Herring’s Refusal to Defend Gay Marriage Ban is Morally Correct

We have heard incessant whining and spittle flecked rage from the self-appointed guardians of morality in the Christofascist camp of the Republican Party of Virginia since Mark Herring made his decision to cease the defense of Virginia's hate and animus based Marshall-Newman Amendment.  In my view, these smug, self-anointed folks are perhaps among the most immoral of anyone in Virginia.  The are best known by the hatred and contempt that they show towards nearly everyone but those who think like them and look like them.  Gays may be their favored targets of hate and bigotry - always purported in a defense of "Biblical values" - but we are hardly alone.  Blacks, non-Christians, Hispanics and many others are treated with loathing by the lily white folks at The Family Foundation and its affiliates across Virginia.  The Richmond Times Dispatch has a column today that diplomatically takes these folks to task and makes the case where not only is Mark Herring on sound legal ground (my February VEER Magizine will focus on this at length) but also sound moral ground.  Here are highlights:

I applaud Attorney General Mark Herring’s refusal to defend Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage. It strikes me, as he recently argued in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that he is on solid legal footing. But more importantly, as a person of faith, it strikes me he is on solid moral footing.

I do not feel abandoned by our attorney general; rather, I feel encouraged. Many have despaired that the attorney general’s decision is informed by politics and the moral relativism of our age. I wonder, by contrast, if Herring’s decision is an active expression of God’s deep yearning for justice. I wonder if this is God attempting to break through the din, seeking to be part of the conversation.

I am mindful that fellow Christians have condemned his actions based on their Biblically informed views of marriage and same-sex relations.

If one is inclined to take the Bible at face value, Christ never spoke to the issue of same-sex relations, whereas his followers attempted to speak for him. It strikes me that this is significant.

When such debates are engendered, they make me think of Italian rhetorician Giambattista Vico (1668-1744); and particularly so those debates informed by competing Bible verses. I have similar thoughts when fellow Christians suggest the Bible is the infallible word of God.

I have great regard for the Bible as a sacred text. I consider the Bible to be a “library of books” written by a variety of authors from different periods of history, filtered by numerous translations, and full of often contradictory dictums. Furthermore, human fingerprints are ubiquitous. Accordingly, discerning the “truth” of the Bible takes prayer, reflection and scholarship. The Bible, even with great consideration, is consistently confounding.

Vico expressed concern about the way the written word fixes ideas into time and place . . . Vico believed the written word constrains ideas.

I believe in a living God, not one locked in time and history. In the tradition of theologians Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, I believe in an evolving creation story, one in which God’s “truth” is still being revealed — a creation story in which we are a participants. To me this is informed by a God that longs to engage us and to pull us forward — not entropy informed by contemporary cultural and moral relativism.

By extension, I believe the increasing national support of same-sex marriage reflects God’s love of justice, as God calls us in an ever-changing world to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

As Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, recently expressed, “The Episcopal Church has been clear about our expectation that every member of the LGBT community is entitled to the same respect and dignity as any other member of the human family.”

She went on to say, “To do less is effectively to repudiate our membership in the human community. No one of God’s children is worth less or more than another; none is to be discriminated against because of the way in which she or he has been created.”

Would that the Christofascists would open their eyes to these truths.

Chuck Colson Seeks to Spread His Toxic Version of Christianity

Given Chuck Colson's history, I've always questioned whether or not he had a "religious conversion" or merely latched on to Christianity as a ruse to restore his reputation and make a good living in his post penitentiary days. Where else other than in a so-called "ministy" can a convicted felon find an easy route to the good life financially and find gullible sheep to give him money freely (I've seen ads on Christian sites about "incorporation one's ministy for $99). Colson strikes me like as so many in the "ex-gay" industry - largely unemployable psychologically disturbed drug users and alcoholics who found Jesus as a route to financial susccess and respectability - at least among the simpleton set. The Washington Post has a piece that looks at Colson's effort to "metastasize" society with his intolerant and exclusionary for of Christianity. Ironically, metastasize is the correct word given that Colson and his followers are, in my view, a form of cancer on society. One has to wonder about the mental health of anyone who would want to be one of Colson's "centurions." I sincerely hope that his efforts fail. We clearly do not need more members of the Christian Taliban in this nation. Here are highlights from the Post article:
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Charles Colson assembles the newest members of his Christian army at a Loudoun County convention hall on a winter Saturday. . . . . They’ve spent the year — and as much as $4,000 — reading the books Colson reads, watching the movies he watches, praying the way he prays. It’s all part of an ambitious effort by Colson to replicate his spiritual DNA and ensure that his vision of Christianity doesn’t die when he does.
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“This is the time for us to metastasize and impact society!” the gravelly-voiced former Nixon aide tells his rapt audience. “And this is a really, really urgent hour.” . . . . They are called Centurions, a name that conjures battle-hardened Roman soldiers. They number 640, and their marching orders from their commander are clear — to expand Christ’s kingdom. “What this country needs,” Colson declares, “is a movement.”
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Colson, who lives in Florida full time after years of dividing his time between the Sunshine State and Northern Virginia, hasn’t lost his taste for politics. He works against measures to legalize gay marriage and served as an informal adviser to former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove. . . . . [He] is treated like a rock star at Christian events.
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“The point was to get more people to be like Chuck,” says Chip Mahon, a retired financial services executive who sits on the board of BreakPoint, the umbrella group for Colson’s various ministries, including the Centurions, which began in 2004.
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Regardless of how traditional evangelicals describe themselves, they are facing some discouraging trends. Polls show that young evangelicals are more concerned about poverty and environmentalism than same-sex marriage or abortion and other “sanctity of life” issues. A few months ago, Apple booted an iPhone app for a conservative Christian manifesto that Colson co-wrote called the Manhattan Declaration because the company deemed the document’s opposition to gay marriage and other “immoral sexual partnerships” to be offensive. Just one of the original signers was under 40.
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Centurions are required to create a three-year ministry plan. Most involve grass-roots evangelizing to work colleagues, neighbors or people at church who think they know Christianity but don’t.
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I find Colson and his followers frightening. Should they ever succeed on a large scale, this nation will be a scary place for anyone who doesn't fit the Christianist mode. At the risk of being called horrible, I see the only positive note in all of this is the fact that at 79, Colson's days of disseminating poison may be limited.

