the janus face of homophobia

(Note: Jesus' General is satire. It's like if Stephen Colbert's right-wing persona had a blog. Just had to clear that up before anyone gets all weird. But the church it links to? So not satire. And, Dad, if you know anyone from this congregation, please don't tell me. I'd be sorely, and angrily, disappointed.)

homophobia has a janus face.

on one side its face is affable, smiling and with only a hint of the steely intolerance within showing through the eyes. (see rick warren or your average straight homophobe who doesn't care who folks sleep with, but just don't 'agree' with the 'lifestyle' and would rather the gays stop whining about being special.) but the other face is less likable - it's twisted in anger, spittle flying while hurling words like 'faggot.' (see bro. stucky.)

i believe this is homophobia's true face.

let's go back to the link on Jesus' General site; on one hand, bro. stucky's ideas are ridiculous (rudolph the red nosed reindeer is an allegory of heterosexual oppression? really??) but on the other hand, they are dangerously problematic ("The death penalty should be enacted for the queers.") it's useful to take such ideas seriously because it forces us to follow the religious argument against civil rights for gays and lesbians to its bitter, violent end.

it forces their own terrible fears and tendencies out of their religous closets, into the glaring light of day.

but it also shows us the limited scope of their hatred. homophobes have nothing new to say, ever. they never progress, never move forward, never innovate even in their hatred. theirs is a retarded (as in stunted) sensibility.

and they are, and will always be, wrong.

i watched the movie "Milk" with a couple of friends last week; vaguely, i recalled seeing the fight for gay rights and anita bryant's fight against on the news when i was a kid. but what struck me most was hearing the argument for discriminating against gays 20-30 years ago is pretty much the same as the arguments against gay rights now: they'll ruin the family, they'll force churches into collapse, they'll corrupt children, they'll kill my faith - and in all this time hence, gay people have never been the cause of any of these things, nor will they ever.

families implode under the weight of their own dysfunction; churches collapse mostly because of pastoral misconduct or scandal; children are corrupted because of neglect and apathy. one's faith dies perhaps because one never had it in the first place.

to the brother stuckeys and the rick warrens, a word (or several):
civil rights for all - gay and straight. this is our chance to fully embrace the promise of our national heritage - all men (and women) are created equal, regardless of skin color, creed, religion or sexual orientation. it's time for all of us to share the benefits of being a citizen of this country. you don't have to like the gays but you must recognize that they are equal participants in this country just like you and are due the same legal protections and recognition as you.

those purges will never happen, brother matthew stucky. no matter what face you put on it.

it matters: the rick warren decision

Obama’s Selection of Evangelical Pastor Rick Warren for Inauguration Sparks Gay Outrage - US News and World Report

i have to admit, i'm puzzled over this one.
(who would i have picked? Peter Gomes. he's black AND gay!)

rick warren's disgust with the 'gay lifestyle' (like it's picking a tea cozy or deciding where to vacation) is just code for 'i am a raging homophobe.' and that's why it matters.

having someone like rick warren is exactly like inviting a friendly, raging racist to stand up there and give the prayer.

when are we going to see that civil rights are civil rights, no matter who's asking for them?

if the larger society is to accept the basic humanity of gays and lesbians then certain lines need to be drawn in the sand. one of those lines is recognizing that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice but a life, like yours and mine and, therefore, it should be recognized as such and reap the same benefits of lives like yours and mine.

in the same way you cannot choose your skin color or your gender, you cannot choose your sexual orientation.

(a lesson that Ted Haggard is still learning, clearly.)

this is not a point to debate or cavil over but the basic, fundamental dividing line between those supporting gay civil rights and those who are against it. there is no point in conversing, negotiating or symbolically linking these two camps when the two camps are so fundamentally opposed.

i can understand only some of the thinking behind this pick. rick warren symbolizes a so-called 'post-denominational' church (an idea which would make my dad spit.) but i think we can probably think of pastors on the religious left who better symbolize this spirit of moving away from tired fundamentalism and its culture wars: brian mclaren? peter gomes? my pastor? jim wallis? father michael pfleger? an ordained woman from any of the mainline churches, perhaps?

a friend made me realize that Power is Power, no matter who wears it, even the affable tall skinny black guy we're going to call President. and Power, no matter who wears it, never willingly cedes ground.

and so, those of us who are demanding something from Power, neither can we.

Prop 8: the legal challenge begins

And so it begins, the legal arguments and decisions that will impact the everyday lives of gay and lesbian Californians.

