The Task Force
Articles of Faith: Biblical Values for American Families
by Reverend Jay Emerson Johnson, Ph.D.
May 17 marks the first anniversary of Massachusetts offering equal marriage benefits to same-sex couples. For those of us who believe in those rights, and the more than 5,000 same-sex couples that have been married, it is a moment for reflection and celebration. Our joy, however, is mixed with a sense of loss, because 14 states have since passed measures banning legal recognition of same-sex relationships.
Religious opponents of equal marriage frequently use the Bible for justification of their stance. In March, the Southern Baptist Convention released the Nashville Declaration on Same-Sex Marriage, in which it based its opposition to equality on "the biblical teaching that God designed marriage as a lifetime union of one man and one woman." For biblical literalists, they don't know much about the Bible. Biblical families and American families share the word "family" in common, but not much more. But if we look beyond the radically different structure of Biblical marriage, modern families can still find timeless values in the scriptures to guide them.
First, it's important to recognize that the most common marriage pattern in the Bible is polygamy: not a union of one man and one woman, but a union of one man and as many women as he could afford to keep (see Solomon, and his 700 wives and 300 concubines). In the Christian scriptures, the two primary figures, Jesus and the Apostle Paul, are both unmarried and childless. Based on the model of Jesus and his disciples, the early church developed a radical model of family that broke with ancient kinship patterns in favor of a religious — and nonbiological — church family.
"Biblical family values" present just as many problems as "biblical families." Abraham's use of his slave, Hagar, to sire a child, and his subsequent banishment of her and the child to the wilderness (Genesis 21:14) would be considered unspeakably callous by today's standards. Yet according to the family values of his day, Abraham was acting completely within his rights. When Jacob steals his brother Esau's birthright, the Bible describes it not simply as an act of brotherly betrayal but as a necessary part of God's will for God's people (Genesis 27). Even more severe is Jephthah's sacrifice of his own daughter to fulfill the terms of a foolish vow (Judges 11:29-40) or Onan being put to death for refusing to impregnate his late brother's wife (Genesis 38:9). Parents who cover their children's eyes during Desperate Housewives, might be shocked to discover what lurid tales of betrayal, rape, incest, and adultery — all transpiring within traditional biblical families — lurk between the covers of their family Bible.
Not every biblical family relationship is as dysfunctional as these examples. But when biblical figures act virtuously, they often do so outside the bounds of "traditional family." The story of Ruth and Naomi is an account of same-sex devotion often read, ironically, during heterosexual marriage ceremonies (Ruth 1:16). David and Jonathan's relationship is presented with a tenderness lacking in most biblical marriages: David admits that his love for his friend "surpassed the love of women" (2 Samuel 1:26). In the Gospels, when Jesus is asked about his own family, he replies with an answer that was as radical for his day as it is now: "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:48-50).
The structures of biblical families are rooted in ancient cultural practices far removed from the sensibilities of Western society; the authors of the Bible would scarcely recognize the partnership of equals that marks a contemporary American marriage. But this doesn't mean we should abandon the Bible as a guide to family values. As the mutable institution of marriage evolves with shifting cultural norms, the Bible continually calls us back to what truly matters in human relationships. St. Paul wrote about these values, calling them the "fruit of the spirit": "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22). Surely these are biblical values every family would embrace. According to Paul, "love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude...It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Even when knowledge and human institutions fail, these values, Paul says, remain constant: faith, hope and love. The greatest of these three, Paul concludes, is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Societal definitions of marriage and family will inevitably change over the course of history. It's clear that what is important in the Bible is not a family structure based on biology or even heterosexuality, but the quality of love exhibited in the relationships. And if same-sex couples exhibit such spiritual values, they deserve the legal protection and civil recognition of marriage. If we have any intention of preserving marriage or protecting families, we must base our support on values that are unchangeable: values such as faith, hope, and love. But the greatest among these — whether the couple is same-sex or heterosexual — is love.
###
The Rev. Jay Emerson Johnson, Ph.D., a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Leadership Roundtable, is an Episcopal priest and the programming and development director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California (www.clgs.org).
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Stem Cell Moron
An Illogical Standard
The Washington Post
Thursday, May 26, 2005; Page A26
DURING THE DEBATE in the House on Tuesday over the stem cell research bill that passed on a bipartisan vote, Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) leveled a remarkable accusation: Supporters of liberalizing President Bush's restrictive approach to funding stem cell research, he said, were voting "to fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation." Mr. DeLay called embryonic stem cell research, which may promise lifesaving treatments for various devastating conditions, a "scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings." Reasonable people can disagree regarding the morality of embryonic stem cell research, which we support. But if Mr. DeLay believes his irresponsible rhetoric, he should not stop at opposing more permissive rules for federal funding of such science. Instead he should introduce legislation to ban the in vitro fertilization treatments that create these embryos in the first place.
Describing stem cell research as dismembering human beings conjures politically useful images of a grisly, abortion-like procedure in which an unborn baby gets torn apart. It's hard, however, to be dismembered if one has no limbs -- being merely a cluster of a couple of hundred non-differentiated cells. These 5-day-old embryos get created all the time in fertility clinics to help people who otherwise could not have children. In a typical in vitro treatment, several more embryos are created than used, and the extras get frozen. Some do not survive the freezing process. Others are discarded at the requests of patients. A survey of fertility clinics in 2002 indicated that there were about 400,000 frozen embryos across the country. Many of these will never be implanted in a woman and will never become babies. All of this is commonplace and accepted because few people regard a group of cells that small as the moral equivalent of a human being. Yet, by Mr. DeLay's standards, each and every one of these embryos is a potential murder victim.
