Monthly Archives: February 2004

So who’s the real threat to marriage?

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Conservative Christian blogger Donald Sensing had this very intriguing post the other day, arguing that Christian traditionalists should not fight to block gay marriage. Here’s an excerpt:

Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has been thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce and the removal of social sanction for divorce, and talk in 2004 of “saving marriage” is pretty specious. There’s practically nothing there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages ’til death does them part do so in spite of society, not because of it.
If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?

Bold emphasis is mine. A few years ago, as I was getting ready for my most recent marriage (the very phrase is embarrassing to write), my youth group at church threw me a party. All the kids, especially the girls, were eager to hear the details of the wedding plans and so forth. I remember their excitement so well! I also remember their bewilderment and sadness when they learned (through the rapid-fire church gossip mill) that that marriage had ended some eighteen months after it began. I remember at least one girl crying about it, and I know that she was crying as much for herself as for me and my ex; I know that she was grieving her own crushed hopes. Kids want so badly to see adults (especially those who like me are youth ministers and teachers) in happy marriages. They want to believe it is possible to spend a lifetime with one person in wedded bliss; they want to believe that the wonderful fairy tale can happen for them, too. Each divorce among the adults they know, love, and trust, is thus a cold and bitter infusion of reality. I have no doubt divorce has lasting effects, and I grieve that.

And I know that my divorce did far, far more damage to the kids in my youth group than all the gay and lesbian marriages in San Francisco could possibly ever do. Is that an argument for gay marriage? Not necessarily, of course. But as Sensing rightly points out, we all need to take the plank out of our own eye first. And those of us who have endured and suffered through failed marriages have humongous logs of timber protruding from our retinas. Let’s see if our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters can make any less a hash of marriage than we have.

Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue

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The Angry Clam (whom I regard as a scholar and a gentleman, despite his periodic profane outbursts), alerted me to this blog discussion of Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue. The piece describes the ongoing formal exchanges between Rome and the Bruderhof Community, our often-controversial (takes a long time to explain) Anabaptist cousins, based in Pennsylvania. It was an interesting read, but I loved this, taken from an exchange between a Franciscan Inquisitor and a Mennonite martyr-in-waiting in 1569:

Friar Cornelis: “I’ve come here to see whether I can . . . bring you back to the Catholic faith of our mother, the holy Roman church, from which you have apostatized to this damnable Anabaptism.”
Pastor de Roore: “I have apostatized from your Babylonian mother, the Roman church, to the . . . true Church of Christ-this I confess and thank God for it.

Ecumenical dialogue is a beautiful thing, but some of that flaming rhetoric of the 16th century was pretty nifty!

Blog in haste, reflect in leisure, and offer endorsements

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My entry below (on Laodicea) was written stream-of-consciousness, and as I re-read it just now, I realize it sounds hopelessly muddled. I do not vacillate nearly as often as that entry suggests, but in keeping with blog etiquette, I shall leave it up unchanged. It does capture, however inarticulately, the great frustration of a life in the middle.

I am decisive about some things, so here are my endorsements for the California Primary:

President: Dennis Kucinich. The one genuine progressive in the race, his has been a quixotic, absurd and consistently moving campaign. Though I was disappointed beyond words when he moved to a pro-choice position after years of crusading against abortion, his call for a Department of Peace speaks deeply to me; and though I shall vote for whomever the Dems nominate come November, Dennis has my vote now.

Senator: Barbara Boxer. Take out the abortion issue (which can be tough to do, but I am not a single-issue fella), and her votes in congress generally reflect my values more often than not.

Propositions: Yes on 55, 56, 57, 58. The first two are easy “yes”votes. I believe in bonds for lasting construction projects. I also would like to see it made more easy to raise revenue (yup, taxes) by doing away with the burdensome two-thirds requirement to pass a budget in this state.

57 and 58 I have waffled on. State Treasurer Phil Angelides, and my gentle and irrelevant friends at the Peace and Freedom Party, have made a strong case as to why tax increases are much to be preferred to this bond issue and spending cap. And yet, I feel certain that given the current climate, if 57 and 58 fail that will make draconian spending cuts a near-certainty. I didn’t vote for Schwarzenegger, but I (regretfully) believe him when he says he won’t raise taxes.

My mind is made up on Kucinich and props 55 and 56. I am open to being swayed against 57 and 58, but be warned — I am voting early via touchscreen this weekend!