A brief digression: in my day job, I'm the government relations officer for a non profit and I basically see that role as one that explains to interested (or apathetic) parties why my organization matters and why the work we do is meaningful and how others can contribute to that meaning.

The other day I was reading a messaging document about the way to frame a particularly complicated campaign we're about to launch in coalition with other orgs in the state and it presented a novel (to me) idea - that when advocating for a social cause, it might be better to promote materialist thinking, rather than mentalist thinking.

Using a materialist approach in social justice communications concentrates on the concrete advantages of better policy decisions rather than factors that are outside the public sphere of interest, like character, choices or individual motivation.

It's kind of confusing but it works like this: you have to give folks a reason to discard their binary thinking, largely based in fear or ignorance. "Gay marriage will mean the end of heterosexual marriage" or "Gay marriage is unnatural" (because being gay is unnatural.)

A mentalist approach (something I do all the time because I get so easily pissed off) says that 'Gay marriage is good because gays are people too and it's just fair to legally recognize their relationships, too! You're such a bigoted asshole!'

This is one effective way of communicating the issue.

Might there be a more effective way to communicate the issue?

Perhaps. (And I'm working this out as I'm writing here, so bear with me.)

A materialist approach might say this (and the RHR piece references messaging like this):
"The right to form a family without the interference of state or federal government is a core American value, along with fairness, equality and freedom. To deny gay marriage, or other legal arrangements that replicate (though aren't the same as) marriage rights, is to deny them a basic human need and separates them from a national identity that is rightfully theirs."

Or something like that.

The advantage of this kind of framing:
It neutralizes the kerfuffle about 'protecting' families and maintains the importance of families to an intact social fabric. You are correct, sir. Families are the foundation of society and gays and lesbians would like to have families of our own.

It allows a conversation about how gay families support society. Gay families provide parenting, support children and each other, are invested in and contribute to the various structures/institutions that are involved in raising a family.

It connects the narrative of gay and lesbian equality to a national narrative of liberation. It's not just about one community, it's about the connection to a big ol' community. The struggle of other people and other communities to live lives of independence and freedom, away from social and religious oppression, is no different from this struggle.

It erases the binary Us/Them. Family is family, no matter who's in it.

And it doesn't waste time pleading for reluctant hetero acceptance of a gay 'lifestyle,' whatever that is. Homophobia will probably never go away; but with family, there's strength.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts off the top of my head, if anyone was wondering how to communicate this kind of stuff.

Ok, I really should get on the phone now and do some work.


CA Court Case Challenges Prop 8, Anti-Gay Rights Measure | RHRealityCheck.org

the view from the other side: why civil unions aren't enough

From an Andrew Sullivan post:

We are so often told by opponents of marriage equality that they do not oppose our right to have basic legal protections. What they do not understand, because they have never had to understand, is that without legal marriage, gay couples are always subject to the veto of family members who have more say over our spouses under the law than we do.

and this:

Until you have been treated as sub-human, it's hard to appreciate how it feels. We will not give up. And we will win in part for the sake of those who never made it to see this day.

This is what my faith teaches me, whatever the Vatican insists. Our love really is stronger than their fear.

so to those who offer the mealy-mouthed 'i'm ok with their civil unions but, euww, i don't want them to be married because marriage is for straight people' i say that this is a civil rights issue and one's homophobia is irrelevant.

you're either for equal rights because you believe in liberty for ALL and that all men were created equal - and thus how the world works for one set of the citizenry is how it should work for ALL - or you're against equal rights and think that our Constitution is only for straight people.

pick one.

it's about love

party over: a primer on equality and Prop 8

We'll take a brief break from the longest post-election party ever to turn a quiet, sober eye to California, my home state. There, among the raisins, peaches and lettuce, the people of California voted overwhelmingly to deny their fellow Californians basic equal rights while, at the same time, making it possible for Barack Obama to become President. Ironic, isn't it?

Basically, Prop 8 tells every gay person in California to suck it up and accept it: you will never have the same right or access to the same things to which I, my straight sister and straight brother in law have rights and access.

There. That's the Proposition in a nutshell.
(Come at me with your counter arguments trying to explain to the 'danger' of gay rights and not only will I call bullshit on all of that, I will ask you what made you hate gay people.)

Now there's been some talk about who's to blame for this vote. Was it black people? Was it Latinos? Was it black and/or Latino church folk? (We'll come back to that.)

Let's cut to the chase: it was straight people who tanked equal rights for gays in California. (Let that sink in a bit. We'll come back to that, too.)

