The bridge between faith and rights.

February 5, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Full disclosure: this column is not about Sarah Palin or any other bridge to nowhere that politicians may have built.

Some of us who have been active in the LGBT rights movement for a long time can remember when activist organizations competed viciously against one another, or were torn apart internally because of strident competition between gay men and lesbians. Worse still, there seemed to be this unbridgeable chasm between civil and political activism and the world of faith and religion. No one built a bridge nor even wanted a bridge between them.

I have lived a significant period of my life with a split personality — keeping the “Christian self” apart from the “gay self”; I avoided situations where I would have to come out as gay to a Christian community or as Christian in the LGBT communities. There was something unspoken in me–in many of us–that believed these two distinct selves would never communicate.

It was not altogether accurate, however, and also not true to my faith to suppose that I could not be honest in both communities. As I have matured in faith, I am far less insecure in telling other LGBT people that I am not only a Christian, but a pastor of a Christian congregation.

In recent years we’ve begun to see much more cross-over between LGBT activism in the public/civil/political realm and the faith/spirituality/religion realm. It has probably come about because of another “tipping point” in social change when both camps realized how much we need one another. Case in point, the outcry from the religious communities of America against the evil and draconian legislation proposed in Uganda to annihilate all homosexuals. (For Christ’s sake, even our traditional enemies at Focus on the Family have spoken against it!)

Both the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have reached out especially to the LGBT/Christian movement for one clear and compelling reason: it is obvious that Christian extremism on the right (the Religious Reich) is the biggest single obstacle in America to LGBT people achieving the full and equal rights and benefits of a democratic society.

From the HRC Religion & Faith web site: “The Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Program mobilizes people of faith to advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Learn more about HRC’s Religion and Faith Program and about the members of its Religion Council.” the site includes news, articles and resources.

The Revs. Eger, Robinson, Russell and Voelkel

HRC’s Religion Council of 13 significant faith leaders include two from the Los Angeles area: Rabbi Denise Eger, who for 18 years has served as the Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, and Rev. Canon Susan Russell, who is Senior Associate for Pastoral Life at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Both are extremely strong leaders in our environment; both continue to play important roles nationwide, as does Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.

Under the leadership of Harry Knox, HRC’s Religion and Faith Program has been issuing weekly preaching helps for ministers of welcoming Christian churches to proclaim the full breadth of each week’s Common Lectionary readings.

The Task Force keeps a “Faith” tab on its web menu, and hosts the Institute for Welcoming Resources and the interfaith National Religious Leadership Roundtable. I especially commend the brief “article of faith” by Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, “Why the pro-LGBT movement should welcome religion“, which this blog entry echoes:

“As LGBT religious folks, we often find ourselves in the midst of a squeeze-play between our religious communities and our colleagues in the secular LGBT movement. But, I believe that we, as LGBT religious folks, have a unique and powerful role to play.”In particular, our movement, as it engages our opponents who are overwhelmingly religious, must claim the theological and moral authority of our pro-LGBT voice….”Voelkel, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, is also on the HRC’s Religion Council and serves as Director of the Task Force’s Institute for Welcoming Resources, representing the open/welcoming/affirming/reconciling religious caucuses and movements in faith traditions. There is a wealth of resources on this site.This blog often keeps watch on the weirdos, but we need to keep watch with those strong people of faith who are moving us forward. I hope you will explore these links and plug in wherever is appropriate for you.—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in LGBT Christian, Ecumenical Issues, "The Closet", Faith, History, Coming Out, Public Affairs, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Keeping the pressure up against hatred.

February 4, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I am passing along Wayne Besen’s timely review of the Prayer Breakfast and Obama’s speech. Maybe we don’t need to write off the president if he continues to stand up to hatred and bigotry.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Obama Boldy Speaks Out Against Uganda Bill at National Prayer BreakfastTruth Wins Out praised President Barack Obama today for his bold speech at the National Prayer Breakfast condemning Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The bill aims to imprison, hunt down and even execute gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The bill also threatens imprisonment for those who do not turn in their LGBT friends and family members to authorities.

In his speech, Obama said: “We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are — whether it’s here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.”

The President’s words were particularly powerful given the setting of this breakfast, which is hosted by the fundamentalist group known as The Family. This secretive organization is directly linked to the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda. The bill’s sponsor, David Bahati, is a key member of The Family.

“We applaud President Obama for having the courage to confront those responsible for the heinous anti-gay bill in Uganda,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “We hope that the President’s laudable stand makes it clear to Family members in the United States and Uganda that the world is watching. Religion can no longer be used to justify bigotry, intolerance and persecution anywhere on the face of the earth.”

Besen is the coordinator of The American Prayer Hour, which is an alternative to the National Prayer Breakfast. Fifteen national organization’s launched the American Prayer Hour to shine a spotlight on The Family’s nefarious role in Uganda on the week of their annual National Prayer Breakfast. There are American Prayer Hour events in 20 cities across the nation.

