Calling the commentators to task

It happens all the time. Some neatly dressed conservative is interviewed to represent the anti-equality side of the marriage argument.  They are reasonable sounding, quite earnest, and almost convincing that they  have nothing against gay folks, it's not personal, they just want to protect the traditional definition of marriage.  It's a matter of religious freedom.

But when they aren't on the main stream media--when they are talking to their own true believers, then the gloves come off, the vicious comments come out, the lies, the smears, and the slanders.  It's this behavior that has earned some of them "hate group" status at the SPLC, because they are knowingly, and calculatedly, attacking LGBT people.

GLAAD has started a great initiative called the Commentator Accountability Project  to link these two aspects of the common anti-gay commentators.  Interviewers need to KNOW that  Tony Perkins, frequent guest on MSNBC, calls gay people hateful, spiteful, pedophiles, and terrorists.    Interviewers need to KNOW  that Bryan Fischer considers gay people to be Nazis, and the single biggest threat to American survival.  They need to know that Peter Sprigg thinks gays should be imprisoned, or deported.

Of course, the commentators don't say admit on MSNBC or the BBC.  But they should be taxed with it nonetheless.

This isn't about censorship. This is about transparency.

Naturally the commentators are protesting.  But as ThinkProgress writes, 

In every case, these anti-gay voices are claiming to be victims, but they are only victims of their own quotes....The mere fact that they feel the need to respond by condemning GLAAD’s effort validates the value of this project. Now there is an accessible hub for these quotes — albeit not a full archive (by design) — to ensure that pundits don’t get away with being conservative standard-bearers without taking responsibility for the many dangerous lies and offensive values that define them. The jig is up. 

The genius of CAP is that it creates a lose-lose situation for these would-be pundits. They can try to compensate by doubling down on their most offensive talking points and how loudly and widely they share them. Or, they can proceed with their typical media appearances and attempt to use the victim mentality to obfuscate responsibility for their own views. Either way, they stand to lose public favor, and no matter how they condemn GLAAD, that’s surely why they’re so perturbed.

Marriage Repeal in NH? (Updated)

Despite the fact that 60% of voters think this is a mistake, New Hampshire Republicans are going to try to repeal marriage equality in the granite state.  The governor has already promised a veto;  the question is whether they will have enough votes to overturn one.

WHY?  Why, if their constituents are opposed, do the NH Republicans continue to try this?  Why, given the slap-down to Prop8 (as repealing an existing right), do they try to do it?  Who is hearing the "dog whistle" to the right?  Is it just a sort of group-think insanity?

Politically, this is stupid.  Are they really that stupid?  Or filled with hate?

I just don't understand.

From the Concord MOnitor:

Gay couples, nearly 2,000 of them, have been holding weddings in New Hampshire for more than two years. If those marriages have caused any harm to kids, straight couples, schools, neighborhoods, businesses or anything else, there is no evidence of it. Bates and his supporters in the House have provided no coherent argument for their discriminatory legislation - except perhaps discrimination itself…. 

But there is no reason this must be a partisan issue. The Marriage Equality Act extended basic civil rights to a minority group. It improved the lives of hundreds of residents and did no harm to anyone else. It set New Hampshire on the right side of history, ahead of most other states in the union. It is a law that residents and legislators of all political persuasions can be proud of. Why in the world would we undo that?

update: Despite our fears that this would pass, the Republican-majority NH legislature DEFEATED this measure. The arc of history....

Tired of being Bible Bashed?

More sophisticated Christians understand that the Bible is not inerrant and literal--indeed, it contradicts itself frequently.

Thus, whatever you believe, you can find a "proof text" in the Bible, and the person who believes the polar opposite can too.

From the HuffPo:

The idea that we can derive our beliefs from an unbiased reading of the Bible is as pervasive in American discourse as it is untenable. And that fact has significant implications for how we think about the Bible's role in politics. 

When a community claims they can't help but oppose homosexuality because the Bible requires them to do so, or that Jesus would support a liberal economic system, or that if you really read the Bible carefully you should end up supporting Party X, they're showing naivete. What the Bible "requires" depends on the beliefs one brings to it. 

