A tall order for California.

March 2, 2010 by Dan Hooper.

Another pebble slipped off the slippery slope of official and public homophobia yesterday, when John A. Pérez was sworn in as the California State Assembly’s first openly-gay Speaker. (If you haven’t paid attention to LGBT officer-holders in Sacramento, click here.

Equality California wasted no time in congratulating Pérez. Geoffrey Kors issued a statement that said in part:

“Speaker Pérez is a role model and an inspiration to the LGBT community, especially to LGBT youth struggling to find acceptance at home and in school. We wish him the very best of luck as he embarks on this momentous journey and look forward to continuing our partnership with him in our mission to achieve full equality for LGBT Californians.”Pérez faces a time, however, when almost no sentient being puts any trust in California government, and that includes the Governor (27% approval ratings in December) and both houses of the Legislature. Districts are so gerrymandered to favor the incumbent party that no current office-holder and no candidate can really hope to sway anyone’s minds.

Recently I had opportunity to meet one of the candidates for the vacant seat in the Assembly’s 43^rd District, at a house party to introduce him to potential supporters. Mike Gatto further explained the brokenness of the Legislature by referring to the “third house” — not the Assembly or the Senate but the lobbyists who attach themselves to everything they can in Sacramento (and Washington, etc.), especially to every dollar that adheres to campaigns for public office.

Gatto knows that Sacramento is broken.  I question whether, even if he wins, he can have any impact on fixing it under current term limits law. (The predecessor in his district, Paul Krekorian, bailed out of the Assembly a few months early, because of term limits, and landed himself a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.)

What Pérez and young bucks like Gatto would need to fix is worse than gerrymandered districts. It includes our pathetically amended state constitution and its really screwed-up ballot-box legislating with one “initiative” after another.

(My personal view, which Gatto verbally endorsed, is that it is time to make it unlawful to pay for or be paid for gathering signatures for ballot measures. If an “initiative” actually started because citizens took the initiative, that would be one thing. But when big out-of-state money can literally buy a spot on the ballot to peddle reactionary social views, as has been done over and over with ballot Propositions, well, “… there ought to be a law!”

And if they have time, the Legislature needs to re-think sentencing laws for juveniles (SB 399) ; adopt SB 906 the Civil Marriage and Religious Freedom Act which would have taken the wind out of the religious liars’ sails when they purposely misled California voters in the Proposition 8 campaign; and seriously consider AB 1878, which require California to include gender identity and sexual orientation in state government forms.

Fixing some of the things that are broken might be a good way to restore confidence in younger voters that they should bother to pay attention to state politics and state laws.

–D.H.

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Opposition 8.

February 23, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

It was encouraging to read an intelligently-framed and almost-timely presented Op-Ed piece in this morning’s Los Angeles Times. Dean Hamer, a molecular biologist, and Michael Rosbach, a medical investigator, wrote an article entitled “Genetics and Proposition 8.”

They present the case that there is constantly-increasing evidence supporting a biological basis for sexual orientation. There is no single “gay gene” that makes us gay, but neither is a single gene that dictates our height, the color of our skin or predisposition to many diseases. Whether we are left– or right–handed also has a genetic basis but there is no one gene that controls this.

Genetics, of course, plays a huge role in the discussion of whether gay or lesbian people choose to be sexually oriented to a member of the same sex rather than the opposite sex. And as we all know, choice constantly hovers in the background in the discussion of religion and of civil rights.

Civil rights are particularly singled out where there is the possibility of discrimination because of things we cannot choose, for example, having a particular ethnicity and skin color. Some things are protected from possible discrimination which are a matter of choice, however, such as religion. But in the current so-called Culture War, our opponents (dare we say “enemies”?) insist that being lesbian or gay is a choice and so try to make the argument that lesbians and gay men are not entitled to special rights.

Hamer and Rosbach’s pointed connection with Proposition 8 is that genetics was an “elephant in the courtroom” in the U.S. District case Perry v. Schwarzenegger when testimony was heard last month. (See a case profile here; we await further proceedings and Judge Walker’s verdict.)

One point made by the writers is worth singling out here, especially as we are still caught up in the passionate arguments about only one item on the so-called Gay Agenda: the right to enter into a civil marriage. Another major element of the Religious Reich’s agenda, you will remember, is to block any and all efforts to “teach homosexuality” in the schools.

The school angle has been part of their war chant ever since California State Senator John Briggs tried to ram through an initiative that would have prevented homosexuals from teaching in California schools. Such a move seems almost quaint now, except it was extremely real 30 years ago that drove thousands of lesbian/gay teachers deeper into their closets. One public opinion poll during the campaign showed the Briggs initiative leading 61% to 31%. Fortunately, the measure was defeated, in part because former governor Ronald Reagan reassured votes that the measure wasn’t needed to protect children. “We have the legal protection now,” he said, allowing voter bigotry to rest in the arms of complacency. (A sympathetic assessment of Reagan and gay people by Dale Carpenter can be found at the Independent Gay Forum.)

But ever since “protect our children” has been an anti-gay chant. It was used again quite openly in the arguments in favor of Proposition 8 in 2008. For example, the anti-gay ProtectMarriage.com site lists three bullet points on “Why Did Proposition 8 Win?”