Here's the thing about equal rights - they actually supercede religion and race and they do so because the idea behind equality and civil rights is quite simple:

IF SOCIETY WORKS ONE WAY FOR ONE PARTICULAR GROUP OF PEOPLE, TO THEIR BENEFIT, THEN IT BETTER WORK THE EXACT SAME WAY FOR EVERYONE ELSE.

I will repeat this often and loudly at whoever is puffing themselves into a self-righteous ball about why they voted for Prop 8:

Religion: you voted for Prop 8 because the Bible said so. Well, so what? We don't live in a theocracy and it's wrong for a portion of the population to be subjected to your narrow interpretation of the bible which should actually have no bearing on civic life. God will not send you to hell because you voted for something that gives Tony and Miguel the right to spousal healthcare benefits or visit one another in the hospital should Tony get hit by the RTD.

The 'Ick' Factor: you voted for Prop 8 because the idea of two women loving one another and exchanging vows in front of a judge skeeves you out. Again, so the frak what? Your personal, outdated and irrelevant homophobia just legally stripped an entire community of their basic civil rights which they should have because they're, you know - basic frakking human beings living in America.

The Race Thing: you're quite willing to vote for Obama but, lawd, that gay thing is what white folks do. Are you kidding me?? You are surrounded by gay people.

You sit in church, look up into the choir and know that Donny the pianist has been 'that way' for years. (Quiet as kept, you know big ol' flashy, stentorian Bishop So-And-So has been having liaisons with black men for years.)
You have a cousin who always brings her slightly butchy 'roommate' to every family reunion and you know they're not just sharing an apartment to save on rent.
You have heard stories of folks in your family who've never married or, after a spouse has died, have never remarried but suddenly get quite comfortable moving in with their life-long same sex best friend - and you KNOW it's not just about companionship.
You go to the fests in Leimert Park and you see the all the gay men with their babies and their 'girlfriends' and you STILL think those men are straight.

And you know what? Luther - gay! Langston - gay! Snoop (on The Wire) - gaaay! My aunt Diane - totally gay!

What the hell, my people?!
Y'all had best get off your high horses about civil rights and demanding to hear bullshit arguments to 'convince' you that gay people need the same rights as you. Who do we think we are? We do not own the patent on civil rights. Ol' Miss Sally mighta marched with Dr. King but Ol' Miss Sally has NO right to use Dr. King's fight to emancipate black folk to justify keeping gay people in a cage built by her misunderstanding of what 'the gays' do, are like or really want.

You know what gay people want? What you and I have. Freedom. Autonomy. Dignity. The privilege to introduce the person they love to a room full of people as their spouse. They want to fulfill a human desire to create a family and have that family be protected just as your family is protected. They want what we have and we should give it to them.

Why? Because we took it away from them!

This brings me back to STRAIGHT PEOPLE tanking this thing for the gays. White, black, latino or asian - a majority of the heteros in California voted for this shit. Why? Because we are drowning in our straight privilege and are, deep down, unrepentant homophobes. We don't like gay people. Apparently, we hate them, despite working with gay people, socializing with gay people and having gay people in our family. We might as well have just pinned a great big pink triangle on them.

And until we share some of this burden and hold our fellow straight breeders accountable for their homophobia, gay people will never get what they deserve - what we have.

(Why I'm using 'we:' we, even as self-identified friends to the gays, are implicated in this travesty. Clearly, if we straight people who support gay rights because we know and love gay friends and family or because we know it's the right thing to do or because we are (gag) 'tolerant' - clearly we didn't do enough. Our gay-hating friends, neighbors and family voted for this shit because we didn't call them out on this crap long before this stupid Proposition even got on the ballot.

The burden to change the paradigm of hatred and bigotry shouldn't fall entirely on the community that's oppressed by it; it should be shared equally by the privileged who must sacrifice something in order to see the Promised Land of equal rights for all.)

So go on. Celebrate voting for Obama and 'change.'
Deep down we straight folks are oozing with the same old bullshit tar of hypocrisy.

[A Private Note to Richard:
Yes, I do think anal sex is healthy, especially when done with respect, with someone you trust and/or love, plenty of lube, and a condom. In fact, Lawrence v. Texas pretty much guarantees that any and all enjoyment of butt sex is private and outside of the reach of the law. In fact, beyond butt sex, Lawrence v. Texas also upholds that the liberty given to us in the Constitution pretty much covers gay folks' freedom to enter into relationships without fear of reprisal or criminal prosecution, whether or not such a relationship has legal recognition. Thanks for asking.]

