These are strange times. One week the North Carolina General Assembly decides to allow a vote on making same-sex marriage unconstitutional (never mind the fact it is already illegal); the next week Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is officially over.
One day LGBT people are so threatening that we can’t allow them to legalize their relationships; the next day LGBT people are allowed to openly wear the nation’s military uniform and defend the homeland.
It’s all a bit confusing if you are scoring at home.
The truth is, the game is over. The forces of intolerance and bigotry have already lost. A brief history lesson will demonstrate what I mean.
In 1948 President Truman ordered the integration of the military. In 1954 the Supreme Court tore down the separate but equal doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education that kept white and black children in separate schools. Even so, in 1959 Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were convicted in a Virginia courtroom for getting married in the District of Columbia. Their crime? Mildred was black and Richard was white. It would take until 1967 before the Supreme Court overturned all state laws banning interracial marriage.
What is my point? The undoing of segregation laws that denied African Americans their civil rights was an uneven process that took decades. Even so, with the help of hindsight, we can see that the tide of history shifted long before all the unjust laws were struck down. It seems obvious that the same pattern is unfolding in the fight for equal rights for the LGBT community.
When Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was passed into law in 1993 it was viewed by many as a progressive solution. Instead of kicking gay people out of the military, they were given the right to hide their identity and stay in uniform. It never worked that way, and thousands were kicked out anyway, but at the time it was presented as a step forward. We laugh at that notion now and celebrate the demise of that unjust law.
In 2000 Vermont was the first state to allow civil unions. This development was viewed by much of the country as an outrageously liberal thing to do. Today, six states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage (not counting the brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in California). Today, just over a decade after Vermont’s civil unions law went into effect, civil unions are now considered a poor substitute for the real thing.
So, through what historical lens do we view the North Carolina General Assembly’s action putting the LGBT community’s civil rights up for a vote? The legislators who won the vote are the modern-day equivalent of the Virginia trial judge who convicted Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving by saying:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
The forces of intolerance in the General Assembly won the vote, but the tide of history has already started to shift and will view them with scorn and contempt.
All of this historical hypothesizing, though, does not mean I am at peace with the ugliness that has unfolded in North Carolina. Hardly. I’m damn mad about what the General Assembly did, regardless of how confident I am about where this issue ends up in the generations to come.
I am furious because what the General Assembly has done is a direct attack on the genius of the American Experiment. From the beginning, our nation’s founding documents were meant to protect the rights of minority groups. Majorities don’t need constitutions guaranteeing them what they already have. We write constitutions so that the freedoms we cherish will be guaranteed to all people, regardless of how popular or unpopular those people are at a certain point in history.
Do the 90% of straight North Carolinians need the constitution altered to protect their marital rights? Of course not. If you are heterosexual in this state you can get married regardless of your criminal record, how often you have divorced, or how many children you have abandoned. There is almost nothing a heterosexual person can do in this state and lose their right to get married.
So, the General Assembly has decided that the state’s constitution is the place to let the straight majority who have a right to marry that is virtually absolute say to the LGBT minority that what you cannot do now is doubly denied.
What a shameful way to use our constitution. What a cruel way for our leaders to act. They will deserve the condemnation of history that is already unfolding.
Showing posts with label North Carolina constitutional amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Carolina constitutional amendment. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
What If?
What if almost everything our culture has said about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong? How would that awareness change the culture? How would it change the lives of LGBT folks? How would it change the lives of straight people?
For example, what if the long-held belief by many people that being gay is a choice is wrong? Well, the science suggests that our sexual orientation is not something we choose. Common sense tells us that gay people don’t choose their orientation any more than straight people do. But even conservative Evangelicals are starting to acknowledge this is a lie.
Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently told delegates at the Southern Baptist annual meeting that they were practicing a “certain form of homophobia.” Mohler said, when speaking of sexual orientation, that it is “clear that it’s more than a choice” and “and not something that people can just turn on and turn off.”
For those of you not familiar with Mohler, he is no friend to the LGBT community. He is often a spokesperson for the Southern Baptists when they need someone to go to battle for them in the culture wars. Yet, even Mohler is recognizing how embarrassing it is to keep spouting the lie that sexual orientation is chosen. Mohler still thinks being gay is a sin, which makes for a curious theological stance given his belief it isn’t chosen, but he has decided the cultural assumption that being gay is chosen needs to be denounced. Can you imagine the implications when others come around to this viewpoint?
And since we are on the topic of religious views regarding homosexuality, what about the cultural assumption that the Bible spends a lot of time denouncing gay people. What if that is wrong, too? This assumption underlies most of the current political debate in our country. When Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly make their case for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, they don’t quote the state constitution. They quote the Bible. But what if the way they are using the Bible to undergird their viewpoint is flawed?
I won’t even address the fact that using one religious tradition’s scriptures to try to deny a whole class of citizens their basic civil rights is wrong; let’s just take the assumption about the Bible at face value. Jesus never addressed the issue of sexual orientation. How could he? The understanding of sexual orientation in the way modern culture interprets it was developed in the late nineteenth century.