So as the election season heats up, let's stop pretending our ideology comes straight from what the Bible says. The reality is, "what the Bible says" comes straight from our ideology.

Read the whole thing.

Why do they keeping talking about sex? (video Sunday)

Voices of Faith Speak Out: the sacrament of marriage

The Dean of St Albans (Church of England/Anglican, UK), the Rev. Jeffrey John was interviewed about marriage equality. (The UK currently has civil partnerships for LGBT people which it is considering converting to actual civil marriages).

I start from the fact that the Church calls marriage a sacrament because the covenant of love between the married couple reflects the covenant of love between Christ and his Church, and so becomes a channel of God’s own love into the world. The secure framework of marriage helps you to keep loving through the bad times, and in the process it teaches you a deeper sort of love – the sort that involves the will and self-sacrifice and not just feelings. Growing in that sort of love means you are growing in the image and likeness of God.

That is the traditional understanding of Christian marriage. But the big point is, exactly the same love and commitment are possible between two people of the same sex as between two people of different sexes, and it is not immediately clear why the Church should regard such a relationship as ethically or spiritually inferior to a heterosexual marriage.

Of course the procreation of children by two same-sex partners is not possible. But the Church has never seen procreation as a necessity for marriage, and so has always married partners past the age of childbearing. Even in Genesis the first reason given why God created Eve is not childbearing but because ‘God saw that it was not good for man to be alone’.

…What really pleases me is that the call for same-sex marriage comes from gay people themselves. In the past gay people were often accused of being inherently promiscuous, uninterested in or incapable of permanent relationships. Civil partnerships have shown that to be the lie that it always was. The truth is that the great majority of people, gay or straight, know that their best chance of happiness and fulfillment lies in finding a partner to love and grow together with, someone who will be there at the end of the day and at the end of their life. That is not a heterosexual hope or a homosexual hope, it is just a human hope.

It is illogical to argue that same-sex marriage somehow undermines heterosexual marriage. On the contrary, it confirms the value of marriage and extends its blessings to many more people.

Read more from the Voices of Faith series on this blog.

Support from unexpected places

From the WSJ, via Prop8trialtracker:

The most-recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests that views on gay marriage are shifting faster than for any other hot-button social issue in recent memory, pollsters say..... The poll showed the biggest jump among blue-collar voters and African Americans, two key Democratic constituencies. Support among blue-collar voters jumped 20 percentage points to 49%. African-American support for gay marriage rose from 32% to 50%. More than half of Hispanics and voters aged 18 to 34 also voiced support.

Wow! That's quite impressive. The 'tracker goes on to say,

If these trends hold up, this could be big news for the marriage movement, not just in terms of the President’s position but also the greater political landscape itself. .... More importantly, it means that the political majority that favors marriage is not only growing, but becoming more diverse.

It's becoming more American. It's just what Prop8 supporter David Blankenhorn said as he testified against us in the Prop8 trial:

“We would be more American on the day we permit same-sex marriage than the day before.” (source PDF)

Why is support increasing so fast?

We've had a tremendous 2012 so far: the appeal against Prop8 in federal court going for us, another federal court finding (again) that DOMA is unconstitutional, marriage equality moving ahead in several additional states. The road is long but the direction is in our favor.

 This interesting article argues that Prop8 actually helped us, by energizing the movement and a new generation of activists.

“The fact that the timing happened on the very night that Barack Obama, a very progressive candidate and leader in our country, was elected, (it) really shook up the progressive movement in the country,” said Young.

“Without the court battles that have been going on for the last three years, I’m not really sure that the state of Washington or New York or Washington D.C… would have moved as quickly if it hadn’t been for this national dialogue that got started with Proposition 8,” he said.

Additionally, the real lives of LGBT people are more accurately portrayed in the media.

“It’s a combination of both, more portrayals, but also more accurate portrayals,” said Robinson. “I don’t think anything’s more accurate than ‘Modern Family.’” 

“It’s just two average-looking guys, not looking like models, not prissy queens either, who have a kid and it’s just everyday life, and the only difference between them and another couple is they happen to be two guys.”  