Livin’ in Laodicea

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I realized this morning, as I stood in the shower, that it can be awfully tiring living in Laodicea. (For those who don’t remember their Revelation, Laodicea was the ancient church described in Revelation 3 that was lukewarm on issues of faith, “neither cold nor hot”.)

I’ve built an academic career and a faith life on the resolute commitment to stand in the middle. How else can one end up teaching gay and lesbian history, while simultaneously being the official college faculty adviser to Campus Crusade for Christ? In college, I regularly attended meetings of the conservative Catholic revival group Communion & Liberation, all while also working with CARAL (the now-defunct California Abortion Rights Action League). I met people in both organizations whom I liked immensely, whom I also believed to be doing the fundamentally right thing. In other words, their arguments (whether they were secular or spiritual) I found to be equally compelling.

It is a virtue, I think, to be able to be friends with folks with whom one vehemently disagrees. I think it is horribly sad to allow politics or faith to trump amicitia. Where I tend to fall down, of course, is that I go beyond mere cordiality to genuinely and sincerely believing that I see both sides of the issue. Heck, in the past three years, I’ve rallied on both sides of the abortion cause, and even as I’ve did so, tried unsuccessfully to convince each side of the essential decency of their opponents.

The one human failing that I am convinced that I loathe above all else is the refusal to see the goodness in those with whom one is disagreeing. If I allow myself to get angry over abortion, or Iraq, or gay rights, or any of a thousand other issues, I turn that anger inwards — because I find almost every point on the spectrum to be equally compelling, and occupied by equally reasonable, kind, decent, loveable people. One of the reasons I wanted to add my two cents to the blogosphere was because I found that most of what was out there was characterized by bile and intolerance, and a cyber-culture that valued cleverness over compassion.

So, I am tired this morning. I am running both cold and hot, and I recognize that has profound spiritual and emotional consequences. And yet, I am grateful, so grateful, for the folks I have met and continue to meet. I can no longer really indulge myself in stereotypes for long, because I have broken bread and marched with too many people on too many sides to believe that any of them have any moral or intellectual superiority to any others. It doesn’t win me many friends, I can tell you — most movements want true believers, not anguished doubters. But I am grateful, so very grateful, to have the nearly-unique experiences I have had.

I believe a few things with conviction: the seamless garment ethic of life makes real sense to me. And I know that Jesus loves me, and I love Him more than I can say. But beyond that, not much.

Francis Bacon said, “If a man begins with certainties, he will end in doubts. If he begins with doubts, he will end in certainties”. Well, I’ve started that process a thousand times over, but I remain convinced that some bright and shining day the certainties will come.

More on San Francisco

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We had a happy visit to Palm Springs, though alas, the weather was not cooperative. I am home today finishing up my winter intersession grades, and getting ready for the start of our spring semester tomorrow.

This weekend we watched — and I am still watching — television coverage of the extraordinary and profoundly moving scenes from San Francisco City Hall. CNN reports that the number of gay and lesbian couples officially wed as of this morning has surpassed 1700, and will easily go over the 2000 mark by the end of the day. Everyone expects at least a temporary injunction to be handed down tomorrow, and the pressure to get in “under the wire” seems to be intense for the thousands who have flocked to what we native Northern Californians call simply “the City”. Most of my straight friends — with the exception of my more conservative evangelical brethren — seem to be eager either to postpone marriage as long as possible, or to get out of the unhappy unions in which they find themselves. Thus it is striking to see so many of our queer brothers and sisters so eager to rush into an institution about which so many of us have misgivings!

In 2001-2002, I taught a course at the college entitled An Introduction to Lesbian and Gay American History. (I suspect, though I have no proof, that I may have been the only straight evangelical man in America teaching such a course at the time). And of course, one of the key events we covered in the class (whose name we shortened to “LGBTQ history”) was the assassination of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk in November 1978. Milk, as I hope most of you know, was the first openly gay man elected to public office in America. (An out lesbian named Elaine Nobel was the first of either gender; elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1974). Milk — and SF Mayor George Moscone — were gunned down in their offices in City Hall. The assassination (which left an indelible mark on me, though I was all of eleven) was a heartbreaking but pivotal moment in gay history; it is deeply moving to me that another, far more joyous but equally pivotal moment is taking place in that very same building a quarter of a century later.