“In the campaign, voters were told clearly that voting YES on Proposition 8 would do 3 simple things:  

• It would restore the definition of marriage to what the vast majority of California voters already approved and what Californians agree should be supported, not undermined. 
• It would overturn the outrageous decision of four activist Supreme Court judges who ignored the will of the people.
• It would protect our children from being taught in public schools that “same-sex marriage” is the same as traditional marriage, and would prevent other consequences to Californians who will be forced to not just be tolerant of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance regardless of their personal beliefs.”

If homosexuals can marry each other, they argued, schools will be teaching homosexuality in our schools.On January 12, in Attorney Ted Olson’s opening statement in Perry in support of the lesbian and gay plaintiffs seeking to overturn Proposition 8, he drew attention to this gay marriage–schools connection:

“When voters in California were urged to enact Proposition 8, they were encouraged to believe that unless Proposition 8 were enacted, anti-gay religious institutions would be closed, gay activists would overwhelm the will of the heterosexual majority, and that children would be taught that it was `acceptable’ for gay men and lesbians to marry. Parents were urged to `protect our children’ from that presumably pernicious viewpoint.”

In the summer and fall of 2008, we thought the voters’ natural b.s. detectors would flag all that as a fraudulent argument. But we underestimated the power of a stupid idea to gain momentum through voter complacency corrupted by evil intent.What Hamer and Rosbach do is to pinpoint an aspect of the education issue and the gay agenda which many of us have not made clear to reasonable and intelligent minds.

“Recent studies in college classrooms show that exposure of students to information on the causes of homosexuality has a direct influence on opinions about gay rights. This fits with polling data showing that people who believe that gays are `born that way’ are generally supportive of full equality, whereas those who believe it is “a choice” are opposed.”

Here is where it gets really scary. Hamer and Rosbach go on to say:  

“One national survey found that 70% of those who think being gay is a choice favored the reinstitution of sodomy laws. This would turn some 15 million Americans into common criminals for simply being who they are.”

The point is this: it is not merely the (horror of horrors!) idea that if lesbian/gay people have any “special rights” and win the Culture War, little children will learn all about homosexuality and then decide to become queer (it is a choice you know!). It is the deeper homophobic fear that if students of any age learn all about homosexuality, they will simply be more tolerant and accepting of the reality of sexual variance and be disinclined to try to stamp it out through draconian legal measures.

The drum beat of homophobic fear has not relented–not after defeats such as the failure of the Briggs initiative, nor after victories such as Proposition 8. Our enemies continue to hammer away that the Gay Agenda must be stopped everywhere, because otherwise we will insidiously normalize everything about homosexuality. As I have argued elsewhere, the fabrication of  “choice” of sexual orientation is the linch-pin of the anti-gay wagon, and education (not same-sex marriage) is the slipperier slope, because an educated populace (not just children) will be measurably less bigoted.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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The crazies are at it again.

February 19, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Fred (”God Hates America“) Phelps continues to attract media attention, which is the only pay-off he could possible get out of flying his family/congregation around the country. … and I won’t say anything more disparaging, not that he doesn’t deserve it.  His “God hates” web sites are evidence enough of his twisted nature.

 

In fact, St. Paul warned us about Fred Phelps and talks to people today who listen to his anti-Christian, ungodly diatribes:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace o fChrist and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!  As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrry to what you received, let that one be accursed! — Galatians 1:6-9 (NRSV)

This just in from Pastor Dan forwarding it from Rabbi Steve (I have added emphasis because this apparently happens tomorrow, February 20).  Please pray for our friends in faith, and if you are extra brave, say a prayer for Fred, who has completely blown off the gospel of Jesus.  ~  P.D.

A Message from Rabbi Steven Moskowitz…

Dear Temple Israel Family,

As you may already know, an anti-gay, anti-Semitic group, the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas, is scheduled to come to Long Beach to engage in a series of protests at various locations February 19-21.  Among those places to be picketed are Wilson High School, the Alpert Jewish Community Center, and Temple Israel.  Specifically, the group’s schedule states that it will picket Temple Israel on Saturday, February 20, 10:00-10:30 a.m.  Westboro is a small group, which typically has a small number of picketers displaying hateful and offensive signs, engaging in vocal demonstrations but refraining from any violent or unlawful activities.  Below is a link to a Press-Telegram article announcing the group’s intentions. 

The staff has been in touch with the Long Beach Police Department, the Jewish Federation, the Alpert Jewish Community Center, the ADL, and other agencies.  Following discussions that included Sharon Amster Brown, Education VP Judy Blumenthal and Torah Center Chair Katherine Bussi, we have decided to move the 7^th grade program scheduled for that morning to a parents’ home.  Sharon will shortly be sending an email to the 7^th grade families with the details for that morning’s schedule. 

After giving the matter much thought, I approached the South Coast Interfaith Council and proposed that we host at our synagogue that morning a unity prayer service as a way to refocus the story of the day away from Westboro’s message of hate to our community’s message about love, diversity, and unity.  I invited clergy and congregants from this interfaith community both to attend and to contribute to such a service with prayers/readings/songs which speak of the sacred power of love and unity.  I am delighted to say that the SCIC was very enthusiastic about this invitation.  Already I have received responses from neighboring congregations expressing their support for us and their interest in participating.  We are going to change the start time of our service that morning to 9:30 a.m.  It will conclude at 11:00 a.m.  Similarly, we will shift the start of our regular Torah study session to 8:15 a.m. 

