You're the first to know (and I hope the first to buy)

One of my favorite cartoons when I was pounding the pavement in a sales job was of two buzzards sitting together on a tree limb in a forest, watching a lost man slowly starve to death.  One buzzard turned to the other and said, "Patience, hell! I'm going to kill something."

The time from now to the SCOTUS decisions is too precious to just watch and wait. I've decided to put all my energy into writing a book to spell out the case for same-sex marriage.  It will first be published as an e-book in July 2013, then as a paperback soon after.

My intended audience is twofold. One is those in the "movable middle," who can be persuaded with the right information.  The other is for the many who are already convinced but need help articulating the cause.

Here's how the chapters look at this stage:

 Gay Americans: What You Need to Know (and possibly don’t)
History of Marriage in the West
Evolved and evolving Will Same-sex Marriage Change America?
Yes Common Objections to Same-sex Marriage
What Does the Bible Say?
A Journey into the Heart of God
Theology of inclusion The Legal and Constitutional Issues
Now That the Supreme Court Has Spoken
I will plot the future course following the SCOTUS outcome 

I don't have a title as yet.  If you have a suggestion, I'd like to hear from you.  I'll give you credit in the acknowledgments.  The working title is Same-sex Marriage: Why It's Good for America.  See, I told you I needed help!

I will post updates from time to time, so keep watching the blog site.  Better yet, subscribe to the email service for daily postings, should there be one.  A little prayer for me would be appreciated, too.

"They also serve who only stand and wait"

After today, all that can be done, at least in the courts, will be over.  The arguments will have been made, the justices will retire to their chambers and by the end of June we will know the fate of our LGBT family, friends, coworkers and fellow Americans.  For many of us it will be an excruciatingly long time.  As I listen to my body's reaction too all of this, I find myself feeling much as I did as a child anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus, or the first summer day in the swimming pool.  It was almost unbearable; yet Santa did come and go, and the summers dragged on.  But much more is a stake than getting that nice new bike or meeting with friends for a dunking contest.  Not knowing, when we know only too well how necessary the defeat of Prop 8 and DOMA are, added to the mystifying awareness that America is now only beginning to wake up to LGBT injustice, makes one grieve.  

I don't even want to think about what to do should the Court not rule in our favor.  It will be like how WWII was waged in the Pacific, beach head by beach head, atoll by atoll, island by island.  But in this case it will be State by State.  This will be enormously expensive both in money and effort.  The good news is that DOMA likely will fall.  Should Prop 8 only be limited to California, then when each State approves gay marriage, the 1011 Federal benefits now denied will be extended to all in same-sex marriages.  This is to be celebrated.

Americans are getting a world-class education in gay rights.  America will never be the same, and will eventually, say, 20 years from now, find its way to make LGBTs full citizens. It's this unnecessary interim that's so devastating.  How many couple's hopes will be dashed?  How many more children will be subject to ridicule? How many more families will have to live without the protections that heterosexual couples enjoy every day?  

I'm still holding out for a complete sweep of victory.  The signs are impossible to read with any assurance, but nothing has been ruled out as yet.  As David Boies put it, "The most remarkable thing that happened in there was there was no attempt to defend the ban on gay marriage."  I remember the day in 1954 when the decision in Brown v. Board of Education was announced that ended segregation.  This was not a popular decision, yet it was made. When Loving v. Virginia (IN 1967!)  struck down miscegenation laws allowing interracial marriage, the vast majority of the country was appalled.  So especially when the majority of Americans now favor same-sex marriage and gay rights over all, the Court is perfectly situated to do the right thing.  So I remain hopeful.

To really appreciate the title of this blog, we need to recall John Milton's poem, "On His Blindness."  

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

Wait we must; yet let us listen to Patience who counsels against those thousands who "post o'er land and ocean without rest."  Why is this Patience's work to counsel us to stand and wait? I think it's to remind us that, as Martin Luther King, put it, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  In other words, not everything depends upon us; let us pause for the moment and let the universe do its thing.  It just may be that we will need to get going soon enough as it it.  

Here's a great summary of the events of yesterday from David Boies and Ted Olson

22 Reasons Why DOMA and Prop 8 Need to Be Declared Unconstitutional

And Same-sex Marriage Be Made Available Nationwide

1.   It's the right thing to do
2.   It will strengthen marriage all around
3.   LGBT families need the protection of legal marriage 
4.   LGBT partners need the protection of legal marriage
5.   LGBTs deserve the status of normal and worthy citizens that marriage bestows
6.   It will diminish the need for sham marriages and resultant divorces
7.   SCOTUS will be on the right side of history
8.   It’s inevitable; if not now it will happen eventually, so why wait?
9.   More orphaned children will find happy families
10. It resolves one more remaining justice issue in favor of equality
11. America can move on to other issues
12. We can retire right wing hypocrites who lecture us on morality
13. Maybe Maggie Galagher will go away?
14. Marriage is much more than about procreation, or, often, not about it at all
15. Republicans are even determined to make this a non-issue
16. I honors the Golden Rule
17. It in no way harms heterosexual marriage
18. Same-Sex Marriage Provides a More Stable Environment for Children of LGBT Couples
19. Love matters
20. "Separate but equal" was tried and failed
21. Did I say it’s the right thing to do?

And finally, so Associate Justice Antonin Scallia has to eat these words:

"If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is “no legitimate state interest” for purposes of proscribing that conduct…what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising 'the liberty protected by the Constitution'”. [This quote is taken from his minority dissent to Lawrence v Texas when the court struck down sodomy laws.]

Yes, just "what justification could there possibly be", indeed?

Here's a little bit of what SCOTUS will hear today (from 

David Boies on "Meet the Press")

Okay, I cribbed this next list from StopGeek.com.  It's hilarious, and give us pause at our own shortsightedness.

Top Ten Reasons to Make Gay Marriage Illegal

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all like many of the principles on which this great country was founded; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of marriages like Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

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DOMA and Prop 8: A Lesson in Civics

With America's, and perhaps most of the world's, attention on the United States Supreme court this week, we will get an answer to a question that most Americans only vaguely understand:  "How can the vote of the majority be set aside?  The people have spoken, how can an unelected court go against public opinion, one enshrined in a majority vote?"  That, in a nutshell, is the basis of the frustration for those who conceived of and fought for California's Proposition 8.

Here's a recap of how the amendment  has fared.

Proposition 8 - which, for California only, defines marriage as between one man and one woman  - passed by 53% of California voters in 2008.  The United States District Court Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8 on August 4, 2010, ruling that it violated both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. On February 7, 2012, in a 2–1 decision, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed Walker's decision declaring the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. On December 7, 2012, the Supreme Court granted the proponents' petition for certiorari, which will be heard on Tuesday March 26, 2013. The Supreme Court Justices are expected to issue their ruling pertaining to the constitutionality of Proposition 8 by late June 2013. The ruling by the US Supreme Court may set precedent not only in California, but nationally.