Bible Quoting Pharisees

My posts on the recent actions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church ("ELCA") in voting to allowed partnered clergy in committed same sex relationships have garnered some of the usual hate e-mails and nasty comments that goes with the territory of the freeper crowd which (a) seems obsessed with turning the Gospel message into one of exclusion and hate and (b) is extremely selective in terms of what Bible passages must be applied literally as written and which ones can be blithely ignored when convenient. I also wonder at times why these folks are reading a gay blog in the first place - might it be the male beauty photos? In any event, an example of this is the following message:
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This [the ELCA action] is just appalling. If Luther, the late German Christian protester, would still be here…where the denomination “Lutherans” derived from, he would be stunned and completely disappointed in this horrible abomination to the Word of God and the Gospel. I totally am against this election. When God created “man” he created Adam and Eve, NOT Adam and STEVE!!! Hello people. This is a direct form of disobedience to God. And this is happening in a Church, a denomination that professes to know the Word of God???? Please, God will have to deal with you guys…and it won’t be pretty.
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Frankly, what I believe will not be pretty is how God deals with people like the author of the comment who certainly seem to have totally missed Christ's directive to love one's neighbor as one's self. As for Bible verses being applied literally, I would ask the author of the quoted comment how he/she justifies literal application of purported anti-gay passages yet it is fine that other apparently unequivocal passages are regularly ignored by the Bible thumper crowd, e.g., the prohibitions on divorce; the approval of slavery; the subordination and discrimination against blacks, the supposed descendants of Ham; the subordination and treatment of women as chattel; the murder of whole cities of women and children. Why is it only passages that are cited as justifying anti-gay bigotry must be still construed literally? Or does the author of the comment also condone slavery, anti-black bigotry and the mistreatment of women? Those who pick and choose what passages to enforce literally are no better than the Pharisees so berated by Christ.
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Speaking of gay affirming denominations, 365gay had a run down on the positions of a number of denominations on this issue. Those looking for spiritual homes might do well to review the varied stances on gays and same sex relationships:
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UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: 7.9 million U.S. members. The most conservative of the largest mainline denominations on gay clergy. An effort to repeal a ban on non-celibate gay clergy failed at the church’s last General Conference, in 2008.
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EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA: 4.7 million U.S. members. The church voted Friday to strike down a policy that required celibacy of gay clergy, becoming the largest U.S. denomination to take that stance. The change allows those in committed same-gender relationships to be on official ELCA church rosters and serve as pastors at congregations that want them.
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PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA): 2.9 million U.S. members. Ministers must live in “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” The church’s General Assembly voted last year to drop that requirement, but the move did not receive required approval from presbyteries.
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EPISCOPAL CHURCH: 2.1 million U.S. members. The splintering global Anglican fellowship has moved to the brink of a full schism since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. Last month, the Episcopal General Convention approved a resolution saying “God has called and may call” gays in committed relationships to any ordained ministry in the church.
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AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES IN THE USA: 1.3 million U.S. members. Holds that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The Baptist tradition emphasizes local autonomy, and some churches have appointed openly gay ministers, creating tensions.
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UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: 1.1 million U.S. members. Boasts a long track record of welcoming gay clergy. Allowed ordination of an openly gay man and openly lesbian woman in the 1970s. Ordination of practicing homosexuals was officially accepted in 1980.
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Not listed are the Roman Catholic Church which views gays as "inherently disordered" and would impose life long celibacy and the Southern Baptist Convention which would basically stone gays to death if Richard Land and the SBC leadership though they they could get away with it.