What Jesus does address over and over again that is relevant to this issue is his distaste for how religious leaders try to use obscure scriptures to denounce people considered outcasts. In Jesus’ day it was lepers, Samaritans, blind people, women, and others who were marginalized by the religious authorities of the day. In our day religious and political leaders reach for a few obscure texts to reject LGBT people and deny them fundamental human rights.
What happens when people begin to wake up and see that not only is the Bible being misused in this debate, but it has been turned upside down?
Finally, let’s address the biggest cultural stereotype that has lasted through the ages. What if LGBT people are not sexual deviants who threaten our children and all that is good and pure?
We have a serious problem with child abuse in this country. I get to see the consequences of that problem regularly as a counselor. Few things do more damage to a human being than to be sexually abused as a child.
The problem is that in attempting to address this problem we have pointed in the wrong direction. The Catholic Church’s response to its sexual abuse scandal was to try and weed out gay priests. Yet, the credible social science suggests that pedophiles do not prey on children because they are gay or straight. There is a psychological disorder that exists in abusers that needs to be addressed, but we confuse the matter by suggesting it is an issue of sexual orientation.
What if we started telling the truth about LGBT people when it comes to sex? What if we acknowledge that like some straight people, there are gay people who don’t even care much for sex? What if we accepted that like some straight people, there are gay people who will form life-long relationships? What if we simply told the truth that being gay is about who you love, not just who you want to sleep with?
Yes, what if we let go of the stereotypes and cultural biases that have framed the conversation about what it means to be gay or transgender? The liberation would not just be felt in the LGBT world. We would all be freed from the cruel lies that have destroyed so many families and cost the lives of so many young people.
What if that could happen?
For example, what if the long-held belief by many people that being gay is a choice is wrong? Well, the science suggests that our sexual orientation is not something we choose. Common sense tells us that gay people don’t choose their orientation any more than straight people do. But even conservative Evangelicals are starting to acknowledge this is a lie.
Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently told delegates at the Southern Baptist annual meeting that they were practicing a “certain form of homophobia.” Mohler said, when speaking of sexual orientation, that it is “clear that it’s more than a choice” and “and not something that people can just turn on and turn off.”
For those of you not familiar with Mohler, he is no friend to the LGBT community. He is often a spokesperson for the Southern Baptists when they need someone to go to battle for them in the culture wars. Yet, even Mohler is recognizing how embarrassing it is to keep spouting the lie that sexual orientation is chosen. Mohler still thinks being gay is a sin, which makes for a curious theological stance given his belief it isn’t chosen, but he has decided the cultural assumption that being gay is chosen needs to be denounced. Can you imagine the implications when others come around to this viewpoint?
And since we are on the topic of religious views regarding homosexuality, what about the cultural assumption that the Bible spends a lot of time denouncing gay people. What if that is wrong, too? This assumption underlies most of the current political debate in our country. When Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly make their case for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, they don’t quote the state constitution. They quote the Bible. But what if the way they are using the Bible to undergird their viewpoint is flawed?
I won’t even address the fact that using one religious tradition’s scriptures to try to deny a whole class of citizens their basic civil rights is wrong; let’s just take the assumption about the Bible at face value. Jesus never addressed the issue of sexual orientation. How could he? The understanding of sexual orientation in the way modern culture interprets it was developed in the late nineteenth century.
What Jesus does address over and over again that is relevant to this issue is his distaste for how religious leaders try to use obscure scriptures to denounce people considered outcasts. In Jesus’ day it was lepers, Samaritans, blind people, women, and others who were marginalized by the religious authorities of the day. In our day religious and political leaders reach for a few obscure texts to reject LGBT people and deny them fundamental human rights.
What happens when people begin to wake up and see that not only is the Bible being misused in this debate, but it has been turned upside down?
Finally, let’s address the biggest cultural stereotype that has lasted through the ages. What if LGBT people are not sexual deviants who threaten our children and all that is good and pure?
We have a serious problem with child abuse in this country. I get to see the consequences of that problem regularly as a counselor. Few things do more damage to a human being than to be sexually abused as a child.
The problem is that in attempting to address this problem we have pointed in the wrong direction. The Catholic Church’s response to its sexual abuse scandal was to try and weed out gay priests. Yet, the credible social science suggests that pedophiles do not prey on children because they are gay or straight. There is a psychological disorder that exists in abusers that needs to be addressed, but we confuse the matter by suggesting it is an issue of sexual orientation.
What if we started telling the truth about LGBT people when it comes to sex? What if we acknowledge that like some straight people, there are gay people who don’t even care much for sex? What if we accepted that like some straight people, there are gay people who will form life-long relationships? What if we simply told the truth that being gay is about who you love, not just who you want to sleep with?
Yes, what if we let go of the stereotypes and cultural biases that have framed the conversation about what it means to be gay or transgender? The liberation would not just be felt in the LGBT world. We would all be freed from the cruel lies that have destroyed so many families and cost the lives of so many young people.
