Voices of Faith: an evangelical for marriage

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Voices of Faith

Presbyterian minister Mark Achtemeier talks to Candace Chellew-Hodge at Religion Dispatches about his new book, The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage: An Evangelical's Change of Heart.

I really like his description of marriage:

Marriage is this arena where we can totally give ourselves to another person in body, spirit, and life and commitment and grow in that total gift of self which winds up being an image of Jesus’ total gift of himself for us.

Achtemeier used to be ardently opposed to marriage equality, and considered being gay "like drinking poison".  But no more:

 One of the things that was powerful for me in breaking out of that mindset was testimony about the blessings that came to gay and lesbian people through their committed relationships. Early in the book I talk about a conversation with a friend who said they knew all about identifying sin in their life and repenting of it, but when they thought about marriage to their partner, that’s what brought out the best in them and helped them learn love and self-sacrifice and nothing that needed to be repented of.

That really struck me that it sounded like my marriage.

The other thing that took me a long time to wrap my mind around is that an awful lot of Evangelicals really haven’t grappled with recognizing that this is not something you could choose your way out of. There’s always this sense of, “If you really tried hard, or prayed hard enough, you could come around.” Again, my gay friends would say, “Why on earth would I choose something like this? Who needs all this trouble?”

I think it’s the willingness of gay and lesbian people in sharing their stories that finally got it through my thick head that this isn’t an optional lifestyle, it’s a given.

Yet another reason why we must continue to come out !   Minds do change!

Until we could (video Sunday)

Marriage, after 70 years (video Sunday)

By now, you've heard the news of two women in Iowa who have been partners for 70 years, who got married. Oh, I can just hear the sanctity of marriage tumbling down! (NOT!) It's a very charming story.

Who takes marriage most seriously?

A columnist at the HuffPo writes about her thoughts upon attending her gay brother's wedding.  And about what she learned about "the sanctity of marriage".

Weddings mark the start of a shared union -- a lifelong partnership between two people who have chosen to make binding promises to one another. Promises that often involve agreeing to work on the marriage when it needs to be worked on and to fight for it when it needs to be fought for. 

And if I had to guess which couples would be likely to work and fight the hardest for their marriages, I would predict it to be those who have already worked hard and fought to make marrying their partners a possibility in the first place. 

.....
Marriage is, indeed, sacred. But if proponents of traditional marriage are truly worried about sanctity, doesn't taking marriage away from those who likely revere it the most -- the same-sex couples like my brother and his husband whose ceremonies are far more focused on the extreme gratitude over their ability to be legally recognized in marriage than the cosmetic details of the day -- seem to contradict what they are after?

It's up to the supremes

From Scotusblog (Lyle Denniston)

With lawyers moving very rapidly, the number of appeals to the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage rose on Tuesday to seven, as state officials in Indiana and Wisconsin separately challenged a federal appeals court ruling against their bans, and lawyers for the couples planned to file immediate replies. The new cases landed at the Court five days after that decision; the states had the option of taking ninety days to file.
... 

The Court has the option of taking on either or both issues, and it also has the option of putting off any consideration for the time being, despite the heavy pressure from virtually everyone involved in the cases, who contend that the Court should not wait any longer to decide. None of the cases is a mandatory appeal. It would be highly unusual, however, for the Court to pass up all of the cases, when everyone is championing review now. 

If the Court opts to take on the controversy anytime up to mid-January, a final ruling could be expected before the new Term is completed late next June.

And guess what?  The case may well rest not on constitutional law, not on fairness, but on religious freedom.  Mark Silk at Religion News Service on an amicus brief filed for Utah:

The religious organizations make clear in their amicus brief that, besides addressing all relevant Fourteenth Amendment issues, the Utah case uniquely addresses the burden placed on religious liberty by SSM. Quoting from a 2012 letter from a coalition of anti-SSM religious leaders, they write:

Judicially redefining marriage powerfully conflicts with religious liberty because, among other reasons, such a dramatic change in the law inevitably will lead to “forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations – throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies – to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalent of marital sexual conduct.”… 

Utah’s petition provides an opportunity to address whether avoiding religious conflicts and church-state entanglements is a sufficiently weighty reason, alone or combined with other interests, to warrant allowing States to retain the age-old definition of marriage. 

If the court did find such avoidance sufficiently weighty, I’ve no doubt that the next legal step would be to ask that all states be forbidden to permit SSM on religious liberty grounds. But the real significance of the brief, it seems to me, is that it represents an acknowledgment that SSM is becoming the law of the land, and that the battle has now moved to the securing of legal exemptions for religious objectors.

