Change looks like this!

August 4, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Reaction has been swift to Judge Vaughn Walker’s sweeping decision that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional because it violates both the equal protection and due process clauses of the U.S. Constitution’s 14^th Amendment.

But it is “all the usual suspects” who have weighed in during the last few hours — the Roman Catholic Bishops, the Mormons, the “Family Research Council” and the attorneys who “defended” Prop 8 in Walker’s federal court.

It is interesting that–in Judge Walker’s view and in the eyes of most independent observers—because the defenders of Proposition 8 made such a weak defense of the proposition, their official statements this afternoon do not take issue with Walker’s legal reasoning or conclusions, but instead try to throw the whole case back into the court of public opinion even while they vow to send the appeal to the 9^th Circuit Court.

The public opinion, of course, to which Alliance Defense Fund’s attorney Austin Nimrocks and attorney Andrew Pugno refer, is that the people voted for Prop 8 just as they had voted for Proposition 22 a decade ago. This is from the L.A. Now site of the Los Angeles Times:

Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund who fought to uphold Proposition 8 in Walker’s court, said they would appeal. “We’re obviously disappointed that the judge did not uphold the will of over 7 million Californians who made a decision in a free and fair democratic process.”Nimocks added that “tens of millions of Americans across this country” as well as Congress have expressed the belief that marriage should be limited to heterosexual couples. “To say that there is no reason whatsoever to define marriage as one man and one woman is not something that we expect to be upheld on appeal,” he said of Walker’s reasoning.Andrew P. Pugno, one of the lawyers who defended the Proposition 8 campaign in the trial in Walker’s San Francisco courtroom, referred comment on the judge’s decision to a spokeswoman for ProtectMarriage.com, who said the group opposed to gay marriage would later post a statement on its website. More than an hour after the ruling was issued, the group had yet to comment on it.

Walker’s “Conclusions of Law” [beginning on page 109] in contrast, quickly dispense with the popular vote and cite legal precedent that fundamental rights are not subject to the vote of the people.  Here are more stories and commentary:

The State Column “Prop 8 Ruling: Ban is Unconstitutional” www.thestatecolumn.com/blog/2010/08/prop-8-ruling-ban-is-unconstitutional/

The Wall Street Journal http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/04/breaking-news-sf-judge-shoots-down-proposition-8/Now 

Now Public www.nowpublic.com/world/prop-8-ruled-unconstitutional-protests-celebration-2647312.html  “US District Judge Vaughn Walker Rules Proposition 8 Unconstitutional”

USA Today : Faith & Reason http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/08/prop-8-proposition-8-california-gay-marriage-vaugh-walker/1 ”Prop 8 ruling drives strong religious reactions: Outrage to joy”

The Washington Post On Faith : Religion Roundup http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/08/proposition_8_ruling_in_california_religion_roundup.html ”Proposition 8 ruling in California: religion roundup”

Los Angeles Times “L.A. Now / Southern California —This Just In http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/gay-marriage-foes-vow-to-appeal-prop-8-ruling.html ”Gay marriage foes vow to appeal Prop. 8 ruling [Updated 3:00 pm]”

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Another tipping point today?

August 4, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I don’t know quite what to think or hope for this afternoon’s decision. Whether Judge Walker’s opinion is for us an with us, or against us (which is highly unlikely given the low level of intelligence during the trial coming from the Prop 8 defenders), it is not the last word, since the decision is more than likely to be appealed by either side.

The last word, since this is a federal case, is likely to be several years off before the U.S. Supreme Court. But given the current court, all we could hope for there is several more retirements and an Obama administration still in place to push through some nominations that will fairly judge our issues. The present nominee, Kagan, certainly trumps people like Scalia, Thomas, etc., but time after time we’ve seen a majority of the court who did not consider the entire scope of justice issues or found a way to elevate some values over others. I am still smarting from the Supremes’ decision last winter that corporations can legally spend as much money as they please to influence elections—and they called that a first amendment free speech right! (Treating the legal fiction that a corporation is a “person” in the eyes of the law of course.)

Bottom line: I don’t trust the Supremes to rule in our favor even though they certainly did in Lawrence v. Texas.

According to my e-mail, California Faith for Equality joins Community Prayer for Social Justice at 8pm tonight, August 4, at Father Serra Park on Olivera Street across from Union Station, with Latino Equality Alliance, Metropolitan Community Church Los Angeles, Moral Compass to Justice, and other faith leaders from across the city.

More interesting to me, California Faith for Equality will be holding a Statewide Faith Leaders conference call with Lambda Legal’s Senior Counsel, Jenny Pizer about the decision. Alas I have no details yet.

According to Marriage Equality USA, Judge Walker will issue his decision in the Federal Prop 8 case on Wednesday, August 3, 2010 between 1-3pm. The decision will be posted at www.cand.uscourts.gov and at www.marriageequality.org.

A huge amount of preparation has gone into responding/reacting to the decision. How we respond/react will depend on whether we feel vindicated or screwed by Judge Walker. I’m not sure that a huge amount of street demonstration power is a useful thing, but of course it will happen. It’s nice to see a show of strength in the streets, but our opponents don’t both with that and they keep right on raising enormous sums of money to fight us every way they can.