Members of the Long Beach Police Department will be present at Temple Israel that morning.  Please do respect their recommended guidelines that there be no direct encounters with the picketers and no counter-demonstrations.  That would only help the group to feel that they had achieved their goals of provocation and attention.  I invite you to join us on February 20 at 9:30 a.m. as we give voice to the view that there are many paths to God, except the path of hate.  On that day we shall bear witness to the prophetic words inscribed on the outside of our synagogue: “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Press-Telegram link: http://www.presstelegram.com/search/ci_14272240?IADID=Search-www.presstelegram.com-www.presstelegram.com

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Enveloped on the mountaintop.

February 14, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Today being the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, it deserves some comment. I had to preach on it this morning.

It’s a difficult thing no matter whether you’re a cynic or deeply pious. As the story is told it’s too supernatural–ranks right up there with the Ascension on the list of things no one really believes as narrated.

Yet the narrative tries to convey something intensely mystical and meaningful. In the midst of his public ministry, Jesus seemed profoundly different to his disciples. Something happened that allowed/permitted/forced them to see him in a new and blinding light.

Typically we call that a “mountaintop experience,” and it must have been for Peter James and John, the “inner three” who get lot of attention in the Gospel stories but we are never fully told why. As told in Luke 9, the three of them were “weighed down with sleep” (and you will remember that in Matthew and Mark, the same three disciples are with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and, yup, there they fell asleep too).

Just like the other nine disciples, these guys were not perfect. They had feet of clay. They were as flawed as any human being alive right now—but: the witness of these disciples is that a veil was ripped away, and they saw Christ Jesus as God sees him. They were overshadowed and enveloped by a Cloud— a glory they could not understand and could hardly describe— but the Jesus who came out of the transfiguring Cloud with them was not One to be afraid of, or One to hide from, but One who was to lay down his life for them.

I cannot guarantee you a mountaintop experience. You will find your own mountain, and it probably won’t be a pretty picture in the piney woods with postcard views from the top. For some of us, it may be the mountain of our own failures, or sorrows, or mistakes, or addictions, pain or internalized homophobia. But if we climb the mountains we have heaped up in our lives, there, at the top of these heaps of human experience, we encounter the Cross. And it is not a trigger for terror. It is the revelation of the One True God of grace, forgiveness, compassion and lovingkindness. It may be Law which drives us up the mountain of despair, but it is pure Gospel to find the love of Jesus Christ awaiting us at the top.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Living by Grace, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

For the love of God, no violence!

February 12, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Today is the second anniversary of the death of 15-year old Lawrence King, in Ventura, California, at the hand of a 14-year old classmate (see: “Who should be on trial? and Another senseless murder of a child.).

Thanks to GLAAD for urging everyone to remember his death and highlighting this sad fact of American life — gun violence is OK when used against sexual minorities, abortion doctors, or total strangers who crowd your lane on an L.A. freeway, etc.

I don’t know what saddens me more: the news stories of people who wrap themselves in the Christian Bible toting guns, or the news stories of gay or lesbian people committing acts of violence against their lovers, etc. All of us—gay or straight, this or that or any category you can mention—all of us have got to stop the cycle of violence that is in America. And the place to begin is to cry out loud when anyone tries to equate any act of violence with faith in God. 

If you think I exaggerate, just click around you.

—Pastor Dan

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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

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Letters from prison.

December 21, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This week I am trying to send out a few Christmas cards — I have essentially given up on that gracious communication with the bulk of our friends, because I get weighed down with everything else, more and more, as Christmas approaches. But I am writing now to several inmates in California prisons, to men who have written to our church from time to time. These men (all men, so far) have written because of one of our own community who is doing time now for a parole violation, and he has told other inmates that, yes, there is a church in Los Angeles which welcomes gay people. So, although the communication is a bit “stiff” in prison letters because every word going out and coming in is pre-read by prison staff, I can only assume that the guys writing to us are probably gay.

A couple of weeks ago, one of them wrote from Kern County. He isn’t ready to tell me what he did that got him convicted, or even how long he is in prison for. But he says this is his first time in prison, and it’s December and I realize he will spend Christmas in a cell.

“Since my imprisonment I have become ever stronger in Jesus Christ and God and church and hold my Christian beliefs even more dear to my heart than ever before.

“What I need: is someone — some church– and some church members to help me and take me under their wings and into their church and allow me to prove myself as a person, as a fellow church member and child of God.”

This young man’s plea is as clear as any I have ever heard. It seems risky for upstanding church-goers to be concerned about convicts who will have to prove themselves in order to be accepted again in society. But as to being a child of God, he has no need of proof. The church is the community of those who put their faith in Christ. Regardless of the division of people into categories—Jew or Greek, male and female, young or old, imprisoned or free, LGBT or straight, there are no subcategories for the children of God.

How can I be so sure of that? Because each of us is made a child not by something we do or accomplish, or avoid doing, or even repent, but by the gracious act of God alone. We are God’s children just because God says so. It’s about love, not “Brownie points,” sexual conformity, or the lack of a criminal record. It’s about a love so strong that nothing can tear us away from it.