“The safe course would have been for President Obama to remain silent,” said TWO’s Besen. “Instead, he walked into The Family’s house and held them accountable for their actions in Uganda. It was a huge victory for human rights and the president’s actions were courageous and honorable.”

Truth Wins Out is a New York City-based non-profit organization that fights religious extremism and the ex-gay industry.

Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director |  E-mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org  | Phone: 917-691-5118  | Truth Wins Out | 33 West 19th Street, 4th Floor | New York | NY | 10011

Posted in Homophobia, Fundamentalism, Public Affairs, PRAYERS | Print | No Comments »

Lack of credentials, lack of accountability.

February 2, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Dan Neil’s column in the Los Angeles Times this morning, “No Coming Out Party for Super Bowl” was amusing, about the application of a new gay dating service (”Man Crunch” dot com) to get their video aired during the Super Bowl, which was rejected by CBS even while Tim Tebow’s Focus on the Family anti-abortion ad will apparently get the green light to run. Neil rightly cries about this being a double standard in the part of CBS.

That’s not surprising. Double standards are just one weapon in the culture wars we are living through.

But what caught my eye was Neil’s perhaps-innocent error in referring to “The Rev. James Dobson” as “well-known as an All-Pro gay hater.”

Can it be that any journalist worth his keyboard doesn’t know that Dobson is not and never has been an ordained minister of any church? Check his biography here.

I sent Mr. Neil the following e-mail:

As amusing as your column was in this morning’s Times, it contained a serious error. Dr. James Dobson is not and never has been an ordained minister. Please see, for example, this article: “Attention journalists everywhere: James Dobson is not a minister” on the www.regrettheerror.com web site. And for future reference, Pat Robertson is no longer a minister either.

The article at Regret the Error is thorough and cites erroneous articles going back several years with 22 retractions that had to be printed in respectable newspapers and news magazines about Dobson. This is my opinion, unsubstantiated, but I can’t help wondering if Dr. Dobson enjoys the free credibility he gets by being mistakenly respected as an ordained minister.

This little cyclone-in-a-coffee-cup (okay, “tempest in a tea pot”, but who remembers that cliché?) illustrates a major problem in both reporting and blogging: we all tend to write about people we’ve not actually interviewed and probably haven’t even met. That is probably unavoidable, but it simply increases the pressure on us to check our facts, not overstretch our points or be too quick to rush to publish.

It illustrates a deeper and more disturbing issue, of course. What are the credentials of the Religious Reich figures who have plagued America’s otherwise open-hearted compassion and generosity of spirit? Pat Robertson is not an ordained anything, either, having resigned from the ranks of the Southern Baptist clergy when he decided to run for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1988. (You may roll your eyes now. What, after all, were his credentials to be a candidate for the nation’s top office?)

But what are the credentials of Christian ministers, period? Many well-known preachers have run through Bible colleges while others have advanced degrees. The procedure by which any particular local church, or national denomination, certifies one to be competent to lead Christian churches and to speak for God, are vastly different form place to place, denomination to denomination. The lack of a uniform high standard doesn’t merely allow the wing nuts to use the title “Reverend” with their name. It has also allowed unqualified people who are also sexual predators to gain access to the vulnerabilities of innocent people, and who are manipulators and thieves to help themselves to huge sums of money.

Wikipedia conveniently lists the dirt on 27 public evangelists involved in scandals of one sort or another, including Aimee Semple McPherson, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard and Tony Alamo.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s official website has this on its Frequently Asked Questions page:

2. “What is the procedure for ordination in the SBC?

“Actually, there is no standard process or policy concerning ordination in the SBC. In fact, the SBC cannot ordain anyone. The matter of ordination is addressed strictly on a local church level. Every Southern Baptist church is autonomous and decides individually whether or not to ordain, or whether to require ordination of its pastor. When a church senses that God has led a person into pastoral ministry, it is a common practice to have a council (usually of pastors) review his testimony of salvation, his pastoral calling from the Lord, and his qualifications (including theological preparation and scriptural qualifications according to 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:7-9) for pastoral ministry. Based upon that interview the church typically decides whether or not ordination would be appropriate.

“Some SBC churches require seminary training from an SBC seminary, while others may not, such a requirement is entirely up to the church.

“Of course, every SBC church is free to approach ordination in the manner it deems best.”

This underlines an issue for evangelical churches across the land, with their emphasis on feel-good enthusiasm and direct inspiration form God: lack of accountability. It is in the accountability area where a thread of relationship is woven into recent Roman Catholic sex scandals as well. Predatory priests have evaded accountability and so have the bishops who have place and replaced them time after time to protect both the priest and the privilege of holy orders.

