Prop 8 Defenders Have Standing?

November 17, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

This news item is just in from Lutherans Concerned/North America:

Today, November 17, the California Supreme Court handed down its decision that the proponents of Proposition 8 had the right to appeal the August 2010 decision of Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, U.S. District Court, that the law was unconstitutional.

This ruling answers the question asked of the California Supreme Court by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, when the proponents of Prop 8 submitted an appeal to the 9th Circuit following the refusal of the then Governor of California and the State Attorney General to appeal the decision of the District Court.

In its ruling the California Supreme Court said, “The inability of the official proponents of an initiative measure to appeal a trial court judgment invalidating the measure, when the public officials who ordinarily would file such an appeal decline to do so, would significantly undermine the initiative power.” The court was unanimous in its decision. The court said that it made this ruling solely on the issue of process, and not on the merits or issues of Proposition 8 itself.

Both sides of the action before the 9th Circuit have said that they fully expect the appeals court to accept and abide by the ruling of the California Supreme Court as to the standing of those bringing the appeal.

Though some LGBT advocacy groups have expressed disappointment with the California ruling, the lawyers who brought the original suit by two same-sex couples and are directly involved in the case before the 9th Circuit have expressed confidence. In press reports, Theodore Olson, former U.S. Solicitor General during the Bush administration, has said, “This frees up the 9th Circuit to go ahead and decide the constitutional issues on the merits. We’re anxious to get to a decision on the merits that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”

The case has already been briefed and argued before the 9th Circuit; so, on that basis, the court could move to deliberation and decision. However, the proponents of Prop 8 have raised the issue of Judge Walker’s being in a long-term, same-gender relationship at the time of the trial and his ruling as grounds for overturning because of presumed bias. This argument was previously made to Chief U.S. District Judge James Wade and rejected earlier this year. His ruling has now been appealed to the 9th Circuit, as well.

The saga that is Prop 8 moves now to and through a 9th Circuit decision, since those who are unhappy with whatever the 9th Circuit says about the case will undoubtedly take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Phil Soucy
Director Communications LC/NA
communications@lcna.org

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Will disobedience be successful?

September 7, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

U.S. Catholic’s web site is running a story (thank you Eric for letting me know!) that trouble is brewing in the Catholic Church in Austria, where more than 400 priests are calling for disobedience if there are not massive reforms in the church.

Perhaps Martin Lutheran was nearly 500 years ahead of his time. Or not, since it is quite possible that official retaliation for disobedience will simply come down on the heads of at least some of these 400 priests. Remember who is Pope right now, after all.

But the issues, which all revolve around the church’s medieval attitudes on human sexuality and hierarchical authority, are worth reviewing: the celibacy rule, the treatment of lesbian and gay people, and divorced/remarried people.

From the British Tablet editorial on this disobedience, “point: “They are right that what Catholics hunger for, and not just in Austria, is a Church of integrity, without hypocrisy, doublespeak or pathological denial.”

The pastoral reality–the reality in the parishes and among faithful Catholics—and everybody else in the world of faith—is that official teachings are not only often at variance with how people need to live their lives, those teachings do not enhance the credibility of the core Christian message.

I am reminded of developments in the business world, where major corporations in the last several decades have spun off or sold off subsidiaries when times get tough. Often their official spokespersons tell us that the company will now focus more tightly on its “core business.”

Although the church is not a business, it does need to jettison what ever doesn’t serve its core message, and that message is the grace of the Gospel of Jesus, and the call to follow him in paths of generosity, mercy and compassion in this broken world. Upholding twisted or strained official rules of extreme moral strictness has become an impediment to telling the world about the love of God in Christ.

Yes, celibacy is an ancient Christian practice, but it never caught on universally until it was forced on the priesthood in the Dark Ages. Yes, the Scriptures frown on unchastity, divorce and remarriage, but the definitions of those terms has slipped over and over down through time, and Jesus never condemned the woman at the well who had apparently been married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband, nor did shame her for her difficult life. In other words, it was not a “deal breaker” for her hearing and receiving grace.

As for the treatment of gay/lesbian people (can we be more inclusive, with bisexual and transgender people, too?), history has ample evidence that the modern condemnations being read out of the Bible by conservatives and fundamentalists were not read that way for more than 1,000 years after Christ. I am still impressed with the scholarly work of Prof. Theodore Jennings, who authored The Man Jesus Loved, which lays open some of the covert gay stories of the Gospels.

We have struggled with the issues surrounding homosexuality in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for several decades, and the conclusion of thousands of people is that we simply cannot summarily condemn gay and lesbian people because of two or three references in the Bible any more than we can forbid Christian women from serving in ordained ministry because of one or two citations. The grace, acceptance and reconciliation of God overshadows everything else. Period.

John Paul II commented officially years ago that women could not be priests because Jesus chose only male disciples. Well, Jesus only had Jewish disciples too, so that logic would have kept both John Paul II and Benedict XVI out of the priesthood. My point is that arguing over the trivial rules of the church is ultimately not successful—even if the conservative side insists it has a lock-tight argument—because its logic, authority, high-handedness and even cruelty to individual believers is increasingly rejected by 21^st century people of faith.

One of the most appalling weapons used in the Catholic Church is to silence dissent with papal authority. Significant theologians have simply been banned form public teaching, speaking or publishing—not much different than burning dissidents at the stake as the Catholic Church did 500 years ago. I would not be surprised if the leaders of this “disobedience” move in the Austrian church will face similar silencing moves from the Vatican.

But how long will it take before all the thinking faithful are silent and faith itself will simply wither away because the content of what is left will only be faith in authority, not in the Gospel of God’s gracious reconciliation with humanity. Sooner or later, the church must also reconcile with the world as God has done, or it will continue to be working with futility against the will of God.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, History | Print | No Comments »

Justice delayed, again and again.

June 23, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

It is more than a mere “cliff-hanger,” that the New York state legislature went home for the night without voting once and for all on the same-sex marriage bill. It is justice denied.

William Gladstone, the 19^th century British politician is attributed with the quote “Justice delayed is justice denied” —something that politicians forever have simply ignored. But again tonight, the citizens of New York are being denied justice while the Neros of the Senate fiddled with funding and financing and pensions and economic matters over which the two major parties love to disagree.

It is becoming quite clear that the Republican lawmakers want the clock to run out on the legislative session (which was supposed to have adjourned last week) without having to take a vote either way on Governor Cuomo’s bill. The last count was that 31 of the necessary majority of 32 Senators would vote for it. The rest of them apparently don’t want to vote for it, and don’t want to identified as being against it either. So the bill could die again because justice was delayed.

This is our legal system in America, folks. This is our court system, too, because legislators (not judges) hold the cards on appointing judges. Dozens and dozens of federal benches sit empty because the U.S. Senate refuses to confirm the nominees—another political maneuver to deny justice by postponing it.

Lawsuits take years to work their way through the courts, because attorneys afford themselves all the time in the world (someone else is paying them by the hour at prices they set without any form of regulation) to argue over technicalities. All the time in the world is justice denied while justice is debated, deferred, derailed, in courtrooms full of detached parties. In California, neither the state courts nor the federal courts seems to be able to get to the core issues raised by the ludicrous manipulation of our voters’ initiative system to shove Proposition 8 into the state constitution. While New York Senators fiddle, no one is taking charge over the clearly unconstitutional denial of fundamental human rights for gay and lesbian people because they have to think about whether outside parties—who are not harmed in any way by my marriage or yours— have the legal standing to defend the proposition in court. If the legal issues about “standing” aren’t clear by now, is it unfair of the citizens to ask, “what the hell have you attorneys and judges and legislators been doing with your time for the last century or more?”

The filibuster is another device with which everybody is familiar. It ought to be outlawed—absolutely and forever—but the bastards who filibuster are the bastards who write the laws, and do it to favor themselves rather than justice. But the filibuster is a blatant and intentional abuse of the democratic process to delay and therefore deny justice.

It isn’t that New York’s legislative “good night” this evening at 11:00 p.m. is so awful in and of itself. But it is simply one more nail in the coffin of democracy. What’s been holding up the vote for weeks? Republican lawmakers want to argue some more over whether there are enough legal protections for religious groups who don’t want to perform same-sex marriages. Was that an issue with Loving v. Virginia, that religious groups who didn’t believe that interracial marriage was moral wouldn’t be compelled to perform them? To my knowledge, no minister, rabbi, imam or other religious figure is ever compelled to preside over a marriage ceremony of any kind. We all have the freedom to say no. So the Republican misgivings about the bill in New York is an obvious stalling maneuver—to suggest that there are just too many unresolved issues to move forward. I’m not buying it.

—Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

A June roller coaster.

June 21, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

This is an unusual month so far for “gay pride,” even by the unusual standards of contemporary life. The President of the United States formally proclaimed it as LGBT Pride Month ( a first). Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared June as the city’s first LGBT Heritage Month and the City Council had a special (and amicable) pre-session observance on June 3.

But the word “pride” doesn’t convey both the challenge and the agony we face. HIV/AIDS turns 30 this month (the first identified cases were labeled in June 1981) and AIDS is still a curse on the world, especially to minorities and nations where medications are not readily available. I will post my article on AIDS in the prison system separately.

In the meantime, both a federal Bankruptcy Court and U. S. District Court made decisions to bolster the appropriate legal recognition of gay people. The Bankruptcy Court (Central District of California) basically found that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which was signed into law by our friend Bill Clinton—during a senior moment when he forgot to be our friend?—is unconstitutional. This ruling comes down beside the Justice Department’s announcement that they aren’t going to defend DOMA in court cases any more, so it will be interesting to see how an appeal plays out.

Meanwhile the original federal Proposition 8 is still working its way through the appeal process, but Judge Walker’s finding that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional will not be tossed out because of Walker’s personal prejudice. “Protect Marriage” [sic] had argued that, since Walker is himself gay and did not reveal he was in a same-sex partnership for ten years until after the trial was over, his decision was somehow tainted. The conservative fringe has trouble understanding that if their “logic” was sustained it would eliminate white, Black, Asian, married, single, or indeed all human judges from deciding all cases because their own existence would somehow prejudice their view of the law.

We thought, too, that New York’s state legislature was about to legalize same-sex marriage by June 17, but that hasn’t happened yet. June 17, 2008 was the date that same-sex marriages briefly became legal in California, before Proposition 8 blew then out again that November. Reuters reported last night that we should look for a vote by mid-week (in a hold-over legislative session), which may make New York the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage, … or not.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

One vote away from a slender majority?

June 14, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

The New York Times is reporting this afternoon that the New York Senate is only one vote away from passing the bill that would legalize same-gender marriage in that state, making it the sixth state and the largest state to do so. It is important in the larger struggle for rights and recognition because it will come as a result of legislative action, not court opinion.

Lawmakers are fond of counting their chickens before they hatch, and the vote count stands at 31 out of 62 votes. Only one more is needed for passage by simple majority. Two Republican lawmakers are already behind the bill.

A Senate vote is likely to come up this week in the Senate. The lower house of the legislature has passed this bill twice before and is considered likely to pass it again if the Senate comes through. Governor Cuomo had introduced the bill in both houses simultaneously. If passed by both houses, the law would take effect in 30 days.

Catch the New York Times story here. The Human Rights Campaign, which has delivered 25,000 postcards to New York law makers in support of this bill, is also offering instantaneous voting results directly to your cell phone: “Be the first to find out the result! Text “NY” to 30644. You’ll join HRC’s Mobile Action Network – and we’ll let you know as soon as the vote tally is in.”

If the New York vote happens by Friday, it will make an interesting and bittersweet historical footnote in the struggle for marriage equality. It was on June 17, 2008 that the first same-gender marriages were performed in California (and the last ones were performed in early November when Proposition 8 passed on the general election ballot—by a slender majority).

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

We are a Sanctuary.

June 2, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

As our church polishes us and celebrates the recent completion of new things in our sanctuary (such as flooring and pipe organ), my mind turns to the significance of the sacred space, what it has meant historically as a place of prayer and sacrament for nearly 90 years, and what it should mean in the lives of Christians—not just here but everywhere.

The idea of Sanctuary is an ancient one. A sanctuary is not merely a sacred space where we can pray to God, but a safe space from the anxieties, terrors and violence of the world around us.

From time to time, churches also serve as a refuge or sanctuary for illegal immigrants, for runaways and for the hungry and homeless. Battered wives have fled to the church as a place of safety, hiding and understanding. After natural disasters, many people who have been displaced by fire or flood have come to churches seeking help and temporary shelter.

Hollywood Lutheran Church is a sanctuary for sexual minorities (LGBTQ etc.), people in recovery from alcohol, drugs and other addictions, people living with HIV/AIDS, people of color and everybody else who suffers discrimination, and even inmates and parolees who are shunned even after they have “paid their debt to society.”

We don’t just sit in a Sanctuary to pray! The purpose of the Christian Church everywhere should be to enlarge the Sanctuary of God’s love and compassion, and to become a living sanctuary of people committed to mercy, safety, healing and wholeness.

There is no place in our church for judgmentalism, rejection, hatred, prejudice or fear. The Christ we know in faith—who on the Cross gave up his life for our sake and took away the sins of the world—is a Lord who seeks the lost, upholds the weak, feeds those who hunger and thirst, and reveals the light of God to anyone who struggles against the darkness.

If that sounds over-dramatic, it shouldn’t. Christians are in a life-and-death struggle with evil in the world. Every day I see the ruins and results of evil—broken lives, fearful people, indifference or hatred. In the midst of this world, there is no reason to be “religious” if not to follow in the steps of Jesus Christ. And if we follow Christ, we must be the change we want to see in the world. We must be the sanctuary to which others may come and rest and pray and feel safe. This is true religion . This is the life of faith.

—Pastor Dan

P.S. If you’re curious, here are some key Bible passages about sanctuary: Psalm 20:1–5, Psalm 28:1–3; Isaiah 8:13–14; Ezekiel 37:26–27; Hebrews 10:19–24.

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, Doctrine, HIV and AIDS, Violence, Homophobia, Faith, Living by Grace, Recovery, Ministry, Spirituality, PRAYERS, History, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Is there a trend going?

May 23, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

Just weeks after the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. finally opened its doors to lesbian and gay clergy, today’s breaking news is that the Church of Scotland is doing the same.

The British Guardian reports the story, which also touches on the issue of same-sex marriage.

The Church of Scotland is the largest Protestant body in Scotland (although not large, only some 450,000 members). Since the Reformation four centuries ago, the Church of Scotland has been a part of the Reformed movement which is essentially Presbyterian in polity.

“The church’s general assembly, its law-making body, voted on Monday to lift that moratorium, officially allowing gay ministers to take on parishes for the first time since its formation 450 years ago.”

The story, however, dies not indicate whether the Church of Scotland voters were in any way influenced by the ratification of changes in policy in the PCUSA earlier this month.What is fascinating in the Guardian story are the competing predictions of potential disaster (before the vote was taken by the church’s general Assembly): the number of ministers and congregants who would leave the church if homosexual clergy are permitted, and the number of ministers and congregants who would leave the church if homosexual clergy are not permitted. It seems human nature cannot resist the making of polarizing threats.For the record, there were hundreds of clergy and thousands of believers in my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who never promised to leave or threatened anything for the decades it took to shift the thinking of the entire churchbody. Although we have certainly not won over every heart and mind, the scale tipped in favor of openness and tolerance in August 2009, and all efforts to rescind this new liberal policy have thus far failed miserably.

Although the Guardian story is too brief and vague, it notes that “In addition, the church has set up a commission to investigate the theological issues raised by the acceptance of gay clergy.” In contrast, the ELCA studied the issues almost to death, including the adoption of a comprehensive statement on Human Sexuality, before it recommended action two years ago.

We shall stay on the look-out for more information coming directly from the Church of Scotland.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, International, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, Ministry, Coming Out, History, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

An extraordinary moment of history.

May 22, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

I wish I could easily summarize the feelings I had participating in the ordination of my friend Guy Erwin to the ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Wednesday, May 11.

With four bishops present and two choirs singing, Erwin was ordained in a moving ceremony attending by more than 500 people in Samuelson Chapel at California Lutheran University.

Erwin, who is a brilliant scholar and affable and effective teacher, holds the Belgum chair of Confessional Lutheran Theology at CLU in Thousand Oaks, California. He also serves as the ELCA’s representative on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. Although he is more than qualified to serve on the ELCA’s clergy roster, until the ELCA changed its anti-gay policies in August 2009, Erwin was never eligible to be called to an ordained position. He is gay and permanently partnered.

This ordination is historic for several reasons, in my view. First of all, he is the successor (although the title and scope of the position have changed over the years) at Cal Lu to Rev. Dr. Paul Wennes Egertson, who died unexpectedly last January, and before him to the Rev. Dr. Gerhard Belgum. I am old enough to remember Gerhard Belgum, and although these things were not spoken out loud in the 1970s, I remember hearing enough covert information to believe that Dr. Belgum was more than a little homophobic. Be that as it may, when Paul Egertson took up responsibilities in Thousand Oaks at what was then called the Center for Theological Studies, he became the bridge. Paul’s amazing first-born son Greg came out to the family and triggered the complete re-education of this central family in Southern California Lutheranism. (Paul’s father was also an esteemed Lutheran pastor; Paul served as Bishop of the Synod in Los Angeles and Paul’s cousin Howard Wennes served as Bishop in the Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA.)

You can see a six-minute tribute to Dr. Egertson on Youtube which was produced as part of the first annual Clarence E. Anderson Peace and Justice Award.  Dr. Erwin narrates the video.

Once he clearly understood the personal, pastoral and theological issues at the center of the controversy about LGBT Lutherans, Paul Egertson “changed sides” with passion and determination and became a champion for opening the doors of the Lutheran Church to LGBT people and pastors.

Now the transition is complete, as Rev. Dr. Erwin inherits the mantle, not only as a key theologian at our local university, but as an eminently qualified teacher of the larger church. the second reason, in my view, that Erwin’s ordination is important is that a young but important academic institution of the whole church has participated fully and enthusiastically in his ordination, even though it is possible that the university’s “donor base” may include conservative or even homophobic people who will withdraw from active support of the university because a gay pastor holds an endowed chair in the University. To me this means that the regents are also claiming and participating in the shifting of the Christian paradigm from being anti-homosexual to welcoming and utilizing all people who have God-given gifts to serve.

I am delighted to have such an extraordinary man as Pastor Guy Erwin in the church I love and in such an influential setting as he has been given in the university.

By the way, in addition to the fifty or so pastors participating in the laying-on of hands for Pastor Erwin were ELCA Bishop Dean Nelson and Bishop Murray Finck, Episcopal Suffragan Bishop Mary Glasspool and Retired ELCA Bishop Howard Wennes. It was a splendid and remarkable moment in our faith community’s life.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, History, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Another close call coming, another earthquake?

May 10, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

More Light Presbyterians and Lutherans Concerned began their advocacy, education and support work about the same time, in 1974. Over the years we have had a great deal of dialogue about LGBT issues between the two bodies. I first met the late Dr. John Boswell at a Presbyterian event in West Hollywood not long after the publication of his blockbuster Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality in 1981. Chris Glaser, a Presbyterian pioneer in the gay/Christian movement, has worked tirelessly and written numerous books although he could never be ordained as a Presbyterian elder or minister.

All that may be about to change, if the Twin Cities Presbytery votes tonight to ratify a measure, Amendment 10-A, removing the ban on non-celibate lesbian/gay clergy in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. In Presbyterian polity, a vote such as this in the General Assembly must be ratified by a majority of local presbyteries (smaller than Lutheran synods). According to Minnesota Public Radio, the Twin Cities Presbytery vote to rescind the policy would be the 87^th ratifying vote. Sixty-two presbyteries have voted against the change. Not all presbyteries have weighed in yet.

Because of the advocacy—lobbying—work of More Light Presbyterians and many others, the Presbyterian General Assembly (national convention) has three times voted to rescind the 1996 policy which expressly banned partnered lesbian/gay people from ordained service.

But we live in an era of domino-effect tipping points. The United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have all dismantled their gate-keeping rules that kept lesbian and gay clergy out. The ELCA, which is larger than the other three church bodies, changed its policies most recently, in 2009.

Even more interesting, the PCUSA is one of the “full communion” partners with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And so are the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church. (And the Moravian Church.) Together this group of Protestant bodies represents close to 10 million members, and begin to present a common witness of sexual inclusivity.

But there are “wrinkles” in this witness. Another “full communion” partner of the ELCA, the United Methodist Church, has not budged on sexuality issues and is not likely to any time soon, largely because it is a global church body, and because it is a very rural church in the United States. So the changing attitudes of large urban centers in the United States will not be enough, culturally, to shift the anti-gay attitudes of the Methodists.

Another significant wrinkle, of course, is that every time a church body moves forward on a social issue, it leaves some people behind who refuse to move on. The Presbyterians in American, for example, split over the issue of slavery more than 150 years ago, and have never completely reunited all of their congregations into the PCUSA. The Episcopal Church lost a lot of people over the ordination of women to the priesthood, and is still engaged in a battle with its global partners of the Anglican Communion over the consecration of openly-gay and partnered Bishop V. Gene Robinson. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has lost somewhere around 100-200 of its 10,000 congregations because of its courageous tipping vote in favor of partnered same-sex clergy in 2009, and lost a considerable amount of revenue flowing to the national church from other congregations who are withholding their cash in spite.

The PCUSA faces a similar on-going breach with congregations and individuals who won’t move on about sexuality issues. A disgruntled group, Presbyterians for Renewal, already has its own executive director and will hold its own convention later this year in Minneapolis, even though its director concedes that Amendment 10-A is likely to be ratified.

But according to MPR, Presbyterian polity will make it harder for individual congregations to just “pull out” and form a break-away churchbody. The local presbytery holds all church properties in its area in trust, so a local congregation would have to buy their own church buildings (and I guess convince the presbytery to sell!), or else just be disgruntled out in the street.

These years of struggle to change the church are really the raw data of a massive realignment of Christian groups as they confront the extraordinary social change happening in our times in the world. I can’t help thinking of the shifting of the globe’s huge tectonic plates, as entire continents or ocean floors continue to either slide past or move over or under each other. All that movement is bound to cause quite a few earthquakes. So it is with communities of faith.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in LGBT Christian, Ecumenical Issues, History, Ministry, ELCA, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Is this story for real?

May 9, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

I often am reminded, in the Peanuts comic strip, of Lucy pulling the football away at the last second when Charlie Brown goes for the kickoff. I guess it’s been a defining symbol of our times, that if something sounds too good to be true,… it probably is.

In this case, the intersection of two of the high profile LGBT topics of our times: same-sex marriage and the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

I am not familiar with CNS News, so I’ll keep scouting to see if other news outlets run this story. But tonight CNSnews.com is running this headline: “Navy Authorizes Chaplains to Perform Same-Sex ‘Marriages’ in Naval Chapels.”

My suspicion started with the headline that puts “Marriages” in quotation marks. This is typically the sign that the publishers means “so-called” instead of authentic. A little Wiki-search reveals that CNS News now means Cybercast News Service, but it was launched in 1998 as Conservative News Service, funded entirely by “private donations.” According to Wikipedia, CNS’ editor for 7 years was Scott Hogenson, who simultaneously worked for the Republican National Committee for a time.

This is not a gay marriage story lifted from the pages of The Onion. According to a 2-page April 13 memo from Rear Admiral M. L. Tidd (bio here) linked CNS, this is a genuine article.

Citing “additional legal review” by Navy attorneys, the admiral said the Navy “has concluded that, generally speaking, base facility use is sexual orientation neutral.”"If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then the base facilities may be used to celebrate the marriage,” the admiral’s directive states.Tidd has been Chief of Navy Chaplains since last August, according to his official bio. But it surprised me I had not seen this story on mainstream news wires. I went digging and, well, it has, sort of. Yahoo News is running the Reuters version of the story, also with today’s date. And MSNBC is running it tonight. The only real question, then, is where was Tidd’s memo since April 13?The Family Research Council is lamenting this and crying foul, because it believes that DOMA still prohibits same-sex marriages on federal property. That, I am sure, will be open to interpretation. (see pro-DOMA or anti-DOMA sources.) The Obama administration announced more than two months ago its finding that DOMA is unconstitutional and that it will no longer defend DOMA in court. If this is the conclusion President Obama came too, and he is (ahem) Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, wouldn’t that settle this issue? But according to the MSNBC story, “Representative Todd Akin, chairman of a U.S. House subcomittee that oversees Navy and Marine Corps programs, said the new Navy guidance violates a federal law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The Missouri Republican and 62 other members of Congress have sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy calling for the service to obey the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.”Nothing I could find says that any Navy Chaplain has actually performed a same-sex wedding since April 13. So as of this minute, the news still falls in the category of “probably too good to be true.” At least it gives our partisan political system something else to chew on. I wouldn’t send out your invitations just yet.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Family, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, History, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

The devil doesn’t frighten me.

May 4, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

Be careful what you pray for. We have an interesting legacy of hands-on Bible Study in our parish, complete with all the urgent shouts of differences of opinion. It took us 9 months, for example, to slog through the Gospel of John verse by verse.

And when it ended we took a survey of what people wanted to study next. Guess. People want to study Satan, and tonight was the opening volley of our local war of good against evil.

Of course, we pray constantly for all people, dozens of them by name on Sundays, Wednesday and Thursdays, including those who are suffering from addictions, mental health problems, unemployment, homelessness, you name it.

And tonight three guys walked in who are not part of our “usual crowd,” two of whom I knew from prior episodes and one I’d never seen before. One is a known drug addict who thinks he is serving Jesus by preaching to the wackos on Skid Row but has himself never mastered his addiction to crystal meth. Another is certifiably mentally ill who cannot stop talking and making grimacing faces as if he is digging deep into intellectual turf. And the third turned out to be a raving fundamentalist who wanted to make sure we are a Christian Church before he would sit down, and later admitted he is homeless. This on top of several other “regulars” who tend to dominate, act out or digress into tabloid news, pop psychology or Dan Brown-esque conspiracy theories.

All true Christians, of course, show up for things late, and that meant that our special friends tonight were the first ones there. I was praying next not for the homeless, the addicted or the mentally ill, but for a very fast-acting dose of patience. Jesus, you promise you will never test us with more than we can handle (that is the Bible, isn’t it, however obliquely?), and I don’t think I can handle three at once with special needs.

But we launched the study of Satan with some general observations that people tend to believe stuff about Satan, the devil, evil and human nature that are not grounded in the Bible but mostly shaped by pop culture. In truth, pop culture has always yanked the chains of Christian theology and has been doing it for thousands of years.

We started with a verse-by-verse reading of Genesis 3. As improbable as it is, I had to argue for a mythic reading of this story–a story of talking snakes and the low-hanging fruit of good and evil. People want to believe the story is literally true—fact—because they think that somehow they are honoring the Bible and showing their loyalty as believers. Then the grimacing man asked in all seriousness if scholars have ever researched what kind of tree it was and what kind of fruit Adam and Eve were eating.

Hello? Lord, please show me some mercy. Help me show them that a parable is a story with Truth of far greater significance than the kind of fruit or the talking snake. A parable is not untrue just because it has no historic facts in it. If we obsess about the facts we will likely not be paying attention to the Truth even if it bit us in the heel!

What we will agonize about in coming weeks of course, is whether there is such a creature as Satan, the Devil, as an individual being who is God’s nemesis and truth’s antithesis, who is able to take over the brains and fates of all human beings at will. The idea that the Devil is God’s evil counterpart, with nearly all the same omniscience and omnipotence to inflict suffering, is largely non-scriptural. Such an idea entered into the western pop psychology thousands of years ago as their contemporary answer to the problem of evil in the world and the human aversion to responsibility for ourselves, our lives and relationships, and our world.

It may be a tough sell that Satan is the personification of evil run amok in the world–the aggregate of thousands of frailties, selfish choices, avoidance of spiritual struggle, and indifference to the suffering of others. Evil takes on a life of its own, I keep saying. If, as the homeless man said tonight, we leave an open door, evil will enter. That is not paranoia, but an understanding that evil seeks opportunity like seeds seek a crevice in the earth and water seeks its own level. Think Osama bin Laden, who is his madness and contempt opened every door he could and squandered much of his own $300 million fortune causing untold human suffering.

Where do the mythic and screwball images of the devil in our culture come from?— think of the evil child horror movie genre. Think “The Exorcist” (which grossed over $400 million, the most “successful” horror film ever), or “Rosemary’s Baby” or “The Omen.”

The screwball stuff does not come from the Bible. In my opinion, the Bible does not have an elaborate “doctrine” of Satan, assigning him great supernatural power over humanity for two reasons: (1) it believes that Almighty God is the source of all created things, all good, all power, all blessing, all purpose and all destiny; and (2) it believes that humanity is responsible for our own errors, failures and rebellion against God.

Two quotes to end this reflection, the first from Leo Tolstoy: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

And this from the late M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled, People of the Lie): “The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual–for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Doctrine, Violence, Go figure!, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Recovery, History, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Relentless change.

February 20, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

Just finished reading Ken Auletta’s remarkable book Googled. It was the subtitle that prodded me to buy it: “The End of the World as We Know It.” The author provides more detailed analysis of business models and plans, and insider interviews with “old media” execs, etc., than I cared for, but the portrait he presents is of a young, courageous and even recklessly idealistic company that has taken the world by storm.

Google’s commitment to make all human information available to anyone globally is a bit over the top, except that they are succeeding in doing exactly that. Technologically, there are almost no roadblocks. Legally and culturally, there are plenty of them.

You may remember that China has been a particular thorn in the side for Google, having hacked into Chinese dissidents’ G-Mail accounts, and blocked information that could help today’s revolutionaries know what’s going on.

But the technology and profit sides of Google are utterly amazing. There are estimates for example that some 20 million books have been published throughout history. Google has already scanned and indexed between 7 and 10 million of them. Little more than 12 years ago, Google was a crazy idea of two Stanford University buddies. Today it employees 20,000 people and those buddies are each worth more than $12 billion, even after being beat up by the recession.

Auletta’s book will overwhelm you with facts and statistics. Probably the best part is his repeated reference to Google as a huge wave, in his way of analyzing who is riding the wave, who is being sucked under and who is being flattened.

The world we knew as recently as the 90s is gone forever. Get used to it. The world of the 00s is going bye-bye. Brace yourself for continuous, relentless change.

—Dan Hooper

Posted in International, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Egypt: Revolution 2.0

February 12, 2011 by Dan Hooper.

The most amazing part of last night’s fascinating story on Anderson Cooper 360 was the connection to Google and Facebook.

Wael Ghonim is the Google employee—executive they said—who was arrested in Egypt and held for twelve days, apparently blindfolded and without knowledge of what was going on or what would become of him.  He credits Facebook with a seminal role in launching the Egyptian revolution. (For a little fun, check Ghonim’s Facebook page.)

According to The Faster Times, “A quote from  Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who launched the Facebook page said to have sparked the original protest, has been making the rounds online: “`If you want to liberate a country, give them the Internet.’”

 

            In a New Yorker article last fall, Malcolm Gladwell seems to counter Ghonim’s view.  I have blogged several times about Gladwell’s insights, but I think this time his reasoning is simply trumped b y reality.

If  Ghonim’s analysis turns out to be true, it does not bode well for the future of dictatorial or totalitarian regimes, or perhaps even merely unpopular governments.  Yes, despots will continue to try to block access to web sites that are unflattering, or to cut off the entire internet, as Mubarik was about to do. 

But the people vastly outnumber even the most evil and corrupt leadership, if they will sand up to oppression and are willing to put themselves on the front line.  But the “front lines” in this 21^st century may very well be electronic.  Eventually, the internet will be so pervasive that it cannot be blocked.  And the will to be free, coupled with the will to know, will put the internet’s worldwide role in the limelight for communicating change.   

So, if Egypt can do this, why not Iran?  If Iran, why not … China?  Indeed, why not these United States of America?  Have we not had our share of unpopular regimes?  Probably the only thing that has saved us from such a course of history, especially at the end of the “W” era is that Mr. Bush relinquished power as his predecessors have always done.  It is this civil exit from power and authority that is the only thing which genuinely confirms the vitality of our democratic institutions.

— Dan Hooper

Posted in International, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Remembering the Closet

February 11, 2011 by Pastor Dan.

We are on a family vacation right now, and this afternoon, going through old family photographs.  Memories led to reflection and even theorizing about life and it’s strange experiences and demands and triumphs.  At several points, the touchy subject came up about distance or even estrangement between relatives, etc.  How much of this has been caused —especially in years past—by homophobia?  Relatives who kept us at arms length because we are a gay couple?  Or treated someone else in the family badly because that person was kind and accepting of us?  We will probably never know for sure.

I began thinking about the coming out process, and how huge this must be for millions of LGBT people.  But homophobia swings both ways, as we suffer both the slights and insults of others, and also suffer the psychic damage to ourselves–deeply buried like a knife. 

Probably thousands of blogs are out there to help people come out.  If you find this or as blog like this, chances are you are out or already testing what the process means.  It either could be or already has been scary.  Disclosing anything deeply truthful about oneself can be frightening because of the risks of rejection and actual mistreatment by family, friends and community.  I remember coming out to friends first, who were pretty much okay with it, and then my own parents, which I handled badly and which made my dad cry.  It was a mess, for several years, before it got better.

I started the coming out process only a few months after the Stonewall Rebellion, at a time when it was extremely to do so.  But with a number of years of life experiences and years for reflection and thinking about my life experiences, I still believe without a doubt that the most important thing anyone can do is to be honest with oneself and about oneself. 

If you are lesbian/gay, bisexual or even transgender, your inner spirit will either be free and honest or it will begin to die.  Know yourself, examine your self, test your feelings and experiences.  Keep a journal if you can’t tell anyone else. 

But denial will keep you locked in misery.  At this point in life, I think it is safe to say that I have no regrets that I have lived my life openly and honestly.  The risks were still there, and I took hits for it, even to the point of losing my job and career over it—not recently, of course.  The world has changed incredibly since I came out.

And the world will continue to change.  The more truthful we are with ourselves and others, and the more we hold firmly to our own sense of integrity, the more I believe the world will become a better place.

 

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Family, Homophobia, History, Public Affairs, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Stop excusing cruelty.

December 26, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Sometimes things just come to me – thoughts that won’t let me go until I have thought them through. This hit me hard on Christmas night.

Like a cup or bucket that cannot hold another drop with overflowing, or (more pertinent in Southern California) like a rain-saturated hillside that cannot take one more tenth of an inch of rainfall before it gives way to a mudslide, I have reached my lifetime saturation point on some things.

One of them is cruelty. Whether it be cruelty to animals or children, or women—or cruelty to POWs, children and animals in Iraq (it just goes on and on), or the atrocities of Darfur, or bullying of gay-appearing teenagers, or all the genocides of the 20^th century, some of which I have lived contemporaneously with and others were only lessons I learned as a student (the Jewish Holocaust had ended before I was born)— I am beyond wearying of cruelty.

These days I find myself not wanting to read a news headline if my cruelty meter begins to beep. Individual acts of psychopathic behavior or cruelty, or the utter madness of foreclosures upon the elderly and a marshal escorting someone from their own home because of missed payments, the bottom line is that our society still tolerates, if not legalizes, many forms of cruelty.

Like many other things, cruelty is concealed under different terms. Society accepts the unacceptable because it re-labels things to appear less odious, less inhuman, less cruel. When it comes to the tragic gay bullying of recent months that led to a wave of teen suicides, for example, how many of us heard “boys will be boys” as the standard excuse, a deflection of the evil. Braced as I was for the tragedy of it, I still got weepy watching a live production of The Laramie Project earlier this year in Pasadena, telling the chilling story of mixed reactions to the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard in1998. Cruelty is perpetrated by overpowering the weaker party. Masculinity is constantly measured and defined by the ancient contest to prove who has weakness, as if weakness then is justification for contest, for warfare, for cruelty.

When I was in college, our Drama Department produced “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, a defining work that views the 17^th century Salem witch trials through a moral lense. Although there was no visible violence, what took place in those trials was also cruelty, disguised and re-packed as religious righteousness, and the slowly-grinding wheels of justice to conceal fear and superstition. But like masculinity in another context, justice and righteousness cloak the redefinition of cruelty so that it seems somehow necessary in the service of a higher good.

Nonsense!

One can always explain evil things that happen, but explanations cannot excuse them. For one human being to condemn another to death, or to torture another to death, is cruelty. Cruel is defined as willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to another. Wikipedia’s article on psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder is long and complex, but disturbing. For example, “Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.”

I would love to talk this over with a mental health professional in terms of religious convictions. Is there a corporate psychopathology that is easily cloaked with religious rectitude?

Today is St. Stephen’s Day on the Christian calendar. St. Stephen of the Acts of the Apostles (6:8–7:60), the first martyr in fact for the name of Jesus. Stephen was cruelly stoned to death by an angry mob that took offense at his religious views.

It is probably not wise to make any comparisons of that act with the actions of Muslims who defend their faith by taking umbrage whenever the Prophet is demeaned in a cartoon, etc. Christians have perpetrated perhaps as much or more cruelty than others to defend what they suppose is “the Christian faith.” Think the Crusades, the Inquisition. Think of burning gay people alive at the stake. Think of a flawed moral theology, pushed onto the faithful, which expects them to tolerate and accept unbearable burdens.

For example, “God never expects us to bear burdens which we cannot bear,” according to an old saying. You can find various wordings of this cliche on Answer Bag. Such a cliche is just as much heresy as anything else ever said. It is not God who lays unbearable burdens on us, but other Christians who load those burdens, completely lacking a “sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.” There you have theological psychopathology.

One thinks of that outrageous preacher from Topeka who preaches hatred at the front door of funerals. He thinks he is morally and theologically “right” as if that justifies cruelty and the complete absence of compassion. No wonder that “followers” of Jesus give him a bad name!

But Mr. Phelps is only the most publicly odious of the under-scum of our society which tolerates and excuses cruelty. It is time that decent people stop condoning hatred and cruelty no matter how it is labeled.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in wingnuts, Bullying, Violence, Bible & Interpretation, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »