Protests have organized in opposition to religious entanglement involving the removal of civil rights and Proposition 8. Hopefully, protests will continue to grow in size and frequency. Keep the passion burning!
There's a rumor that the Sundance Film Festival will be moved from Utah in response to the Mormon Church's political solicitation and support for anti-gay propaganda in California. I hope this rumor becomes reality; there's nothing like hitting bigots where it hurts, right in the money bags.
Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church has come forward with a message of solidarity with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that's the church that believes in polygamy, magic underwear, and dark skin as a punishment from God.)
"Catholics stand in solidarity with our Mormon brothers and sisters in support of traditional marriage-the union of one man and one woman-that has been the major building block of Western Civilization for millennia." -Bishop William Weigand
Representatives from both churches are now complaining about the ire they have raised against their own organizations of bigotry and inequality. I think Nicole Belle offers the appropriate response:
Sorry, LDS and Catholic Churches, let me pull out my tiny violin for you. You have used the tenets of your faith to infringe upon my secular government to take away rights from people, and I'm supposed to feel bad that protests are targeting you? I just don't think so.
I say keep up the protests! It helped suffragettes, it helped black civil rights activists, and it can help the progressive movement again!
7 comments:
"What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want it? Now!"
I saw a crowd of several thousand chanting this last night on the world news. But then the news story cut to the pro-Prop 8'ers, and do you know what their signs said?
"FREEDOM OF RELIGION - VOTE 'YES' TO PROPOSITION 8!"
And with all due respect, I can see their side of the argument, too. This really has become an (if you will) legitimate war between two different groups fighting over the same property: marriage. You've got homosexuals crying foul about discrimination but you've also got religious folks crying foul about separation of church and state. I think most people like me -- non-gay, non-religious, laid back Joe Schmoes -- would be persuaded to the homosexual side more strongly were we convinced that this war was only being waged for the legal privileges of marriage (i.e. for civil unions). But you have time and again scolded me for this view and reminded me that many gays and lesbians are not content with civil unions alone and insist upon being permitted to marry in churches and to receive blessings from members of religious orders. And not just any religious order, you tell me, because I have time and again suggested that homosexuals form their own splinter church which is "Presbyterianism but with one exception: God approves of GLBT lifestyles." But I'm told time and again, "No, that wouldn't do: it has to be a real Christian church official, and he has to really mean it when he blesses our marriage."
See, to me, that seems presumptive. That's why I'm torn on this issue. I definitely lean very, very, very anti-Proposition 8 and am horrified that Californians voted it in 53:47. But I have a hard time understanding what it is, exactly, that the GLBT community in California is fighting for -- and I have a hard time stomaching their cries of "what do we want? equal rights!" when it seems to me that they are readily seeking to seize First Amendment rights from the homophobic & religious all across the nation.
"But you have time and again scolded me for this view and reminded me that many gays and lesbians are not content with civil unions alone and insist upon being permitted to marry in churches and to receive blessings from members of religious orders. And not just any religious order, you tell me, because I have time and again suggested that homosexuals form their own splinter church which is "Presbyterianism but with one exception: God approves of GLBT lifestyles." But I'm told time and again, "No, that wouldn't do: it has to be a real Christian church official, and he has to really mean it when he blesses our marriage."
Have I really said this or expressed this position? If so, I apologize. I have gravely misled you.
You have told me at least twice that I have espoused insulting or narrow-minded views (not those exact words, but you get the idea) for suggesting that it would be sufficient if GLBT Americans were given the same legal benefits associated with marriage without necessarily receiving the same access to the ceremonies, rituals, blessings, etc. which typically accompany Christian marriages.
To me, I feel that many members of the movement will not be pleased until they have wrestled marriage away from Christian Americans: and I think that that is very sad and very superficial. It would be like if I insisted on my civil privilege to go to the restroom inside of a Catholic church -- I have no more "right" to do this than I do to knock on a random house's door and demand access to their toilet. It would moreso be like if I, as a doubter and therefore just as much a sinner as the homosexual (if not moreso!), demanded to be married inside a Catholic church and with allthe trappings.
You cannot demand things of people's hearts: only of their bodies. The priest may recite the words and make the hand gestures we associate with Catholic marriage, but it doesn't make my marriage any more Catholic, it doesn't make my marriage any more real in the eyes of God (as Catholics perceive his vision to be). And yes, I do sadly feel that a vocal minority (if not majority at this point) in the GLBT marriage rights movement is fighting for more than mere legal benefits. Because if they were? Civil unions would be enough, and the churches would not be taking to the streets with their "freedom of religion" placards. There is nothing expressly religious about a civil union. Humans have no doubt coupled off and built nuclear families long before the days of Noah and Abraham. From a scientific perspective, coupling has no doubt occurred since before the first Australopithecine creatures roamed the earth! No, I reject the notion that the religious activists are all homophobes fighting to keep homosexuals from civil unions. Some of them, yes, but most of them? I'm not sure I'd go that far. I think many Christian Americans are rightly concerned that America is being torn into two halves, neither of which truly supports freedom of religion. The one half says "we want religion everywhere" and won't give atheists freedom from religion. The other half says "we want religion nowhere" and won't give Christians freedom of religion. Do I feel that many GLBT marriage rights activists want to see religion eradicated and will not stop until it is? Yes. Do I think that wresting marriage from religion is a first step in this war of ideals? Yes.
I don't know what it is about this issue, but it seems like we always end up talking circles around one another even though we essentially agree.
Let me try to break down our argument as I see it.
When I read your comments, I come away with the impression that you believe that gay civil rights activists want to "force" RELIGIOUS PRIVATE institutions to perform and recognize same-sex marriages.
When I read the news, I get the impression that gay civil rights activists want to enforce equality laws such that the SECULAR PUBLIC institution of government must perform and recognize same-sex marriages.
Who cares if Catholics, Evangelicals, Jews and Mormons close their doors to their gay brothers and sisters? I don't think gay activists want to FORCE those organizations to do anything.
For example, representatives of these religions condemned interracial marriage, and I'm sure some sects continue to close their doors to interracial couples. They are free to be discriminatory! The best we should and do hope for is that these organizations become so embarrassed by their bigotry, as has become the case with interracial marriage, that they decide to amend church and traditional dogma. But no reasonable person wants or aspires to "force" private religious institutions to do something they don't want to do.
As for the issue of civil unions versus marriages, it's not a problem so long as the government sticks to just one or the other. But if it awards only "marriages" to straights and "civil unions" to gays, then that would smack of the fallacious doctrine of "separate but equal," like a public library with a water fountain for whites and a separate water fountain for blacks.
I found this interesting entry after a quick google search.
Equal rights vs special rights
I also feel I'm talking in circles with you, so ... *shrug* Long story short, I think we have similar stances but we disagree as to whether or not a significant chunk of the GLBT marriage-rights movement is fighting primarily for equal rights or is fighting primarily to antagonize the religious.
A gay student one year older than me at IUSM shared with his Facebook friends this link: (here). Enjoy. :)
I stand alongside Olbermann 90%-95% of the way. Our only difference is, I don't feel that church-perceived "sinners" have a right to those churches any more than church-perceived "property" did decades ago. Do I think that their views are backwards? Hateful? Heinous? Yes, yes, a million times yes! Property? Are you fucking kidding me? Of course the churches which denied African Americans access to church-sanctified marriage were hypocrites and false Christians! Of course (I feel) the same is true today with regards to the Christian war against homosexuality. Damn the passages in the Old Testament they may cite! Damn it all! As Olbermann correctly points out, a homosexual marriage is 1000x more worth celebrating than a heterosexual date or late-night fling. It is on the same plane, the exact same plane, as a heterosexual marriage. Sexuality has nothing at all to do with the legitimacy of a marriage! It has no effect on the caliber of the love within the married couple's hearts!
But! I really do hate the 20th- and 21st-century attitude in America, the attitude of "we ought to force our sometimes-unsavory views onto others because we're right and they're wrong." I'm 100% for the "let me do as I will; I'm not hurting you, so kindly bugger off" fight; but I'm also pretty solidly against the "let me tell you what to do" "I am morally superior to thou" fight. On BOTH sides of the fence! That's the 5% or so where Olbermann and I disagree, I think: he seems to me to be joining that fight which proclaims, "Equal rights are not enough. Not until homosexuals are able to marry before God in Christian places of worship will we have true equality in this country."
But if it helps you to understand where I stand on this issue, I 5-starred Olbermann's video and had I been in the studio as this was being filmed I would have clapped pretty ferociously at the very end. Also, I understand that government's role in our lives, fundamentally, is to tell people what they can and cannot do. So given this, I do recognize that my life-philosophy is a little at odds with common government, and if asked "Which would you rather have?", in a heartbeat I would support homosexuals' right to be married before supporting churches' right to be bigoted. I just don't understand why they can't both be allowed, i.e. what the fuck is so difficult about the government extending 100% full marriage rights to homosexuals and about homosexuals then saying, "Okay, and we're going to make our own 'gay church' and perform marriage ceremonies there. Come one, come all! Gay or straight, anyone's welcome!" Were I Christian, I'd join that church in a heartbeat.
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