Here are a few more links:

Rex Wockner’s column

American Foundation for Equal Rights

GetEqual.org – site is current

Robin McGehee’s blog

California Faith for Equality - for some reason Google was identifying this as an unsafe site with “malware” this morning, so use your own judgment. But there’s nothing posted there about today’s decision. Hmmm.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Boycott Target and Best Buy!

July 30, 2010 by Dan Hooper.

Date: Fri 7/30/2010 3:06 PMFrom: “Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign” hrc@hrc.org
Subject:  Target and Best Buy!  Make it right!

$250,000 in donations to a rabidly anti-LGBT candidate? Tell Target and Best Buy: You need to make this right. Add your name!                         Dear Daniel, One candidate for Governor of Minnesota has promised to veto marriage equality legislation and has ties to a Christian rock band that advocates death to gays. Target and Best Buy, both based in Minneapolis, have donated $250,000 to a political committee supporting his campaign. But they still have a chance to make it right. We’ve drafted an open letter calling on the companies to donate an equal amount to support fair-minded candidates. We’ll publish it in a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Will you help us ratchet up the pressure by adding your name? Tell Target and Best Buy to make it right. Add your name now. By signing on, you’ll help make it clear that Target and Best Buy are risking the business of millions of pro-equality customers – and show the rest of corporate America, which is watching this situation very closely, that support for hateful and intolerant candidates won’t go unnoticed. But don’t stop there. Print out our letter, take it to the manager of your local Target and Best Buy, and let them know how disappointed you are. Here’s the backstory: Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Target had donated $150,000 to the political committee MN Forward. Best Buy pitched in another $100,000. MN Forward’s mission? Elect as governor an anti-LGBT state representative with a long history of attacks on LGBT Americans. This representative’s campaign even donated to a controversial “punk-rock Christian ministry” whose leader has advocated executing gays and lesbians! After all these two companies have done to build a fair and equitable workplace, it’s a slap in the face. In years past, Target and Best Buy consistently received 100 percent ratings on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index. They need to make this right – by donating an equal amount to support candidates who will fight for equality. But they won’t do it just because we ask. They need to see that hundreds of thousands of customers across the country are upset and disappointed. Add your name now. I hope Target and Best Buy will do the right thing. But it’s up to us to show that fair-minded consumers are paying close attention to what they do next. Let’s make this happen, Joe Solmonese President  Share on Facebook  Share on Twitter This link is specific to you, so please take action on this campaign before you forward to your friends. Having trouble clicking on the links above? Simply copy and paste this URL into your browser’s address bar: https://secure3.convio.net/hrc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=911

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Well, I was pretty outraged by this, and I have to assume it is accurate, even if Human Rights Campaign did not entrust us with the actul facts.  I frequently shop in both of these chains, especially the Target store in, of all places, West Hollywood, California. 

When I reflect back just a few years ago when people were fired or had a criminal record just for associating with a known homosexual, such guilt by association was assumed to be justifiable.  Politicians continue to use this practice to discredit and shame the other candidate and the other party.  Why then, if the public mind accepts the reasonable conclusion that association with bad is bad, should businesses be able to duck every blemish on their carefully-groomed public relations skin?

Fox News (!) reports that Republian candidate Tom Emmer doesn’t like the flap over the campaign contributions because “I thought we were supposed to be able to exercise our rights of free speech.”   Well, it is about free speech, so everybody is free, thanks to the Supreme Court decision earlier this year, to buy all the speech that their corporations want to pay for.  But that’s not the issue, Tom.  We are just as free to tell Target and Best Buy not that they don’t have a right to speak with their campaign dollars, but that we think what they’re saying is disgusting.

Am I being cynical about the Supreme Court?  Hardly.  The same Fox News story explains it in detail:

Target and other Minnesota-based companies, including electronics retailer Best Buy Co., Red Wing Shoes and snowmobile maker Polaris Industries Inc., donated to MN Forward after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed companies to spend money on elections. The decision overturned prohibitions on corporate campaign spending in about half the states, including Minnesota.

If you can’t stand Fox News, catch the story on ABC News.

 

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

Is DOMA doomed?

July 19, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Another thing I’m slow to assess is the decision of the U.S. District Court judge in Boston to declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. According to Boston.com On July 8, Judge Joseph Tauro “struck down” the law which passed the Republican-controlled Congress in 1996—and to which Bill Clinton put his signature.

The Boston court is clearly the right venue to talk back to Congress on one of the two major issues which Tauro’s decision apparently addresses: that DOMA violates the rights of the individual states to control their own marriage laws. Massachusetts, afer all, legalized same-gender marriage in 2004.

One of the murkiest swamps in our national legal history are these periodic fights between the federal government and the states over who has jurisdiction on something. The present fight between Arizona and the Obama administration over immigration law is the current issue. The states and the feds have been doing this almost since the founding of the nation, and perhaps it will never all get settled, partly because every few years the control of Congress and the state houses flips back and forth between two political parties that seem to despise each other passionately.

Tauro drew on history in his ruling, writing that the states have set their own marriage since before the American Revolution and that marriage laws were considered “such an essential element of state power” that the subject was even broached at the time of the framing of the Constitution. Tauro noted that laws barring interracial marriage were once at least as contentious as the current battle over gay marriage.But in Loving vs. Virginia (1967), the federal Supreme Court that said its opinion trumps the states’ rights to regulate marriage, and so opened the doors to interracial marriages in a single stroke.John Corvino has an interesting reflection on the Tauro decision, in contrast to some poor assumptions on the part of Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, who chairs the U.S. Bishop’s “Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage“. (I stand by my remarks about “protecting marriage.” I told a reporter in June 2008 that “if you want to protect marriage protect your marriage. Buy your wife flowers, and listen to her when she talks to you.”)Marriage can no more be “defended” by keeping gay and lesbian couples away from it than a house can be defended from termites with a concrete block wall around it.Anyway, Corvino’s comments include three reasons why Archbishop Kurtz is wrong: ” . . . Third, and perhaps most interesting, there is an emerging social institution of marriage that includes gays. It’s time for the law to catch up to that.Last month I participated in a same-sex wedding for some dear friends. The Presbyterian church hosting the ceremony called it a ‘holy union,’ but just about everyone else called it a wedding—including the grooms’ families. There were tuxedos and champagne and cake and presents and all the other usual markers, including teary-eyed families witnessing solemn vows.The state where this event occurred (Michigan) forbids legal marriage for gays and lesbians. But each groom’s parents have begun referring to their son’s partner as their ‘son-in-law, and everyone around them understands why they do so.It’s not a legal reality. But it is a personal and social one.”Given the rejection of same-sex marriage by the Presbyterian assembly on July 9, I found Corvino’s personal observation of the Presbyterian “holy union” to be very compelling. Neither church delegates nor a partisan, sharply-divided Congress, can hold back the tides of change.But of course, Tauro’s decision could itself wind up before The Supremes, who have been pretty good at slowing the tides.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Different histories in moving forward.

July 18, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

A couple of weeks ago (okay, I’m slow to process everything. I have a life and a “day job.”) the Presbyterians met in the same city as the Lutherans did 11 months ago, to conduct their periodic denominational business and to change their “gatekeeping” control over their clergy—specifically their LGBT clergy.

The Presbyterians aren’t getting as much press on their decision for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the Unitarians/Universalists, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have beaten them to it, so the media become less interested. Secondly, this didn’t go as far as the Lutheran decisions, and this may not stick at all.

The action of the General Assembly is similar, in fact, to what their denomination attempted to do several years ago. On the up side 53% of the convention delegates decided to approve policy changes to permit same-gender clergy who are not abstinent—they are sexually active—to still serve as clergy.

But I’m not excited yet for my Presbyterian colleagues. This convention action doesn’t take effect unless a majority of the presbyteries (groups of local churches) agree. Two years ago, 94 of the 173 local presbyteries voted it down (54%). Weeks later, by the way, and that news was off the front page.

The other issue is that unlike the Lutheran decision, the Presbyterian one on July 9 was not connected to a thorough study and official statement about human sexuality that recognized the validity of same-sex intimate relationships. According to Associated Press, the Presbyterian delegates ” decided not to redefine marriage in their church constitution to include same-sex couples.”

Well, the Lutherans didn’t “redefine marriage” either but made some room for an understanding that gay or lesbian couples may have valid relationships. For all the years that Lutheran activists “belly-ached” about the ELCA dodging the decisions by sending out our lives for another study, the last study process actually paid off. It involved more people at more levels of the church in a sincere attempt to understand what LGBT people are about, and especially why we can be people of faith just like heterosexuals can be. In fairness, it’s important to know that many denominations, including Lutherans and Presbyterians, etc. have conducted studies of human sexuality and homosexuality. (Many of them take up chunks of drawer space in my filing cabinets because they were done before you could download them as a PDF file.) But it has been repeatedly observed that the only minds changed by sexuality studies are those who actually participated in them—usually the commission members who read, interviewed, debated and drafted the reports, not the official board which received the reports.

Although it now seems that the ELCA is more progressive than the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. or the United Methodist Church (which rejected gay marriage 15 months ago) continues to dig in its heels for similar reasons—there are thousands of country churches or small town churches that do not want to look at the sexuality issues at all), progress can be a double-edged sword. The partly-approved new Presbyterian policy would allow non-celibate (a misnomer for sexually active) individuals to be ordained and serve as clergy and presumably elders of the church. The ELCA action was more intentional in opening its gates to clergy who are either sexually abstinent or in a lifelong PALM or publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous relationship—a far cry from sexual libertinism.

In effect, the Lutheran decision means that by recognizing the validity of committed same-gender relationships the church expects gay or lesbian people to be held to an ethical standard which is identical, except for the gender of the partner, to a heterosexual marriage. The Presbyterian measure apparently doesn’t go that far because the delegates didn’t want to affirm a redefinition of marriage.

So my gay Presbyterian colleague across town, if this policy is not rejected by 87 local presbyteries who shudder and wince at the thought of a West Hollywood or San Francisco, could be “recognized” as a non-celibate pastor. Since he is single and not coupled let alone married, he would slide into a normalized status without having to cross his fingers behind his back. But my Lutheran colleague across town who is officially “single” but sexually-active in a series of short-term, no commitment, quick-but-not-deep relationships, would likely be scrutinized carefully about his sexual expression and his non-permanent boyfriends. But since I am in a publically-accountable, lifelong monogamous relationship (monogamous for 34 years; the public accountability wasn’t possible until Domestic Partnerships became legal a few years ago) ??  I have nothing to fear from such scrutiny, which doesn’t afford me any smugness. Homophobic people wouldn’t care one whit about the distinction I have raised.  