Prop 8 passed by a 4% majority only to have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put it on hold.  The eventuality is strong that the US Supreme Court may make it null and void with the attendant possibility that prohibiting same-sex marriage may become unconstitutional in every state in the USA.

A blogger voiced his profound anger not long after its passing.  Here is a comment to it:

"Those are some mighty strong words and accusations you're tossing around based on the CA government (and law) following it's defined process for letting people participate in a democratic republic. What do you prefer - the CA supreme court tossing out the results of a vote presented to the entire state? That borders dangerously close to very non-democratic governmental ideas."

So, it's "non-democratic" for a court to toss out the majority's vote.  As a Californian of long standing, I bear witness to many conversations that suggest that this notion is wide spread. This commentator got one thing right, we are a democratic republic.  In a pure democracy, as the saying goes, 51% of the people could vote to cut off the heads of the 49% and it would be legal (and done!). This notion became encapsulated as "the tyranny of the majority."  Great thinkers from Plato to John Stuart Mill and Tocqueville warned us of this and provided several ways to insure that governments would not be capable of such mendacity. Two are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution: separation of powers and representative government.

This was not lost on the plaintiffs bringing the case to the Supreme Court. “If we've learned anything through this journey, it's that when the minority rights are being oppressed by a majority the court is supposed to step in, and some times it's not always popular for them to do so,” Jeff Zarrillo said. “We would expect the court to step in and right these wrongs." Exactly.  This is the proper recourse when minorities are pushed around by the majority.

The fact that we have a constitution at all is the most important defense against tyranny. The cry we hear so often, widely credited to John Adams, “We are a nation of laws and not of men,” is another way of saying, we are a constitutional republic.  Men and women don't tell us what to do, our Constitution does.  What is going on this week at SCOTUS is nothing more or less than laws deciding our fate.  (I am not so naive as to believe that the Court can be so objective as to rule out sentiment, prejudice, and other human considerations, but trust that they do their best to hold them at bay.)

This basic American value was clearly illustrated this weekend on "Meet the Press." Here's a snippet of host David Gregory's interview with David Boies, who is arguing the case against Prop 8 tomorrow.  Gregory  pointed out all the states that currently have bans on same-sex marriage and asked , "Aren't you effectively asking the Court to say, with one stroke of the pen, we're going to invalidate what those states have done?"

Replied Boies: "Every time the Supreme Court makes a constitutional decision, it’s making a decision that certain fundamental rights are too important to be left to the ballot box. We've done that with race, we've done that with women; we've done that with every discriminated class."

So the next time you hear someone say that "the courts have usurped the people's will" one more time, gently remind them that the very fact they do this is precisely because of "the will of the people."  It's called the Constitution of the United States.

Analysis of Supreme Court Hearings on Same-sex Marriage Issues

The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments on California's Prop 8 and DOMA.  Here is the breakdown on the current situation from The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

High Court to Hear Same-Sex Marriage Cases
LEGAL REPORT March 20, 2013

The U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear oral arguments in a pair of potentially groundbreaking same-sex marriage cases. On March 26, the court will hear a challenge to California’s Proposition 8, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 2008 that amended the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. On March 27, the court will hear a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.

People have been fighting over same-sex marriage in courtrooms around the country for more than 20 years. Until recently, however, most of the action has taken place in state courts. The Supreme Court’s decision to take the DOMA case (United States v. Windsor) and the Proposition 8 case (Hollingsworth v. Perry) shifts the judicial focus from state to federal courts. It also raises the stakes: While state court rulings impact a particular state, federal cases involve federal constitutional principles that could apply nationwide, as discussed in a recent Pew Research Center legal analysis of the two cases.

While the Supreme Court has an opportunity in these cases to rule on core constitutional questions, that doesn’t mean it necessarily will. Indeed, the court could decide that the parties opposing same-sex marriage lack the right to defend Proposition 8 and DOMA in court (a legal concept known as “standing”). If standing is granted, it still is possible that the court will not address the broad constitutional question of whether same-sex couples have a right to marry under the U.S. Constitution and will choose instead to rule more narrowly in both cases.

The DOMA case (Windsor) does not directly address the question of whether the U.S. Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to wed. The case involves a different constitutional question: Does the federal government’s treatment of gays and lesbians under DOMA discriminate against them in such a way as to violate their constitutional rights?

The Proposition 8 case (Perry) might offer a better vehicle for the court to address the core question of whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. That’s because it involves a decision by a state, California, to prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying. But even in this case, the court could strike down California’s ban on same-sex marriage without ruling on the broader constitutional question. Indeed, even if the court were to strike down Proposition 8 in Perry, some legal scholars believe it still might not use the case as a vehicle to rule broadly on the constitutionality of restrictions on same-sex marriage and instead might craft a narrower decision that allows most states to decide their own marriage policies.

The Perry Case  
How could the court strike down Proposition 8 and still give other states a free hand to set their own marriage policies? The answer lies in Proposition 8’s unique history. Proposition 8 was approved by California voters six months after the state’s highest court had ruled that gays and lesbians had the right to marry – and after thousands of same-sex couples took advantage of this ruling and got married. In an earlier lower court decision in this case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) that California cannot single out a minority group and remove an existing right (in this case, the pre-Proposition 8 right of same sex couples to marry) without the government first showing that it had a rational or legitimate basis for this discriminatory action – something the state of California failed to do, according to the court of appeals. 

If the Supreme Court upholds the 9th Circuit’s ruling, and uses the same legal rationale to do so, it would not undermine other states’ bans on same-sex marriage. A narrow decision of this sort would prevent only states that have already granted marital rights to gays and lesbians from subsequently taking them away. Of course, if the high court upholds Proposition 8, it will, by definition, have effectively ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not protect same-sex couples against state laws prohibiting them from marrying.

The Windsor Case  
While the Supreme Court could use Windsor to decide whether the U.S. Constitution grants same-sex couples the right to marry, many legal scholars believe the high court is more likely to focus on whether DOMA unconstitutionally discriminates against gays and lesbians, rather than on whether there is a right to same-sex marriage. Indeed, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (PDF), in its earlier decision in Windsor striking down DOMA, ruled that the statute is unconstitutionally discriminatory.

The Big Picture  
Because same-sex marriage involves a contentious social issue, the arguments to the high court and its rulings in Perry and Windsor are expected to receive a tremendous amount of attention. Indeed, taken together, these decisions are almost certain to become the most important same-sex marriage rulings to date. Until now, the most significant same-sex marriage ruling occurred in 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the state’s highest court) said that the state’s constitution granted gays and lesbians the right to marry. As a result of this decision, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Since 2003, eight other states – Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington State – as well as the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage. Bills to legalize same-sex marriage currently are being considered in three additional states – Illinois,Rhode Island and Minnesota. By contrast, over the last two decades 30 states have added language to their constitutions banning same-sex marriage.