In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul agonizes about all of the things in life (he mentions “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” as examples) that may conspire to cause pain, failure, regret or worry, but then he says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I am open-hearted enough to read his phrases very broadly, where he says “in all these things” and especially “things present nor things to come (like our modern world). Can we not see that, if Paul were writing today, he might have mentioned other examples: “poverty, racism, gangs, homophobia or sexual orientation, divorce, unemployment, drugs or alcohol, obesity, health problems or gun violence,” and still come to the same conclusion: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To my friends in prison: may God keep watch with you at Christmas, knowing that not even bars and walls can separate us from the love which is given to us freely. Keep the faith you have in God’s gracious acceptance. And may the people of God keep faith with you!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Violence, Doctrine, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, Living by Grace, Faith, Recovery | Print | No Comments »

Politics and policy are driven by a culture of hatred.

September 26, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

I have decided to post this 9-15-2009 essay from Wayne Dynes, forwarded to me by Billy Glover, because it is compelling and thought-provoking about our relationship to international events and national policy.  There is much here to think deeply about, rather than to become partisan about. - DH

Homophobic killings

Thirteen years ago I joined a gay-conservative listserv on the Internet, consisting of about 60 members. I had never regarded myself as a conservative and found to my pleasant surprise that there were several other centrist (and liberal) members of the group. We were united by our common exasperation with the insufferable smugness and intolerance of the gay left, which had for so long dominated the Movement. Alongside this trend stood the “official” gay groups. These had no viable ideology at all, except for raising money and cosying up to the Democratic Party. No matter how much that Party ignored us, the official gays were determined to hang on. We see this sycophancy even today, when those folks urge “patience,” even though Obama has failed to deliver on any of his campaign promises to us.

For their part, the gaycons were uniformly in favor of the Iraq War. I tried ceaselessly to warn them against this stance, but my erstwhile friends were plugged into the DC establishment, and freely parroted the groupthink prevalent there.

The breaking point came when the double standard of the group became glaringly obvious.

In several newspapers and on his site direland.typepad.com, the independent journalist Doug Ireland had meticulously documented the state-sponsored executions of gays in Iran. For the gaycons, of course, Iran was a rogue state, so one could expect nothing good there.

When I reminded my little group of the death squads that were killing gays next door in Iraq, the gaycons wanted none of it. They would have had to admit that the US invasion and occupation of that country had been a disaster for women, Christians, and especially for gays.

As the US presence diminishes in Iraq, the peril that gay men face there has only worsened. An article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, provides some gruesome details (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/iraq-gays-murdered-militias.)

The Muslim extremist groups use young militants with computer training to hunt down gays on chat rooms on the Internet. “It is the easiest way to find those people who are destroying Islam and who want to dirty the reputation we took centuries to build up,” one said. Once the targets are found, arrangements are made to attack and sometimes kill them. The groups now active are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 130 gay Iraqi men since the beginning of the year alone. With a stream of homophobic epithets, the deputy leader of one Baghdad group explained its campaign. “Animals deserve more pity than the dirty people who practice such sexual depraved acts,” he told a reporter. “We make sure they know why they are being held and give them the chance to ask God’s forgiveness before they are killed.”

It has been suggested that the violence may be a consequence of the success of the government of Nuri al-Maliki. As militia groups see that their earlier function of providing local security is no longer needed they “shift their focus to the moral and cultural sphere, reverting to classic Islamist tactics of policing moral boundaries,” one observer remarked.

Under Saddam Hussein same-sex behavior was not criminalized, though there was repression, as occurs throughout the Arab world. Violence against gays started in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. Since 2004, according to Ali Hali, chairman of the Iraqi LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) group, a human-rights group based in London, no fewer than 680 gay men are known to have died in Iraq, at least 70 of those in the past five months. Actually, the figures may be higher, as most cases involving married men are not reported. Seven victims were women.

Rumor has it that the police are involved, but these reports have been denied. In recent days I received an email from a leftist gay group, noting only the killings in Iraq. This is the mirror image of the blindness of my gaycon friends. The lefties only want to hear about homophobic atrocities in Iraq, which are indeed terrible. They take this selective approach because their template is that all the troubles in the world are due to US “imperialism.” If only we would refrain, all would be well.. (As in Darfur, the Congo, Burma, North Korea, and other such stunning examples of Third World virtue.)

Since gays are being killed in Iran and Palestine, where there is no US presence, this cannot be the key variable. The essential factor is of course the fanaticism of Islamist extremists. Yet the left—and multiculturalists in general—are reluctant to criticize any aspect of Islam.

And of course they cling to their “blame America first” demonology. I would be glad if the US were less active in intervening throughout the world, but this would not mean that conditions would improve in most places. Kleptocracy and repression are rampant in much of the Third World.

Moreover, from Karl Marx to Hugo Chavez, the hard left has a long history of homophobia. That record is nothing to be proud of.

So why not just stop looking at these comments from both the right and the left? The reason I pay attention to them is that I have become disillusioned with the mainstream media. As a resident of New York City, I find that I am obliged to read the New York Times. But after that newspaper allowed the appalling Judith Miller free reign with her incendiary stories about Saddam’s Iraq, I no longer trust that newspaper—or indeed any establishment source.

The only remedy is to get your information from as many sources as you can.