Change has its costs as well as benefits. Plainly, if LGBT people want to be treated with respectability and to be able to not keep their sexuality and their relationships in a stifling closet, they have to get used to the idea that there are other ethical standards in the community which are broader and more important than the gender of one’s “significant other.”

So while the LGBT/Presbyterian activists may be disappointed that the marriage redefinition failed in convention, and may be further disappointed if the local presbyteries don’t support the one positive decision in Minneapolis, they may have two or more years to get used to additional levels of public accountability.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, History, LGBT Christian, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

New victories, more recycled prejudice.

July 16, 2010 by Dan Hooper.

Yesterday was a pretty big day on my news radar, with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals turning back the homophobic forcers that wanted a fall ballot measure to get rid of same sex marriage.

You gotta feel for those “forcers” (it was a typo but I kinda like it!). They are trying to expunge us and our movement for justice and equality before the law by force because they see it and us as something like a dangerous infection to their values. Gert out the disinfectant, spray, clean and wipe, meaning: get rid of any evidence that gay tolerance and acceptance is “breaking out”. Forcefully overpower it with squeaky-clean-strict morality, and with money and law and lobbyists and anything else they can to intimidate it. Force shame upon us with righteous indignation, and push us back into our miserable closets.

Thank God it isn’t exactly working, even if Proposition 8 is still on the books in California (its Day will come in court—either Judge Walker’s court or another). Yesterday the world-wide movement for justice and equality got another big victory when the upper house of Argentina’s legislature legalized same-sex marriage, the 10^th nation to do so according to a very thorough BBC article on line.

The church continues, however, to get its shorts in a knot about these infectious signs of progress. According to the Human Rights Campaign story on the DC Court decision, “While Bishop Harry Jackson, a pastor in Maryland, has been the public face of this litigation, the truth is that outside groups like the National Organization for Marriage and the Alliance Defense Fund are the driving force behind these anti-equality measures.” Rev. Jackson (is he a so-called or self-styled bishop?) is clearly a front for money from Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage, and Family Research Council, who coughed up $200,000 to put the initiative on the DC ballot. NOM, incidentally, is on an anti-gay marriage “tour” in New Hampshire right now. Relentless scrubbing of the American people trying to get rid of this infectious minority!

Money spent in DC is now money squandered, because the Appellate Court decision trumps the P.R. blitzes with which big money saturates the media. HRC reveals that “more than $40,000 to Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the firm behind the Yes on Prop 8 deal in California and the Question 1 deal in Maine, “similar fear-based strategies in each to spread misinformation and narrowly win both votes.”

The Latin American church has its shorts in a knot, too, about the decision in Argentina. According to the AP story,

The approval came despite a concerted campaign by the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical groups, which drew 60,000 people to march on Congress and urged parents in churches and schools to work against passage. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio led the campaign, saying “children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother.”This is just recycled prejudice. If it worked in California, maybe it will work in Argentina. Just spread misinformation about LGBT people and stoke indignation and maybe it will expunge the gay thing from the land!I am surprised the blowback in Argentina isn’t worse, given the fact that the law specifically allows gay/lesbian couples to adopt children. And the law will take effect in a matter of days.But what angers me about the Cardinal’s rant is that children continue to be pawns in adult relationships, even when just in concept. There is plenty of evidence that children are not harmed by having two moms or two dads, and in fact grow up remarkably well with only one mom or one dad. It is the quality of the relationship between parent and child that matters, not the gender or the sexuality.

Worse yet, same-gender couples do not all have children or desire children. This recycled prejudice tries to prevent all loving same-gender couples from having a civil and legal relationship with one another by shrieking about children. By my lights, I think we should start a national or global organization to protect the children from homophobia.

— Dan Hooper

Posted in Catholic matters, Homophobia, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, History | Print | No Comments »

Party of No reveals true prejudice.

July 8, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

The veto of House Bill 444 by Hawaii’s Republican governor Linda Lingle does not surprise me. The bill would have allowed civil unions in lieu of civil marriage for same-gender couples.

Remember that the state of Hawaii started all this marriage mess in America when in 1993 its supreme court found no reason under the current constitution to forbid same-gender marriage. The people of Hawaii then took it upon themselves to amend the constitution to make sure it couldn’t happen. The actual procedure differs from other states’ bans, but it has the identical affect. Take your gay/lesbian family elsewhere.

California has its own special issues, but I can’t help seeing a pattern in states where there are large concentrations of retirees as well as Relephantitis (the affliction of the Party of No): Arizona, Florida and Hawaii come to mind.

On the Party of No, the Governor’s own web site, http://hawaii.gov/gov brags on July that she has vetoed 32 bills. Her veto statement is here.

According to Associated Press, Lingle explained her veto: “There has not been a bill I have contemplated more or an issue I have thought more deeply about during my eight years as governor,” she said. ” have been open and consistent in my opposition to same-sex marriage, and find that House Bill 444 is essentially same-sex marriage by another name.”

Lingle’s prejudicial view may actually strengthen our case in the long run. Opponents have frequently said it is the name “marriage” that they want to protect but that they’re not against lesbian and gay couples from having legal protections which are similar or the same, as long as “tradition” marriage of “sacred” marriage are not involved. But Lingle has called the spade by its real name: prejudice. She doesn’t think our relationships and families should have any legal protections by any name.

There is no way that a minority (LGBT people) can affect the thinking of the majority without exposing prejudice every time it is involved.

It is also obvious to me that the battle will probably stay in the courts for some time, because all it takes is a prejudiced governor with Relephantitis to veto the work of many legislators who have already worked through an issue such as this as a political issue. Lingle is a lame duck but has an eye for her party’s chances in the midterm election only four months away. As Governor—think Schwarzeneggar—she doesn’t have to engage individual voters and their views or concerns, but she has to engage the media. So whatever she thinks will play well in the media is what she will do.

Lingle also commented in her press conference that voters, not politicians, should decide the fate of civil unions. Ahh, the eternal triangle between electorate, legislators and courts. But voters–as long as they are allowed to decide things by majority vote—will typically not vote for anything that benefits the minority. A bill or an initiative constitutional amendment is never framed to advise the voters to think and vote on behalf of persons other than themselves, i.e., for the good of the larger community, or for the good of a minority. Clearly, only a court or a representative) legislative group is charged to think and act on behalf of all citizens and not just a majority of citizens.

In the meantime, Lingle’s prejudice lingers in Hawaii.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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

Those crazy heartlanders.

April 3, 2010 by Dan Hooper.

It’s so nice to know that out here on the lunatic fringe we uphold traditional values (such as serial polygamy a.k.a. repeated divorce and remarriage), while back there in the hotbed of Lutheranism, their ho-hum ahh shucks brand of social values now seems to have taken same-sex marriage in stride. Even Governor Chet “Protect Marriage” Culver has backed way off his theat to stop gay marriage via the state constitution.

—Dan HooperAttitudes change in Iowa as marriage equality marks 1 year

By Ruth Schneider, 365gay.com • 04.03.2010 7:00am EDT

“Midwest rebel state Iowa marks the one-year anniversary of marriage equality in the state on Saturday. And state gay rights groups are looking to the future, hoping to mark many more anniversaries.”

Read the entire article here.

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

Faithful discernment in reactionary times.

March 30, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

There is little doubt that America and the world are going through “reactionary times.” The whole human race seems to have a “knee-jerk” response to every stimulus, from fundamentalist Islam to fundamentalist Christianity on several continents. Then there is politics, in which it seems every commentator strives to become a loudmouth, and every loudmouth strives to run for office.

We might like to walk away from all this, but the apostles of reactionary thinking hunt us down, invade our privacy, and badger us with inflammatory and indignant dichotomies. If I hear one more person, secular or religious, who declares that the current state of affairs is an “Armageddon” I think I will puke.

(Armageddon, by the way, appears only once in the entire Bible in one measly verse, Revelation 16.16. Its place and meaning are fraught with interpretive pitfalls, but I think it’s interesting that the folks who insist that the entire Bible must be taken literally take this one verse symbolically. If Armageddon is an actual geographical place where the final battle between God and Satan will take place, then that will be in the Holy Land—if anybody can ever figure out where Mount Megiddo is. Even crazier, Rev. 16:16 indicates “the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon,” but alas there is no such word or place in the Hebrew Bible or Hebrew language. Hmmm.)

One thing seems certain to me ~ the final battle between good and evil is not likely to happen in New Brighton, Minnesota (home of the reactionary Word Alone club) or any of the dozen odd places around the U.S. where conservative Lutherans have their shorts in a knot over last summer’s decision by the churchwide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to allow the ordination of lesbian and gay clergy.

As we have observed in recent months, there are sub-armagiddish battles going on in Lutheran congregations over whether they should stay in the national churchbody or instead run to . . . wherever they think that queers are least likely to turn up, I guess.

Even I have to rethink my time-honed prejudices about red and blue states, open and closed minds and the progressive or retentive expressions of ideas about God and human sexuality. I was delighted to read that as group of 18 current and retired/emeritus faculty from one of our seminaries —not one I had considered “progressive” by any stretch— have decided to speak up in favor of the ELCA’s churchwide decisions, in other words, in support of its discernment that LGBT people are also children of God and full brothers and sisters to other Christians. Faculty from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina have issued the Columbia Declaration, with an entire web site publishing various resources in support of the ELCA’s actions, including materials with biblical, historical, confessional, practical and missional focus.

Some of these resources tread over well-worn liberalizing paths, but one can hope that perhaps some new people will walk these paths and discover new territory. If you want fresh material to think through these controversies today, I commend the articles published here.

The “Columbia Declaration” (obviously dubbed in distinction from the so-called Manhattan Declaration last fall) says in part,

We believe that the ELCA’s Assembly actions are consistent with the biblical and Lutheran confessional tradition. We therefore support the opening of the roster of the ELCA to qualified and approved candidates for ministry who are in lifelong, committed, publicly accountable, monogamous same-sex relationships. We also support the actions of the Assembly that create the possibility for individual congregations who so choose to bless same-sex unions.May I just quote and echo the concluding remarks of Rev. Dr. Harold F. Park from Southern Seminary: After instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said to the eleven disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you LOVE one another, just as I have loved you.” Jesus did NOT say, “that you AGREE with each other.” Then in His prayer to the Father before being crucified for OUR sins, Jesus prayed, “…that they may all be ONE, just as we are one . . . completely one.” (John 17: 21,23)In reading and applying the Bible, I give much more importance to the words of JESUS than to the words of Paul or the Old Testament writers.Amen.— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, Ministry, History, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Left at the altar or before the bench?