And let's not forget that more and more of us are coming out.  That makes a difference.  Polls show that people are more likely to support equality if they know LGBT people.

We will win.  The only question is when.

Another DOMA challenge switches it up

From the Prop8 Trial Tracker, news of another DOMA case.  This one challenges a private company's actions following the death of a legally married lesbian, Ellyn Farley,  whose parents are fighting her wife Jennifer Tobits over Ellyns pension. (Some parents, eh?)

After Ellyn died, her parents, who did not approve of her sexuality, attempted to collect her pension plan benefits. Cozen O’Connor, the firm administering the pension, filed suit asking the Court to determine who should receive Ellyn’s benefits, and Tobits filed a counterclaim against Cozen for breach of fiduciary duty, arguing that it had a responsibility to inform her that it would not recognize spouses of the same sex. 

The National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is representing Tobits in the case, points out that this case is the first of its kind because it concerns the application of DOMA to a private company, not the federal government. In the O’Connor case, Cozen has argued that DOMA prevents it from recognizing same-sex spouses and providing them equal benefits.

The article goes on to explain that DOMA has never been considered to apply to private companies (indeed, many firms explicitly recognized married gay people) so this would be an unprecedented expansion were the court to find that it does.  Seems unlikely, but one never knows.

Are Roman Catholic leaders modern Pharisees?

Andrew Sullivan is a conservative gay blogger, married, and a Roman Catholic.  As the RC Bishops ramp up their opposition to civil marriage in the UK (and in the US, of course) he writes:

Any sign that the Catholic hierarchy might sympathize with gay people, defend them against hate or marginalization, or recognize their human dignity ... is over the horizon. 

This is a church now intent on erasing from visibility a small minority of human beings, while waging a campaign to keep them as second class citizens in their own countries and as subhuman "objectively disordered" beings in their own church. They cannot even speak our name. Because were they to see us as the human beings we are, if they had to confront the actual experienced reality of our lives, if they actually had a conversation with us, and engaged the problem rather than dismissing it as "madness", their pretense would be exposed. 

The leaders of the current Catholic hierarchy are the Pharisees of our time. They are the people Jesus came to liberate us from. And he does. And he will.

Film trailer: with every heartbeat (video Sunday)

This looks like a good one.  From Sweden, an award-winning romance:

Trailer WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT (Kyss mig) 2011 from LEBOX PRODUKTION on Vimeo.

Voices of Faith Speak Out: Support from the UK

In the UK, gay couples can get civil unions. The discussion now is whether they should be married. And, because Anglicanism is a state religion (no separation of church and state there), whether such marriages should be recognized in church is a political question.

The Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, London, is firmly in favor:

The Very Rev Dr David Ison, who was appointed by the Queen this week, said the church should welcome gay people wanting to take on the virtues of marriage, such as faithfulness.

"We need to take seriously people's desire for partnership and make sure that the virtues that you see in married relationships are available to people who are gay," he said...

"For Christian gay people to model that kind of faithfulness, in a culture which, historically, has often been about promiscuity, is a very good thing to do."

....Asked whether the government was right to change the law on gay marriage, Ison said a commitment to being together was "the best pattern for how to flourish if you're going to be in a relationship ... whether you're gay or straight."

He added: "Marriage doesn't belong to the Church."

Read more from the Voices of Faith series on this blog.

Should the Christian Right adapt, or fight?

Last year, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said something almost unthinkable:  

I think it's clear that something like same-sex marriage - indeed, almost exactly what we would envision by that - is going to become normalized, legalized, and recognized in the culture. It's time for Christians to start thinking about how we're going to deal with that.

Then this week, it was reported that the Roman Catholic church in Maine will not re-fight the marriage issue politically, but will work instead on educating Catholics about doctrinal views.

The largely in-house educational initiative represents a significant departure from the major role that the diocese played in supporting a successful 2009 referendum against gay marriage. The diocese contributed more than $500,000 to that $3.8 million campaign and its public affairs director took a leave of absence to lead the effort.

(Of course, the cynic in me wonders how much of this is because of the black eye the RC church got from the admitted lies they told in the last Maine election.  Or because NOM, the anti-equality front  group, has lost the legal battle to keep its donors in Maine secret, and the RCs fear they are going to look bad when it all comes out.  But I digress.)

So, with these bellwethers, is it time for the rest of the Christian right to figure out whether it's going to keep telling lies and attacking gay people, or is it time they adapt?  

It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance of gay men and lesbians and insistence on their equal rights are inexorable. If the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" weren't enough to signal the turning point, or the classification of several gay-resisting Christian right organizations as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there came news that Exodus International was ending its involvement in the anti-homosexuality"Day of Truth" in U.S. high schools. "We need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace," Exodus President Alan Chambers explained, "while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether we agree with them or not." 

Add it up, and you see a decision point at hand for socially conservative Christian groups such as the Family Research Council that have led resistance to gay rights. Do they fight to the last ditch, continue shouting the anti-gay rhetoric that rings false and mean to the many Americans who live and work with gay people, or who themselves are gay? Or do they soften their tone and turn their attention to other fronts?

...Conservative Christian leaders ought to be very careful about their rhetoric going forward — careful not to continue giving the impression that being Christian is in large measure about opposing gay rights, and careful not to let the public expression of their faith become primarily associated with something that looks, sounds and feels like hate to growing segments of the population. 

Fighting to the end might sound gallant, but it's not a road to glory so much as a ticket to infamy — an infamy akin to that borne by the likes of Bull Connor, George Wallace and other villains of civil rights history. Is that any hill for Christians to die on?

Prop8 video

You can watch a video of the star-studded reading of Dustin Lance Black's play "8", from the transcripts of the Prop8 trial. It's surprisingly moving. The reading starts at 29min. But watch it (or download it) soon, because the video will only be available till Saturday night.

Getting to know us can make the difference

During the Prop8 campaign, everyone complained about the horrendous ads.  Oh, not the ones from the other side, which were predictable, but the ones from ours.  No gay people in sight.  Our own side talking ABOUT us, not with us, and focused on "legality" and "unfairness".  Studies since then show over and over that focusing on legal issues is a turn off.  What makes a difference is the human connection.  

The LA Times has a story on this:

Wade Kach, left scrambling for a seat in a packed committee hearing last month, found a spot near the witness table. 

"I saw with so many of the gay couples, they were so devoted to one another. I saw so much love," said Kach, a member of the (MD) House of Delegates. "When this hearing was over, I was a changed person in regard to this issue." 

Putting a human face on same-sex marriage reflects a strategic change — one that can pack an emotional wallop and, as Kach's experience shows, win over the undecided or even opponents. 

The message "used to be one that focused on rights, parity in benefits," said Fred Sainz, vice president of communications and marketing for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group based inWashington, D.C. 

Since about 2008, Sainz said, same-sex marriage activists have begun "talking about love, honor and commitment."

Because it's about people.

Harvey Milk was right.  We have to come out.  Over and over again, we have to come out and tell our stories. Because we never know who is listening and what hearts can be changed.

The story behind the Prop8 case

For those legal junkies amongst you, or if you are just an interested layman, this is an outstanding story explaining the logic behind AFER and the Prop8 federal case.   Go read the whole thing!

It was nearly 3:25 P.M. on May 22, 2009--the Friday before Memorial Day weekend--when Enrique Monagas approached the counter at the court clerk's office in San Francisco's Federal Building to file a complaint. Although Monagas tried to appear nonchalant, his heart was pounding.... His instructions were to wait until the last possible moment, and the deadline for presenting new matters was 3:30 p.m. Dressed in his usual casual Friday clothes, Monagas nervously handed over the short stack of papers.

A tale of two churches

Maryland has approved marriage equality. It will, predictably, go to the voters for a MD-version of Prop8, the outcome of which is unclear. What we do know is that it will be hard fought.

 Two Episcopal Bishops have immediately responded by approving marriages between same sex couples in their churches. (Read more here). Now THAT is religious freedom.

The Roman Catholic bishops of course by contrast are passionate opponents of marriage equality. Indeed, they are passionate opponents of gay people generally. Two recent stories (H/T Madpriest) highlight their opposition. Both feature gay people who were not bringing their sexuality into the church in any political way…but were not suitably closeted and were punished simply for being.

 In one story, a Catholic priest refused Communion to a lesbian woman at her mother's funeral. The woman and her family are shocked and deeply hurt. I believe that RC policy is that Communion is not to be used as a weapon in a public manner--and the woman was not making an issue of her sexuality.

 In a second story, a teacher has been fired for getting married. Apparently they had no problem with him "living in sin". He wrote a very well-worded letter asking his supporters not to politicize this. The gay individuals involved are people of far more grace than certain clergy.

 The Roman Church comes across very badly. I hate to say it, but a welcoming Episcopal church really needs to step forward as the Catholic alternative when this kind of thing happens.

Momentum in NC (video Sunday)

There's a fight to keep an anti-marriage amendment out of the North Carolina Constitution.  The election is in May.  What do you think of this?

Voices of Faith Speak out: Christian conviction demands equality

I like what the (Episcopal) Bishop of Washington (DC) said:

Many of us in the Episcopal Church, which I serve as a bishop, know same-sex couples whose relationships can only be described as holy, and thus we have come to support the blessing of such unions. They stand in stark contrast with many exploitative and casual patterns of sexuality that both heterosexual and homosexual Christians are right to reject. 

....Every generation, it seems, has struggled to include someone previously thought to be outside the realm of God’s grace and full humanity. In our time, we in the Episcopal Church have come to understand that God shows no partiality between straight and gay people. Not every same-sex couple is a paragon of holiness, but neither is every heterosexual couple. Life long relationships are hard, which is why the support of religious and societal institutions is so important. 

From the convictions of my Christian faith, and in support of my gay and lesbian friends whose relationships inspire me in my marriage, I urge Marylanders to join me in supporting the marriage equality legislation currently under consideration in their state.

Why it matters: the one left behind

From Philly.com:

....when Marilyn succumbed to ALS in 2005, Diane couldn't sign the death certificate, donate the body to medical research, or collect Social Security......

Six years later - after civil unions became law and the Legislature passed a marriage-equality bill that Gov. Christie promptly vetoed - Diane still can't legally call herself a widow. A Superior Court judge's ruling last week gave gay couples renewed hope, but Diane remains stuck in the financial quicksand that traps the surviving spouse of same-sex unions.

...same-sex survivors are subject to punishing federal estate taxes heterosexual couples don't face.

State-by-state marriage-equality laws are a positive step, but what gay couples deserve is federal recognition. Then and only then, Orman said, O'Donnell could leave her wife "$100 billion and she wouldn't have to pay one penny."

I really believe that the only way the opposition can justify this kind of ill treatment is because they really DO hate us.

No one is "redefining marriage"

Laurel Ramseyer:

[L]aws permitting civil marriage for same-sex couples don’t redefine civil marriage. What those laws do is extend access to civil marriage to couples of the same sex. 

In a similar vein Anne Levinson, who is coordinating the challenge to the Washington Attorney General’s proposed ballot title for Referendum 74 has said, “laws that eliminate bans on inter-racial marriage and laws that eliminate bans on marriage for same-sex couples don’t redefine marriage. What these laws do is extend the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage to couples who were previously denied marriage licenses by their government. The meaning of marriage remains unchanged. The marriage laws themselves remain unchanged. The responsibilities and rights of married couples remain unchanged. Nobody’s civil marriage is in any way redefined, nor is the meaning of marriage changed or the clergy’s complete religious freedom to perform or celebrate or not perform or celebrate any marriage in accordance with their beliefs.” 

The catchphrase “redefine marriage” is a dodge from the real discussion at hand: permitting same-sex couples access to civil marriage.

As she notes, we didn't consider voting "redefined" when we allowed black men (1870) or women (19120) to vote.  We didn't consider marriage "redefined" when we eliminated anti-miscegenation laws.  Extending rights to all is not a "redefinition".  Call them out on this!