Billy Glover’s forwarding comments (September 17):

I think I agree with your thinking. The problem is that I’m not sure that homosexuals were not as bad off before we invaded Iraq as before, because I agree that it is Islamic nonsense that is the factor. And that is why I supported the war and still do. There is no doubt in my mind that eventually we will have to confront all religious nonsense that is anti-homosexual.I saw a TV documentary, I think on National Geographic channel, on “Inside Islam.” It may be my lack of hearing it before, but I had never heard that there has been a study of the Koran like the Bible, and it came to the same conclusion: parts of the Koran have not only been mistranslated, but things have been added. Specifically, in a modern language translation words like tanks, etc were added, which obviously could not have been in the time it was “written.” (This in a text that supports war on non-Muslims.)

Another aspect is that, like the original Baptist belief, early Islam had no professional leaders, but each person was his own interpreter of the book. And it was pointed out that “Islam’ in non arabic nations is different from the Arabic ones and that, as we already knew, the worst elements are paid for by Saudi-Arabia, the Wahabis-the Islamic element like the right-wing “Christian” extremists in this country.

Need I remind anyone that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons are still being attacked and killed in the United States of America, and that it doesn’t make any difference which party is in power in Washington? We Americans also tolerate a culture of hatred. It isn’t only extremists who are guilty of hatred. We all need to re-examine our mean-spirited and violence-driven rejection of those who differ from us, whether that is in gender or sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, nationality, political persuasions or just every day opinions. People differ from one another. God does not smile on our mean spirits or our culture of violence, hatred and rejection of anyone. Period.

— Dan Hooper

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Perception and deception, hype and hypocrisy.

August 12, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Flipping through some papers I had saved from months ago, I came across a “Naked City” column by Christopher Lisotta from Frontiers Newsmagazine last January—an interview with publicist Howard Bragman, who recently wrote the book on P.R., “Where’s My Fifteen Minutes?”. There was an interesting comment:

Frontiers: “You write PR no longer means “public relations.” What does PR mean?”

Bragman: “PR stands for the concepts of perception and reality. We live in a society where perception has become more important than reality.”

No kidding? But never mind the fact that the advertising and P.R. industry has made this true. We are a nation of plastic, imitation, phoney, lights and mirrors, “truthiness.” I once read the fine print on a 0 calories soft drink can, and it admitted to “artificial imitation flavors” on the ingredients list. Not just imitation flavors, but artificial imitation flavors. How much more phoney could you want? How American!

It is true that “perception” and “reality” are the defining elements in a public world made transparent by Google, Twitter, Facebook, and IP addresses.

When it comes to LGBT people, the reality of our lives still doesn’t really matter to the public. Their perception is that we are weird, sex-crazed, pleasure-loving creatures with no ethics but huge wads of discretionary income. We are muscle-bound girlie men –both gays and lesbians. We all carry the AIDS virus, we hate heterosexual marriage, we all molest children and we are bringing God’s judgment down on America, a nation of “fag enablers.”

That’s the stereotype. That’s the perception. Never mind that we work and pay taxes, that we make decent (and tasteful) homes, raise the best kids, volunteer for everything and donate to all kinds of causes; that we serve our nation both in uniform and in every kind of job and profession. Never mind that we are often care-givers for the elderly and those with HIV.

And never mind that millions of us go to church, for God’s sake. (If it weren’t for gay organists, choir directors and florists, the church would be a dreary and silent box of self-righteous people.)

But the perception is that we shake our naked boobs and butts on pride parade floats, and secretly want to sodomize our neighbor’s pre-teen children.

So how do we change the public’s idiotic perception and derail the lying machine which cranks out hateful speech and packages it as truth? In my view, probably not by hiring P.R. firms. They did that the fight Proposition 8 a year ago, and gay/lesbian coupledom was so sanitized for the public that we ceased to exist.

The best thing any of us can do is to come out—because unlike Hollywood’s movie stars and publicity seekers, we won’t get photos in People magazine. Most of us just come out to friends, families and close neighbors. Since the already know us, we have enormous influence over their perception of other lesbian/gay people and will actually change their perception by bringing it into line with the reality of what they know in our lives.

Bragman talks about clients who come to his firm because they believe their reality is better than the public perception, so they want to improve the perception. There is, in my words, a perception deficit which good publicity and solid integrity can correct.

Not so with “truthiness,” a word minted by friends of the Bush administration. All something needs is the “look and feel” of truth whether or not it is true. In short, public perception is more important than deception of the public. This month’s Advocate, for example, questions whether the LGBT community has been deceived by the Obama administration. Our perception before last November was that he was our hope for solid, systemic change. But have we been deceived, because we’re now seven months into Obama’s 48 months and we have nothing to show for it: not DOMA, not the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and only a gutted Hate Crimes legislation. Of course, Congress is only concerned with the public’s perception, not with systemic change, not with a new reality.

What about people who have a public perception which is better than the reality? You mean like many heterosexuals? Like family values? Bragman calls this “hype.” Like anybody or anything that claims to be the biggest, best, hottest, or most important in the world, for example. Like everybody on Facebook or in those chat rooms and personals.

Frontiers: “What was your perspective as a PR guy on the No on 8 campaign?”

Bragman: “My number one mantra in PR is if you do not define yourself somebody else is going to define you. And you’re not going to be as happy about them defining you as you are about defining yourself. So I think we committed the PR sin of letting our opponents define us. . . ”

My take on being Christian, of course, is that Jesus used to have good PR, good perception. But many of his followers, who puffed themselves up on hype (I would call it hyp-ocrisy), their reality has nearly destroyed his perception by the public.