What if that could happen?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A Christian Case for Same-Sex Marriage
In June of 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in Washington D.C. Upon their return to Virginia to take up residence there, they were promptly arrested, convicted of a felony, and sentenced to a year in jail. What great crime had Mildred and Richard committed that would bring the force of the law down on them so swiftly and severely? Mildred was black and Richard was white.
The trial judge suspended the sentence as long as the couple promised to leave the state and not to return for a minimum of 25 years. At the sentencing of the couple, the judge gave his rationale for upholding Virginia’s statutes forbidding interracial marriage:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. (Loving v. Virginia, U.S. Supreme Court, 1967)
Eight years later, when the United States Supreme Court finally took up Mildred and Richard’s case, the justices did not quite agree with the remarkable theology of the Virginia judge. In fact, Chief Justice Warren, in stating the Court’s rationale for dismantling interracial marriage bans across the country, made this sweeping statement about marriage:
Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of [humanity],’ fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is sure to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. (Loving v. Virginia)
The fact that the North Carolina General Assembly is on the precipice of voting to change our state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage shows how persistent bigotry is when it comes to denying marital rights to minority groups. In the previous generation it was racial minorities being discriminated against when it came to the right to marry. In this generation LGBTQ citizens are the targets of the bigotry. In both generations the underlying cause of the discrimination is a perverted form of religion.
The Church has provided the cover for our leaders to deny gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens the right to marry whomever they choose. Laws are not created in vacuums of justice untouched by the cultural values around them. The law is just as impressionable as other institutions in our society. And when the dominant religious power in our country, the Christian Church, states that gay citizens are deviant and must not be allowed to marry, the law tends to be influenced by such majoritarian thinking.
Which is why I believe it is critical for the Church to repent and begin to understand how its own teachings and traditions provide a natural rationale to support same-sex marriage. In Luke 4 Jesus begins his public ministry by returning to his hometown, entering into the synagogue, and making something of a mission statement:
The Spirit of God is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of God’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)
For his mission statement Jesus reaches for the language of the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2). He is calling to mind the period in Jewish history when the exile had rendered the people powerless. Like the prophet centuries before him, Jesus is saying that one of the most fundamental religious tasks is to stand with those who have been excluded and marginalized. Those with no power because of their social status, their physical status, or because of the way they were born are the focus of Jesus’ ministry from day one. He is determined to stand with them, to name them beloved of God, and to dedicate his life to seeing them empowered.
Every generation of the Church must take up Jesus’ mission statement and find those places where people without power are being abused and marginalized. In previous generations the struggle was for women and people of color. In our generation the struggle is to support our LGBTQ brothers and sisters as they seek full equality. Repenting from its bigotry and supporting same-sex marriage would be an excellent place for the Church to start.
The trial judge suspended the sentence as long as the couple promised to leave the state and not to return for a minimum of 25 years. At the sentencing of the couple, the judge gave his rationale for upholding Virginia’s statutes forbidding interracial marriage:
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix. (Loving v. Virginia, U.S. Supreme Court, 1967)
Eight years later, when the United States Supreme Court finally took up Mildred and Richard’s case, the justices did not quite agree with the remarkable theology of the Virginia judge. In fact, Chief Justice Warren, in stating the Court’s rationale for dismantling interracial marriage bans across the country, made this sweeping statement about marriage:
Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of [humanity],’ fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is sure to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. (Loving v. Virginia)
The fact that the North Carolina General Assembly is on the precipice of voting to change our state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage shows how persistent bigotry is when it comes to denying marital rights to minority groups. In the previous generation it was racial minorities being discriminated against when it came to the right to marry. In this generation LGBTQ citizens are the targets of the bigotry. In both generations the underlying cause of the discrimination is a perverted form of religion.
The Church has provided the cover for our leaders to deny gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens the right to marry whomever they choose. Laws are not created in vacuums of justice untouched by the cultural values around them. The law is just as impressionable as other institutions in our society. And when the dominant religious power in our country, the Christian Church, states that gay citizens are deviant and must not be allowed to marry, the law tends to be influenced by such majoritarian thinking.
Which is why I believe it is critical for the Church to repent and begin to understand how its own teachings and traditions provide a natural rationale to support same-sex marriage. In Luke 4 Jesus begins his public ministry by returning to his hometown, entering into the synagogue, and making something of a mission statement:
The Spirit of God is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of God’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)
For his mission statement Jesus reaches for the language of the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2). He is calling to mind the period in Jewish history when the exile had rendered the people powerless. Like the prophet centuries before him, Jesus is saying that one of the most fundamental religious tasks is to stand with those who have been excluded and marginalized. Those with no power because of their social status, their physical status, or because of the way they were born are the focus of Jesus’ ministry from day one. He is determined to stand with them, to name them beloved of God, and to dedicate his life to seeing them empowered.
Every generation of the Church must take up Jesus’ mission statement and find those places where people without power are being abused and marginalized. In previous generations the struggle was for women and people of color. In our generation the struggle is to support our LGBTQ brothers and sisters as they seek full equality. Repenting from its bigotry and supporting same-sex marriage would be an excellent place for the Church to start.
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