So, the logic here is that anti-gay archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's religions freedom demands that the state deny me my civil rights (not to mention any non-Catholic church's religious freedom to marry me).  The sad thing is, after Hobby Lobby, it's just what might appeal to the 5 Catholics on the bench in DC.

Because nothing says "Christian love" like wishing a child's parents dead

Honestly, can they sink any lower in inhumanity?  From Think Progress: 

In a new blog post by IFI’s Laurie Higgins this week, the group takes on a new target: the children of same-sex couples, who Higgins expects would find “joy” in imagining their parents dead. 

....Her primary concern is that children should not ever see books about same-sex families, deeming any portrayal of a same-sex couple as  “homoeroticism” and “sexual perversion.” Instead, she suggests that librarians consider adding the following kinds of books (granting the premise that such books even exist):....

• Young adult (YA) novels about teens who feel sadness and resentment about being intentionally deprived of a mother or father and who seek to find their missing biological parents..... 

• Picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy.

Armagayddon (Video Sunday)

Posnered: the 7th circuit speaks

In a unanimous decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeal found that the marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana are unconstitutional.  What everyone is talking about is the scathing opinion by Judge Posner, a Reagan appointee who is widely considered to be one of the most influential living jurists.  From the opinion, summarizing the states' argument:

Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

From Slate,  an analysis,

There is simply no harm, Posner writes, “tangible, secular, material—physical or financial, or … focused and direct” done to anybody by permitting gay marriage. Conservative Christians may be offended, but “there is no way they are going to be hurt by it in a way that the law would take cognizance of.” A lot of people, after all, objected to interracial marriage in 1967—but that didn’t stop the court from invalidating anti-miscegenation laws inLoving v. Virginia.

In his opinion, Posner makes these points with trenchant humor. But beneath his droll wit lies a moral seriousness that gay marriage opponents, even those on the high court, will be unable to shrug off. The modern arguments against gay marriage may be breathtakingly silly—but by mocking them, we ignore the profound harms that marriage bans inflict on gay people and their families. By placing these families at the center of his analysis, Posner restores the equal protection clause to its rightful place as the safeguard for all whom the state seeks to harm unjustly. His message for those who hope to demean gay people and their children is clear: Not on my watch.

From Twitter, the neologism Posnered, meaning to reduce an argument to rubble.

Christian anti-gay activist apologizes? Voices of Faith....

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Voices of Faith

Former activist anti-gay Randy Thomas apologizes.   He writes,

To be clear, my view of marriage in a spiritual context has not changed. I believe the wedding union of husband and wife bears the image of God uniquely..... 

What I am also trying to learn is how I can state my beliefs without being a jerk about it. ...

I have also come to believe that trying to make our secular government impose my
spiritual beliefs in this matter is not helpful or appropriate.

So, he's not a supporter per se, but he seems to get the separation of faith and civil law. I'm perfectly okay with that. It's progress.  He goes on,

The night that Prop 8 in California and Amendment 2 in Florida (both banning gay marriage) passed I was jubilant. I truly believed what we had done was right and good. ....What I didn’t make widely known was how heart-broken I was when I saw the gay community in California take to the streets. Their protests that night and in the days afterwards tugged at me. When I saw their grief-stricken faces my heart twisted in my chest. It was the first time in a long time I remember thinking, “did we do something wrong?” ...Eventually the doubt over what we had done would get louder in my mind and change from a question to a conviction; a conviction that indeed we had done something terribly wrong.

 He concludes

Today, I can honestly say that I am glad that the courts are striking down all the marriage bans across the country. It is my hope that we (Christians) can learn from the past, make the appropriate amends, and rebuild dialog and relationships with the LGBT community.

There are a number of prominent evangelicals who are coming around to being pro-marriage equality -- Brian McClaren, Steve Chalke, Rob Bell, Ken Wilson....  Most of them get rejected by their communities as apostates.  But the tide is turning.   And I would remind my fellow members of the rainbow tribe that forgiveness is a virtue.  Life is too short to hold a grudge.  Let's move ahead for justice, together.

Streak ends, as it must

A federal judge in Louisiana finds rational basis in supporting that state's marriage ban because, well, incest.  From THink progress:

Political operatives seeking to cast aspersions on Feldman’s approach to gay rights will find a lot to work with in his opinion. At one point, he describes being gay as one of several “lifestyle choices” a person can make. At another point in his opinion, he compares same-sex marriage to marriage between “aunt and niece,” “aunt and nephew,” or “father and child.” He also likens marriage equality to polygamous marriages.

He also seems a little confused about the 14th amendment, which is not limited to issues of race.  This one will head up to the 5th circuit for appeal.

Meanwhile, in this first of --what, 30?-- decisions on our side, the fundies are rejoicing with their dehumanizing, hate-filled rhetoric.