic celibacy, it is borne in solitude and shame, not in an honored role that provides alternative channels for that person’s loving generosity to express itself. It’s throwing away a resource rather than using it where it is most needed. It’s the cross for the sake of the cross, without salvation or resurrection. Jesus called people to sacrifice not so they could prove something to God with their unhappiness, but so that others could be happy as well. Sacrifices with no justification beyond formal obedience to reasonless commands should be looked upon with suspicion. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Proud Anglicans of the Week

Here’s a roundup of some great Anglican “via media” blogs I’ve discovered this month. All of these folks are thoughtful Christians determined to hold together the compassionate, progressive, dynamic spirit of the church’s liberals and the respect for tradition, truth and theological sophistication of the conservatives. They give me hope that the current fundamentalist-secularist impasse won’t last forever.

Christopher at Betwixt and Between offers a spirited and GLBT-friendly exposition of the Incarnation in his wonderfully titled post A Shitting God. (Hint: If this offends you, you’re exactly the person who needs to read it.)


We don’t want our God to come to us as flesh and blood, bone and sinew. But he did, not deeming equality with God something to be grasped at as did our first parents, but rather relishing simply to be an earthen one–“a shitting god” as one rabbi put it, became truly one of us in all of our comical glory, with our orifices and pleasurable bits, going out of himself to be with us as one of us. To become human is learning to be comfortable in our own skin, the very place God chooses to work, rather than think to escape into the ethosphere and shed off this mutable, vulnerable, carcass, as if we could so easily divide our body and soul leaping from distinction to separation.

The danger to Christianity isn’t homosexuality. The danger lies in certain tendencies in “orthodox” defenses against homosexuality that end with corruptions of our core doctrines or dogma as the case may be. In the end, we near a docetic Christ or a hieros gamos deity, and no more so than the god presented to gay people by the defenders. The fire for another is not our great error, nor harnessing and bridling that fire that love might deepen and move outward; our error is to stamp out that fire and somehow think we can find it all in ourselves without another or others. To do so is to negate the hook in us, as Gregory of Nyssa put it, which is God’s very gift to us for connectivity and intimacy, that lets us be pulled outward toward others, toward God. Another might enter us, and we would rather be self-contained–this is the deepest reality to which an imposition of celibacy for gay people leads. A Manichaean outlook cannot help but attain. That so many would reject such a god is to their credit. God would ravish us, and we would rather bliss out in perfect composure. Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, once quipped that “Christianity is the most materialistic of religions.” But only when we take the Incarnation seriously enough that our God took a shit, could see the potential for love in a hard on.

Now that I’ve got your attention…Huw at +Z’ev: Lectionary Midrash posts about how gay people of faith often find themselves doubly shunned by conservative churches and by other gays who are bitter about religious homophobia. This post both comforted me and challenged my impulse to retreat into an enclave of like-minded people (most of whom are my imaginary friends) instead of withstanding the shame of being the token holy-roller in the Episcopal parish and the token P-Flag Girl in the evangelical one. If God is for us, who can be against us? But Lord, it’s so much work…poor little me…waah…

MadPriest at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong is an unrepentantly snarky extreme liberal, but his visual gags are to die for. I especially liked this one. Hat tip to MadPriest also for the link to this video from Episcopalooza.

Finally, Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton at the group blog The Episcopal Majority takes a swat at the misuse of 1 Corinthians 8:9 (“take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak”) to silence gays in the church.

Support Soulforce Campaign for Gay Marriage in NY State


New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has introduced a bill to extend equal marriage rights to same-gender couples. Over the next two weeks, interfaith gay activist group Soulforce will be sponsoring GLBT youth to travel to the districts of key “swing vote” state senators and assembly members to tell their personal stories. Soulforce will hold townhall meetings, attend community events and church services, and speak with state legislators and their constituents about same-gender marriage. You can volunteer to participate or support them with your donations here.

Pride NYC: June 2007

I was in NYC the last weekend of June for the Pride March, which I watched from the steps of my former church. The Church of the Ascension is on Fifth Avenue toward the end of the parade route. I was very moved to see members of the parish, in T-shirts reading “Proud Episcopalian,” spend hours passing cups of water to the marchers.  Too many heads in the way for me to get a photo of them, unfortunately.