The Times this morning reports that SF’s current mayor, Gavin Newsom, is winning plaudits for his courage in issuing the licenses. Many had assumed that the young (he and I are the same age) and handsome Newsom intended to use his tenure as mayor as a stepping-stone to higher office; from that standpoint, this was an immensely brave act of political suicide. In last fall’s election, I supported (from afar) Newsom’s opponent, Green Supervisor Matt Gonzalez. But when and if he runs for anything statewide, Gavin will have my wholehearted support next time.

Just a line before I go

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Bob at The Corner posted this yesterday, and it made me stop, sigh, and say “yes”. That’s right.

Be among us ultimate enough
to make our passions penultimate,
valid but less than crucial.
We are your people. We wait for you to be more visibly and palpably our God.
So we pray with our mother and fathers, “Come, Lord Jesus”.
We wait for your coming with all the graciousness we can muster.
Amen

I read it five minutes after I posted on gay marriage. It’s just too perfect. Thanks for sharing, Bob. Here’s to remembering that all human causes and passions, both personal and public, are indeed penultimate to the final reality of our God. As Wallace Stevens said, “after the final no, there comes a yes, and on that yes the future of the world depends.”

Okay, time to pack the car and get out to that desert I love so much. Happy V-Day to all.

Away for the weekend

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My gal and I are off to Palm Springs tomorrow for the holiday weekend and to celebrate Valentine’s Day together. Matilde the chinchilla will be well-cared for by house and rodent sitters…

Blogging will be light — if it is done at all — until Tuesday.

Phyllis and Del; Hugo is conflicted again

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In San Francisco today, two of the legendary figures of contemporary American lesbian history were wed: Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83. Mind you, this was no “domestic partnership ceremony”. This was a legal wedding under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s new administration — they become the first gay or lesbian couple in America to be issued a marriage license that is indistinguishable in every way from those issued to straights.

My own feelings are, of course, mixed. On one hand, I am thrilled! Whatever the courts do, whatever happens in Massachusetts or in Canada or even with the constitution, I feel a hopeful sense of inevitabilty about the coming of full legal equality for gays and lesbians in American society. But frankly, my heart and my theology are at two different places on this issue. Though I am fairly certain Paul did not have the likes of Phyllis and Del (together since the early 1950s, and co-founders of the legendary lesbian club, the Daughters of Bilitis) in mind when he wrote his letters to the Romans and the Corinthians, there is a substantial part of me that is still convinced that homosexuality falls just short of God’s best. (Of course, there is another part of me that thinks that first part needs to take a far broader and more inclusive view of Scripture. No wonder I still am on the rolls at an Episcopal church, even as I worship and work with my adopted Mennonites).

I’ve been divorced and remarried and divorced again; I hope to never go through the agony of another divorce. But the state will let the likes of me keep getting married and divorced over and over, and these days, even my Mennonites would let me do so. (The number of divorced and remarried conservative evangelicals I know is growing all the time). Phyllis and Del have been together more than five decades, and I am darned sure they could teach me and a whole lot of other folks a good deal about love, about commitment, about patience, about fidelity, about hope, about faith, about sacrifice.

So, bring on the court battles. Bring on the amendments, the referenda, the debates. But as someone whose heart is so often divided, I just hope that the great fight to come is fought with kindness and consideration and with understanding on all sides. I hope my gay and lesbian friends are willing to see that those who oppose gay marriage are not always motivated by hate, but instead are often motivated by a thoughtful desire to protect what they see as a unique foundation stone for civilized life. In the same way, I hope that those who oppose gay marriage can see that many gays and lesbians are already capable of loving, committed, monogamous, long-term relationships — and they desire simply to have what is already present recognized by the state.

I am offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for Phyllis and Del this afternoon. I am also offering up a prayer that in this as in all things, God will make His will known. Because all the experience, reason, scripture and tradition I have encountered in my life as a scholar and a Christian have not convinced me that I can say what His will on this matter is.

Tired and busy

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I will try and sneak in a post later; I am tired (just ran up from Eaton Canyon to the top of Mt. Wilson and down, about 19.4 miles, almost a mile straight up); soon I can start tapering for the Catalina Marathon. Off to the dentist and some church business.

Make me happy. Click on a link on my “regular reads” that you don’t recognize, and see what you find. It’s an eclectic mix, I assure you, but each and every blog listed I visit several times a week…

Jonah and Kerry

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I rarely find the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg to be right or vulgar, though he is frequently hysterically funny. He is surely the second two today in his piece on John Kerry’s chances in November. Here’s the money line:

The Democrats seem to have succumbed to a terrible bout of wishful thinking, like Michael Moore bringing a condom in his wallet to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit-photo shoot.

Yikes.