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 

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

Republicans Amazingly Support Same-sex Marriage

Republicans are finding their way to support same-sex marriage, not so slowly-but-surely.  In fact, for many formerly of the opposition, their turnaround is astonishingly quick.  The New York Times yesterday reported that some prominent party members are now encouraging the US Supreme Court, in an amicus brief, to get on board, also.  Here's a paragraph from their story:

Among them are Meg Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 when she ran for California governor; Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of New York; Stephen J. Hadley, a Bush national security adviser; Carlos Gutierrez, a commerce secretary to Mr. Bush; James B. Comey, a top Bush Justice Department official; David A. Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first budget director; and Deborah Pryce, a former member of the House Republican leadership from Ohio who is retired from Congress.

These are only a few of the 75 who signed the brief.  Other Republican supporters of same-sex marriage, including Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Laura Bush did not sign on, but have publicly affirmed their support.

So, what is behind this change of heart?  It seems to be a matter of long-held fundamentals catching up with political realities. The heart of the Republican ideology is the priority of and freedom for the individual.  For these who are changing their outlook, it's a simple matter of being consistent with this commitment.  This quote from same Times article is a case in point:

“The die is cast on this issue when you look at the percentage of younger voters who support gay marriage,” said Steve Schmidt, who was a senior adviser to the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and who signed the brief. “As Dick Cheney said years ago, ‘Freedom means freedom for everybody.’ ”

The political reality is that the demographics of America, which are making the GOP irrelevant in coming national elections, strongly favor those who align with supporting same-sex marriage. As Schmidt put it, "the die is cast."  So the combination of wanting to be consistent with Republican ideology and demographic realities produce this amazing turn of events.

Welcome to the cause.

Margaret Hoover: Paul Ryan, Same-Sex Marriage, & Proposition 8 from KLRU-TV on Vimeo.