According to polling from the Pew Research Center, public attitudes toward same-sex marriage haveshifted markedly over the past decade. Polling conducted in 2003 found that most Americans (58%) were opposed to allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, and just a third (33%) were in favor. A new survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 13-17, 2013, among 1,501 adults nationwide, confirms that these figures have flipped, with 49% supporting same-sex marriage and 44% opposed.

In recent years, many political leaders have voiced support for letting gays and lesbians marry legally. In May 2012, for instance, President Barack Obama declared that he supports same-sex marriage.Former President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA into law in 1996, recently wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post urging the Supreme Court to overturn the law. And in a video released on March 18,former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced she supports same-sex marriage, both “personally and as a matter of policy and law.” 

Some Republicans also recently have come out in favor of same-sex marriage. In February, for example, a group of prominent Republicans (PDF), including former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8. And Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who had co-sponsored the original DOMA bill when he served in the U.S. House of Representatives, also recently announced that he now supports same-sex marriage. In a March 15 op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch, Portman said he made his decision because one of his sons is gay and he “wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with the people they love.”  

This report was written by David Masci, Senior Researcher, Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. 

Photo credit: iStockPhoto

The Last Respectable Prejudice, Part 2

The Moral Implications That Follow from This Equivalency 

In yesterday's post, I compared the Civil Rights struggle of the 20th century with the gay rights struggle of today.  My purpose was to show how they are morally equivalent struggles. If this is the case, and I believe it is, then certain conclusions can be drawn for how we engage today's moral issue of gay rights.

The Civil Rights struggle took people willing to commit their lives to the cause, and many lives were sacrificed to make it happen.  Many more were beaten and jailed.  Other than for a few organizations like Soulforce, few seem to be willing to lay down their lives for this cause. And there are occasions that call for such sacrifices.  Whenever gays are physically attacked, or otherwise abused, we need people to intervene on their behalf.  If you are part of the gay community, or an ally, are you willing to put your body in harms way for the sake of another?  (We are only recommending nonviolent intervention. This is a good training site.)

The Civil Rights Movement had lunch counter sit-ins, marches, civil disobedience actions, and individual protests to call attention to the brutality and legal discrimination in their daily lives.  One of the least understood aspects of the gay rights movement is public protesting on the order of Gay Pride parades and other demonstrations.  "We're here, we're queer; get used to it," made straight America uneasy and sometimes disgusted with our cause, but the point was made.  These public protests were as necessary for the gay struggle to succeed as for the racial struggle.  Continuing the public witness to gay life and love continues to be an important aspect of the movement.  

The involvement of churches and synagogues, their White pastors and rabbis, was a key element in the Civil Rights struggle.  The moral pressure through common suffering with African Americans, preaching from the pulpit, marching shoulder to shoulder, sitting in jail side by side, writing books and pamphlets, all gave America a picture of injustice and what to do about it that may have turned the tide.  Allies are not just important to the gay rights struggle, but critical.  Nothing is more persuasive than someone without ulterior motives being willing to side with the oppressed.  It raises questions in other's minds about why, which can lead to greater understanding all around.  Allies bring a moral weight that cannot be denied.

That’s why we straight people are your allies.  As part of the shared but frayed fabric of humanity we recognize that your injustice is our injustice, your suffering is our suffering, and your joys are our joys.

 

As a pastor from one of our nation’s mainline denominations, I call upon like-minded clergy from all denominations to “come out!”  Come out of your cloistered closets and become one more straight for the Beloved Community.  Come out of your isolation where you mourn injustices in solitude, and join with the multitude of the Beloved Community.  Come out from your tepid preaching on love that says God loves all people without distinction, ending there, and, instead, teach your congregations the real truth: that God loves and affirms and nurtures LGBTs and desires their companionship as longingly as God pursues the holiest saint.

Teach them that God created Adam and Steve and loves them as much as Adam and Eve. Teach them to love all their neighbors with agape love, and lead the way by your own example.

 

What will save us from ourselves? Nothing less that recognizing that I am you and you are I. As you fair, so do I.  And until we all sit together around the table of equality, none should take a seat there.  

It is the recognition that all human life is interrelated, all men and women are brothers and sisters, all humanity is a single orientation, the human orientation.  That’s why we straight people are your allies.  As part of the shared but frayed fabric of humanity, we recognize that your injustice is our injustice, your suffering is our suffering, and your joys are our joys.

As Gandhi put it, "All oppression is of the same fabric."  If you understand what Dr. King meant by, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," you are on the way to helpful service in the most just cause of our time.

The Last Respectable Prejudice

In a future post I will share the many great resources for following the latest news and commentary on same-sex marriage and related issues that are available online.  My hope is that they will inform your day as they do mine.  This blog, however, is not so much devoted to current events as it is to think about them.  So my posts are more like "think pieces" than news stories.  We need both and I have chosen to present commentary.

The Gay Rights Struggle Is the Moral Equivalent of the Civil Rights Struggle of the Last Century

Part 1

As for today's subject, I do not want to leave the impression that LGBTs have suffered and continue to suffer to the same degree as African Americans have.  There was no refuge in the safety of the closet for Blacks in America; they had no place to hide. Nor have LGBTs had to endure centuries of slavery.  On the whole, life in America has been relatively good for gays as compared to many other countries around the world, and certainly when compared to America's racial minorities.

Nevertheless, in the words of Byrne Fone, in Homophobia: A History: 

"Indeed, in modern Western society, where racism is disapproved, anti-Semitism is condemned, and misogyny has lost its legitimacy, homophobia remains, perhaps the last acceptable prejudice.”  

The fight for African American equality began in slavery, is embedded in the Declaration of Independence, ushered in the Civil War, was enshrined in the 14th Amendment, endured through Jim Crow, made huge gains in the 1950s and 60s, and finally was legally secured with the passing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Voting Rights Bill of 1965.  A host of other legislation, both in Congress and in the states, dealt with issues from school bussing, interracial marriage, and other discriminatory practices.  Although prejudice endures, legal discrimination is markedly on the decline in America.

The fight for LGBT equality is more recent and follows a much less ascendant trajectory. Gays still can be fired for their sexual orientation without recourse in 29 states; transgenders, in 34.  Lynchings have all but ended in the South, but LGBT's lives are taken almost every day.  According to the Leadership Conference, in a report issued in 2010,

Reported hate crimes committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation increased in 2007 to 1,265, the highest level in five years. Of all hate crimes reported in 2007, the proportion committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals rose to 16.6 percent, also the highest level in five years. According to the FBI's HCSA reports, gay men and lesbians have consistently been the third most frequent target of hate violence over the past decade.

As early as the founding of Virginia, gay sex was a capital offence.  It wasn't until 2003 that sodomy laws were rendered unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas. The years in between made gay love go underground to survive, and many are still living in the closet to protect themselves.  

Racial slurs are not uttered in polite company these days, but gay slurs still are. You don't hear racist jokes much any more, but gay jokes are still fair game.  Where conservative Christians used to denigrate African Americans by teaching that God desires segregation and approves of slavery, they have largely repudiated those teachings.  But they are free to claim that "God hates homosexuality," and LGBTs are hell bound.  