Work to do - Ta-Nehisi Coates

the right to privacy

My head nearly exploded on debate night when the conversation turned to the Supreme Court. I was watching with a couple of friends, including my Roomie, and the comment was made that she was glad that Roberts was, at least, 'more judicious' than Justices Alito or Scalia. To my Roomie, that meant that she was glad that he seemed to be a justice who would hesitate to overturn previous Supreme Court rulings or previously standing statute.

I totally disagreed. (And this is also when I thought that folks need to pay a little bit more attention to what's happening in the Court before they say something.) I thought that a Roberts court probably has a much narrower view of 'rights' - either states' rights or the rights of an individual - than ever and that whatever moderate seeming qualities Chief Justice Roberts might have, his opinions have contained ideas that should make all of us look aslant at the impact his court will have on our society.

In other words, who frakking cares about the intent of his character when the impact of his court's rulings will be to limit/eradicate your most basic civil liberties?

Feministe, for some reason, is acting up so I'm going to put Jill's whole post on what a McCain presidency would mean for privacy rights and for the SCOTUS. The fight for the Supreme Court is about more than preserving Roe v. Wade. It's about privacy.

And if you don't think that's important I suggest you look up what 'social authoritarianism' means:

Thanks to Matt for the link.

Here’s what Obama and McCain had to say about abortion rights and Roe v. Wade at last night’s debate:

In other words, neither of them would have “litmus tests,” except that they would.
I know the threat of overturning Roe gets tossed out every election as a way to scare pro-choice voters into supporting Democrats. There’s a market Roe fatigue, I think — and it seems like it’s coming up far less this election than it did in the last one. But the next president will likely be appointing three Supreme Court justices. Our last Republican president appointed two. The entire future of the court rests with this presidency, and that’s not small beans — not just for Roe, but for the face of American law and policy for generations.

Because Roe isn’t just about Roe; it’s about a greater judicial philosophy that influences and extends into our most fundamental rights and liberties.
It’s already been a scary eight years of Supreme Court decisions. Power is increasingly centered in the executive with little oversight, and the valued balance between the legislative, judicial and executive branches has been thrown thoroughly off-kilter. Even the good decisions — like Kennedy v. Louisiana, where the court ruled that you can’t use the death penalty as punishment for child rape, and Roper v. Simmons, which held that it is unconstitutional to execute children, among others — are marked by narrow splits: Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (where Alito and Roberts were on the court) consistently side together, and consistently produce dissents that promulgate some very scary views.

Throw on even one more conservative justice to replace one of the liberals and we’re in for an incredibly regressive next few decaes. Replace three justices — which is what the next president very well may do — with people in the vein of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, and I quite honestly would not raise my kids in the country we’ll likely have.

It’s about much more than Roe. But it’s about Roe, too, and what Roe stands for.
Roe v. Wadeis based on a right to privacy that more conservative justices and students of the law will tell you is made up. And it’s true that nowhere in the Constitution does it say that you have a right to privacy. But part of the reason that we have a Supreme Court is because the Constitution is a fairly short document, and it can’t possibly cover the full range of issues that are going to come up — it demands interpretation. Many of the most important decisions in our nation’s history were premised on rights that aren’t explicitly stated in the Constitution, or that can be evaluated differently under changed social circumstances (Brown v. Board of Ed, Skinner v. Oklahoma and Lawrence v. Texas are two illustrative cases). And, in my view, Constitutional interpretation should err on the side of giving citizens more rights, not fewer. The Framers didn’t detail every minute right for a reason: The idea of America is premised on a broad set of rights and liberties, and the purpose of the Bill of Rights is to restrict the federal government, not to restrict the rights of the people. If we evaluate the language of the constitution based on what it meant precisely at the time of its writing, we’re going to end up with some mighty problematic decisions. If I ever got to sit down with Scalia, I would like to ask him how he would have decided Brown — after all, Plessy was decided not long after the 14th Amendment was ratified. Certainly the justices on the court then were closer to knowing the intent and purpose of the 14th Amendment, and they held that “separate but equal” treatment of blacks didn’t violate the law. That’s Constitutional literalism for you. And Scalia’s former colleague and fellow Constitutional literalist, William Rehnquist, apparently agreed when as a law clerk during the Brown proceedings he wrote:

“I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by ‘liberal’ colleagues but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.” He continued, “To the argument… that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are.”

That is not a responsible view for Supreme Court justices to take, particularly given the fact that we have a court specifically to make sure that minority groups aren’t railroaded by the majority. “Constitutional literalism,” it seems, is less about reading the actual words and spirit of the Constitution, and more about trying to cram the document into a narrow, conservative ideological box.

As Obama pointed out last night, this isn’t a question about “state’s rights,” it’s a question about fundamental freedoms and our rights as human beings and as citizens. And questions as fundamental as that of privacy and bodily integrity should not be turned to the states to regulate and restrict as they see fit.
What many also fail to appreciate is that overturning Roe wouldn’t just be about Roe or abortion. Unless the Court overturned Roe solely on the grounds that the fetus is a person — which they won’t — they’ll do away with abortion rights by doing away with those much-maligned privacy rights generally. And if there’s no right to privacy that can be inferred from the Constitution, then a whole series of other important decisions are up for grabs. Griswold v. Connecticut, the case securing contraception access for married couples (which was followed by cases securing such access for unmarried people) is premised on the right to privacy. So is Lawrence v. Texas, the case that overturned Texas sodomy laws. Overturn Roe on privacy grounds and there is no longer strong legal precedent to keep the government out of your bedroom and out of your reproductive decisions.

Some argue that overturning Roe wouldn’t be a big deal, because abortion would remain legal in several states. Even pro-choicers and feminists make the argument that Roe is already effectively overturned, because abortion is inaccessible for many women, so we shouldn’t put too much focus on it and just let the Court go.
Well, that’s crap. Abortion is inaccessible or incresingly difficult to access for too many women, and that is a huge problem that requires more of our attention. But 1.3 million women still have abortions every year. A lot of those women go through significant hardship to do so. I’ve met a few of those women, and I’ve walked them out of the clinic. Believe me, Roe still matters. There are levels of inaccessability, and there are a lot of women who live on the fringes. There are a lot of women who live in red states surrounded by other red states, where the only abortion clinic is a five-hour drive and requires a two-day waiting period between visits — but some of them can get there. They can’t get to New York or California. Overturn Roe and those women are thrown under the bus.

And it’s not just a state-by-state issue. There’s a whole lot of talk about “state’s rights” when it comes to abortion, but that talk mysteriously disappears in the Republican Party Platform:
We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Overturning Roe is just the beginning. The ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal, for everyone, in every state. That’s why the people who argue that we should just drop the “divisive” abortion question, let Roe go and call the matter settled are delusional. For the GOP, overturning Roe is a first step, not a conclusive victory. And if anti-choice groups continue to exercise strong influence over the Republican party, you can bet that outlawing abortion won’t even be the end — contraception is on the list, too.

This is bigger than one election, or one justice, or one issue. It’s about the most fundamental underpinnings of our democracy, and what our country is going to look like for decades. Supreme Court decisions aren’t easily overturnable, and the calls that get made now are going to be with us for the duration of our lifetimes. Many of them will be around for all of our children’s lifetimes, too.

That’s something I hope everyone thinks about when they’re pulling that lever on election day: Who do you trust to appoint the justices that are going to shape the legal landscape of our country for generations?

two articles of note

this editorial was somewhat educational:A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation - New York Times

as was this one: Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight.

i thought this pairing gave a nice view of values as practiced in our culture.

cheers.

coercive morality: not just for gay people anymore

when they come for one, they'll come for all:

US: Unmarried couples lose legal benefits where gay marriage banned - By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY

States that have banned gay marriage are beginning to revoke the benefits of domestic partners of public employees.

Michigan has gone farthest, prohibiting cities, universities and other public employers from offering benefits to same-sex partners. In all, 27 states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as the legally sanctioned union of a man and a woman.

A Michigan court ruled in February that public employers may not offer benefits to unmarried partners, gay or straight, because of a 2004 amendment defining marriage. Government employers there had offered benefits only to gay couples.

Kalamazoo and the Ann Arbor school district have notified employees that they will end domestic partners' benefits. An appeal is before the state Supreme Court.

Kentucky Attorney General Gregory Stumbo ruled this month that the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville may not offer benefits to domestic partners, gay or straight. A U.S. appeals court last year upheld Nebraska's amendment barring government employers from granting benefits, including health insurance, to same-sex couples. It didn't address benefits for unmarried heterosexual couples.

Ohio state Rep. Tom Brinkman, a Republican, has filed a lawsuit to bar Miami University of Ohio from offering benefits to same-sex partners of employees.

"We're in kind of a giant race, a historic race, with all these court cases," says Matt Daniels, president of Alliance for Marriage, which lobbies for a marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "When the dust settles, we'll have a national standard for marriage. What is going on in the states is a dress rehearsal."

Gay-rights activists say they are fighting for families, too.

"Anti-gay organizations have tried to attack currently existing protections for gays and lesbians and unmarried couples for a long time," says Camilla Taylor, an attorney for the gay-rights organization Lambda Legal. "They don't want to limit marriage between a man and a woman — they want to attack the protections that exist and make life difficult for non-traditional families."

Most of the 27 state amendments were passed after a 2004 Massachusetts law allowed gay marriage. An additional 17 states passed marriage laws but did not amend their constitutions.

remember the dan savage column exhorting us apathetic straight folks to get off our asses if we didn't think social conservatives wouldn't eventually start making some legal inroads in our hetero-normative lives?

I've been running around with my hair on fire trying to convince my straight readers that religious conservatives don't just hate homos. Their attacks on gay people, relationships, parents, and sex get all the press, but the American Taliban has an anti-straight-rights agenda too. As I wrote on March 23: "The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no lifesaving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut."

in the words of dan, this is some serious shit, breeders.

why email is great

it leaves a record- one that's just as damning as a fingerprint. love it.

Army suspends recruiter for anti-gay e-mail rants | Chicago Tribune

the article above is a little bland. the good stuff is here, in the transcript of the emails exchanged between the gay guy and the recruiter. dude. homophobic and borderline racist slurs aside, the recruiter seems to be the poster child for Unprofessional. and if the military needs more people and wants to change more than its image as a haven for assholes, they need to do something about people like this recruiter.

i just got finished reading a management book called "The No Assholes Rule" and it's basically about how organizations would thrive if they identified, isolated and eliminated assholes who make their organizations poisonous and uncivilized. (i let my CEO borrow it for her vacation.)it makes a good argument that most behaviors that expose an organization to bad press, lawsuit or poor returns would most likely be eliminated if the assholes in the organization were fired.

think of it. the military suffers from rampant accusations of sexual harassment, homophobia and sexual assault. it also suffers from poor performance, low recruitment numbers and bad PR. how much of this would disappear if they just got rid of the assholes?

it's a thought.

last week, my Fancy Church threw a small fashion show to showcase our social service center and basically call for volunteers. it was sweet: a makeshift stage in the fellowship hall, our pastors and administrators wearing clothes that were donated to the center, thumping disco pouring from the speakers (modified slightly to reflect our churchy environs) and the smell of barbecued meatballs, cocktail wieners and banana pudding wafting from the back of the room. and half the audience smiling in their denturesand nodding underneath their gray wigs.

i leaned over to Roomie and whispered, 'this feels very british.'
she said, 'yeah. i'm having a Vicar of Dibley moment.'
...

some interesting things in the news lately.
so sad to hear about elizabeth edwards; i think it's rather brave of her to encourage her husband to keep on with his campaign. did anyone catch the katie couric interview? i heard it was a whopper; the reaction to it is rather interesting.

and then there's this article about the black church and gay people, which i thought was noteworthy. what stood out: attitudes toward homosexuality change once contact with gays becomes personal (through family or friends); and what one man interviewed said: 'God loves you but must correct you' or something like that.

(what does God's correction have to do with having gays in church? or preaching tolerance? seems to me that the whole 'gays must be corrected like everyone else' misses the fact that not 'everyone' gets 'corrected' the same way. so, until some straight person is told to get the hell out of dodge for being a lying philanderer, then folks should shut up about other folks needing 'correction.')

then there's this piece about the coast guard academy report whose findings showed that cadets would rather not report someone for sexual assault. considering how prevalent sexual assault is in our military academies, this should give us pause about how we're inculcating particular values in our armed forces. i wonder why we don't admit that our military academies are turning into breeding grounds for violent sociopaths. i mean, that seems to be the kind of soldier we want for our unending war against terror, isn't it? forget words like 'character' 'dignity' 'honor' or 'valor.'

but all is not lost. eric keroack, the anti-contraception 'doctor' who was appointed to oversee federal family planning programs resigned last night. yay!

things i'm thinking about

i'm thinking about...

gay people...
this article in the sunday style section about gay PDA really brings home (to me, at least) how much still needs to be done on behalf of gay rights. yeah, it's easy for me, sitting on my hetero-normative ass, to be saying this, but really. there's something glaringly wrong when people are AFRAID to hold hands or kiss each other on the street because they're AFRAID of getting their asses kicked, or being told to leave a restaurant.

you think civil unions are 'going too far'? sweetie, they don't go far enough. see what laws are in play in your state here.

(just check out this professional athlete who says he 'hates' gay people and doesn't think it should exist. period. or even the outcry about the snickers campaign - which i thought was actually funny because it totally demonstrated how based in hysteria the notion, and image, of straight 'masculinity' really is.)

DOMA and domestic violence...
so you know about all the Defense of Marriage Acts being enacted in states across the country. on the surface it seems a silly, yet totally anti-gay issue. (meaning, you assume it's only really important to gay folks.) but now we see some unintended consequences of state legislated homophobia: it provides protection for domestic violence abusers. ohio's supreme courst has heard a case that argues domestic violence laws don't apply to the abuser because he and the women he 'allegedly' abused were unmarried and, under ohio's DOMA, their relationship has no legal standing.

and you know what happened? the ohio supreme court agreed with him. (and once i find the source for this, i'll post the link; it came up on a conference call i was on last week at work. and if i heard the update wrong, i'll post that, too. but the point remains the same: though there are those who support these 'defense of marriage' bills as protecting, the result of them is decidedly immoral.)

sometimes it seems like the interests of gay and straight people are far afield of one another but they're really not. like it or not, what affects one of us truly affects all of us.

a common thread: being gay in a moslem country

Prisoners of Sex - New York Times

it's a long magazine article but it's a rather good one, outlining what it's like to be gay in egypt. (and michel foucault makes a brief appearance!)
and what it's like is bad: entrapment, torture, beatings, jail, public humiliation, death.

several things ocurred to me as i was reading it:
how is our treatment of homosexuality in this country different?
what common threads are there between our Family Values activism against gay marriage, gay adoption, domestic partnership (which also benefits straight people), gay participation in military life, civic life and egypt's anti-gay activities?
is thinking about gay rights a 'luxury' of western civilization?
does reading about how bad it is 'over there' make us feel better about how 'good' it is over here?

and what about the women?

who is my neighbor? ted haggard.

although the haggard story broke late last week, i've avoided writing about it for a few reasons. one, it's way too easy to go for the easy ironic joke; two, i wasn't quite sure if i even believed the story (and, believe me, i'm not exactly a haggard fan); three, the whole situation sort of seemed cheap.

the downfall of a preacher is a sad thing. i've seen my own father go through two church splits (we were Baptists, after all) and it was difficult to watch a ministry dissolve right before my eyes, along with the trust that once existed between a man and his congregation. i don't think any kind of ministry really recovers from something like that. because of the intense and intimate nature of a pastor's call, the sudden divestment seems like betrayal and a waste of all those previous years. in my father's case, the ground shifted due to an overly ambitious assistant pastor (such a cliche, isn't it?) with a secret of his own to hide and my father stepped down rather than be embroiled in an long, undignified fight with a once close friend who seemed to think he deserved something he didn't earn. though my father looked ahead with something like optimism, the whole ordeal was hard on him, the family and the folks who left with us. for me and my sister, we saw an ugly picture of church politics and greed. we saw the ugly underbelly of our church laid wide open and we turned away from it as fast as we could.

for haggard, it wasn't his own congregation that betrayed him but what he called his own 'dark nature.' perhaps. i wonder which is the greater sin - haggard's still shadowy liaison with jones or his lying about what led to that liaison for all this time? or is it all of a piece? i was going to ask if it's possible to run from our 'natures' but that's what christianity teaches, doesn't it? we put off the old nature and, behold, we are all made new creatures. i guess there's happy, shiny NEW and then there's the rest of us - let's welcome Haggard among us - who are Newish. we're relatively shiny but with a few spots of tarnishing here and there.

what should a progressive christian do in this case? when a combatant in the culture wars has fallen, a great big arrow sticking out of his back, what should the progressive church person do? most of the commentary around has focused on the 'hypocrisy' of ted haggard. it's more than hypocrisy; if he's actually gay, lobbying for legislation that will outlaw the lives of other americans simply because of who they love, then that's internalized homophobia, that's self-loathing. and that's so much sadder than hypocrisy.

there are clever posts to be written about the limitations of christian celebrity, the futility of living with secrets, the double edged sword of judgment, the end of privacy, the muted pleas for forgiveness from the evangelicals when it's one of their own who fall but its absence when it's anyone else, but i won't write those. (though i could!) instead i just think about how sad it is. sad that a guy was brought low simply because the idea of being christian and gay was inconceivable.

to read:
The Revealer: Haggard's Downfall as well as the nerve article he mentions (the roll up of christian men's self-help books has a pretty good analysis of the imagery and language defining christian masculinity. personally, braveheart does nothing for me.)

update:
haggard's restoration team lost dobson. guess all that tarnished christianity was just too much.

ah, tolerance: ford and the gays

2 Ford Brands Stop Ads in Gay Publications - New York Times

here's what gets me:

"Ford's move came nearly a week after the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association canceled a boycott of Ford vehicles that began in May, when the group criticized Ford for being too gay-friendly."

what's 'gay-friendly'? glad you asked:

"The American Family Association first announced the boycott against Ford and related brands on May 31. The group said Ford gave thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offered benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruited gay employees."

so, let me get this straight (no pun intended); in order for The American Family Association to be happy, they'd like to see Ford direct unfriendliness toward gays in the form of denying health benefits to their employees and, apparently, not hiring gay people at all.

(that's what it means when you don't actively recruit - it means you don't hire.)

hm.
i wonder, if Ford does what the American Family Association asks, would its acts be discrimination?

(or, are the gays just a bunch of whiny pansies, uh...individuals?)

it's all about the language: why tolerance matters

Pandagon: Caught being intolerant of oppression again

i've bitched about this several times here: our inability to really say what we mean. for instance, when we complain about tolerance (or use that old chestnut about loving the sinner but not the sin) we aren't really saying what we mean.

by pooh-poohing tolerance (racial, gender, sexual orientation) what we're really saying is "i don't mind the dominant social order being the way it is and don't really believe in social justice for people who are different from me." this is also the closet meaning of disdainfully dismissing something as 'pc.'

for the sake of discourse, let's all try to be clearer in what we mean. if you really don't like gays or single mothers or women who have sex, just say it. "I think you're icky and shouldn't have access to the full fruits of legal protection the way i (a straight/monogamous/married/whatever person) do."

it'll make everything clearer for everyone, i think, and help clear up alot of confusion.

amanda, at pandagon, does a terrific job of unpacking apathy toward 'tolerance'.

new orleans: gay- and abortion-free

News from Agape Press

key 'graph:

Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

sigh.

ok, i need to start making my meatballs...

as an update to my texas/gay post, this is a very good post about the church's attitude about sex from a south wales methodist minister.

what makes this stand out is the conversation in the comments between two readers who enter scripture from two very different hermeneutical entryways. at the end, there is no consensus between them (nor should there necessarily be one) but it's a great illustration of hermeneutic/exigetical difference.

LA Weekly: The New Blacklist

that christian conservatives are targeting corporations that give minimal lip service to the gay community is not the point of this post.

that should be no surprise. if you can burn a book you can write a letter saying gay people throwing javelins don't deserve corporate sponsorship - or you'll never buy Tide again.

this is the point:

There’s one big problem: Nobody at the national level is tracking these Christer censorship and pressure campaigns in a systematic way, to quantify them or assess their impact, so that strategies to defeat them can be developed. “People for the American Way used to track this stuff, but they stopped doing so systematically in 1996. We at Political Research Associates would love to do it,” says Berlet, “but we don’t have the resources. Groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute or Americans United for Separation of Church and State could easily do this sort of work. But none of us has the money to do it, because nobody wants to give it. There used to be three major journalists writing about this stuff — Sara Diamond, Russ Belant and Fred Clarkson. But none of them could make a living doing it, and they’ve all dropped out of the game.”

Unless Hollywood, and the entertainment and broadcast industries, all want to live through an epoch of increasing content blackmail and blacklists, the wealthy folks who make a lot of money from those industries better wake up and start funding intensive and systematic research on the Christian right and its censorship crusades against sexual subversion and sin in the creative arts — or soon it will be too late, and the “theocratic oligopoly” of which Martin Kaplan speaks will be so firmly established it cannot be dislodged.

what's going on, big rich progressives? why is their side rolling in the dough and our side limping along? where's the money to go where our mouths are? their side is incredibly well-organized and ours is...what? balkanized? pathetic!

LA Weekly: Features: The New Blacklist

ah, peace at last

The New York Times > International > International Special > Clerics Fighting a Gay Festival for Jerusalem

question: what can cause men from different faith communities to stretch out a hand of fellowship in a usually riven area of the world?
answer: homophobia.