March 15, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Somebody recently asked me to clarify what is going on with the Federal Proposition 8 case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger . So I’ve been web surfing for information.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights doesn’t seem to be updating its site. Bill Moyer’s Journal has no new entries since February 26. We thought that Judge Walker as going to issue a ruling by now. Matt Coles of the ACLU has posted his analysis on Huffington Post as recently as March 11, but he seems to ignore the significance of a plaintiff’s win in federal court because of the 99% likelihood that the case would be appealed all the way to the Supremes.

Cole thinks “he’ll conclude like most constitutional lawyers that discrimination based on sexual orientation shouldn’t be treated as generally permissible. If it isn’t, it is very difficult to come up with a credible argument for excluding same-sex couples from marriage.”

The lawsuit, in case you’ve forgotten, is asking for the federal court to strike own the state constitutional amendment as discriminatory. Plaintiffs’ attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies are conservative and liberal—they argued on opposite sides in the U.S. Supreme Court case in 2000 that gave the Presidency to George W. Bush. But on this case, they are working together.

Before the attorneys has finished presenting their case, it came out that the U. S. District Court’s Chief Judge Vaughn Walker is himself gay, but any scandal about that one doesn’t seem to have traction. If it did, what would prevent plaintiffs form crying foul if the judge was heterosexual? Does whom the court judge sleeps with, if s/he even has a partner, really affect his/her judicial reasoning? Walker, by the way, was appointed by President Bush #1 in 1989. According to the San Francisco Chronicle coverage, NCLR’s Kate Kendall isn’t worried about bias, or for that matter, reverse bias.

The Senior Policy Counsel for the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center published an update in the March 2010 Vanguard from which I quote:

Walker’s decision seems likely to be favorable. Either way, it will almost certainly be appealed, first to the Ninth Circuit and then in all probability to the U.S. Supreme Court. A final decision is likely two or more years away.A Supreme Court victory could strike down all marriage bans across the country and allow same-sex marriages everywhere in the U.S.A.; a defeat would establish an adverse federal precedent, but it would not affect marriage equality in states where it already exists. And although such an adverse ruling could well make some ongoing -state-by-state efforts for marriage equality more challenging, it would not in any way stop those efforts from going forward.

This means that there is a lot riding on this case, and the conservatives mighty have much more to lose that the liberals. But he continues: Ultimately, though—with a conservative Supreme Court with at least two justices hostile to LGBT equality—the prospects for a winning outcome there are uncertain at best. We cannot relent for a single moment any of our other efforts to advance LGBT equality in general, and marriage equality in particular, at every opportunity.Unfortunately, the article segues, as all Vanguard articles seem to do, into a request for money for the Center.After District Court on the road of appeals is the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If our side wins, the win would very likely be “stayed” until the appeal is completed, and that means two more years. Cole goes into the internal wiring of the Circuit courts and how unlikely they are to make any sweeping decision on anything, even though the Ninth Circuit, which rules the western U.S. is more progressive than most others. Conservatives hate it for that reason.

But the whole appeal and counter-appeal thing strikes me as a game that children play to get the best of each other— whether by manipulation, trickery or even violence— while each side knows that the parents could step in at any moment and end the game. Both sides in the equal rights movement have reason to fear “the parents” on the Supreme Court—not because they would necessarily be right in their decision, but because they seemingly have the legal right to make a final decision at least for a generation or more. As we have seen in far too many cases in the last decade, the legal reasoning of U.S. Supreme decisions often comes down to “because I said so.”

This is why court watchers are so diligent. Add to this mix the fact that President Obama does not have a blank check to appoint more liberal voices to the Supreme Court. He himself had a constitutional law background as an attorney, but his power to appoint open-minded justices to the high court and ease the court into a more liberal mind-set rests on a couple iffy situations: one, if one of the sitting justices retires or dies in office during Obama’s term; two, whether the first Justice to retire or die on the bench is identifiably conservative or liberal; and three, if OBama doesn’t lose his grip on the Senate before a Court vacancy occurs.

Tonight Associated Press has reported that Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by President Ford in 1975, has indicated he will definitely retire in the next three years and will soon if this term will be his last. Stevens, who turns 90 in April, is considered the leader of the court’s “liberals.”

And on number two, we have to seriously consider that Congress could flip back to being controlled by the conservatives in the midterm elections. It is not merely possible, it’s likely that a conservative-controlled Congress would introduce a federal constitutional amendment to ban all same-sex marriage.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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Are we individuals or couples before the law?

March 12, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I am no attorney, and I often try to talk law students out of their intended career. But after working in law offices for more than 15 years it is impossible not to attempt to think legally. And it is less dangerous to blog about law than to practice amateur medicine; no one will die if I’m wrong.

But on this same-gender marriage issue that will not go away for years to come (it first burst into our consciousness in 1997 when the Hawaii Supreme Court saw no reason to people of the same gender shouldn’t have the right to a civil marriage), sometimes it is hard to express a legal reasoning that even makes senses in the court of public opinion. After all, the public doesn’t follow anything which is too complex or convoluted, so if you want to change public opinion you have to keep it simple. But that’s how Proposition 8 slipped by the voters in the first place.

Anyway, it occurs to me that all LGBT people already have the right to get married! As individuals, we can get married in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Just not to each other except in a handful of states. In other words, as individuals we can always marry heterosexually. We can marry someone of the opposite gender.

So by my reasoning we are not fighting for individual rights. (Well, I know we really fighting for the right to marry the human being of our choice without some wingnut insisting that it would lead to bestiality.) My reasoning is that it is lesbian or gay couples who are fighting for equal rights. My fundamental question is, Does the concept of justice and equality before the law extend to couples, period, not just to individuals?

We’ve already seen corporations given enormous legal rights, including the recent Supreme Court decision that gives corporations the right to buy candidates for public office and sell them to the voters (but that’s another issue). So it isn’t a stretch to begin analyzing this issue by arguing that lesbian couples and gay couples are entitled to legal rights.

Is that hair-splitting or unimportant? No, it’s central, because in fact American marriage laws grant rights to couples. Federal law, it has been determined, grants 1,049 distinct rights to married couples which are given to them through the vehicle of civil marriage. Most of these rights, I think it can be argued, are grant to the couple, not to the individuals who are in the marriage.

If that can be satisfactorily explained, then it makes perfectly clear sense to me that, under “due process” and a lot of other legal theorizing which make up the stuff of civil rights cases being argued in courtrooms, gay couples and lesbian couples cannot rightfully be discriminated against and heterosexual couples be given carte blanche.

Okay, that much is clear in my mind, but so what? Well as we watch the Perry v. Schwarzenegger case play out in the next 2-3 years, I want to watch how couples are treated legally. Do lesbian couples, for example, have the same rights under domestic partnership law as they would have under marriage law? Do gay male couples have identical rights under a civil union as they would automatically receive in a civil marriage?

Good questions. Check back often for answers.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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We’re here, we’re queer, we’re Christian.

February 27, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Further to my recent post on the “core” of the faith and those congregations voting to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the March 2010 issue of the Lutheran magazine has one entire News page devoted to this mess. From this source, a box with a fraying rope picture reports:

Congregations vote to leaveTwenty-eight of the ELCA’s some 10,200 congregations passed a second and final vote to leave the denomination as of Feb. 4.  The Office of the Secretary also reported an additional 128 passed a first vote, while first votes in 64 congregations failed.  In four congregations the votes are being disputed.  Nineteen of the ELCA’s 65 synods had no congregations taking votes.Synods with the most congregations taking votes were: Montana (17), Southwestern Texas (12), East-Central Synod of Wisconsin (11), Southeastern (11), Pacifica (10) [Orange County, California, etc.] and Eastern Washington-Idaho (10).”The Lutheran magazine is trying to be even-handed and journalistically professional. At least they’re reporting this, rather than hiding or ignoring the conflict.  On the same page, other news briefs indicate that some congregations that had been withholding benevolence money from the denomination over the pro-LGBT vote last August have now decided to begin donating it again.  The news also reports on an Iowa congregation that is disputing with its bishop over the exact count of a 2/3 vote of voting members needed to leave the denomination.  And meanwhile the Northeastern Iowa Synod Council has rescinded two very anti-gay resolutions it had previously adopted.  Iowa, you will remember, has legal same-sex marriage, so it’s an issue that is closer to home than the streets of San Francisco.  But such turmoil! trouble! disagreement! 

And, we are the people who started all this?  Well, hardly.  No.  We refuse to take responsibility for homophobic reactions to our lives.  We are LGBT Christians, in the midst of the larger church, who decided to claim our integrity as well as our inborn sexuality.  We decided to be honest, to tell our church that we are here and that we have faith and that we want to fully participate in the community’s life of faith with honesty. All the turmoil is not coming from us, but from the people who can’t handle the truth. When they are prodded to handle the truth, some of them want to flee from the church, and want to believe they are being driven out.  Hey, we could write the manual on what it feels like to be driven out, and guess what?  We didn’t leave.  We are the people of faith who didn’t cave in or go away when we felt unwelcome because we knew the truth that God welcomes, God includes, God blesses, and God heals.

I know there are thousands—millions—of people raised in the Church of Christ who came to terms with their sexuality and no longer have anything to do with any church.  Some are deeply scarred and have rejected all religion, all Christian spirituality.  Others long to come home, but they are not about to come home unless it is safe to do so.  They need assurance they will not get beat up again.

Watching the ELCA come to terms with its lesbian and gay clergy is kind of like watching a family come to terms with a lesbian daughter or a gay nephew.  You want to walk away—quickly—but it’s your family, and something deeply rooted in you believes that, because you know your family, they will eventually come around.  It’s still painful watching them argue with each other, and bring up their wildly irrational fears and complaints, but after awhile, all the emotion sort of drains out of it, and they are still the same people we’ve lived with our whole lives.  They’ll get over it and life will go on.

All I can do is commend these people, this church, and this process, to the all-embracing arms of God.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in LGBT Christian, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Faith, Public Affairs, Ministry, Coming Out, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Sudden acceleration.

February 24, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

I am reading and watching politics more often lately, and I am absorbed by the similarities between the Religious Reich and the political right wingnuts.

Yes, I know they are in bed together, or they are really the same people. We’ve known that since the days of the Moral Majority (Hmmm. They still have a website is up but it hasn’t been updated in 2½ years! See highlightd above.) and the politically opportune ascent of a B-rated actor named Ronald Reagan to become Governor of California as his first public elected office.

But what fascinates me is that religious, social and political conservatives use the exact same technique to promote their views, as if they are all reading the exact same playbook. Is there a modern-day Machiavellian book like The Prince that the entire right wing is circulating? (See this cynical reference; don’t bother to scroll down.)

What I refer to is this 24/7 streaming of public outrage, which seems to be rapidly accelerating in our society. We “get it” that outrage achieves results. People love to get over-excited, as if their dreary daily lives offer no rewards whatever, and it takes an interactive, 3-D action film to get them out of bed in the morning.

But the media, including blogs etc. also exaggerate the effectiveness of outrage. A few weeks ago, the election of Scott Brown as a darling conservative to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate” was supposed to prove that independent voters were outraged with the Obama administration. Now with less than three weeks in office Senator Brown has voted with the democrats on an Obama jobs bill and the right wing is outraged against their own darling.

The outrage I see is more than Rush Limbaugh’s putrid opinions calculated to “stoke indignation” as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow observed. But probably the easy access to media, the explosion of blogs and Twitter, etc., have all aided and abetted noisy anger over everything. The new American paradigm is one continuous, relentless confrontation which continues to accelerate with no responsible “recall” in sight. 

• Road rage on public streets, highways and freewaysguy slams his Toyota vehicle directly into a Toyota dealership, claiming the vehicle had an episode of sudden acceleration which Toyota should have fixed.
• “Light up the Border” outrage (not outage) over illegals coming into America.
• Outrage over the fact that McCain lost and Barrack Hussein Obama is president of the United States.
• Fred Phelps & co.
• Neighborhood gangs who take offense at the slightest slight.
• Making everything into a culture war. (incidentally, www.culturewar.com is probably for sale if you want to trivialize, market, and profit from it. And www.publicoutrage.com is definitely for sale.

• Making people’s private lives (right to marry, adoption of and caring for children) into a a public fury, Armageddon-moment.soggy-brained tea-party Republicanswhite supremacists, neo-Nazis, NRA, and hothead/ red-faced rednecks
• The noisy derision and resistance of the 2010 Census because, after all, it is being done by The Government.

(I don’t count Dick (”heart attack”) Cheney among the professional stokers of indignation. He seems to be more proficient at sneering than stoking anything.)What I find especially ironic, of course, is that the vast majority of this outrage and indignation in American society is coming from what social and religious conservatives still insist on labeling as a “Christian nation.” Is there something about being Christian, or about Christian doctrine, which is inherently angry, indignant and outraged? Did I miss something when I got the message that God is love, and that we are to love one another as a sign of following Jesus? Help me out here, folks.

—Pastor Dan

Posted in Go figure!, wingnuts, Violence, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Public Affairs, LGBT Rights, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

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

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

Three cheers for change.

February 20, 2010 by Dan Hooper.

I got an e-mail a few days ago, a “Special Edition” from the interfaith Religious Institute based in Westport, Connecticut. Yes, we’ve been saying that human sexuality and homosexuality have been balkanizing America and preoccupying both religious and secular organizations and institutions. At least this crowd has decided not to be reactive but proactive in pressing for sexual health and sexual justice.

The e-mail announces the release of a new report, Sexuality and Religion 2020: Goals for the Next Decade, in an audio press conference. Rev. Debra Hafner was joined at this audio news conference by “the esteemed religious historian, Dr. Martin Marty; the director of women’s ministry for the National Council of Churches, the Rev. Ann Tiemeyer; and the president of the National Council of Jewish Women, Nancy Ratzan (left to right below).

 

(Dr. Marty’s presence is notable to me because I can remember less than a few decades ago when he was saying some pretty homophobic things and wishing that “the love that dare not speak its name” would just learn to be quiet. No, I can’t find that actual quote — I think I have it in paper files somewhere, because it was uttered by Marty before everything in the cosmos was on line. But the homophobia and the name of Martin Marty stuck in my consciousness. Thank God he has grown on this issue like millions of others.)

Here is an excerpt of the e-mail announcing the 51-page Report:

The report opens with a new vision: By the year 2020, all faith communities will be sexually healthy, just and prophetic. It goes on to outline 10 goals for the next 10 years that will help to achieve that vision. The goals, listed below, are fully articulated in the report. They call on religious leaders and institutions to

• break the silence around sexuality in congregations and faith communities;
• improve ministerial training in sexuality issues;
• provide better pastoral care on sexuality-related issues and sexuality education for youth and adults;
• forge multifaith coalitions to promote sexual health and justice;
• become more effective advocates for sexuality education, sexual and reproductive health, and the full inclusion of women and LGBT persons;
• include sexuality in movements addressing poverty, the environment and other social justice concerns; and
• mobilize people of faith to advocate for an increased commitment to sexual health, education and justice in religious communities.

Whether the goals are even slightly realistic and attainable is anyone’s guess. But remember that ten years ago Bill Clinton was President, there were twin towers in New York City, gay marriage wasn’t legal anywhere in the United States, Proposition 22 was not yet on the books in California, and Lawrence v. Texas had not reached the Supreme Court (Bowers v. Hardwick was still the supreme sexual law of the land concerning same-gender consensual acts). In 2000, the Roman Catholic Church and its insurance underwriters were still billions of dollars ahead, before the onslaught of lawsuits and settlements of priestly sexual abuse. So in terms of the movement we’re a part of, a decade may see a lifetime of change.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, HIV and AIDS, Ecumenical Issues, Public Affairs, Ministry | Print | No Comments »