Lawyers, Politicians, “the System”, Gay Marriage, Oh my!

September 14, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The passage of AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, for the second time in two years happened in Sacramento with little notice.  But Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Equality California have done it again!  (Leno spoke to a good selection of priests, ministers and rabbis two years ago in our church about the bill, and was warmly received.) 

Now we all hold our breath to see if the Governor will veto it again. What’s wrong with this picture?  Perhaps the real reason there was little fireworks or ballistic missiles is because the opponents fully expect the Governor to veto it.

The number of people who support equal marriage (equally open to same-gender couples as well as heterosexual couples) keeps rising in every poll, even though the forces of right wing conservativism rant against it (including James Dobson, who said it will lead to a man marrying his donkey). Those who cannot yet imagine, or stomach, the idea of two people of the same gender being joined in marriage either suffer from the “ick factor” about homosexuality in general, or they have confused legal rights with sacred traditions.

Most of the advocates for equal marriage just want the legal rights it conveys, and they will happily leave it to religious institutions to protect their own sacred rites. (More on this in a future blog.) The Marriage Bill would do this by expressly stating that no church or minister can be required to perform same-gender marriages.

The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce has issued a statement urging Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the bill. He has already promised to veto it out of his conviction (?) that neither courts nor legislatures should have a role in deciding in favor of same-gender marriage; only the people should decide, according to Schwarzenegger.

The people are the most likely to be prejudiced, and the most likely to bite him if he sides with the Legislature. But now that Schwarzenegger is not in the good graces of either the Democrats or the Republicans in Sacramento, who cares?  As Governor, Arnold has no real political future left, since he can’t run for President of the United States, but after Ronald Reagan and Arnold, aren’t we through with actors anyway?

Yes, I suppose he could run for the U.S. Senate, but after Jessie Ventura and Arnold, aren’t we through with body builders? Why can’t we just have a leader instead of a sensational personality running for office?

The Los Angeles Times has reduced its coverage of religious news to two areas: the constant stream of news about lawyers making money off of the victims of priestly sexual abuse (so they are twice abused), and the little  “Beliefs” article on page B2 each Saturday.

His holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was in town last month and spoke to about 300 people in West Los Angeles, and he answered questions from the audience and elicited a lot of laughs while he was at it. According to the Times (I can’t link this August 18 article, you’d have to pay $3.95 to get the full text now):

Another woman asked how politicians can be made more spiritual. “I’m looking for advisors on this,” he replied.

“I thought you had answers for everything,” she said.

“Unfortunately, not for this one.” Still more laughs.

After a pause, he added that politicians feel as powerless as anyone. “We think the politician is creating the problem,” he said. “Really, it is the whole system.”

Shankar is right on that aspect, but there is a simpler answer to how politicians might be more spiritual.  The answer is found in whom we elect. If we elected people who are spiritual as our politicians, then politicians would be more spiritual. Yes, the pressures of politics can suck the spiritual life out of decent human beings. Perhaps at one time even Governor Schwarzenegger was a decent human being.

But too many people who are not spiritual, and who have no spiritual or even altruistic motivations, run for public office. They play the ruthless game of politics even to get into office, so don’t blame “the whole system” for sucking the life out of them. They suck the life out of the system. And then, when an issue like equal marriage comes along, the system is not prepared to even consider what the right thing to do might be, but only how one power block or one constituency might be played off against another.

Those of us who simply want to be protected by legal rights which are fair, equal and just have little power to fight the politicians—except our spirituality.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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