And my take on being LGBT/Christian is that since countless other (heterosexual) Christians don’t worry too much about integrity and truth (they tell facile lies about us with no qualms), or bringing disgrace on the name of Jesus (think televangelists), it may well be up to us to restore the public perception of what a follower of Jesus Christ is like with traits like: honesty (come out), integrity (not a patchwork, but made of whole cloth), generosity, sacrifice, and the readiness to “turn the other cheek” to false perceptions. For example, Matthew 5:11 from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” In other words, walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, HIV and AIDS, Hollywood, Public Affairs, LGBT Rights, LGBT Christian, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Blows me away.

June 15, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Wayne Besen makes, as usual, some excellent points is his column critiquing the Ex-Gay industries, especially Exodus International and Focus on the Family. (See: “What’s Their Point?” What they spread as love is narrowly focused not to love the homosexual they supposedly want to help, but only themselves.

Besen, who is Jewish and I believe not particularly religious, nonetheless has the integrity and intelligence to question whether the religious motivation of Ex-Gay ministries is genuine. He reminds us that if the Christian faith wants to spread the love of God, they are doing a strange job of it by alienating tens of thousands of LGBT people, not only from “evangelical Christianity” but from religion in general.

For every guilt-ridden homosexual who temporarily falls under their spell, they lose hundreds, if not thousands, of gay people who view their conversion program as intolerant. If your ministry causes many gay people to write off not just Christianity, but all religion, by what measurement can you consider your evangelizing a success?

If these ministries want to love homosexuals and save them from a homosexual life-style, more often they drive young people to depression, abject despair, and suicide. Despair often contributes to self-destructive behaviors as well, so Besen cites a recent Emory University Study suggesting a link between banning same-sex marriage and HIV infection rates! (News: Georgia Political & Policy Digest; Emory News Release.)

Is this what a loving God would really want? A lot of guilt-ridden, repentant, dead homosexuals? For once I am glad that someone form outside the Christian community can publish a critical look at the Ex-Gay expression of beliefs and tell them directly, “you are not being persuasive.”

It reminds me of the scene in Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You, in which the good sister carefully determines that one of her former catechism students, who was homosexual, had gone to confession for his sins and not done any other same-sex acts since his last confession.

GARY. Yes, Sister?  SISTER. You still believe what you do with Jeff is wrong, don’t you? I mean, you still confess it in confession, don’t you?  GARY. Well I don’t really think it’s wrong, but I’m not sure, so I do still tell it in confession.  SISTER. When did you last go to confession?   ALOYSIUS. This morning actually. I was going to be playing Saint Joseph and all.  SISTER. And you haven’t sinned since then, have you?  GARY. No, sister. (Sister shoots him dead.)SISTER. (Triumphantly.)  I’ve sent him to heaven! Christopher Durang’s play was screamingly funny, but when I saw it live in Los Angeles years ago, I also remember that my chest was pounding when Sister Mary pulled out her revolver. There is something just too real about homophobic hatred even when it is disguised as love or prayer or good intentions.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Doctrine, LGBT Rights, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Homophobia and the Dopeler Effect.

June 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A conversation with a visitor led him to tell me that he has been advised he needs to work on his internalized homophobia.

That concept has come a long way in recent years, and now even has its own diagnostic scale and studies to substantiate it. But has it ever been examined theologically? Sitting in the Dr.’s waiting room today, I quickly made a list of issues I would want to look at which contribute to internalized homophobia for a Christian. I’ve lived through it, and it has taken half a lifetime to process how much the internalization of theologically-shaped hatred has affected me.

1. I see myself as a sinful and worthless person. I am unworthy of love, especially of God’s love.
2. I hate my life (which runs much deeper than self-denial for the sake of the Gospel).
3. I hide in shame from the judgment of others.
4. I worry that I am already condemned by God—damned to hell for being lesbian/gay or for my same-sex behavior.
5. I feel powerless to repent of homosexuality or to change to heterosexuality in order to avoid judgment and condemnation.

In addition, another trait has been talked about by Wayne Besen in his book Anything But Straight.

   6.   I have tried very hard to change, and failed, so even God must have given up on me.

The core problem here is that what I have internalized, as a Christian, is the wording of Scripture itself, which has been used even indirectly to make me feel worthless, unworthy of love, powerless and damned. Each one of these numbered points probably has well-known Bible passages which can be associated with it. So if I am more than a nominal Christian, all I can do is squirm, and go on hating myself and my life and my failure to conform to what the Scripture apparently is saying.

But the true problem is that so much of Scripture has been misused, misinterpreted and misapplied to fit things for which it was not originally written. Particular words of warning and judgment which have anything to do with sex have been maliciously universalized as if they pertain to all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in all circumstances. And universal lessons about human nature and our penchant for self-serving ways have been particularized to point a finger at lesbian and gay people, etc.

In short, fundamentalists have played fast and loose with the Bible itself, with their “flip-and-point” methodology, to try to prove the homosexuality or any sexual variation is the ultimate evil. If you’ve seen the internet humor about the “Dopeler effect” (the tendency for stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly), you can figure out that fundamentalism has its own Theological Dopeler Effect. The voices which have tried to condemn me and consign me directly to hell are rapid-fire, loud and non-negotiable. the only way to deal with them is to stop listening, and to turn your God-given ears to the voice of the true God who reminds us that we are loved, and that in Christ we are worthy of his love, and that we are saved by grace not by conformity, sexuality, or self-inflicted misery.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Homophobia, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian | Print | No Comments »

Break down the door before you suffocate!