If Mr. DeLay really believes this, in vitro fertilization as practiced is legalized torture and murder on a mass scale. If a 5-day-old embryo is "a person," then putting it in a freezer -- let alone allowing it to expire in a petri dish or throwing it out -- should be no more acceptable for the goal of producing babies for the infertile than it is for discovering therapies that could help dying people. Nor should the issue be just federal funding but the legality of the practice itself. Mr. DeLay said yesterday in a news conference that he wanted to "look at" the issue of discarded embryos, that couples seeking in vitro fertilization need to be better informed and that there ought to be self-imposed standards on the part of medical organizations, and more "adoption" and implantation of surplus embryos. But he stopped short of supporting any federal regulation, let alone the sort of draconian restrictions it would take to stop what he evidently sees as a slaughter of innocents. This makes no sense. A society that accepts the routine destruction of embryos cannot treat as "dismemberment" the one means of destroying those embryos that might produce great breakthroughs in science and health.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post
Thursday, May 26, 2005; Page A26
DURING THE DEBATE in the House on Tuesday over the stem cell research bill that passed on a bipartisan vote, Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) leveled a remarkable accusation: Supporters of liberalizing President Bush's restrictive approach to funding stem cell research, he said, were voting "to fund with taxpayer dollars the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings for the purposes of medical experimentation." Mr. DeLay called embryonic stem cell research, which may promise lifesaving treatments for various devastating conditions, a "scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings." Reasonable people can disagree regarding the morality of embryonic stem cell research, which we support. But if Mr. DeLay believes his irresponsible rhetoric, he should not stop at opposing more permissive rules for federal funding of such science. Instead he should introduce legislation to ban the in vitro fertilization treatments that create these embryos in the first place.
Describing stem cell research as dismembering human beings conjures politically useful images of a grisly, abortion-like procedure in which an unborn baby gets torn apart. It's hard, however, to be dismembered if one has no limbs -- being merely a cluster of a couple of hundred non-differentiated cells. These 5-day-old embryos get created all the time in fertility clinics to help people who otherwise could not have children. In a typical in vitro treatment, several more embryos are created than used, and the extras get frozen. Some do not survive the freezing process. Others are discarded at the requests of patients. A survey of fertility clinics in 2002 indicated that there were about 400,000 frozen embryos across the country. Many of these will never be implanted in a woman and will never become babies. All of this is commonplace and accepted because few people regard a group of cells that small as the moral equivalent of a human being. Yet, by Mr. DeLay's standards, each and every one of these embryos is a potential murder victim.
If Mr. DeLay really believes this, in vitro fertilization as practiced is legalized torture and murder on a mass scale. If a 5-day-old embryo is "a person," then putting it in a freezer -- let alone allowing it to expire in a petri dish or throwing it out -- should be no more acceptable for the goal of producing babies for the infertile than it is for discovering therapies that could help dying people. Nor should the issue be just federal funding but the legality of the practice itself. Mr. DeLay said yesterday in a news conference that he wanted to "look at" the issue of discarded embryos, that couples seeking in vitro fertilization need to be better informed and that there ought to be self-imposed standards on the part of medical organizations, and more "adoption" and implantation of surplus embryos. But he stopped short of supporting any federal regulation, let alone the sort of draconian restrictions it would take to stop what he evidently sees as a slaughter of innocents. This makes no sense. A society that accepts the routine destruction of embryos cannot treat as "dismemberment" the one means of destroying those embryos that might produce great breakthroughs in science and health.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The Wrong Judicial Compromise
This compromise in the Senate is blackmail, here an article from "The Nation" who sums it up well
Blackmailed Onto the Court
John Nichols
The Nation
Wed May 25, 3:16 PM ET
Thanks to the compromise agreement made possible by seven Democrats who collaborated with Republicans to end the Senate impasse over judicial nominations, Priscilla Owen will now join the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Four years of successful efforts by civil rights, women's rights, religious and consumer groups to prevent confirmation of the right-wing extremist were undone Wednesday, as the Senate voted 56-43 to confirm a nominee whose judicial activism on the Texas Supreme Court was so wreckless that another member of that court, Alberto Gonzalez, who now serves as the nation's attorney general, referred to her actions as "unconscionable."
The final vote broke along partisan lines. Fifty-three Republicans and two Democrat, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and West Virginia's Robert Byrd, voted to confirm Owen. Forty-one Democrats, one Republican, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and one Independent, Vermont's Jim Jeffords, voted against confirmation.
Those numbers are significant because they show that Democrats had the 40 votes that were needed to sustain a filibuster against Owen.
That means that, had Democrats held firm and forced moderate Republicans to reject the unpopular "nuclear option" that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, was attempting to impose on the Senate, Owen might very well have been kept off the court. National polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans opposed the "nuclear option," which Frist hoped to use to bar filibusters of even the most objectionable of the Bush administration's nominees. A number of moderate Republicans had indicated that they were uncomfortable with the majority leader's scheme to rewrite Senate rules, and there was at least a reasonable chance that a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans could have preserved the ability of the minority party to block extremist nominees. Unfortunately, in return for the agreement to put the "nuclear option" on hold, seven moderate Democrats agreed to allow confirmation votes on at least three blocked appeals court nominees.
Owen's confirmation on Wednesday represents the first of what are likely to be many confirmations of extreme, unqualified and ethically-dubious nominees for seats on appeals court benches that have traditionally been the last hope of low-income Americans, people of color and women for justice. Equal justice concerns are of particular significance in the case of the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and is home to the highest percentage of minority residents of any circuit in the country. Yet, with the compromise agreement on the "nuclear option," most Senate Democrats abandoned the filibuster and cleared the way for Owen -- whose nomination was opposed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches -- to take her place on that bench.
As disappointing as the collapse of conscience on the part of most Democrats has been, however, it is important to remember that 18 members of the opposition caucus held firm against the compromise of principles. Those senators -- Democrats Joe Biden of Delaware, Barbara Boxer of California, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Carl Levin of Michigan, Blanche Lambert Lincoln of Arkansas, Patty Murray of Washington, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Jeffords -- refused to vote for the cloture motion that shut down the filibuster option and cleared the way for Owen's confirmation.
Feingold was blunt in his dismissal of claims that the deal that has put Owen on the appeals court represented a legitimate compromise. "There was no effort to reach a real compromise that would take into account the concerns of all parties. A compromise at the point of a gun is not a compromise. That, I'm afraid, is what we had," explained the Judiciary Committee member.
"I strongly opposed the threat of the nuclear option," he said. "I believe this was an illegitimate tactic, a partisan abuse of power that was a threat to the Senate as an institution and to the country. Attempting to blackmail the minority into giving up the rights that have been part of the Senate's traditions and practices for centuries was a new low for a majority that has repeatedly been willing to put party over principle. Unfortunately, the blackmail was partially successful. The end result is that (Owen and other) nominees who don't deserve lifetime appointments to the judiciary will now be confirmed."
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Blackmailed Onto the Court
John Nichols
The Nation
Wed May 25, 3:16 PM ET
Thanks to the compromise agreement made possible by seven Democrats who collaborated with Republicans to end the Senate impasse over judicial nominations, Priscilla Owen will now join the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Four years of successful efforts by civil rights, women's rights, religious and consumer groups to prevent confirmation of the right-wing extremist were undone Wednesday, as the Senate voted 56-43 to confirm a nominee whose judicial activism on the Texas Supreme Court was so wreckless that another member of that court, Alberto Gonzalez, who now serves as the nation's attorney general, referred to her actions as "unconscionable."
The final vote broke along partisan lines. Fifty-three Republicans and two Democrat, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and West Virginia's Robert Byrd, voted to confirm Owen. Forty-one Democrats, one Republican, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and one Independent, Vermont's Jim Jeffords, voted against confirmation.
Those numbers are significant because they show that Democrats had the 40 votes that were needed to sustain a filibuster against Owen.
That means that, had Democrats held firm and forced moderate Republicans to reject the unpopular "nuclear option" that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, was attempting to impose on the Senate, Owen might very well have been kept off the court. National polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans opposed the "nuclear option," which Frist hoped to use to bar filibusters of even the most objectionable of the Bush administration's nominees. A number of moderate Republicans had indicated that they were uncomfortable with the majority leader's scheme to rewrite Senate rules, and there was at least a reasonable chance that a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans could have preserved the ability of the minority party to block extremist nominees. Unfortunately, in return for the agreement to put the "nuclear option" on hold, seven moderate Democrats agreed to allow confirmation votes on at least three blocked appeals court nominees.
Owen's confirmation on Wednesday represents the first of what are likely to be many confirmations of extreme, unqualified and ethically-dubious nominees for seats on appeals court benches that have traditionally been the last hope of low-income Americans, people of color and women for justice. Equal justice concerns are of particular significance in the case of the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and is home to the highest percentage of minority residents of any circuit in the country. Yet, with the compromise agreement on the "nuclear option," most Senate Democrats abandoned the filibuster and cleared the way for Owen -- whose nomination was opposed by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches -- to take her place on that bench.
As disappointing as the collapse of conscience on the part of most Democrats has been, however, it is important to remember that 18 members of the opposition caucus held firm against the compromise of principles. Those senators -- Democrats Joe Biden of Delaware, Barbara Boxer of California, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Carl Levin of Michigan, Blanche Lambert Lincoln of Arkansas, Patty Murray of Washington, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Jeffords -- refused to vote for the cloture motion that shut down the filibuster option and cleared the way for Owen's confirmation.
Feingold was blunt in his dismissal of claims that the deal that has put Owen on the appeals court represented a legitimate compromise. "There was no effort to reach a real compromise that would take into account the concerns of all parties. A compromise at the point of a gun is not a compromise. That, I'm afraid, is what we had," explained the Judiciary Committee member.
"I strongly opposed the threat of the nuclear option," he said. "I believe this was an illegitimate tactic, a partisan abuse of power that was a threat to the Senate as an institution and to the country. Attempting to blackmail the minority into giving up the rights that have been part of the Senate's traditions and practices for centuries was a new low for a majority that has repeatedly been willing to put party over principle. Unfortunately, the blackmail was partially successful. The end result is that (Owen and other) nominees who don't deserve lifetime appointments to the judiciary will now be confirmed."
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Wake up to real life Mr. Bush
May 26, 2005
The New York Times
With the Gloves Off
By BOB HERBERT
A photo of President Bush gingerly holding a month-old baby was on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. Mr. Bush is in the habit of telling us how precious he thinks life is, all life.
The story was about legislation concerning embryonic stem cell research, and it included a comment from Tom DeLay urging Americans to reject "the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others."
Ahh, pretty words. Now I wonder when Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay will find the time to address - or rather, to denounce - the depraved ways in which the United States has dealt with so many of the thousands of people (many of them completely innocent) who have been swept up in the so-called war on terror.
People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.
The government would prefer to keep these matters secret, but we're living in a digital age of near-instantaneous communication. Evidence of atrocities tend to emerge sooner rather than later, frequently illustrated with color photos or videos.
A recent report from Physicians for Human Rights is the first to comprehensively examine the use of psychological torture by Americans against detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The employment of psychological torture, the report says, was a direct result of decisions developed by civilian and military leaders to "take the gloves off" during interrogations and "break" prisoners through the use of techniques like "sensory deprivation, isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, the use of military working dogs to instill fear, cultural and sexual humiliation, mock executions, and the threat of violence or death toward detainees or their loved ones."
"Although the evidence is far from complete," the report says, "what is known warrants the inference that psychological torture was central to the interrogation process and reinforced through conditions of confinement."
In other words, this insidious and deeply inhumane practice was not the work of a few bad apples. As we have seen from many other investigations, the abuses flowed inexorably from policies promulgated at the highest levels of government.
Warfare, when absolutely unavoidable, is one thing. But it's a little difficult to understand how these kinds of profoundly dehumanizing practices - not to mention the physical torture we've heard so much about - could be enthusiastically embraced by a government headed by men who think all life is sacred. Either I'm missing something, or President Bush, Tom DeLay and their ilk are fashioning whole new zones of hypocrisy for Americans to inhabit.
There's nothing benign about psychological torture. The personality of the victim can disintegrate entirely. Common effects include memory impairment, nightmares, hallucinations, acute stress disorder and severe depression with vegetative symptoms. The damage can last for many years.
Torturing prisoners, rather than making the U.S. safer, puts us all in greater danger. The abuses of detainees at places like Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have come to define the United States in the minds of many Muslims and others around the world. And the world has caught on that large percentages of the people swept up and incarcerated as terrorists by the U.S. were in fact innocent of wrongdoing and had no connection to terrorism at all.
Bitterness against the U.S. has increased exponentially since the initial disclosures about the abuse of detainees. What's the upside of policies that demean the U.S. in the eyes of the world while at the same time making us less rather than more secure?
The government, like an addict in denial, will not even admit that we have a problem.
"We're in this Orwellian situation," said Leonard Rubenstein, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, "where the statements by the administration, by the president, are unequivocal: that the United States does not participate in, or condone, torture. And yet it has engaged in legal interpretations and interrogation policies that undermine that absolutist stance."
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
The New York Times
With the Gloves Off
By BOB HERBERT
A photo of President Bush gingerly holding a month-old baby was on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. Mr. Bush is in the habit of telling us how precious he thinks life is, all life.
The story was about legislation concerning embryonic stem cell research, and it included a comment from Tom DeLay urging Americans to reject "the treacherous notion that while all human lives are sacred, some are more sacred than others."
Ahh, pretty words. Now I wonder when Mr. Bush and Mr. DeLay will find the time to address - or rather, to denounce - the depraved ways in which the United States has dealt with so many of the thousands of people (many of them completely innocent) who have been swept up in the so-called war on terror.
People have been murdered, tortured, rendered to foreign countries to be tortured at a distance, sexually violated, imprisoned without trial or in some cases simply made to "disappear" in an all-American version of a practice previously associated with brutal Latin American dictatorships. All of this has been done, of course, in the name of freedom.
The government would prefer to keep these matters secret, but we're living in a digital age of near-instantaneous communication. Evidence of atrocities tend to emerge sooner rather than later, frequently illustrated with color photos or videos.
A recent report from Physicians for Human Rights is the first to comprehensively examine the use of psychological torture by Americans against detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The employment of psychological torture, the report says, was a direct result of decisions developed by civilian and military leaders to "take the gloves off" during interrogations and "break" prisoners through the use of techniques like "sensory deprivation, isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, the use of military working dogs to instill fear, cultural and sexual humiliation, mock executions, and the threat of violence or death toward detainees or their loved ones."
"Although the evidence is far from complete," the report says, "what is known warrants the inference that psychological torture was central to the interrogation process and reinforced through conditions of confinement."
In other words, this insidious and deeply inhumane practice was not the work of a few bad apples. As we have seen from many other investigations, the abuses flowed inexorably from policies promulgated at the highest levels of government.
Warfare, when absolutely unavoidable, is one thing. But it's a little difficult to understand how these kinds of profoundly dehumanizing practices - not to mention the physical torture we've heard so much about - could be enthusiastically embraced by a government headed by men who think all life is sacred. Either I'm missing something, or President Bush, Tom DeLay and their ilk are fashioning whole new zones of hypocrisy for Americans to inhabit.
There's nothing benign about psychological torture. The personality of the victim can disintegrate entirely. Common effects include memory impairment, nightmares, hallucinations, acute stress disorder and severe depression with vegetative symptoms. The damage can last for many years.
Torturing prisoners, rather than making the U.S. safer, puts us all in greater danger. The abuses of detainees at places like Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have come to define the United States in the minds of many Muslims and others around the world. And the world has caught on that large percentages of the people swept up and incarcerated as terrorists by the U.S. were in fact innocent of wrongdoing and had no connection to terrorism at all.
Bitterness against the U.S. has increased exponentially since the initial disclosures about the abuse of detainees. What's the upside of policies that demean the U.S. in the eyes of the world while at the same time making us less rather than more secure?
The government, like an addict in denial, will not even admit that we have a problem.
"We're in this Orwellian situation," said Leonard Rubenstein, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, "where the statements by the administration, by the president, are unequivocal: that the United States does not participate in, or condone, torture. And yet it has engaged in legal interpretations and interrogation policies that undermine that absolutist stance."
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
Me in agreement with conservative Times writer Brooks? Shock
May 26, 2005
The New York Times
A Natural Alliance
By DAVID BROOKS
Earlier this week I listened to Rick Warren speak at a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Warren is the pastor of the Saddleback Church in California, the country's largest megachurch where 20,000 people or so go to worship each Sunday. He's also the author of "The Purpose Driven Life," which has sold more than 25 million copies in English alone.
My first thought was, How come Christians have all these megachurches but we Jews don't have megagogues? I think the answer is that if some Jews built a megagogue, the other Jews in town would say, "That megagogue I wouldn't go to." They'd build a rival megagogue. You'd end up with 10 really big buildings, each with about 40 people inside.
My second thought was, Why don't my books sell 25 million copies? I thought maybe I should write a book called, "The Blinking Flat Purpose Driven Tipping Point That Got Left Behind." Or maybe I could write a book for rich Republicans called, "The Chauffeur Driven Life," which I think would do quite well.
My third thought, which may be more profound than the other two, is that we can have a culture war in this country, or we can have a war on poverty, but we can't have both. That is to say, liberals and conservatives can go on bashing each other for being godless hedonists and primitive theocrats, or they can set those differences off to one side and work together to help the needy.
The natural alliance for antipoverty measures at home and abroad is between liberals and evangelical Christians. These are the only two groups that are really hyped up about these problems and willing to devote time and money to ameliorating them. If liberals and evangelicals don't get together on antipoverty measures, then there will be no majority for them and they won't get done.
Now, you might be thinking, fat chance. There is no way the likes of Jerry Falwell and Barbara Boxer are going to get together as brother and sister to fight deprivation. And I say to you: All around me I see bonds being formed.
I recently went to a U2 concert in Philadelphia with a group of evangelicals who have been working with Bono to fight AIDS and poverty in Africa. A few years ago, U2 took a tour of the heartland, stopping off at places like Wheaton College and the megachurch at Willow Creek to urge evangelicals to get involved in Africa. They've responded with alacrity, and now Bono, who is a serious if nonsectarian Christian, is at the nexus of a vast alliance between socially conservative evangelicals and socially liberal N.G.O.'s.
Today I'll be at a panel discussion on a proposed antipoverty bill called the Aspire Act, which is co-sponsored in the Senate by social conservatives like Rick Santorum and social liberals like Jon Corzine.
And when I look at the evangelical community, I see a community in the midst of a transformation - branching out beyond the traditional issues of abortion and gay marriage, and getting more involved in programs to help the needy. I see Rick Warren, who through his new Peace initiative is sending thousands of people to Rwanda and other African nations to fight poverty and disease. I see Chuck Colson deeply involved in Sudan. I see Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals drawing up a service agenda that goes way beyond the normal turf of Christian conservatives.
I see evangelicals who are more and more influenced by Catholic social teaching, with its emphasis on good works. I see the historical rift healing between those who emphasized personal and social morality. Most of all, I see a new sort of evangelical leader emerging.
Millions of evangelicals are embarrassed by the people held up by the news media as their spokesmen. Millions of evangelicals feel less represented by the culture war-centered parachurch organizations, and better represented by congregational pastors, who have a broader range of interests and more passion for mobilizing volunteers to perform service. Millions of evangelicals want leaders who live the faith by serving the poor.
Serious differences over life issues are not going to go away. But more liberals and evangelicals are realizing that you don't have to convert people; sometimes you can just work with them. The world is suddenly crowded with people like Rick Warren and Bono who are trying to step out of the logic of the culture war so they can accomplish more in the poverty war.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
The New York Times
A Natural Alliance
By DAVID BROOKS
Earlier this week I listened to Rick Warren speak at a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Warren is the pastor of the Saddleback Church in California, the country's largest megachurch where 20,000 people or so go to worship each Sunday. He's also the author of "The Purpose Driven Life," which has sold more than 25 million copies in English alone.
My first thought was, How come Christians have all these megachurches but we Jews don't have megagogues? I think the answer is that if some Jews built a megagogue, the other Jews in town would say, "That megagogue I wouldn't go to." They'd build a rival megagogue. You'd end up with 10 really big buildings, each with about 40 people inside.
My second thought was, Why don't my books sell 25 million copies? I thought maybe I should write a book called, "The Blinking Flat Purpose Driven Tipping Point That Got Left Behind." Or maybe I could write a book for rich Republicans called, "The Chauffeur Driven Life," which I think would do quite well.
My third thought, which may be more profound than the other two, is that we can have a culture war in this country, or we can have a war on poverty, but we can't have both. That is to say, liberals and conservatives can go on bashing each other for being godless hedonists and primitive theocrats, or they can set those differences off to one side and work together to help the needy.
The natural alliance for antipoverty measures at home and abroad is between liberals and evangelical Christians. These are the only two groups that are really hyped up about these problems and willing to devote time and money to ameliorating them. If liberals and evangelicals don't get together on antipoverty measures, then there will be no majority for them and they won't get done.
Now, you might be thinking, fat chance. There is no way the likes of Jerry Falwell and Barbara Boxer are going to get together as brother and sister to fight deprivation. And I say to you: All around me I see bonds being formed.
I recently went to a U2 concert in Philadelphia with a group of evangelicals who have been working with Bono to fight AIDS and poverty in Africa. A few years ago, U2 took a tour of the heartland, stopping off at places like Wheaton College and the megachurch at Willow Creek to urge evangelicals to get involved in Africa. They've responded with alacrity, and now Bono, who is a serious if nonsectarian Christian, is at the nexus of a vast alliance between socially conservative evangelicals and socially liberal N.G.O.'s.
Today I'll be at a panel discussion on a proposed antipoverty bill called the Aspire Act, which is co-sponsored in the Senate by social conservatives like Rick Santorum and social liberals like Jon Corzine.
And when I look at the evangelical community, I see a community in the midst of a transformation - branching out beyond the traditional issues of abortion and gay marriage, and getting more involved in programs to help the needy. I see Rick Warren, who through his new Peace initiative is sending thousands of people to Rwanda and other African nations to fight poverty and disease. I see Chuck Colson deeply involved in Sudan. I see Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals drawing up a service agenda that goes way beyond the normal turf of Christian conservatives.
I see evangelicals who are more and more influenced by Catholic social teaching, with its emphasis on good works. I see the historical rift healing between those who emphasized personal and social morality. Most of all, I see a new sort of evangelical leader emerging.
Millions of evangelicals are embarrassed by the people held up by the news media as their spokesmen. Millions of evangelicals feel less represented by the culture war-centered parachurch organizations, and better represented by congregational pastors, who have a broader range of interests and more passion for mobilizing volunteers to perform service. Millions of evangelicals want leaders who live the faith by serving the poor.
Serious differences over life issues are not going to go away. But more liberals and evangelicals are realizing that you don't have to convert people; sometimes you can just work with them. The world is suddenly crowded with people like Rick Warren and Bono who are trying to step out of the logic of the culture war so they can accomplish more in the poverty war.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Psychiatrists Move For Gay Marriage
Psychiatric group moves toward statement calling for recognition of gay marriage
DOUG GROSS
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA — Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of gay marriage. If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health."
It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
The psychiatric association's statement, approved by voice vote on the first day of its weeklong annual meeting in Atlanta, cites the "positive influence of a stable, adult partnership on the health of all family members."
The resolution recognizes "that gay men and lesbians are full human beings who should be afforded the same human and civil rights," said Margery Sved, a Raleigh, N.C., psychiatrist and member of the assembly's committee on gay and lesbian issues.
The document clarifies that the association is addressing same-sex civil marriage, not religious marriages. It takes no position on any religion's views on marriage.
Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriage. Eighteen states have passed constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage.
DOUG GROSS
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA — Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement Sunday urging legal recognition of gay marriage. If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
The statement supports same-sex marriage "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health."
It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
The psychiatric association's statement, approved by voice vote on the first day of its weeklong annual meeting in Atlanta, cites the "positive influence of a stable, adult partnership on the health of all family members."
The resolution recognizes "that gay men and lesbians are full human beings who should be afforded the same human and civil rights," said Margery Sved, a Raleigh, N.C., psychiatrist and member of the assembly's committee on gay and lesbian issues.
The document clarifies that the association is addressing same-sex civil marriage, not religious marriages. It takes no position on any religion's views on marriage.
Massachusetts is the only state that allows same-sex marriage. Eighteen states have passed constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage.
Framing The Democratic Message
T thought this writer had a very clear view of the foundation of the framework for the democratic agena.
May 21, 2005
Framing the Democratic Message
George Lakoff wrote a book called "Moral Politics," that states the Democrats are losing elections because they are not framing their values as well as the Republicans have been doing. To win, Democrats need to present their ideas within a framework of their own, he says. He suggests that Democrats should adopt the view of the nurturant parent, as opposed to the Republican view of the strict father. I agree we need a good framework, but the nurturant parent is not it.
According to Lakoff, the Republicans have been very successful thinking of themselves as the strict father. They believe that people are basically bad and need to be controlled. This is why they extol people who have made it and lavish goodies on Big Business, while putting labor in its place. This is why they push the harsh religion of the fundamentalists. This is why they bitch constantly about liberals, secularists, pacifists, the media, the university, intellectuals, hollywood and anyone who disagrees with them.
To beat the Republicans, Lakoff thinks that Democrats should not discuss specific issues, but talk of them as part of a broad nurturant-parent framework. The nurturant parent believes most people are basically good and can work together to help each other. They are for the minimum wage, for preserving Social Security, for a universal healthcare system and for allowing people to follow their consciences.
At first glance, this sounds right. But after a while you begin to wonder whether Lakoff's nurturant parent approach falls into the broader framework the Republicans are using - family. Republicans consider America one type of family and the Democrats consider it to be a different type of family.
This is wrong. Republicans do not consider America to be a family. Whenever there is a chance for unity, Republicans choose division. Look at what is called the "nuclear option." They attack judges who are doing their best. They use swift-boats of intolerance against candidates. They scream against the "liberal press." They call liberals "traitors." Every day Republican invective fills the air. They do not treat America as a family.
"Attack" is their big idea. "We are right, you are wrong" is their motto. "We win, you lose" is their goal. This is not my definition of any kind of family.
The Republican framework is "competition." They do not want to make friends. They want to win. As far as they are concerned, the greater the polarization in the country the better. This is why they complain, make stupid demands, resubmit failed judicial nominees to the Senate, work to kill Social Security, cater to non-compromising Christian fundamentalists, try to make "liberal" a dirty word, break up international agreements and put up a brute like Bolton for ambassador to the UN.
The Democratic framework should be "cooperation." We do not want to win as Democrats but to win for all Americans, not merely an elite few. We abhor polarization. We do think of America as a family. We do believe we have to work together. We do conceive of the common good as something that benefits the country as a whole. We do want people of all religions and of no religion to live in harmony. We prefer to have people exercise their own religious consciences, rather than being coerced by a dominant religious group. We do believe in diplomacy first in all international relations. We do think that security comes from making friends and not from making enemies.
"We're in this together" is our big idea. "Let's talk it over" is our motto. "The common good" is our goal.
I hope Democrats adopt the framework of cooperation. By placing all our issues - minimum wage, Social Security, healthcare, free conscience, helpful diplomacy, peace - within the framework of cooperation, American citizens will begin to realize that Democrats favor a better democracy both at home and abroad. We'll win elections!
Posted by Paul Siegel at May 21, 2005 02:45 PM
May 21, 2005
Framing the Democratic Message
George Lakoff wrote a book called "Moral Politics," that states the Democrats are losing elections because they are not framing their values as well as the Republicans have been doing. To win, Democrats need to present their ideas within a framework of their own, he says. He suggests that Democrats should adopt the view of the nurturant parent, as opposed to the Republican view of the strict father. I agree we need a good framework, but the nurturant parent is not it.
According to Lakoff, the Republicans have been very successful thinking of themselves as the strict father. They believe that people are basically bad and need to be controlled. This is why they extol people who have made it and lavish goodies on Big Business, while putting labor in its place. This is why they push the harsh religion of the fundamentalists. This is why they bitch constantly about liberals, secularists, pacifists, the media, the university, intellectuals, hollywood and anyone who disagrees with them.
To beat the Republicans, Lakoff thinks that Democrats should not discuss specific issues, but talk of them as part of a broad nurturant-parent framework. The nurturant parent believes most people are basically good and can work together to help each other. They are for the minimum wage, for preserving Social Security, for a universal healthcare system and for allowing people to follow their consciences.
At first glance, this sounds right. But after a while you begin to wonder whether Lakoff's nurturant parent approach falls into the broader framework the Republicans are using - family. Republicans consider America one type of family and the Democrats consider it to be a different type of family.
This is wrong. Republicans do not consider America to be a family. Whenever there is a chance for unity, Republicans choose division. Look at what is called the "nuclear option." They attack judges who are doing their best. They use swift-boats of intolerance against candidates. They scream against the "liberal press." They call liberals "traitors." Every day Republican invective fills the air. They do not treat America as a family.
"Attack" is their big idea. "We are right, you are wrong" is their motto. "We win, you lose" is their goal. This is not my definition of any kind of family.
The Republican framework is "competition." They do not want to make friends. They want to win. As far as they are concerned, the greater the polarization in the country the better. This is why they complain, make stupid demands, resubmit failed judicial nominees to the Senate, work to kill Social Security, cater to non-compromising Christian fundamentalists, try to make "liberal" a dirty word, break up international agreements and put up a brute like Bolton for ambassador to the UN.
The Democratic framework should be "cooperation." We do not want to win as Democrats but to win for all Americans, not merely an elite few. We abhor polarization. We do think of America as a family. We do believe we have to work together. We do conceive of the common good as something that benefits the country as a whole. We do want people of all religions and of no religion to live in harmony. We prefer to have people exercise their own religious consciences, rather than being coerced by a dominant religious group. We do believe in diplomacy first in all international relations. We do think that security comes from making friends and not from making enemies.
"We're in this together" is our big idea. "Let's talk it over" is our motto. "The common good" is our goal.
I hope Democrats adopt the framework of cooperation. By placing all our issues - minimum wage, Social Security, healthcare, free conscience, helpful diplomacy, peace - within the framework of cooperation, American citizens will begin to realize that Democrats favor a better democracy both at home and abroad. We'll win elections!
Posted by Paul Siegel at May 21, 2005 02:45 PM
Saturday, May 14, 2005
the four agreements
the four agreements - don miguel ruiz
Don Miguel Ruiz's - The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements was published in 1997. For many, The Four Agreements is a life-changing book, whose ideas come from the ancient Toltec wisdom of the native people of Southern Mexico. The Toltec were 'people of knowledge' - scientists and artists who created a society to explore and conserve the traditional spiritual knowledge and practices of their ancestors. The Toltec viewed science and spirit as part of the same entity, believing that all energy - material or ethereal - is derived from and governed by the universe. Don Miguel Ruiz, born and raised in rural Mexico, was brought up to follow his family's Toltec ways by his mother, a Toltec faith healer, and grandfather, a Toltec 'nagual', a shaman. Despite this, Don Miguel decided to pursue a conventional education, which led him to qualify and practice for several years as a surgeon. Following a car crash, Don Miguel Ruiz reverted to his Toltec roots during the late 1970's, first studying and learning in depth the Toltec ways, and then healing, teaching, lecturing and writing during the 1980's and 90's, when he wrote The Four Agreements (published in 1997), The Mastery of Love (1999), The Four Agreements Companion Book (2000), and Prayers (2001). Don Miguel Ruiz survived a serious heart attack 2002, since when his teachings have been largely channelled through seminars and classes run by his followers, notably his sons Don Jose Luis and Don Miguel Ruiz Junior. Like many gurus and philosophical pioneers, Ruiz has to an extent packaged, promoted and commercialised his work, nevertheless the simplicity and elegance of his thinking remains a source of great enlightenment and aspiration. The simple ideas of The Four Agreements provide an inspirational code for life; a personal development model, and a template for personal development, behaviour, communications and relationships. Here is how Don Miguel Ruiz summarises 'The Four Agreements':
the four agreements - don miguel ruiz's code for life
agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
Don Miguel Ruiz's - The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements was published in 1997. For many, The Four Agreements is a life-changing book, whose ideas come from the ancient Toltec wisdom of the native people of Southern Mexico. The Toltec were 'people of knowledge' - scientists and artists who created a society to explore and conserve the traditional spiritual knowledge and practices of their ancestors. The Toltec viewed science and spirit as part of the same entity, believing that all energy - material or ethereal - is derived from and governed by the universe. Don Miguel Ruiz, born and raised in rural Mexico, was brought up to follow his family's Toltec ways by his mother, a Toltec faith healer, and grandfather, a Toltec 'nagual', a shaman. Despite this, Don Miguel decided to pursue a conventional education, which led him to qualify and practice for several years as a surgeon. Following a car crash, Don Miguel Ruiz reverted to his Toltec roots during the late 1970's, first studying and learning in depth the Toltec ways, and then healing, teaching, lecturing and writing during the 1980's and 90's, when he wrote The Four Agreements (published in 1997), The Mastery of Love (1999), The Four Agreements Companion Book (2000), and Prayers (2001). Don Miguel Ruiz survived a serious heart attack 2002, since when his teachings have been largely channelled through seminars and classes run by his followers, notably his sons Don Jose Luis and Don Miguel Ruiz Junior. Like many gurus and philosophical pioneers, Ruiz has to an extent packaged, promoted and commercialised his work, nevertheless the simplicity and elegance of his thinking remains a source of great enlightenment and aspiration. The simple ideas of The Four Agreements provide an inspirational code for life; a personal development model, and a template for personal development, behaviour, communications and relationships. Here is how Don Miguel Ruiz summarises 'The Four Agreements':
the four agreements - don miguel ruiz's code for life
agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
The Task Force: Discrimination is Immoral
May 11, 2005
A Statement from Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Discrimination is Immoral.
Enough Said.
I'm hearing both gay and straight people say that the long string of losses we've faced at the polls around marriage equality are really our own fault; our community pushed too hard and too fast, they argue. The prominent theme being generated is that we have failed to "educate" the public about who we really are and get beyond the stereotypes of leather people, butch dykes, circuit boys and drag queens – and that it is now our obligation to reintroduce ourselves to the American people. I also repeatedly hear that it's up to us to reframe the terms of the debate away from "moral values" to simpler concepts, such as fairness, which polls indicate resonate most with the public.
I disagree. This is nothing more than the blame-the-victim mentality afflicting our nation generally and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement specifically.
Rather than reframing the debate away from moral values, we must embrace them. Or more precisely, the utter immorality of the escalating attacks against LGBT people. And, equally, the utter immorality in the failure of so many people of good will to stand with us. It is time for us to seize the moral high ground and state unambiguously that anti-gay discrimination in any form is immoral.
Webster's defines discrimination as "unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice." By any measure, LGBT people are targets of discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. FBI statistics show that more people are being murdered because of their sexual orientation than for any other bias reason. Our young people are still routinely bullied in schools. The examples of injustices in the area of partner and family recognition are too many to list.
No thinking or feeling person can deny these realities, which, as always, fall hardest on LGBT people of color and those who are poor.
But, alarmingly, rather than seeing a groundswell of support for measures to combat these injustices, the opposite is occurring. In Congress and in statehouses nationwide, it's rhetorical and legislative open season on LGBT people. For example, over the last nine months, anti-marriage state constitutional amendments were put on the ballot in 14 states, 10 of which also prohibit the recognition of any form of relationship between people of the same gender. It's likely another 12 states will have similar measures on the ballot within 3 years.
Nothing like this has happened since the Constitution was ratified in 1791 – essentially a national referendum inviting the public to vote to deprive a small minority of Americans of rights the majority takes for granted and sees as fundamental.
And who's been there to fight these amendments? Basically us, the very minority under attack. Mainstream media and churches are largely silent to our opponents' lies. Most progressive organizations and political campaigns, meanwhile, steer clear. There have been sterling exceptions, but they have been few and far between.
Many people who see themselves as supporters of equal rights for all tolerate this because they believe prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation is profoundly different than that based on race or religion – that it comes from an understandable disapproval of our behavior – not on some "immutable characteristic." Homosexual behavior, they feel, is "unnatural" (doesn't the Bible say so?). Pundits say there is an "ick" factor – that the thought of gay sex revolts non-gay people, and that this seemingly innate reaction is proof there is something wrong with homosexuality.
This rationale is hardly unique to gay people. Scholars point to comparable "ick" sentiments about Irish immigrants in the 1880s, and describe how in preceding generations sexual ideology was used to strengthen control over slaves and to justify the taking of Native American lands, and that for centuries Jews were associated with disease and urban degeneration.
Fact is, there is no justification for anti-gay prejudice; the "justifications" for it are as unfounded as those used to support the second-class treatment of other minorities in past generations.
So, what needs to be done?
First, everyone must realize that when straight people say gay people should not have the freedom to marry, they are saying we are not as good or deserving as they are. It's that simple, no matter how one attempts to sugarcoat it.
This is unacceptable – and it is immoral.
Second, while we should talk to straight people honestly about our lives, we must flatly reject the notion that we are somehow to blame for all of this because we have not effectively communicated our "stories" to others. Fundamentally, it is not our job to prove to others that we can be good neighbors, good parents, and that gee whiz, we're actually people too.
Third, equality will remain elusive if we keep relying on intellectualized arguments or by dryly cataloguing, for example, each of the 1,138 federal rights and responsibilities we are forced to forgo due to marriage inequality.
The other side goes for the gut; it's now our turn.
In this vein, we must put others on the spot to stand up and fight for us. As the cascade of lies pours forth from the Anti-Gay Industry, morality demands that non-gay people speak out with the same vehemence as they would if it was another minority under attack. Ministers and rabbis must be challenged with the question, "Where is your voice?" Elected officials who meet with and attend events of the Anti-Gay Industry, must be met with the challenge, "How can you do that!? How is that public service?"
The orchestrated campaign to deny us jobs, family recognition, children, and housing is immoral. Silently bearing witness to this discrimination is immoral.
America is in the midst of another ugly chapter in its struggle with the forces of bigotry. People of good will can either rise up to speak for lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender Americans, or look back upon themselves 20 years from now with deserved shame.
A Statement from Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Discrimination is Immoral.
Enough Said.
I'm hearing both gay and straight people say that the long string of losses we've faced at the polls around marriage equality are really our own fault; our community pushed too hard and too fast, they argue. The prominent theme being generated is that we have failed to "educate" the public about who we really are and get beyond the stereotypes of leather people, butch dykes, circuit boys and drag queens – and that it is now our obligation to reintroduce ourselves to the American people. I also repeatedly hear that it's up to us to reframe the terms of the debate away from "moral values" to simpler concepts, such as fairness, which polls indicate resonate most with the public.
I disagree. This is nothing more than the blame-the-victim mentality afflicting our nation generally and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement specifically.
Rather than reframing the debate away from moral values, we must embrace them. Or more precisely, the utter immorality of the escalating attacks against LGBT people. And, equally, the utter immorality in the failure of so many people of good will to stand with us. It is time for us to seize the moral high ground and state unambiguously that anti-gay discrimination in any form is immoral.
Webster's defines discrimination as "unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice." By any measure, LGBT people are targets of discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. FBI statistics show that more people are being murdered because of their sexual orientation than for any other bias reason. Our young people are still routinely bullied in schools. The examples of injustices in the area of partner and family recognition are too many to list.
No thinking or feeling person can deny these realities, which, as always, fall hardest on LGBT people of color and those who are poor.
But, alarmingly, rather than seeing a groundswell of support for measures to combat these injustices, the opposite is occurring. In Congress and in statehouses nationwide, it's rhetorical and legislative open season on LGBT people. For example, over the last nine months, anti-marriage state constitutional amendments were put on the ballot in 14 states, 10 of which also prohibit the recognition of any form of relationship between people of the same gender. It's likely another 12 states will have similar measures on the ballot within 3 years.
Nothing like this has happened since the Constitution was ratified in 1791 – essentially a national referendum inviting the public to vote to deprive a small minority of Americans of rights the majority takes for granted and sees as fundamental.
And who's been there to fight these amendments? Basically us, the very minority under attack. Mainstream media and churches are largely silent to our opponents' lies. Most progressive organizations and political campaigns, meanwhile, steer clear. There have been sterling exceptions, but they have been few and far between.
Many people who see themselves as supporters of equal rights for all tolerate this because they believe prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation is profoundly different than that based on race or religion – that it comes from an understandable disapproval of our behavior – not on some "immutable characteristic." Homosexual behavior, they feel, is "unnatural" (doesn't the Bible say so?). Pundits say there is an "ick" factor – that the thought of gay sex revolts non-gay people, and that this seemingly innate reaction is proof there is something wrong with homosexuality.
This rationale is hardly unique to gay people. Scholars point to comparable "ick" sentiments about Irish immigrants in the 1880s, and describe how in preceding generations sexual ideology was used to strengthen control over slaves and to justify the taking of Native American lands, and that for centuries Jews were associated with disease and urban degeneration.
Fact is, there is no justification for anti-gay prejudice; the "justifications" for it are as unfounded as those used to support the second-class treatment of other minorities in past generations.
So, what needs to be done?
First, everyone must realize that when straight people say gay people should not have the freedom to marry, they are saying we are not as good or deserving as they are. It's that simple, no matter how one attempts to sugarcoat it.
This is unacceptable – and it is immoral.
Second, while we should talk to straight people honestly about our lives, we must flatly reject the notion that we are somehow to blame for all of this because we have not effectively communicated our "stories" to others. Fundamentally, it is not our job to prove to others that we can be good neighbors, good parents, and that gee whiz, we're actually people too.
Third, equality will remain elusive if we keep relying on intellectualized arguments or by dryly cataloguing, for example, each of the 1,138 federal rights and responsibilities we are forced to forgo due to marriage inequality.
The other side goes for the gut; it's now our turn.
In this vein, we must put others on the spot to stand up and fight for us. As the cascade of lies pours forth from the Anti-Gay Industry, morality demands that non-gay people speak out with the same vehemence as they would if it was another minority under attack. Ministers and rabbis must be challenged with the question, "Where is your voice?" Elected officials who meet with and attend events of the Anti-Gay Industry, must be met with the challenge, "How can you do that!? How is that public service?"
The orchestrated campaign to deny us jobs, family recognition, children, and housing is immoral. Silently bearing witness to this discrimination is immoral.
America is in the midst of another ugly chapter in its struggle with the forces of bigotry. People of good will can either rise up to speak for lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender Americans, or look back upon themselves 20 years from now with deserved shame.
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