In 1964, the Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage, allowing African Americans the right to marry anyone they love.  Same-sex marriage is only legal in nine states, but Federal benefits are denied them with the passing of the Defense of Marriage Act.  If the Supreme Court does not make same-sex marriage a universal right in America, it will have to be won state by state and DOMA will have to be overturned.  

So the fight for gay rights parallels in many ways the fight for racial equality: legal restrictions that bar them from full access to rights given to others, societal contempt that often leads to violence, and laws that keep them from marrying, to name just a few.  These struggles are moral equivalents because of this one fact: LGBTs are as fully human and as entitled to live as equals with all Americans, just as we have finally realized about racial minorities.  More and more Americans are convinced that this is the case, with 58% now favoring equality across the board. If the Supreme Court feels the same way, all that will be left will be the same as when  racial minorities received full rights: we will have to discover that there should never have been such a fuss in the first place.

TOMORROW: Part 2, The Moral Implications That Follow from This Equivalency 

Accidental Ally:

How a homophobic pastor found his way into affirming the gay rights movement

Few of us end up where we thought we would.  Our youthful ambitions give way to changing interests and demands of time and place.  Not many of us become the person we said we would be when we grow up.  For many years in my preteen and adolescent years I wanted to be a doctor.  However, my insufficient chemistry skills kept me from that ambition.  My three year stint in the U. S. Marine Corps convinced me that a military career was not for me, either.  In fact, I resisted declaring a major in college until the last moment beyond which I would have had to spend an extra semester.  Many of us find that “life happens” and more often than not, it happens while we are making other plans.  If someone would have told me, even upon entering middle age, that the last few decades of my life would have turned out as they have, I wouldn't have believed it.  Worse, I wouldn't have wanted it that way.

How can a straight pastor, born to Fundamentalist parents and into a Fundamentalist church, raised with the concomitant prejudices of his time, educated in a Fundamentalist college and converted to an antigay denomination, find his way into the gay rights movement and become an ardent spokesperson and ally?  The short answer is, by the grace of God. The longer one follows (but not too long).

Recently one Sunday, my wife and I visited a congregation of my denomination in North Hollywood, California.  We were early, so I pulled into a nearby Starbucks and we had a cup of coffee inside.  There I noticed an actor who I recognized as one always typecast as a heavy. Actually, not just a heavy, but with an evil, even demonic side.  What was remarkable about this encounter is that he was utterly charming, had a most welcoming smile, and his friends with him adored him.  I saw him not long after that on a TV show and I just couldn’t see him the same way again.

I mention this because we all have had similar experiences with people or situations that make us change our minds about something, even about things long held.  So when I found myself living in San Francisco on the mid-1970s, I was prepared for what I expected would be an encounter with stereotypical gays: sex obsessed, drug ridden, and out to get me.  I knew I could spot them easily and thereby protect myself, because of their flamboyant ways. Much to my surprise, not only could I not identify the people who were gay where I worked, none of them fit the stereotype.  On Halloween and Gay Pride days, the activists were out in number along with others who just wanted to let off steam, but for the most part they were as normal as anyone else I knew.  Many of them lived with partners for years, even were raising children, were good employees, and lived life much as I did.  The façade in the stereotype had a huge crack in it.  I learned that the gay stereotypes are decidedly false.  When people try to tell me otherwise, I just say, “You don’t know enough gays!”

Then, when a couple we knew and loved divorced, we found out that the wife was a lesbian. My wife, after I began wondering how we should relate to her now that we knew, said, “Rene’ is still the same person we loved before we knew this.  How can we not continue to love her and keep her close?”  As much as I wanted to concur, I had other baggage.  It’s summed up with all that I thought the Bible taught about the sinfulness of LGBTs.  So that began my serious, deeply serious look into the biblical and theological evidence that both supports and denies the proposition that LGBTs are hell bound unless they change their ways.

So, over the past twenty years I have acquainted myself with the scholarly literature in biblical studies as well as in sociological and psychological areas.  My motivation was solely to go where the results led me.  I had no horse in this race; I have no gay children, no gay parent or any relative that I know of.  I was not defending a point of view; I was trying to gain one, and I eventually did. I learned that virtually all professional studies and academic groups support LGBT normalcy and advocate for their full inclusion into mainstream America.  I learned that most biblical scholars support LGBTs and welcome them into Christian churches without need to change.  I learned that the arguments against gay inclusion are based on biblical literalism which is not a helpful way to read the Bible.  I learned that although the Bible is misused to condemn LGBTs, it's actually is one of their best friends.

Best of all, I have been welcomed into their community, lived with them for almost three decades, and count my association there among the highlights of my life.  That’s the long and the short of it.  So, keep reading this blog.  If you have an open mind, you might discover a few things that may change how you look at things, too.

"But My Bible Says"

“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”   ~ Anne Lamott

The ultimate recourse for those who want to keep homosexuality on the sins list is, "My Bible says...."  The sentence generally ends with "...homosexuals are an abomination," or, "...gays are going to hell," or "God hates gays."  This is intended to be the final word on the matter; the Bible has spoken, the issue is clear, we can move on to other things.  How so? Because the Bible has spoken.

The Bible, of course says no such thing.  I will prove it to you.  Go get your Bible.  Now, take it in your hands and bring it up to your eyes.  Say to it very clearly, "Bible, tell me, what do you have to say about homosexuality?"  If you don't hear anything, repeat your question; maybe louder this time.  If there is still no answer, shake it; it may be taking a nap.  Still nothing?  Well, that's all right, because if you do hear the Bible answering, you may be on your way to a psychiatric hospital.

The Bible "says" nothing.  It is an inert object, words on paper.  It cannot utter a sound.  Of course, you knew that all along, yet you may still want to repeat that the Bible says something.  What is really going on is that YOU say the Bible says something; you speak for the Bible.  The Bible is deaf and dumb.

Unfortunately, we too often make what "the Bible says" what we want it to say.  You see, there is no such thing as an uninterpreted reading of anything, from the daily newspaper to the Bible.  We read (or "hear what it says") though a filter or a lens.  No one can read without one.  Your filter/lens is everything that you have learned through your culture, ethnicity, gender, nationality, education...you get the point...that shapes how you perceive meaning.  Every word you read or hear is processed through this filtering system.  Everyone reads or hears the same word or words differently. Depending on how far apart our systems are, we can basically understand each other or totally misunderstand.  In explaining this to an adult Sunday School class, one member said, "I can think of something we both read that needs no filtering, that is straightforwardly and immediately understood."  "Okay," I said. "Let's have it." He responded, "God is love."  I replied with, "What do you mean by 'God' and what do you mean by 'love'"? (No need to go into what "is" is!)  He got my point.

When it comes to reading the Bible, we have a two to three thousand year old bridge to cross.  We need to be able to "hear" as though we were an immediate member of the culture of those who created those biblical words.  This is virtually impossible.  The best we can do is approximate this; we will never actually achieve this.  And even for those who were contemporaries, they had their own problems.  Here's Peter commenting on Paul's letters: "There are some things in them hard to understand."  Indeed.

So the next time you are tempted to tell someone what the Bible says, why not be honest and tell them that you think this is what the Bible, properly interpreted, means.  You will have achieved two things.  First, you will have admitted that your interpretation is open to opinion (and that it is your opinion), and that you might be, dare I say it...wrong.

Weekends (at least for the time being) will be devoted to sharing some of the better articles I came across during the week.  In this post, I'm featuring two articles that may connect the dots between bizarre and violent behavior and its underlying cause.  It's the scientifically verified notion that homophobic people are often gay themselves and acting out through what psychologists call projection.

Here's a summary statement from the first article, Science Daily:

The findings provide new empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic theory that the fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires.

This may explain the antics of one notable homophobe, Fred Phelps, as written about by one of his former devoted followers, Lauren Drain, in this Huff Post article.  Here's Ms. Drain,

"I never understood why, when [the media asked him], “Why are you so against the homosexuals? Did you have a homosexual experience? Do you have homosexual tendencies?” And he would get so mad, he would shut down. And he’d be like, “I can’t talk to this person anymore, they’re stupid.” His reaction to that was stronger than any other question you can ask him. So I always wondered that — why does he get so mad? If I’m not gay, I’ll just say I’m not gay. And I’m not going to freak out, like, “Why are you calling me gay?” I always thought that was super strange."

Check these articles out.  It should be pointed out that the studies do NOT say that all homophobes are themselves gay.  But one is left to wonder who might not be.

Here NOM Goes Again!

I've devoted several posts to prior statements from the National Organization for Marriage, NOM, that more than require a scratching of the head. This time, however, they have outdone themselves.  Their peculiar brand of logic can only be described as solely at the service of their cramped ideology.  For it makes no sense except to them and to those who subscribe to their patriarchal notions of family.  To wit:

In an article yesterday from the Associated Press, the writer surveyed the Justices' family situations and discovered that they are divorced, remarried, never married with no children, and married once with children. In other words, the Justices' family lives look a lot like American families. This got John Cherlin, a Johns Hopkins sociologist thinking about the upcoming gay marriage cases, and mused, if "Justices consider their own family lives in these cases, it may change the way they rule."  Chief Justice Roberts and his wife are the parents of two adopted children.  The chairman of NOM, John Eastman, commented on the value of Justice Roberts' decision to adopt:

"You're looking at what is the best course society wide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts' family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option." 

The "second best option."  Adoption could never be considered anything but second best. Why?  Because only a family of the birth mother and birth father raising their own birth children qualifies as "the best."  

There is no room in NOM's world for anything but mom, dad and their child as the best, and if they had their way, the ONLY way to raise a family.  I wonder how Justice Roberts and his wife feel about being second best?  I wonder how his children when they look back upon their lives will feel about being raised "second best"?  Or adopted children and their parents everywhere?

I told you this would only make sense if you must defend at all costs NOM's view of the ideal home.  No wonder then that yesterday Brian Brown, NOM's president, released the following statement regarding the selection of Pope Francis I:

Pope Francis has also said: "At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts."

You see, the issue isn't that NOM really cares that adoption is second best.  What they really are after is a way of prioritizing the hierarchy of family configurations from best to worst so they can make gay families with adopted children the worst.

The stakes are so high with NOM that they will insult the Chief Justice of the United States, his children, all adoptive parents and their children, and all who will ever open their homes to orphaned children.  This is what happens when ideology blinds: anything goes.

The New Pope and Our Cause

I celebrate along with the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics and innumerable other religious and nonreligious people around the world the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina to the church's highest office.  Even thought I am a Protestant, I hold the Catholic Church in high esteem and recognize its importance to the world.  

All the earmarks are pointing in the right direction: Pope Francis I, is a product of the struggle in Latin America for justice for the poor, and is known as a critic of the business interests who continuously exploit their people.  He is a humble man, eschewing the perks of his high office, preferring public transportation to chauffeured limousines, and lives in a small flat, not a palace.  "Cardinal Bergoglio had a special place in his heart and his ministry for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for those living on the fringes and facing injustice," said Vatican spokesperson Thomas Rosica.  Even the choice of his papal name bespeaks of a man who cares deeply for human injustices. That is, for all but one:

The above quote occurred during the campaign in Argentina that resulted in legalization of same-sex marriage in 2010.  He also warned that adoption by gay parents would result in depriving children "of the human growth that God wanted [for] them given by a father and a mother."  

This makes me wonder how people of good will, and I believe most assuredly that our new pope is one, can isolate out certain injustices as not worthy of their attention.  Or in this case is seen as anything but an injustice, but an evil that must be eradicated.  

Sometimes it's simply a matter of theology or ideology trumping otherwise good judgment. It's seen in some Black Americans condemning LGBTs "because the Bible says they are an abomination," using as their source authority the same Bible that condemned them to slavery and segregation.  It's seen in Pro Life people who will sacrifice their lives to save the unborn, but won't support legislation to provide them a safety net after they are born.  It's seen in those who are against birth control, yet won't allow condoms to halt the spread of AIDS.  We could go on and on, couldn't we.  

The Catholic Sun says of Pope Francis I,

His role often forces him to speak publicly about the economic, social and political problems facing his country. His homilies and speeches are filled with references to the fact that all people are brothers and sisters and that the church and the country need to do what they can to make sure that everyone feels welcome, respected and cared for.  

How often have we seen signs on churches that advertise, "All are welcome here," only to find that this welcome is not universal, not for all.  Such statements from the pope are hypocritical at worst and blithely naive at best. As for "respected and cared for", how can we take him seriously when he supports the view, as stated in a letter to the Bishops (drafted by then Cardinal Ratzinger) from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that homosexuals are "intrinsically disordered"? (This is from the same Congregation that ran the infamous Inquisition.)

Many believe that the Roman Catholic Church has lost its standing to tell anyone how to conduct sexually moral lives.  Perhaps this is partially why 58% of American Catholics support same-sex marriage, while only 38% oppose it.  And many of the most Catholic of countries, Spain, Portugal and even Argentina have legalized it.  People have a way of seeing through inconsistencies and rank injustices.

I am not a "one issue" voter.  I will not disregard the pope, or the Catholic Church for that matter, simply because they are on the opposite side of this issue from me.  I will support them for the many, many good things they do in the world for the poor and marginalized.  I will pray for the pope for the wisdom and support he needs to guide his church in the coming days and years.  But I will also speak out against this outrageous omission, this blind spot in the pope and his church, with the hope that maybe some day the leaders of the church will catch up to the wisdom of their members.

The self-destruction that accompanies closet life

Part 6 of The Harmful Effects of the Closet

Preamble to each post: There is no doubt that "the closet" is the most harmful result of continuing to deny LGBTs a legitimate and equal place in society. By not acknowledging them, heterosexuals force them into hiding. The results are often catastrophic. What is also not in doubt is that the closet is of heterosexual making. Rather than wag our fingers and preach our condemning sermons, we should be doing all we can to eliminate this despicable situation. For a simple fact remains: if we eliminate the closet, we eliminate all those things that we negatively associate with gayness. Even better, LGBTs are freed from the inhumanity of closet life. 

"The degree and kind of a man's sexuality reach up into the ultimate pinnacle of his spirit."   ~  Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

According to the gay bloggers at Revel & Riot, 

A closeted person is someone who has gay relationships, but hides that fact from everyone that they know and love. In Beyond the Closet; The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life, being in the closet is described as a “life-shaping pattern of concealment.” Being closeted is linked with high-anxiety, low self-esteem, increased risk for suicide and general lack of fulfillment (though closeted people rarely admit to not being fulfilled while they’re in there, though they always remark about it when they finally come out!)

David Van Leer characterized it as, "The Beast of the Closet,"  (Critical Inquiry 15 (1989) and you don't want to be confined in a small space with a beast.

I don't mean to be judgmental, but in stark terms to live in the closet is to live a lie.  It is to live deceitfully.  It is to be forced to deny one's true self, and to deny oneself the integrity that only comes from living in the open.  Readers of this blog know that I do not place the blame on those who feel the closet is their only option.  Rather, the blame is squarely on those who make life so miserable for some that they are convinced that life in the open is too risky, even life threatening.

Dr. Gary Gates of the Williams Institute think tank at UCLA, describes the closet this way: "My personal definition of the closet is... pathological, as it is associated with discordance in people’s lives between ...how they behave or how they feel. In this case, the closet is not the discordance, per se, but rather the pathology that the discordance creates."  Gates is no homophobe; he lives an out gay life.  His concern is for those caught up in the pathology that the closet creates and what to do about it. 

In its extreme form, pathology results from years of what Dr. Jack Dresher calls dissociation. This is the result of a perceived lack of "[T]ransparency, invisibility, losing one’s voice, being an outsider, etc., are some of the terms used to describe the subjective experience of dissociative detachment." (Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man)  In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanisms in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress or conflict. This leads to LGBTs inability to be themselves, and their true selves disappear into a public facade. Feelings of insignificance caused by their inability to express their true feelings, leads to very low self-esteem. This may culminate in deep depression that can lead to suicide in the most severe cases.

Did you know that there is such a thing as a "self-loathing gay"?  No wonder.  If your world was filled with messages of inferiority, threats, degrading insults, religious denunciations, and the like, you might not have a very high opinion of yourself, either.  And recent studies show that often homophobics are actually closeted gays.  Through the coping mechanism of projection, a person subconsciously denies his or her own negative attributes and ascribes them to others.  

Jesus' insistence that we love our neighbors as ourselves must mean that straight Christians cannot tolerate the existence of the closet.  No one in the closet has a chance to love themselves in a healthy way.  Even if self-protection is a form of self-care, it falls very short of ultimate self-respect and full human dignity.  Even so, as a straight man I have no standing to say that all LGBTs must come out.  I can only urge you, for your sake and for all our sakes, to give coming out serious consideration.

This ends the series on The Harmful Effects of the Closet

The intense loneliness of not having a life companion openly at one's side

Part 5 of The Harmful Effects of the Closet

Preamble to each post: There is no doubt that "the closet" is the most harmful result of continuing to deny LGBTs a legitimate and equal place in society. By not acknowledging them, heterosexuals force them into hiding. The results are often catastrophic. What is also not in doubt is that the closet is of heterosexual making. Rather than wag our fingers and preach our condemning sermons, we should be doing all we can to eliminate this despicable situation. For a simple fact remains: if we eliminate the closet, we eliminate all those things that we negatively associate with gayness.  Even better, LGBTs are freed from the inhumanity of closet life. 

For most of us, our families are the center of our lives.  We live in constant awareness of and with high purpose for those we call family.  We hardly do anything outside of work that doesn't involve them, directly or indirectly.  Few decisions we make are made without reference to their well-being.  And if we are happily married, our spouse is the most significant person in our life.

But for those who live their lives in the closet, who marry for the sake of self-protection, or who chose to remain single, life lived without the most satisfying relationship a human may enjoy, loving and being loved by a deeply devoted life partner, is denied them.

For Christian LGBTs, this is a heightened problem, for the church, almost universally, condemns any effort they might take to relieve the loneliness that constantly dogs them. Nonreligious out LGBTs have found satisfying life partners and live lives not much different from straight couples, enjoying the ebb and flow that accompanies all relationships.  But closeted LGBTs, Christian or not, are denied such a life.

Let’s be clear about what we are asking of Christian nonheterosexuals.  Richard B. Hays, in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament, writes,

Heterosexual persons are also called to abstinence from sex unless they marry (1 Cor. 7:8-9).  The only difference, admittedly a salient one, in the case of homosexually oriented persons is that they do not have the option of homosexual marriage.  So where does that leave them?  It leaves them in precisely the same situation as the heterosexual who would like to marry but cannot find an appropriate partner (and there are many such): summoned to a difficult, costly obedience, while groaning for the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23).  

Gay Christians, according to Hays, are essentially no different from would-be married heterosexuals.  Both of them are asked to hold their natural sexual impulses at bay.  This ability to be chaste for life is considered a gift from God, not a natural condition, and is rarely granted.  Even when it is, it is not without its challenges. Even so, straights and gays are far from being on an equal footing, because the heterosexual— let’s call him Greg— has the hope, even the strong possibility of some day being married.  Greg can hope, and hope makes all the difference for him.  But Norman, a gay man, has no hope.  He is denied the possibility of ever having his greatest longing fulfilled—that of a marriage partner.  Let us be clear about this.  We are not asking Norman to deny himself sex.  We are demanding that Norman deny his humanity.  In effect, we are asking Norman to commit suicide of his spirit. This I find to be profoundly unchristian and unworthy of a compassionate God.

More and more congregations and denominations are finding this situation needlessly burdensome for their LGBT members and are holding marriage ceremonies for them.  In many cases, these are marriages "in the sight of God" only, as the state has yet to legalize them.  But they are, nevertheless, just as fulfilling to the gay couples as any straight marriage can be.

But the closet is still the enemy of those it continues to house.  As long as they remain safely inside, the possibility of a complete life is beyond their grasp.  They will languish, continuing to seek furtive, incomplete alliances which will only remind them of what they will never have.  Their human longing for the one who can make all the difference in their lives will go unabated.  They shrivel and die.  As one who left the closet for good told me, "The oxygen in there grew thin and I could hardly take a breath."

The sooner we, as a nation and church, make marriage available for nonheterosexuals, the sooner will the loneliness of the closet and its consequent inhumanity be eliminated.  After all, doesn't the Golden Rule, "Do to others that which you would want done to you," demand that?  Imagine for a moment, if you are straight, life without your significant other.  Why would we want anyone else to be forced to live that way?

In this video, five gay couples talk about their anticipated marriage ceremonies

TOMORROW: The self-destruction that accompanies closet life

The Closet and Clandestine, Anonymous Sex

Part 4 of The Harmful Effects of the Closet

Preamble to each post: There is no doubt that "the closet" is the most harmful result of continuing to deny LGBTs a legitimate and equal place in society. By not acknowledging them, heterosexuals force them into hiding. The results are often catastrophic. What is also not in doubt is that the closet is of heterosexual making. Rather than wag our fingers and preach our condemning sermons, we should be doing all we can to eliminate this despicable situation. For a simple fact remains: if we eliminate the closet, we eliminate all those things that we negatively associate with gayness. Even better, LGBTs are freed from the inhumanity of closet life.

Way back in 1965, in a CBS documentary, viewers heard Mike Wallace say,

"The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city — the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship. And the homosexual prostitute has become a fixture in the downtown streets at night."

One thing we have learned since then is that this is not the picture of the "average homosexual."  Not then or ever.  It is, however, a slice of gay life that is also not all that uncommon among straight singles.  But typical, no; not of either sexual orientation.

But people back in that era were unfamiliar with the "average homosexual" because most lived deep in the closet.  There was no way of knowing the totality of the community as it was hidden from view; at least, from straight view.  All we thought we knew was based on rumor, innuendo and stereotypes passed from generation to generation.  The "average homosexual" was as unreal as the Cleaver family's depiction of the "average family" on "Leave It to Beaver."  Even in our time, when the closet is beginning to empty out, it is impossible to estimate the true percentage of the homosexual population, because so many remain unnoticed.

Today we know that the broad outlines suggested in the CBS documentary are decidedly false.  There are many thousands of documented life-long gay relationships, many of which became officially recognized in marriage ceremonies in states when they became legal. There are also innumerable Christian LGBTs who have persevered in their churches, even rising to high office as pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, choir directors, organists, as well as faithfully active members.  Many of us who were raised in homophobic environments became supporters, even advocates of gay equality, when we got to know many LGBTs and discovered the stereotypes we were taught are manifestly wrong.

Yet, the opposition likes to trot out so-called "scientific studies" which would keep in force these malicious stereotypes. One notable study is from Holland and is summarized in this way:

Homosexual Unions Last Only 1.5 Years, Says New Study

BY LIFESITENEWS.COM

• Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:15 EST

• 
  

AMSTERDAM, July 14, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As Canada and several U.S. states move toward the legalization of so-called homosexual “marriage,” a new study has found that homosexual partnerships last, on average, only one-and-a-half years.  The study is based on the health records of young Dutch homosexuals by Dr. Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service and published in the May issue of the journal AIDS. It also found that men in homosexual relationships have an average of eight partners a year outside their main partnership, adding more evidence to the “stereotype” that homosexuals tend to be promiscuous.  The findings are “proof positive that these relationships ... will never be as stable as a normal heterosexual relationship regardless of what institutions or laws are changed,” said Pete LaBarbara, senior policy analyst at Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute, who predicts that homosexual promiscuity will remain “rampant.”

If this is all you had to go on, you might be inclined to take this at face value.  However, what LifeSiteNews does not tell you is that this study was confined only to those who were treated at STD clinics, were 30 years and younger, may not have been in an actual relationship, excluded monogamous men, was confined to the city of Amsterdam, and open mostly to HIV/AIDS patients.  In other words, this doesn't even begin to represent the gay community nor was it intended to.  This study was limited to the promiscuous for the purpose of determining how AIDS spread in a community.  And guess what they found?  Non-monogamous gays are not monogamous.  I'm shocked, shocked!  And, as far as lending itself to conclusions about the "average homosexual," it totally left out lesbians.

According to an analysis in the Box Turtle Bulletin:

This turns out to be a very common tactic among anti-gay extremists. Because they’re eager to portray their positions as being backed by scientific research, they often turn to medical studies to support their arguments. And they are especially fond of studies of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s), which they can count on to provide especially juicy statistics to describe “what homosexuals do”. But of course, all you really learn from these studies is what some homosexuals do — the ones who go to STD clinics because they’ve picked up a disease. By turning to Dr. Xiridou’s study, these activists are following a well-worn path. Click here for a full review of the misleading interpretations of the Dutch Report.

Now, to turn to the issue of promiscuity among gay men, let's not kid ourselves.  Men, per se, are promiscuous.  It is well-known among sociologists that women are the moderating factor in controlling male sexual urges.  It is also true that the libido in men is stronger than in women.  The following analogy is overly simplistic, yet to the point: Think of the libido as a light switch.  For men, it is mostly on, for women it is mostly off.  (Or, men are turned on and women need to be turned on.)  Naturally, when men are attracted to each other, it doesn't take much for the libidos to take over.  (I said this is overly simplistic, but not altogether unrealistic.)  When women are available to straight men for sexual purposes, they are no less promiscuous than gay men.  So let's not single out gay men as overly promiscuous.

But as to clandestine, anonymous sex, there may be a slight difference between gay and straight men. (Let's not overlook the fact that sex with prostitutes, phone sex, and one-night stands on the part of straight men, constitute clandestine, anonymous sex.)  But why is it that gay men populate the bath houses, parks, and backrooms in bars, and cruise the streets looking for a willing partner?  BECAUSE WHEN THEY ARE IN THE CLOSET, ANONYMOUS SEX IS ALL THAT IS AVAILABLE TO THEM.  Yes, I am shouting.  I am shouting because this reality needs to be clearly heard.  It is not because of moral laxity, or a character flaw, or an inherently deviant psychological disposition, but because as long as we force people into the closet, we give them no other choice.  At least it seems that way to them.  For to live one's gay sexuality in the open is not an option for those who live in the closet.

So, let's ease up on the rhetoric and give people a break.  Let's also do what we can to eliminate the need for the closet and most of the things straights abhor that go on there will disappear.

TOMORROW: Part 5: The intense loneliness of not having a life companion openly at one's side

The Closet and Inappropriate Marriages

Part 3 of The Harmful Effects of the Closet

Preamble to each post: There is no doubt that "the closet" is the most harmful result of continuing to deny LGBTs a legitimate and equal place in society. By not acknowledging them, heterosexuals force them into hiding. The results are often catastrophic. What is also not in doubt is that the closet is of heterosexual making. Rather than wag our fingers and preach our condemning sermons, we should be doing all we can to eliminate this despicable situation. For a simple fact remains: if we eliminate the closet, we eliminate all those things that we negatively associate with gayness. Even better, LGBTs are freed from the inhumanity of closet life.

By making life miserable for LGBTs, many resort to the secrecy of the closet in order to protect themselves.  To do so, they must appear as normal sexually as everyone else seems to be.  Often, this involves getting married.  Often, at least two lives are ruined in the process.  If children are involved, the body count continues.  People being forced into unnatural marriages is one of the most horrific aspects of the closet.

You don't have to look too far to know of such marriages.  I know of many.  A dear friend of mine had his wife come to him in tears, sobbing out, "God made me wrong."  They ended up divorcing.  Thankfully, no children were involved.  

Another friend and pastoral colleague learned of his wife's lesbianism when an affair was uncovered.  This time, children were involved.

An elder in a church I served married and had a child.  He couldn't live what he termed "a lie," and eventually   ended his marriage.

These stories could be continued indefinitely because they are all around us.  Just reading them on the page doesn't come close to the heart wrenching trauma suffered by all involved. Broken hearts, ended dreams, lives turned upside down, and children bewildered.  These are but a few of the consequences of forcing people to live contrary to their nature.  If you want to get a real sense of the anguish that comes with this, watch the documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So. It's available on Netflix.

The truly stultifying aspect of this is that it is totally unnecessary.  If there were no closet, there would be no need for these marriages in the first place.  And if same-sex marriage were available and acceptable, first marriages would be starting out as they should.  More and more people are seeing the logic of this and are now supporting efforts for gay normalization.

Recall that the first "not good" following all that was good in the creation stories of Genesis, was that the creature was alone.  God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone."  It is also not good for a man or woman to be forced into a marriage that maintains this loneliness. For only that partner who truly is suitable can do this.  For nonheterosexuals, only a same-sex partner will do.  (For a more complete explanation, see http://clergyunited.blogspot.com/2013/01/loneliness-first-not-good-of-creation.html)

I don't want to indict the motives or the character of those who make the choice to try to live their lives as best they can by trying to conform to society's expectations.  Many actually start out believing that they will somehow change by getting married, only to realize, too late, that they cannot change.  Others feel they are in love with their marriage partner, but discover that it is the love of a friend, not a spouse.  Still others discover their true sexuality after marriage.  Many who are still married but unhappy (lonely) persevere because of religious scruples and live lives of quiet desperation. I don't wish to disparage any of them for the choices they make, for it is a situation forced upon them by a heterocentric society that offers no good alternatives.  If we truly regret this situation, we need to do all we can to make the closet no longer necessary.

In the video below, hear from husbands and wives of gay partners who moved on from their marriages and how it affects all parties involved.  Courageous men and women, heartbroken, yet supportive of their loved one.  True humanity observed.

MONDAY: Clandestine and anonymous sexual practices

Why the Closet?

The Harmful Effects of the Closet, Part 2: 
"Heterosexism, the Begetter of the Closet"


Preamble to each post: There is no doubt that "the closet" is the most harmful result of continuing to deny LGBTs a legitimate and equal place in society. By not acknowledging them, heterosexuals force them into hiding. The results are often catastrophic. What is also not in doubt is that the closet is of heterosexual making. Rather than wag our fingers and preach our condemning sermons, we should be doing all we can to eliminate this despicable situation. For a simple fact remains: if we eliminate the closet, we eliminate all those things that we negatively associate with gayness. Even better, LGBTs are freed from the inhumanity of closet life.

I ask you, if you are a heterosexual, do you (ever)…

...fear holding hands with your lover in public?
...fear your sexuality will be held against you at work?
...reject thoughts of having children and grandchildren out of hand?
...get apprehensive upon leaving a straight bar?
...hide your sexual identity from your family and friends?
...send out false signal regarding your sexual identity to appear otherwise?
...think that your heterosexuality is a burden in any way?

Or do you...

...remember fighting against your initial fears you may be heterosexual?
...loathe yourself for being “unnatural”?
...resent your feelings of attraction to the opposite sex?
...keep your sexual identity from your friends and family for fear of rejection or condemnation?
...often wish you were not heterosexual?
...ever consider entering therapy to try to reverse your heterosexuality?
...hope that your sexuality might rise to the level of acceptability, but never imagine it would be held in high esteem?
...live deep in the closet because you are afraid to live openly as a heterosexual? 

Of course, Mr. and Ms. Heterosexual, you never were confronted by any of these situations. You have lived your life free from the burden of orientation pretense and openly pursued your life. How very different from our LGBT friends and family members. In order to keep their jobs, their standing in social circles (including churches), even their sanity, they must keep their true sexual orientation from us.  For if they don't, the personal and economic consequences are often very harsh, even life-threatening.  It's no wonder many choose to live a closeted existence.

So, just what is it that set up such conditions that LGBTs feel it necessary to hide from us? It's called heterosexism.

Heterosexism is an acculturated system of bias regarding sexual orientation. It encourages values in favor of heterosexual people and enforces prejudiced actions against LGBTs.

In other words, heterosexism is a means by which heterosexuals maintain their power. It is not unlike White racism in that regard.

Gregory Herek, professor of psychology at the University of California, distinguishes between two manifestations of heterosexism:

Cultural:  The stigmatization, denial, or denigration of nonheterosexuality in cultural institutions ranging from the church to the courthouse.
Psychological:  A person’s internalization of this worldview which erupts in antigay prejudice and homophobia.

Virtually every society has in-groups and out-groups. For keeping minorities subjugated to the dominant culture, two operations are used:  prejudice and discrimination. This results in the singling out of individuals or groups of people as targets of hostility even though they may have little or nothing to do with the evils for which they stand accused. Scapegoating is the result, with the closet as the only defense against heterosexism and homophobia.

This is why heterosexuals are responsible for creating and maintaining the closet. We like it this way. We maintain our power and keep opposition at bay.

How do heterosexuals further the heterosexist agenda? In ways both overt and covert. "That's so gay!" "You throw like a girl." "Marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman." "The Bible condemns homosexuality." "If you must have a same-sex relationship, keep it in private."

I once referred to myself as an "avowed heterosexual." The idea is silly on the face of it! I said it in response to someone who referred to another as an avowed homosexual, as though that was too horrifying to contemplate. We went on to discuss heterosexual privilege. I asked him why it was okay for him to show affection to his wife in public, but not for gays.  I asked him why we aren't allowed to discriminate in job hiring and housing against racial minorities, but it's perfectly fine to discriminate against gays.  I asked him why we keep straights in the military, but give gays bad conduct discharges. I asked him why straight couples are allowed to adopt children, but in most states, gays cannot.  I asked him why sodomy between straight couples was fine, but not with gay couples.  You get the picture; that's heterosexism doing its work.

My coming postings will feature aspects of the closet that no one appreciates.  Our tendency as straights is to  blame the situation on gays and attribute these offenses to their moral inferiority. However, the stark reality is that, by virtue of heterosexism, straights created each and every condition that we so easily condemn, when the accusing finger should be pointing at us. People of good will throughout the world are realizing the harm the closet perpetuates and are working diligently to dismantle it. Why not; we made it in the first place.

This video elaborates on heterosexism and explains it better than I can:

TOMORROW: The Closet and Inappropriate Marriages