May 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

 Two frogs are sitting in a pot half full of water on the stove. There are bubbles all around them. “You know, it just doesn’t get any better than this,” said the first one.

“What do you mean? Are you crazy?” said the other. “This water is getting hot. I think we should get outta here.”

“Why are you always so negative?” said the first. “It’s not boiling, after all. It’s only simmering.”

“I can’t believe it! I suppose now you’re going to tell me the pot is half full, not half empty.”

I read an interesting piece yesterday in Instinct magazine, which surprised me. It’s a pretty-boy fashion magazine that catches our eyes but seldom gets read.

Joel Perry’s article”Is There Still a Closet?” is a relatively sympathetic look at those (how few? how many?) sexual minority persons out there who are still hiding. His article is not edgy—he doesn’t contemplate anything as exotic as transgender politician or a bisexual bishop—but he talks about his friend Davis from small town North Carolina who still sings in the church choir and says, “You try not to live a lie; however, you have to cover your tacks well.”

Perry is probably more sympathetic than I might be. Maybe a transgender politician must hide, but a 42-year old medical assistant can get work almost anywhere. Why would he stay where he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t live? Why would he try to hold his breath for a lifetime because there is no air in the closet? Or maybe in North Carolina?

Or is it that he just doesn’t know how to come out gracefully, or where to begin?

My friend, most of us didn’t start out to be radical activists. But there came a moment when we finally realized that the pain of inaction outweighed the risks of action.

The truth is that coming out is a multi-part test of one’s own inner integrity. You don’t come out only once, but many times to different audiences. The outcome of any of these will vary, depending on how well prepared you are, and what kind of people you trust with your integrity. It can be painful, and it can be relatively easy and enjoyable. depending on how each coming out event unfolds. Typically, my friends report that at least for some —family especially—they already know and were just waiting for them to talk about it.

Another important thing to remember is that the risk and pain are temporary. Once the coming out process is behind you, your life takes different turns. If doors slam shut, others will open. If some friends shun you, you will make other, more genuine friends. If you grow in the process of deciding you must breathe free, you may discover that other people are also able to grow and change their views and opinions. The family, friend or co-worker who is often overheard telling homophobic jokes may actually change his or her tune just because you were honest about yourself.

And the most important thing to remember, if you are a person of faith, is that God already knows your secret. The thunderbolt has not hit you, no matter how long you’ve been hiding your little secret, so many it’s time to reconsider how damning your sexuality really is. Could it be that God knows, and God still loves you? That the all-wise and omniscient God, the one who knows the heart, fully understands and does not condemn you? That grace outweighs condemnation, and love is more important than sin?

Could it be that you’ve been avoiding thinking about God for fear of the consequences, only to realize that God’s Spirit may be your best friend and advocate as you go through the coming out process?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, "The Closet", Homophobia, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Pew Forum discusses clash of rights.

May 21, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life posted a Q & A-type article yesterday, “A Clash of Rights? Gay Marriage and the Free Exercise of Religion.” 

“With New Hampshire poised to become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage, could religious individuals and institutions that oppose gay marriage be required to recognize or even solemnize these unions? Although churches and other religious organizations, including charities and schools, have typically been exempt from state and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, it remains unclear how these religious institutions might be affected by new laws that require equal treatment for same-sex marriages.”

I don’t think they’re talking to each other.

They also have a separate Issue Page on Gay Marriage. 

The Forum tries to analyze and discuss the issues fairly and accurately.  A disinterested party who works through their material might conclude that religious organizations want “wiggle room” to permit them to be prejudicial and rejective without interference by law or public policy.  In other words, to remain internally homophobic and to be left alone.

Frankly, I am more than willing to leave anti-gay religious groups alone.  My spouse and I are not inclined to walk into the local Mormon stake or Catholic mass, and make a scene demanding recognition of our legal marriage (just to name those two large organization that strongly backed Proposition 8 in California).

But such analysis is worthless, in one sense, because the conservative position (”opponents of gay marriage”) have an underlying motive beyond being left alone to discrimnate against LGBT people internally.  Beyond the prejudicial and rejective motives is the punitive motive. 

Although the most outrageous (perhaps!) is Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka Kansas, he is not alone in his constant vitriol of hatred and threatened punishment.  There are hundreds of web sites which say similar stuff, and thousands of blogs which publish the opinions of those who talk openly of physical harm and death for LGBT people.  This is routine, folks.  Gay marriage is only the immediate flash point for this kind of hatred.

So when it comes to law and public policy, the truthful issue for us is this:  are hatred, homophobia, death threats, and punitive political organizing  things which deserve to be exempt under the law, or protected as freedom of speech or freedom of religion?  Or are these homophobic entities simply hiding behind the facade of religion?

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.  He said to them, “It is written,  ’My house shall be called a house of prayer’;  but you are making it a den of robbers.”  — Matthew 21:12-13

Jesus, of course, did not go to Pilate or the Roman courts and file a lawsuit. He sought no political solution against those who use their religion as a “den”–a hiding place where thieves go after committing their crimes.   (The implication of this scriptural passage is that the robbery, thievery and dishonesty, etc. is in the public venue, and religion is simply the retreat house for those who are dishonest in public.)