The parade seemed more family-friendly this year than the last time I attended, five or six years ago. Despite the perfect weather, few bared all. I think there were also more religious groups, especially Episcopal ones. One of the grand marshals was Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, where my parents and I used to attend High Holy Days services. If you’re ever in NYC on Shabbat, check out CBST — Rabbi Kleinbaum gives the best sermons around. (Our family is at least three stripes in the diversity flag all by ourselves.)


Dignity USA is a Catholic group that advocates equality for women and gays in the Church.




The Episcopal flag and the rainbow flags.



I forget which group this was, but I liked their color scheme. Modern life offers too few opportunities to dress like a butterfly.



St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church members with their “Come to St. Bart’s” banner.



As usual, the drag queens were the best-dressed.



This was the noblest Roman of them all.



Riverside Church, an interdenominational Christian church near Columbia University, is known for its liberal political activism. Their senior minister emeritus, the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., is an internationally acclaimed preacher.


Well, I guess that’s it till the Halloween parade…

Anglican Absolutism


Chris at The Eternal Pursuit notes with sadness that the conservative breakaway parishes and clergy within the U.S. Episcopal Church, who seek to put themselves under the authority of foreign bishops who oppose homosexuality, are asking for more than freedom to follow their own conscience. It’s an all-or-nothing strategy that would delegitimize the existing Episcopal Church in America, thus undermining two mainstays of our 400-year-old Communion: the authority of bishops and the ideal of fellowship among Christians with different views. Chris writes:


There are certainly real issues that lead people of faith to disagree. Some of these issues, particularly those around human sexuality, are especially difficult. Some find the scriptures to be very clear on these issues. Some argue that the overarching message of the Bible seems in conflict with a few particular passages. On all fronts, some argue that the Bible alone is the sole authority, and others seek a mediated dialogue with the scriptures. Some seek a definitive type of authority in the governance of the Church, and some are tolerant of more ambiguity.

These are all developing edges for the Episcopal Church, and we are not alone, as Christians, in this. The point is that the Minns and Akinola crowd are not seeking resolution or reconciliation. They are seeking to leave with as much of the property of ECUSA as they can take with them, and replace the existing church.

The word reform implies, rightly, that the Church could always be more faithful. The Church could always live closer to the foot of the cross of Christ. At various points in history, the Church has erred grievously, and most certainly will again. The Church has endured, because people of faith have worked to reform her. We can’t just dispose of an historic expression of the faith, because we disagree.

When conservatives call this a battle over the authority of Scripture, I have to wonder whether they’re applying a legalistic definition of authority, one in which the entire book stands or falls by your attitude toward a single verse. This is how St. Paul described the futility of obedience to the Law without Christ: fail in one particular, and you’re guilty of them all.

We saw this in previous generations with six-day creationism, another modernist blunder that whose lasting legacy was to perpetuate a stereotype of Christians as rigid, ignorant yahoos. The issue for which so many preachers were willing to raise their blood pressure was totally unimportant, in itself, to most people’s lives. Who cares how long it took to create the universe? It’s not a pizza delivery; you don’t get a discount if it’s not ready in half an hour. No, it’s the principle of the thing, they say.

Similarly, homosexuality presents an abstract principle that the majority can safely denounce or defend without any personal cost to themselves. But when we do this, we send the message that Christianity is about purity, crystalline doctrinal perfection, a completely transparent and authoritative system that is somehow also so fragile that a single pebble can shatter our glass house. The corollary, as the Pharisees would have understood, is that we can’t worship with people whose hands aren’t as clean as ours.

If Christianity is anything distinctive at all, it is the complete opposite of that attitude. “Garlic and sapphires in the mud,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. We should be very, very careful before disfellowshipping someone because they disagree with us on matters not necessary to salvation.

God’s Wrath, Christ’s Peace, and the Culture Wars


Catholic theologian James Alison’s essay “Wrath and the gay question: on not being afraid, and its ecclesial shape” is not only the best explanation of the Atonement I’ve seen in a long while, but also represents (to my mind) a more helpful direction for gay-affirming Christians than merely hunting for proof-texts that support our position and explaining away those that don’t.

Alison contends that human societies constantly seek self-definition by scapegoating outsiders. When Christ, the only completely innocent person, voluntarily assumed the scapegoat role, he exposed the sinfulness of that entire system. Never again could we in good faith believe that spiritual purity depended on exclusion. If community must be founded on sacrifice, Christ was the sacrificial victim and the entire human race became a single community, united by our responsibility for his death and by his equal love for us all. Yet Alison also finds fault with the liberal “many flavors” approach to gays in the church, saying we need to emphasize not the diversity of human lifestyles but our universal brother- and sisterhood.

Some highlights (boldface emphasis mine):


I want to bring into polite adult discussion something which is not normally allowed there, but is relegated to the backroom of fundamentalist discourse, where its misuse is a mirror image of its exclusion from enlightened discourse.

In enlightened discourse, there is of course, no “wrath” in any theological or anthropological sense. There is progress, and development, and of course, on the way there is conflict. Conflict is shown as something painful, but necessary, steps on the way towards the next phase. No omelettes without breaking eggs, and similar sentiments. In fundamentalist discourse, that conflict and those “steps on the way to the next phase” are personally and cosmically significant, and victory and defeat in them are part of the mysterious workings of a divinity, certainly something far greater and more important than anything the “wise” and “enlightened” of this generation could know about. Part of the attraction of fundamentalist discourse, and this fundamentalism can be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Marxist, or secularist, is the way it allows partially self-selecting “outsiders” from mainstream culture (and we’re all such partially self-selecting “outsiders” now) to see themselves as secret “insiders” with a direct line in to What’s Really Going On.

For the Enlightened, it is perfectly obvious that there is no violence in God, if there is a God at all; while for the fundamentalist, the violence is always associated with God, directly, or through those charged with interpreting “His” (and it usually is His) message. In fact, without the violence there would be no sign of God’s activity in the world, which effectively means, there would be no God. What I would like to do is rescue the notion of wrath by attempting to show how there is indeed no violence in God, but that the phenomenon which religious language has described as “wrath” is very real, and worth taking seriously. Not only that, but it is rather important for our contemporary ability to live the Gospel that we overcome the schism between the enlightened and the fundamentalist, two positions which are, in my view, very much enemy twins, by recovering a sense of the anthropological effect in our midst of the covenant of peace to which the Scriptures refer (Isaiah 54, 10; Ezekiel 34, 25 & 37, 26). By recovering, if you like, the ecclesial shape of Christ making his covenant for us and enabling us not to be afraid.

There seems to be something odd going on when the same person, Jesus, both promises his followers:

      Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. (John 14, 27)

And yet says:

   Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household. (Mt 10, 34-36; cf. Luke 12, 51)

****

Jesus does warn that the effect of his mission is going to be to produce wrath, in the passage I have already quoted to you. And in fact, he then gives himself to the sacrificial mechanism in a way which the Gospel writers point to as being the way proper to the great High Priest, and he becomes the lamb of sacrifice. In fact, he reverses the normal human sacrificial system which started with human sacrifice and then is later modified to work with animal substitutes. Jesus, by contrast, substitutes himself for the lamb, portions of whose body were handed out to the priests; and thus by putting a human back at the centre of the sacrificial system, he reveals it for what it is: a murder.

Now here is the curious thing. It looks for all the world as though Jesus is simply fitting into the ancient world’s views about sacrifice and wrath. But in fact, he is doing exactly the reverse. Because he is giving himself to this being murdered, and he has done nothing wrong, he brings about an entirely new way to be free from wrath. This is not the way we saw with Achan, where the temporary freedom from wrath comes with the outbreak of unanimous violence which creates singleness of heart among the group. What Jesus has done by substituting himself for the victim at the centre of the lynch sacrifice is to make it possible for those who perceive his innocence, to realise what it is in which they have been involved (and agreeing to drink his blood presupposes a recognition of this complicity). These then begin to have their identity given them not by the group over against the victim, but by the self-giving victim who is undoing the unanimity of the group. This means that from then on they never again have to be involved in sacrifices, sacrificial mechanisms and all the games of “wrath” which every culture throws up. They will be learning to walk away from all that, undergoing being given the peace that the world does not give.

So, there is no wrath at all in what Jesus is doing. He understands perfectly well that there is no wrath in the Father, and yet that “wrath” is a very real anthropological reality, whose cup he will drink to its dregs. His Passion consists, in fact, of his moving slowly, obediently, and deliberately into the place of shame, the place of wrath, and doing so freely and without provoking it. However, from the perspective of the wrathful, that is, of all of us run by the mechanisms of identity building, peace building, unanimity building “over against” another, Jesus has done something terrible. Exactly as he warned. He has plunged us into irresoluble wrath. Because he has made it impossible for us ever really to believe in what we are doing when we sacrifice, when we shore up our social belonging against some other. All our desperate attempts to continue doing that are revealed to be what they are: just so much angry frustration, going nowhere at all, spinning the wheels of futility.

The reason is this: the moment we perceive that the one occupying the central space in our system of creating and shoring up meaning is actually innocent, actually gave himself to be in that space, then all our sacred mechanisms for shoring up law and order, sacred differences and so forth, are revealed to be the fruits of an enormous self-deception. The whole world of the sacred totters, tumbles, and falls if we see that this human being is just like us. He came to occupy the place of the sacrificial victim entirely freely, voluntarily, and without any taint of being “run” by, or beholden to, the sacrificial system. That is, he is one who was without sin. This human being was doing something for us even while we were so locked into a sacrificial way of thinking and behaviour that we couldn’t possibly have understood what he was doing for us, let alone asked him to do it. The world of the sacred totters and falls because when we see someone who is like us doing that for us, and realise what has been done, the shape that our realisation takes is our moving away from ever being involved in such things again.

Now what is terrible about this is that it makes it impossible for us really to bring about with a good conscience any of the sacred resolutions, the sacrificial decisions which brought us, and bring all societies, comparative peace and order. The game is up. And so human desire, rivalry, competition, which had previously been kept in some sort of check by a system of prohibitions, rituals, sacrifices and myths, lest human groups collapse in perpetual and irresoluble mutual vengeance, can no longer be controlled in this way. This is the sense in which Jesus’ coming brings not peace to the earth, but a sword and division. All the sacred structures which hold groups together start to collapse, because desire has been unleashed. So the sacred bonds within families are weakened, different generations will be run by different worlds, give their loyalty to different and incompatible causes,
the pattern of desire constantly shifting. All in fact will be afloat on a sea of wrath, because the traditional means to curb wrath, the creation by sacrifice of spaces of temporary peace within the group, has been undone forever. The only alternative is to undergo the forgiveness which comes from the lamb, and start to find oneself recreated from within by a peace which is not from this world, and involves learning how to resist the evil one by not resisting evil. This means: you effectively resist, have no part in, the structures and flows of desire which are synonymous with the prince of this world, that is to say with the world of wrath, only by refusing to acquire an identity over against evil-done-to you.
Read the whole article here.

Would Jesus Discriminate?


The website “Would Jesus Discriminate?” offers a provocative new take on some familiar Bible stories. Using textual and historical analysis of the original Greek text, the authors claim that certain New Testament episodes are really about gay characters, such as the eunuch baptized by Philip in the book of Acts. I’m cautiously enthusiastic about this project. I’d like to believe that there are positive stories about gay people and relationships in the Bible, but there are two things that make me hesitate. First, I don’t have the scholarly background to know how plausible these readings are. Second, it would be a shame if we went overboard and read a sexual component into all stories of intimate friendship (e.g. David and Jonathan), as our pop-Freudian suspicious culture is wont to do. Anyhow, click the billboards on their site and let me know what you think.

Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Defeated in Massachusetts


This just in from Stanley Rosenberg, our state senator for Northampton:

“Knowing of your interest regarding the proposed Marriage Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution, I am writing to provide an update on the Constitutional Convention held today, June 14th 2007.

“I am pleased to report that at this the 18th Constitutional Convention meeting on the question of same-sex marriage, the members present and voting defeated the proposed amendment by a vote of 151-45. This means that the amendment will not advance to the November 2008 ballot.

“This is a significant victory for the civil rights of the gay and lesbian community. When the debate began 18 Conventions ago, there were only a couple dozen people in the Legislature that believed that Civil Unions or Same-Sex Marriages should be allowed. Over the years, as a result of the public debate and deep reflection, that number grew to 151. This is truly a reflection of the shifting views not only of the Legislators but also of their constituents. This is a great victory also for the Supreme Judicial Court which had the wisdom and courage to declare that our Constitution requires equal protection for all, for more than a thousand religious leaders who stood with same-sex couples, for the 10s of thousands of constituents across the Commonwealth who spoke out in support of the gay community, and for the more than 9 thousand same-sex couples who have solemnized – through marriage – their commitment and love for each other.”

Reminder: Massachusetts Vote on Gay Marriage June 14


Just a reminder to readers of this blog who live in Massachusetts and support gay marriage: The state legislature will vote this Thursday, June 14, on whether to place a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November 2008 ballot. Now is the time to call or email your state senator and representative, and if you live near Boston, join the MassEquality demonstrations at the Statehouse.

This vote has important ramifications beyond the gay community. Allowing majority rule to restrict the civil rights of a minority is contrary to the spirit of the Bill of Rights. It’s cheap and easy for people with nothing at stake to cast a symbolic vote that disproportionately burdens a few. What authorizes us, the straight majority, to wield this power? As Christians, can we really say it’s our duty to collude with Caesar to correct what some of us consider the sinfulness of another’s private life?


Gay people are not going to form straight families because we’ve taken away their rights. Instead, they and their children will go through life crises without the basic security that we take for granted: a partner at their bedside in the hospital, child custody and visitation, the ability to make medical decisions for loved ones. How has a single straight marriage been saved by inflicting this legal limbo on our neighbors? Read some Massachusetts couples’ stories here.

Bishop Schori Interviewed by Bill Moyers


The PBS program Bill Moyers Journal yesterday interviewed Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA and the first woman to lead a national Anglican church. Schori is an interesting figure. As the interview shows, her background as an oceanographer gives her an appreciation of the diversity of God’s creation. Science also shapes her historical awareness that tradition and expert opinion always evolve in response to new data, and that somehow the enterprise (be it science or religion) can continue through change without losing legitimacy. Moyers’ leading questions got on my nerves; he persisted in framing the issues as us-versus-them, seeming not to hear Schori’s primary emphasis on reconciliation, coexistence and patience.

The transcript and video are both available on the site, along with background material on the conflict over homosexuality in the church. I may be asking too much from television, but I wish the cultural issues didn’t always upstage the theological ones in coverage of the Anglican schism. Apart from her brave stance on gays’ and women’s equality, what does Bishop Schori believe about God, Jesus, the atonement, grace, salvation…you know, those things that were actually important enough to have more than six Bible verses written about them? What are the different positions on these topics within the Anglican Communion, and how do those divisions track the pro-gay/anti-gay split, or not?

Some quotes from Bishop Schori:


“The incredible wonder of God’s creation and the incredible diversity of God’s creation. Things that come in different sizes and colors and shapes and body forms are all part of that incredible diversity of creation that’s present below the waters where we never even see them. And the Psalms tell us that God delights in that.

“My faith journey has been, as a scientist, about discovering the wonder of creation. That there– there’s a prayer that we, in the Episcopal Church use after baptism that prays that the newly baptized may receive the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. The kind of work that I did as a scientist was a piece of that, just a small piece.”

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“Religion is at its best, I think, an invitation into relationship. It’s not necessarily a set of instructions for how you deal with every challenging person you run across in the world. It has that at its depth, but it– does not give one permission to say, “This person is out, and this one’s okay and acceptable.” And I– it continually invites us into a larger understanding of that relationship.”

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“I do believe [homosexuality is] a moral issue because it’s about how we love our neighbor. It’s about how we live in relationship to God and our neighbors. When I look at other instances in church history, when we’ve been faced with something similar– the history in this country over the– over slavery. The church in the north . Much of it came to a different conclusion than the church in the south– about the morality of slavery.

“And neither side was comfortable with the breadth of understanding that could include the other. In practice, the Episcopal Church didn’t kick out the Confederate part of the church. They kept calling the roll during the Civil War, and when the war was over, they welcomed them back. But in the– in the heat of the moment it’s pretty tough to live with that kind of breadth that can include a position that seems so radically opposed.”

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[On the Christian tradition’s difficulty in affirming sexuality:] “I think part of it’s our Greek heritage. You know, our tendency toward dualism, that– you know, one part of a human being or a male human being– exemplifies spirit and– a female human being is somehow lesser and– demonstrates the flesh. “With our long-development of an anthropology that says that heterosexual male is a normative human being. We’re– we’ve only begun in the last 150 years to really question that.

“And I believe that the wrestling with the place of women in leadership, particularly in public leadership, is directly related to the same kind of issue over the position of gay and lesbian people in leadership, in public leadership.”