But Jesus set the standard for those who would be ministers by washing his disciples’ feet. To minister means to serve, not to be served. The scramble for larger-than-life credibility and power in our society has led too many so-called Christians to ditch all standards in the effort to have public authority.  Academic credentials are harder to fake (although not impossible; I get spam e-mails all the time advertising the degrees for sale that I never tried to earn in school). Being elected to office requires cesspools of money if not mountains of integrity. But to become a “reverend” seems to be easy enough to attract wing nuts of all kinds.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Violence, Go figure!, Sex, Ecumenical Issues, Public Affairs, Fundamentalism, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

One screwball after another.

February 1, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Why didn’t I think of it? Queerty, who is more than a little irreverent over LGBT things, is still working on why the Chinese evangelical Christian known as Hak-Shing William Tam wants to get out of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial (Proposition 8). Could it be that as a defense witness he is doing more damage to the defense of Prop 8 than their already-weak case can stand?

Why Does William Tam Want Out of Perry? Because His ‘Sex With Kids’ Claim Is Hurting the DefenseHak-Shing William (”Bill”) Tam, who has, hilariously, so far not been granted his request to leave the Perry Prop 8 lawsuit, which he volunteered to join as an intervenor, became the star of yesterday’s courtroom when his public letter to Chinese-Americans church groups — arguing gay marriage was only a stepping stone in the radical homosexual agenda to get to the ultimate goal of legalizing sex with children — was presented.

And if California didn’t pass Prop 8? Then “other states would fall into Satan’s hands,” the letter read, as footage of Tam giving a deposition last month played for the court.

David Thompson, representing the defendants ProtectMarriage.com, argued that Tam wasn’t part of the official Prop 8 campaign, and thus his letter wasn’t valid to attach homophobic animus to the case. You know, notwithstanding that ProtectMarriage.com handily added Tam to the list of five defendants- intervenors in Perry.

Oh, so it’s Tam’s ridiculous characterization of the gay agenda that has the defendants looking to remove him? Got it.

Forty-eight days before the election, Tam sent this letter, according to Queerty, to Chinese -American Christians. It is utterly amazing. Dear Friends:This November, San Francisco voters will vote on a ballot to “legalize prostitution”. This is put forth by the SF city government, which is under the rule of homosexuals. They lose no time in pushing the gay agenda — after legalizing same-sex marriage, they want to legalize prostitution. What will be next? On their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children. I hope we all wake up now and really work to pass Prop 8. We have only 48 days left. Even if you have church building projects, mission projects, concert projects, etc, please consider postponing them and put all the church man/woman power to work on Prop 8. We can’t lose this critical battle. If we lose, this will very likely happen……

1. Same-Sex marriage will be a permanent law in California. One by one, other states would fall into Satan’s hand.

2. Every child, when growing up, would fantasize marrying someone of the same sex. More children would become homosexuals. Even if our children is safe, our grandchildren may not. What about our children’s grandchildren?

3. Gay activists would target the big churches and request to be married by their pastors. If the church refuse, they would sue the church. Even if they know they may not win, they would still sue because they have a big army of lawyers from ACLU who would work for free. They know a prolonged law suit would cripple the church. They had sued the California government many times before. They sue until they win. They would not be afraid to sue a church. The church would have to spend lots of money in defending the case. The court fight would be long and the congregation would be discouraged and leave — how long are they willing to shoulder the law suit costs. The church may give in and accept them, their membership would grow and take over the church. Then a righteous pastor would have to leave. Such scenarios have happened in Scandinavian countries. At that time, churches would keep quiet, hoping that they won’t be picked as the next target.

If your church is sued, don’t expect others to help your church. You would be in the battle alone, and chances are you would lose. If that happens, whatever nice building your church have built now would become meaningless.

In order not to let this happen, we better team up at the current battle to defeat same-sex marriage. Collectively, we have a chance to win. Right now, each church sacrifice a little. For 48 days, delay your projects, put your resources ($ and manpower) into Prop 8. We’d have great power if we pool our resources together. Let’s win this battle. After victory, your congregation would be energized and go back to the original projects with joy and cheer. They may want to give more and build a bigger building to thank God. Our God would be pleased and bless us more. But if we lose, our congregation would lose heart. They might not want to work as hard. Our opponents would be overjoyed. They would do more and change more laws so as to persecute us easier. Churchs would have a much much harder time to survive. We would be collecting offerings to fight law suits instead of building new buildings. I pray that day would not come. The choice is yours. Talk to the leaders of your church. Your actions would change the history in either direction.

Thanks for your efforts,

Bill Tam

Traditional Family Coalition

June 16, 2008, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon became the first lesbian couple to wed legally in California. (Heterosexual) San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom looks on from behind the camera. Who would have guessed that these women, who were together for more than half a century, really wanted to have sex with children?

What can I possibly do to dismantle the right wing’s flaky case any more?

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Go figure!, Sex, History, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »