The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
Reverend Joan Montagnes and about 50 members and friends of the East Shore Unitarian Church took it to the streets of Bellevue, Washington Sunday. Rev. Joan said she put out the call for lay leadership, Chris Conkling answered, and the event happened in short order.
Their message: Vote APPROVED on Referendum 71!
Their philosophy: The visibility was a natural expression of the U-U's foundational Seven Principles, especially We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person [and] respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. More than one participant stated that for them, service is a form of prayer or worship. Joan shared the following shared convictions with me
Today both love and fear are rising up in our nation.
* We stand on the side of love.
* We want to harness the power of love to stop oppression, exclusion and violence.
* We believe that homophobia, not homosexuality is a sin.
Powerful words.
Yours truly learned about the event through the equality grapevine: the local district democrats put out the word to neighboring district dems, one of whom is a PFLAGger who sent notice out to her network, and voila!
It is said that our opponents have an advantage because they have a pre-fab church network to utilize. That's true, but so do we. Last I checked there were over 160 faith leaders, congregations and organizations representing three faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Unitarian) and four entire denominations (United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist, Methodist, Lutheran) who have endorsed the Approve 71 campaign. These folks come from Anacortes, Arlington, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Bellingham, Bothell, DuPont, Edmonds, Ellensburg, Everett, Federal Way, Freeland, Friday Harbor, Kenmore, Kirkland, Lacey, Lake Forest Park, Langley, Maple Valley, Mercer Island, Monroe, Newport, Olympia, Pullman, Puyallup, Renton, Seattle, Shoreline, Spokane, Tacoma, Tieton, Vancouver, Woodinville, Yakima
They represent the following denominations and faiths: American Baptist, Apostolic Catholic Church in America, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Mennonite, Methodist, Metropolitan Community Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA), Quaker, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Living Waters Fellowship, Center for Spiritual Living, Unity Spiritual Life Center, Buddhist, Jewish, Unitarian, Unitarian-Universalist.
Janet Tu of The Seattle Times has written the terrific article Religion no litmus test on Ref. 71 which summarizes the scene.
In the past several weeks, Jessica Gavre, director of the social-justice program at First United Methodist Church in Tacoma, has knocked on doors, hosted a fundraiser at her church and handed out inserts for church bulletins - all on behalf of Referendum 71.
She and others at her church have urged fellow faith leaders to preach sermons and write letters to the editor about the importance of upholding the recent expansion of the state's domestic-partnership law for same-sex and senior couples.
"Our faith community believes that all people deserve equal rights and protection under the law," Gavre said.
Pro-equality people of faith in Washington are speaking up and speaking out. The power of their service is evident not just by the positive responses of passing drivers, but on the faces of participating LGBT people who rarely have their humanity affirmed so publicly.
Today anti-equality activist, Bothell preacher and flip-flopper Joe Fuiten dispatched this message from a Family Research Council executive in Tennessee
The time has come for God's people in Washington State to stand for marriage and vote to "Reject" on Referendum 71!
While Fuiten seems to prefer that out-of-staters like Oregonian Gary Randall or the FRC-Tennessee guy do the talking, I think Washington voters respond best to the voices and opinions of real Washingtonians. Below the fold is a sampling of what God's people in Washington State are saying.
There's a wonderful story in The Durham News about the LGBT-affirming churches in Durham that march in the NC Pride parade to counter the anti-gay houses of worship that show up with their "turn or burn" signs and show that there are churches with open arms for LGBTs of faith.
For years, the presence of Christian groups at the N.C. Gay Pride Festival and Parade held annually in Durham were folks with bullhorns on the sidewalk suggesting that these visitors to the city take their festivities elsewhere.
In the past few years, however, attitudes have been changing and some area congregations have begun marching in the parade, handing out literature and riding on floats. The message is that people don't have to choose between their sexual orientation and their religion.
One church, Calvary United Methodist, is well-known for showing up to hand out bottles of water to overheated parade marchers, offering an invitation to worship on the label of the botte.
The Rev. Laurie Hays Coffman, the pastor, said one of the high moments in her ministry came a few years ago when a young man stepped out of the marching crowd, put his arms around her and said it was the first time he had seen anyone from a church at a parade without a bullhorn inviting him and his fellow walkers to get out of town.
Other churches attending Pride this weekend are regulars Watts Street Baptist, Pilgrim United Church of Christ on Academy Drive, Binkley Baptist in Chapel Hill (carrying a banner that says "All are Welcome in this Place"). Watts Street will have a Noah's ark themed float this year, with the organist dressed as Noah(!) Pilgrim will have a booth at Pride and march in the parade; its senior pastor, Rev. Ginger Brasher-Cunningham, will hold an Ecumenical Communion service at 11 a.m. The parade kicks off at 1PM.
The presence of these houses of worship is another spoke in the wheel of my keynote at Pride. The problem these bigoted "Christians" have to contend with is that their myopic worldview is there is only one Christian POV (never mind any other faiths) -- this nonsense is what, in the end, is going to sink the bible-based anti-gay movement. For the American South, a region steeped in religion -- and hypocrisy -- this is the kind of pushback needed to marginalized those who judge (while sinning the other six days of the week), rather than condemn religion itself.
The week after Pride, Pilgrim United Church of Christ will have a celebration to commemorate 10 years as an open and affirming congregation, on October 3 from 10-noon. The event will feature The Common Woman Chorus (friends of mine are in the group), and the Rev. Yvette Flunder of City of Refuge UCC in San Francisco will speak. Flunder does amazing work.
Ten years ago, some members of the church were concerned about how becoming an Open and Affirming congregation would affect them. The congregation overall was supportive, but there were a few reservations, said Dan Barco, a member for 25 years. UCC congregations are independent, so while the process was presented at the denominational level, churches choose for themselves whether or not to become Open and Affirming.
"As a congregation, the topic was unsettling for some," said Barco. "It's also painful to engage in conflict."
He was chairman of the deacon board when the church went through the process, which took about two years. First, the congregation had to agree they'd talk about it and educate themselves about the implication of becoming Open and Affirming. Then they undertook committees, educational sessions and more discussions involving what the Bible does and doesn't say about homosexuality. They hosted visits from people on various sides of the issue including PFLAG parents, other pastors and churches that went through the process already, and gays and lesbians who spoke about their experiences at church.
One person left Pilgrim, but later returned, Barco said. "Actually, we ended up with less impact than my fears at their worst," he said. As deacon chair, his job was to bring everybody together. Looking back, the move was positive, he said.
Wingnut radio host and supremely anti-gay and offensive Clown Hall columnist Kevin McCullough inadvertently gives a comical interview to Daddy-D's "news organ" CitizenLink. Perhaps the most revealing moment is a portrayal of actor and fundie Stephen Baldwin's immersion into Christian radio, something McCullough takes credit for:
I think everyone's going to want to know how you got Stephen Baldwin involved in all this!
I had moved to New York in 2003 to do a show there. And Stephen's wife, the lovely Mrs. Baldwin, was listening. She listens to Christian radio all the time. And she had my show on and she's using the butcher knife and she's chopping the vegetables for the dinner that night and she's talking out loud to no one in the kitchen. She's like, "That's right, you tell 'em!" "That's what I'm sayin'!" Stephen comes down and he's like, "Sweetie, who are you talking to?" And she's got this butcher knife in her hands and she wheels around and points the butcher knife at him and says, "You need to be more like that guy!" Stephen started listening and he's always been a junkie of talk radio. And so he called in and funny enough, I didn't know who he was! But he, for no explainable reason, befriended me and out of that friendship grew a real, simultaneous passion to reach the fifteen to thirty-four generation.
The interview also covers McCullough's unsurprising but tired opposition to health care reform by referring to the plan as 'Gestapo-care':
If you historically understand that the Gestapo was the part of the SS who were basically empowered to report on their neighbors, to be the nannies of everyone else around them, that's what the White House asked us to do on its blog when it said, 'if you receive emails, if you are seeing web sites or if you're having casual conversations in which people are spreading "disinformation." And given what this administration seems to already have the penchant to do, and that is interpret things to their advantage at all times, if you just have a different opinion about it or draw a different statistical conclusion that doesn't square with their numbers, I could be considered to be someone spreading disinformation. As I told Cavuto on Fox News, the executive branch of government has no business monitoring my own private discussions about health care. So, on that level alone, I think that it is a Gestapo-like tactic that they were trying to very subtly encourage.
WTF? Isn't it interesting that people like McCullough (and his listeners), always seem to want government out of our private lives but they are the first to scream and protest for federal and state control over whether LGBTs can be fired for being out, or whether same-sex couples can marry.
More below the fold -- how this kind of garbage stokes the know-nothing/birther/health care town hall nutcases.
If you are in the St. Louis, MO area on September 25-26, you can stop by the St. Louis Frontenac Hilton and join some luminaries of the far-right fundamentalist conservative agenda at "How to Take Back America." Take a look at the "co-chairmen" and host committee; with Phyllis Schlafly and Janet Folger Porter helming this motherlode of bible-based, flat-earth, non-reality-based thinking, it is surely going to produce entertainment of the highest order.
That said, this is planned as a wound-licking session for a movement rejected in the last election cycle, so now it is in regroup and heal mode.
The organizers of this conferece are asking folks to let them know which workshops they are most interested in. Taking a look at the prospects, below (and you can surf over to vote!), one can observe that: 1) a good number of these fundies and wingnuts haven't a clue about the Internets, and 2) the level of paranoia and fear of education, women and homos hasn't died down one iota.
Becoming a more effective activist
How conservative activists can use media techniques
How to use the media to take back America
How to lobby Legislators
How to make a three minute speech
How to recruit candidates and run for office
How to “Market”, “Frame”, and “spin” your issue
Building a grassroots movement
How to build a grassroots movement
How to organize your precinct, a meeting, a House Meeting and a rally
How to make your state political convention a grassroots event
How to run a grassroots campaign
How to activate people in your church
Constitutional issues
How to defeat a Con Con and a National Popular Vote
How to keep ERA permanently dead
How to deal with the supremacist judiciary
Economic Issues
How to stop entry of illegal drugs and people
How to stop what isn’t free in free trade
How to keep global warming from leading to global government
How to stop spending that causes trillions of $ of debt
Education Issues
How to protect parents rights against UN treaties
How to protect parents rights against “village” advocates, schools, and family courts
How to teach criticisms of evolution
How and why to encourage homeschooling
Foreign Policy Issues
How to defend America vs. missile attack
How to defeat attacks on sovereignty by UN treaties
Social Issues
How to defend traditional marriage and DOMA
How to pass effective pro-life bills and avoid pro-life defeats
How to defend against gay attacks on marriage and religious speech
How to stop feminist and gay attacks on the military
Using 21st Century technology
How to use the Internet effectively: Internet 101
How to organize your community on the Internet
How to promote conservatism online
Also, the “How to Take Back America” conference has just announced a very special speaker:
Rep. Michele Bachmann will be our luncheon speaker on Saturday, Sept. 26. Rep. Bachmann is one of the few courageous conservative leaders of our day. From fighting wasteful spending to exposing ACORN, Rep. Bachmann is a tireless in her efforts to protect our freedoms.
Just about every insane right-wing conspiracy theory currently in circulation has been embraced by one or more of the organizers of this event, all of whom have actively worked to spread the fear that Obama and the Democrats are out to destroy Christianity and turn America into a socialist hellhole.
And Mike Huckabee, instead of trying to distance himself from the lunacy of his former supporters, openly and willingly continues to associate with them.
Former President Jimmy Carter has frequently referred to his faith in public. As a Southern Baptist, he has watched the denomination become increasingly hostile toward women in particular.
In his essay "Losing my religion for equality," he announces that, after 60 years with the Southern Baptist Convention, he's had enough of the discrimination embedded within the church -- the belief that women are not equal to men in the eyes of the SBC's God.
I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.
At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
Carter also recognizes that calling out the hypocrisy and discrimination in the SBC (as well as other religions) is stepping on a third rail topic.
I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.
The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
This is a powerful challenge to the status quo; it is also true that religious leaders use sacred texts to condemn LGBTs as worthy of persecution, even death. I would hope that Jimmy Carter and other Elders could find it in their hearts to issue a statement of equal support challenging people of faith whose views hurt and kill on this front as well.
A friend of mine picked up for me a book entitled "The Reason for God", a tome authored by a religious man, to answer the popularity of books by so-called "New Atheists" like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, and the movie Religulous and other commentary by Bill Maher.
What Maher and filmmaking cohorts don't appear to understand is that a person can be a Jew, have an enjoyable evening around the Sabbath table, and not believe that God actually created the world in seven days; that a Christian can stand up with her community, recite the 1700-year-old Nicene Creed, not believe a word of it, but still be moved by the experience of collective recitation; that a Muslim can make the pilgrimage to Mecca, touch the Kaaba, and still realize that at its base it is, indeed, a meteorite and not a holy rock from God. Maher even goes so far as to claim that "Christians believe" they are drinking the blood of a man who lived 2000 years ago. But he never asks anyone if they believe that. It's a straw man argument. Even if this theological idea of "transubstantiation" has been written into Catholic dogma for centuries, I've yet to meet a Catholic who believes what Maher claims they believe (though I'm sure he could find a couple if he just kept throwing money at the film).
"This Bible is designed for the decent, hardworking core of America, the ordinary man or woman who loves this nation and believes it springs from godly roots," says Richard G. Lee, a Southern Baptist pastor from Georgia who served as the Bible's general editor.
People in the Lone Star State are tired of the bible beating flat-earth set trying to slip "intelligent design" into the public schools. One big proponent of this kind of misinformation, Republican Don McLeroy, saw his nomination by Rick Perry to head up the Texas State Board of Ed drop-kicked by the state Senate. (Dallas Morning News):
The Senate rejected Republican Don McLeroy's nomination as chairman of the State Board of Education on Thursday after Democrats decried his lack of leadership and "endless culture wars" over evolution and other volatile topics.
...Several Democrats cited the recurring divisiveness on the board with McLeroy at the helm, along with his resistance to the views of educators and education experts on curriculum and other matters.
Gov. Rick Perry, who nominated McLeroy, will now have to select another member of the board to serve as chairman.
...In an hourlong debate on the nomination, Senate Democratic leader Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio said that under McLeroy's leadership, the State Board of Education has become a "laughingstock of the nation" with its battles over evolution, sex education and other issues.
"His actions and leadership have caused the board to be extremely dysfunctional, and that has harmed the 4.7 million schoolchildren of Texas," she said. Van de Putte added that McLeroy has "recklessly disregarded the advice" of education experts.
The Republicans countered with reasoning that only affirms why someone like McLeroy has no business in the field of public education. One defender, Sen. Steve Ogden said this:
"If we vote against Dr. McLeroy, the perception among many Texans will be that if you are a conservative and believe in the infallibility and literacy of the Bible, there is no need to apply to be on the State Board of Education."
You've got to be kidding me. Is this a serious statement? No one cares what McLeroy's personal beliefs are; he just cannot impose his religious view of the world upon the young people going through the Texas school system. One can only conclude that Sen. Ogden believes he also was elected to vote based his the infallibility of the Bible. The Texas GOP is obviously infested with a severe case of wingnuttery that needs to be healed.
Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
The morning of November 5th, 2008, was bittersweet. I awoke that morning, after Barack Obama's historic, with a sense of hope diminished by a nagging despair following the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which attempted to snatch away the equality that that the state Supreme Court granted to same-sex couples just months ago. The Obama campaign slogan, "Yes we can," was transformed into "Yes we did," by revelers in the streets of D.C. and in other locations across the country and around the world. I couldn't honestly join in the celebration without also reminding myself that "No, we didn't."
For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.
~ Audre Lourde
The other reason I finally felt the need to speak about the collision between marriage equality and the homophobia of some African-Americans is more personal.
The gay men in Bishop Alfred Owens' congregation who felt they "had no choice" but to participate in the degradation and denial of their own humanity are not alone. It's a performance that takes place in some form or fashion every Sunday, in black churches (and beauty shops or barber shops, for that matter) across the country, which Michael Eric Dyson captured in his essay "The Black Church and Sexuality."
One of the most painful scenarios of black church life is repeated Sunday after Sunday with little notice or collective outrage. A black minister will preach a sermon railing against sexual ills, especially homosexuality. At the close of the sermon, a soloist, who everybody knows is gay, will rise to perform a moving number, as the preacher extends an invitation to visitors to join the church. The soloist is,in effect, being asked to sign his theological death sentence. His presence at the end of such a sermon symbolizes a silent endorsement of the preacher's message. Ironically, the presence of his gay christian body at the highest moment of worship also negates the preacher's attempt to censure his presence, to erase his body, to deny his legitimacy as a child of God.
... the black church, an institution that has been at the heart of black emancipation, refuses to unlock the oppressive closet for gays and lesbians. ...Black Christians, who have been despised and oppressed for much of our existence, should be wary of extending that oppression to our lesbian sisters and our gay brothers.
That performance is the price some of us pay to remain in or part of the communities we started out calling home.
Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq.
Less than one month after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, a "Worldwide Intelligence Update" reached then-President Bush with the following quote on the cover of the briefing, above photos of jubilant Iraqi crowds in newly liberated Baghdad: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him...To deliver their soul from death."
One week earlier, on April 3, 2003, another of these reports reached Bush, and its cover contained a passage from the book of Proverbs: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
Over the last few days we have seen the White House struggle toanswer questions about the failed discriminatory policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell, as well as respond intelligently to the recent positive domino effect of marriage equality occurring in states -- moves that affirm those governments realize separate is not equal.
Candidate Obama decided to regress his political position from supporting full marriage equality to a "God is in the mix" conflation of religious and civil marriage when he ran for president. What was seen as a political necessity/reality at the time has wreaked havoc on the PR front of late, but it has also allowed the anti-gay establishment to cite his opposition to marriage equality over and over again. The old unintended consequences -- at our expense.
Marc Fisher in the WaPo takes the position that yes, pols like Obama and fellow equality regression-sufferer Marion Barry are indeed using the LGBT community as a political football.
In 1996, Barack Obama responded to a Chicago newspaper's questions about the issue with these words: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
...Obama has characteristically reached out to the center, writing in his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope": "It is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided . . . and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history."
Yeah, that's his political escape hatch -- that he will have some "moment of clarity" sometime in the future, a political revelation (guided by polls, of course), that separate is not equal. Fisher offer this rationale for both Marion Barry's opposition to marriage recognition in DC and Obama's absurd position on equality:
Barry's claim to be "a moral politician" was catnip to the late-night TV comics. But he has positioned himself of late as the voice of pre-gentrification D.C. -- older black residents who feel that their city has been taken over by newcomers, especially affluent young whites. Add the faceoff between Barry and Mayor Adrian Fenty -- whose deepest support comes from exactly those newcomers -- and you have a compelling political rationale for Barry's flip.
The president's position is also rooted in electoral concerns, including the simple desire to be true to a campaign stance that helped him demonstrate that he is not a knee-jerk liberal. Just as Obama's selection of evangelical minister Rick Warren to deliver the prayer at his inauguration raised the hackles of many liberal and gay supporters, the president's stand on same-sex marriage sends a message of moderation to religious voters, even as he assures gays that he supports them on civil unions and repealing the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.
In other words, Obama and Barry don't want to challenge religious voters (or rather anti-gay religious voters, since there are those of faith who support equality, but they are always rendered invisible in these discussions) on their ignorance about the difference between religious and civil marriage.
Politicians such as Obama and Barry won't hesitate to go where the people are when the time is right. But on difficult and divisive issues, they're happier to hold back until the people have spoken. Call it timidity, call it craven, but it's how things work.
It's all about politics, friends, and LGBTs are still the field hands, not a player in the Big House. There is no LBJ with political courage to look to on these issues, and Fisher gives them the classic out.
***
But I want to return to the subject of black homophobia, and the impact of President Obama's decision to purposefully confuse the issue, despite being a Constitutional scholar.
Craig Hickman delivered a personal, powerful essay that intelligently gets to the heart of why civil marriage equality is necessary and important for the black community to support. It's the kind of messaging that leads and challenges, rather than follows, on this issue. It's something the President has abandoned since taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After last week's spectacle of NOM's flop Stand4Marriage Rally with Bishop Harry Jackson and Marion "4x married, Ex-con" Barry discussing the sanctity of marriage, this event will be a breath of fresh air.
Tomorrow is the kick off of HRC's 2009 Clergy Call for Justice and Equality. This is to counter the mistaken notion that the faith community is a monolith and that the social religious conservatives have a monopoly on "family values." The Capitol Hill event will include participation of more than 300 clergy members from all 50 states. They will advocate for a fully inclusive hate crimes bill in the U.S. Senate and for a fully inclusive employment non-discrimination bill (that includes sexual orientation and gender identity).
The theme for Clergy Call 2009, "Moving from Acceptance to Advocacy," reflects the vision of a faith-based movement for LGBT equality built from the ground up: in local churches, synagogues, and mosques. The effort builds off Clergy Call 2007, when the HRC Religion & Faith Program brought 230 religious leaders from all 50 states to Washington, D.C.
"Clergy Call 2007 was a life changing moment for all who participated," said Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign's Religion & Faith Program. "Watching clergy come together to demand justice for LGBT people brought hope to even the most cynical observer. Those clergy sparked a flame that is igniting a movement for justice and equality around the country. Clergy Call 2009 will build on that momentum."
WHAT: Clergy Call for Justice Press Conference
WHEN: Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. EST
WHERE: Upper Senate Park, (Rain location: Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church)
Scheduled to make remarks are:
Rev. Dr. Anthony Campolo, St. Davids, PA; Father Richard Estrada, Los Angeles, CA; Rev. Dr. Jo Hudson, Dallas, TX; Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Los Angeles, CA; Rev. Dr. Cynthia Love, Abilene, TX; Rev. Manish Mishra, St. Petersburg, FL; Rev. Drew Phoenix, Anchorage, AK; Bishop Tonyia Rawls, Charlotte, NC; HRC President Joe Solmonese, Washington, DC; Rev. Dr. Traci C. West, Madison, NJ. There's bio info of the clergy here.
Since 1968, twelve gay men and women met in the living room of a Los Angeles apartment to first utter the words "gay" and "Christian" in the same sentence. The Reverend Troy Perry was 28 years old. He was heterosexually divorced and pastor of an Assembly of God church. This church does not have academically-trained clergy, and his Army service was enlisted and helping credentialled chaplains.
Forty-one years ago, I was 22 years old. I was in my first year of major theological studies for my M.Div. degree. The ADVOCATE believed in him, and actually sponsored his Church and gave it the needed publicity to grow. It grew into an international denomination with Churches worldwide. It has seen many of its important congregations incardinate with old mainline Protestant gay-affirming denominations like the UCC in Dallas.
Troy is now retired from active ministry. He is, after all, nearly 70 years old. The most important contribution that he made, to my mind, is that he encouraged mainline Churches to review and revamp their sexual theology. In his early years, he invited former Roman Catholic and Episcopal priests, Lutheran pastors and others to join his ministerial team.
But, then in 2001, at the MCC in Toronto, ON Canada - the first gay and first lesbian couples were married. The pastor had a bulletproof vest and it was legal due to an old archaic law that allowed for banns spoken in lieu of licence obtained. The marriage took two and a half years to be legal provincially. In the interim, Holland and Belgium had legally married same-sex couples. Later, the Ontario government gave the two couples marriage certificates with the 2001 date for validity.
Theologically - the homophobes were once divided theologically. The more Catholic in sacramental theology said that homosexuality per se was morally neutral, and that only behaviour was "sinful."
Too bad, so sad for the Alliance Defense Fund. There's a reason anti-discrimination laws exist, and the Hastings Christian Fellowship at the UC Hastings College of the Law, doesn't seem to understand this. The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that the law school was within its rights to deny recognition and funding to a group that excludes LGBT students and non-Christians. (SFGate):
The San Francisco law school is entitled to require official student organizations to "accept all comers as members, even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled. It said the school's policy is "viewpoint-neutral" and does not violate the rights of the Christian Legal Society.
The brief ruling cited the court's decision last year allowing a Washington state high school to deny recognition to a student Bible club that required members to endorse its religious creed. Last week, the club asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that case.
Both rulings allow public schools to "require religious organizations to include people in their groups who disagree with what the religious groups believe," said attorney Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization that is involved in both cases on behalf of the student groups. "That's a violation of the First Amendment, free speech and freedom of religion."
Ethan Schulman, a lawyer for UC Hastings, said Tuesday's ruling allows the school to apply its nondiscrimination policy to any group seeking recognition and a share of the funding that goes to organizations from mandatory student fees.
BZZZT. Fail. The ADF had to know this was a losing case -- this has nothing to do with freedom of association, or religious freedom -- these Christianists just can't expect the school to support their bigotry with funding, office space and inclusion in official school publications.
Besides, even if the school or the state didn't have protections that extended to sexual orientation and gender identity, this group runs afoul of federal law by discriminating against non-Christians -- that's an automatic no-no. The Christian Legal Society (the parent org) isn't a private club.
What is ridiculous is that the Hastings Christian Fellowship did have approval of the school up until 2004, when a new policy set forth by The Christian Legal Society barred those who engaged in "unrepentant homosexual conduct" required all new members to endorse a "statement of faith." You know the ADF is going to take this one to SCOTUS.
These anti-gay, Christians-only campus groups are not willing to abide by established non-discrimination policies that cover race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc, although these non-discrimination policies apply equally to all other groups on campus.
These days, one is unlikely to find a whites-only fraternity or a no-Latinos chess club on any campus in the US. So why should these Christian groups be handed an exemption, not to mention receive official recognition and funding - some of which is derived from fees paid by GLBT and non-Christian students?
There are two articles out that discuss Obama's current spiritual advisors in the evangelical sphere, "Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five" in the NYT, and "Obama and the New Evangelical Movement" at Change.org. Without a home church, he has turned to men who have a less-than-positive view of LGBT rights. This is significant because none represent the liberal, gay-affirming United Church of Christ, a denomination he attended in Chicago. That's not to say these men (and they are all men) are wholesale religious conservatives, the conundrum is that many are very involved in the otherwise liberal social justice front.
Right: Look at who else Rev. Kirbyjon advises besides our new president. The Rev. officiated at Jenna Bush's wedding.
The NYT's Laurie Goodstein:
All are men, two of them white and three black - including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion.
None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming.
But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice.
Goodstein is quick to say that the White House refused to comment on the article.
If you listened to all the fundie bleating, you'd believe that all hetero couples were filling the churches to engage in holy matrimony. The truth of the matter is that religion is not the guiding force behind marriage anymore, and the civil institution has no connection to faith for the majority of Americans. (USA Today):
Don't blame secularism for driving up the percentage of Americans who say they have no religion, says Barry Kosmin, co-researcher for the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).
"These people aren't secularized. They're not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they're not thinking about it at all," Kosmin says. A closer look at the "Nones" - people who said "None" when asked their religious identity - shows that this group (now 15% of Americans, up from 8% in 1990) opts out of traditional religious rites of passage:
•40% say they had no childhood religious initiation ceremony such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony.
•55% of those who are married had no religious ceremony.
•66% say they do not expect to have a religious funeral.
"Your parents may decide for you on baptism and your spouse has a say in your wedding, but when people talk about dying, they speak for themselves," says Kosmin.
What was that? Did I read that religion is a CHOICE? Where have I heard that references to CHOICE being cited as grounds for discrimination? Hmmmmm?????
USA Today has an interactive chart showing the shift in Americans' religious CHOICES, including no religion. Here's a snapshot of the decline of non-Catholic Christian faiths...falling through the floor.
Only Louisiana, Rhode Island, Montana and Connecticut saw any growth, and the latter two are in reality, flat. The only state where the evangelicals are gaining any significant strength is in Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal's territory. Religion is even losing ground in Sally Kern's (OK) and Chris Buttars's (UT) neck of the woods.
A San Francisco assessor has called for the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco to hand over $15 million in taxes because of an internal restructuring of the archdiocese, a move that some are describing as "retaliation" for the Church's opposition to Proposition 8.
...Many are decrying the move as retaliation for the church's support of California's same-sex "marriage" ban, as pro-homosexual "marriage" San Francisco residents and politicians have made no secret of their ire at the Catholic Church and other religious groups for supporting Proposition 8.
"This is fishy at the least and evil at the most," Randy Thomasson of California's Campaign for Children and Families told LifeSiteNews.com. "Phil Ting is doing to the Catholic Church what has not been done in other venues, taking away the Church's tax-exempt status in regards to property."
Thomasson said that Ting, "who went head to head with the Catholic church over marriage between a man and a woman ... is aiming his rifles ... right at the Catholic Church, and this is something that a higher court should be more just in its analysis."
The call to tax the Catholic and Mormon churches, which helped propel Prop 8 fundraising and campaigning, became a mantra of same-sex "marriage" supporters ever since the amendment passed in November.
(The Episcopal Church has been roiling for some time over inclusion and openly LGBTs. This diary has is interesting detail on where things stand. - promoted by Pam Spaulding)
This is background material in response to some comments on the "Bishop Robinson at Inauguration" threads.
A late 1970s bylaw indicates that gender, orientation are not to be considered in eligibility for seminary and for ordination, but a separate bylaw specifies that sexual activity should be conducted within the bounds of marriage. At the present, there is no official rite of marriage for same-gender couples in the Prayer Book; experimental rites have been used in some dioceses before 2006, and probably on the quiet after 2006 (see below). In actual practice, many gay or lesbian priests serve, and many have partners who are fully recognized as the (monogamous) spouses of the priests. Priests are hired by their parishes, but must be acceptable to the bishop of the diocese. Many bishops are actively welcoming, many are indifferent on the issue, and about 10% of the dioceses' bishops will not license gay/lesbian priests to serve in their dioceses.
Since 2003, the Episcopal Church (TEC) has been threatened with schism by the 10% of bishops who will not license gays/lesbians (and women, in some cases) as priests. TEC General Conference (House of Bishops, and House of Deputies (deputies are layfolk and parish priests)) approved Robinson as bishop in 2003, after his valid election by his diocese. My impression is that Robinson's support has increased considerably since then, and 90% of bishops find him perfectly satisfactory.
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Over the last few days we have seen the White House 
Right: Look at who else Rev. Kirbyjon advises besides our new president. The Rev. 