But in his zealous driving out of the thieves, he tells us that religion itself, God’s temple, should be no refuge for such scoundrels.  With or without a marriage license, I am not inclined to enter a Mormon or Catholic church and attempt to drive out anybody, either.  Change will come only when people who belong there already have the zeal and courage to cleanse their own houses of worship, and to convince their co-religionists that working to steal our civil rights in public and then retreating to God’s house is immoral.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Freedom of Hate, Freedom of Religion.

May 2, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

[So-Called] Christian Attorneys Urge Senate to Vote Against ‘Hate Crimes’ Bill (Christian Post, May 1, 2009)

Attorneys at a Christian legal group are urging the U.S. Senate not to pass the expanded “Hate Crimes” bill, which the House this week voted 249-175 in favor of.

The attorneys at the Alliance Defense Fund insist that the bill, H.R. 1913, could severely impede Americans’ constitutional rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression while creating additional legal protections for those engaged in homosexual behavior that are not available to everyone else.

If made into law, the bill would add violence against individuals based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability to the list of federal hate crimes. Current federal law only covers crimes committed on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity or national origin.

It figures. The Alliance Defense Fund is the right wing God squad that also gave you Proposition 8. Said Stuart Whatley of The America Prospect last October, “[The] Ultraconservative legal organization the Alliance Defense Fund is backing a California marriage ban with rhetoric about ‘defending’ family and children.”   His entire article is worth a careful re-read, but here is more:

Following the ADF’s defeat in California’s In re Marriage Cases in May, when the court ruled that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the ADF found reinforcements in other conservative groups such as ProtectMarriage, the National Organization for Marriage and Focus on the Family. In the following months, this conservative conglomeration successfully garnered over one million signatures to place Prop 8 on the ballot with hopes of overturning the court’s ruling. The ADF’s role in the case was to “defend” its position on the legal definition of marriage — that it is exclusively between a man and a woman — under the aegis of traditional Christian family structures.

Just so you know what axe is bring ground by whom (according to Wikipedia), “ADF’s President, CEO, and General Counsel is Alan Sears. Sears was previously a Justice Department official under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and has co-authored two books with Craig Osten: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, and The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.

Here is the ADF’s own news release on this. At the bottom of the page: “ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith.” Apparently they don’t think Christians can live out their faith without the legal right to hate. Has it crossed the minds of any of these “Christian” attorneys that Jesus was the victim of a hate crime?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Homophobia, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Undisguised indifference to bigotry and suffering.

May 1, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I followed his story closely. I became emotional when he died. I made memorial gifts in his name.  I have written about him. But I never met Matthew Shepard. There was something so tender, so shy in the few photos of him that have been published. Maybe the heart-strings that his murder tugged upon was that I could have been just as easily victimized at that age.  Skinny, shy, not very masculine, uncertain of my gay self in a hostile world.  The only thing different was I don’t have blond hair.  But that innocent 21 year-old could have been me.  Since I was that young, and even since his senseless death, I have met countless gay kids.  And too many of them have sad stories, if not horror stories, to tell about parental rejection, being bullied, feeling too hungry for a little sympathetic company while sitting all alone on a bar stool. Too many of us still experience real queer bashing.  In my own neighborhood (liberal Silverlake in Los Angeles) there are still fearful, frightening episodes of queer bashing and mugging.Of course I am gratified that the House of Representatives has now passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill (and who knows, will there be an uphill battle in the Senate?). Yet since Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) called this hate crime a “hoax”, I am outraged all over again. (Huffington Post’s headline, “Virginia Foxx: Story of Matthew Shepard’s Murder A ‘Hoax.’“)

For one thing, I must surmise that she didn’t follow his story, when Matthew was discovered tied to a Wyoming fence in the freezing cold, his skull already crushed. Everyone (except people like Foxx) was horrified. And within hours he was dead. Rep. Foxx has simply “bought into” the flimsy defense argument that those scumbags who murdered him had only robbery on their minds; and therefore she could argue that to classify his murder, and to name this bill after him, is a hoax. 

That is almost like suggesting that Hitler only incidentally murdered six million Jews, and all he meant to do was to rob their bank accounts, seize their art collections and remove their gold dental fillings!

I certainly agree with Keith Olberman (MSNBC Countdown) that if Foxx cannot fully and appropriately apologize for her calloused remarks (now indelibly written into the Congressional Record to document her indifference to bigotry, homophobia and suffering in 21^st Century America), she ought to resign.

Of course, Rep. Foxx sort of apologized soon after for her poor choice of words, as if it were only a matter of language. Language is the servant of thought, Rep. Foxx. The language you chose reflects your thought, and it made clear that you really trivialize Matthew Shepard’s brutal torture and murder as a mere robbery, and so you trivialize the reality of brutal, relentless hate crimes in America.

Gay and lesbian people aren’t the only ones who suffer hatred. But like African Americans, Muslims and those who resemble one, Jews, transgender persons, physically-challenged individuals, and women of all states and conditions, violent hate crimes against such people are violent hate crimes. Robbery is a convenient sequel to the evil within the heart of those whose real intent is to hate, to reject, and to destroy people. If Ms. Foxx had followed the trial, read the transcript, or even watched the news, it might have tested her to see if she has any genuine human emotions. I am completely disgusted by her comments because I can tell how she measures the whole matter in her “heart.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Violence, Homophobia, LGBT Rights, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »