United Methodist Church to Split Over Gay Marriage

Like the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America before it, the United Methodist Church ("UMC") is headed towards a split over gay marriage and acceptance of LGBT people based on modern medical and mental health knowledge on human sexuality.  As with the other two denominations, the main opposition to gays has come from UMC churches in Africa and other ignorant and uneducated parts of the world.   To me, the "conservative" - meaning bigoted and hate-filled - African churches and their white counterparts in the USA embody the poisonous aspects of religion where a need exists to condemn others so that adherents can feel superior and pat themselves on the back for their false piety.  As the split goes forward. one can hope (i) the liberal churches cease providing any funding to the "conservative" churches, and (ii) here in the USA the exodus of the younger generations from the "conservative" churches accelerates. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the coming split:

The United Methodist Church is expected to split into two denominations in an attempt to end a years-long, contentious fight over same-sex marriage, church leaders announced Friday. The historic schism would divide the nation’s third-largest religious denomination.

Leaders of the church said they had agreed to spin off a “traditionalist Methodist” denomination, which would continue to oppose same-sex marriage and to refuse ordination to LGBT clergy, while allowing the remaining portion of the United Methodist Church to permit same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy for the first time in its history.

The plan would need to be approved in May at the denomination’s worldwide conference.

“I’ve always been committed to unity. But over time, it could not be unity at someone’s expense,” said Bishop Kenneth Carter, president of the church’s Council of Bishops and one of the formulators of the new plan.

Jan Lawrence, executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, a pro-LGBT group within the church, said the separation plan “gives the hope that we can move toward a church that allows healing to begin.”

Friday’s announcement came as new sanctions were set to go into effect in the church, which would have made punishments for United Methodist Church pastors who perform same-sex weddings much more severe: one year’s suspension without pay for the first wedding and removal from the clergy for any wedding after that.

Instead, leaders from liberal and conservative wings signed an agreement saying they will postpone those sanctions and instead vote to split at the worldwide church’s May general conference.

Any local church that wants to join the new conservative denomination would have to conduct a vote within a specified time frame, the announcement said. A church would not need to vote to remain United Methodist. Churches that vote to leave could take certain assets with them, including their local church buildings in some cases.

After the separation, the agreement said, the remaining United Methodist Church would hold another conference with the purpose of removing the church’s bans on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy. Some advocates for LGBT inclusion worried that simply removing prohibitions would not be enough.

“There are efforts in the protocol to stop condemnation of LGBTQ people, which of course is good. There are no signs pointing toward a church that affirms us and repents of the significant harm that has been done to LGBT people for decades because of its complicity in spiritual violence against us,” said the Rev. M Barclay, who was ordained in 2017 as the United Methodist Church’s first transgender deacon.

[T]he larger divide is between American Methodists and foreign members of the United Methodist Church, especially churches in Africa. In a church that conducts all of its major decisions in churchwide votes, the much more conservative-leaning voters from Africa competed with American delegates who often fervently pushed for a change on same-sex marriage.

At a conference last year in which church leaders had declared they would solve this issue, many American delegates favored a plan that would have allowed local churches to make their own decisions on whether to perform same-sex marriages and ordain gay clergy. Some supported a plan to simply allow same-sex marriages worldwide. They were stunned when a third option passed, instead — one dubbed the “Traditional Plan,” which ushered in not only a continued ban on LGBT weddings and clergy but also harsher penalties for those who disobey church doctrine.

For some LBGT Methodists, Friday’s news arrived too late. Williams, who worked on earlier negotiations, is pursuing ordination in the United Church of Christ instead of the United Methodist Church.

Young Voters Keep Moving to the Left on Social Issues

In other good news - unless one is a Christofascist or an older Republican - are findings that among the younger generations, voters are moving to the left on social issues and rejecting the ignorance and bigotry that defines the political and social right.   Better yet, even young Republicans are moving away from the dogma of their elders making it increasingly difficult for Christofascists to inflict their hate and bigotry on society.  The other good news found by the Pew Research survey is that Donald Trump is accelerating the exodus of younger generations from the GOP.  For years I have been arguing that the GOP has placed short term gain ahead of a long term strategy, hoping that disenfranchising voters and gerrymandering districts would compensate for policies viewed as toxic by growing numbers of Americans, especially the younger generations. As the older racists and religious extremist so important to the GOP die off, there simply will not be enough voters to replace them.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on the survey findings:

As a self-described political conservative, Reagan Larson might seem to be a natural fit for the Republican Party. The 19-year-old college student from South Dakota grew up in a Catholic household that objected to same-sex marriage, and she remains firmly opposed to abortion.

But in many ways, that is where the ideological similarities end. Ms. Larson, a dual major in biology and Spanish at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., does not oppose the legalization of marriage equality. She views climate change as undeniable, believes “immigrants make our country richer,” and disagrees with her parents on the need for a border wall.

Ms. Larson is part of Generation Z, one of the most ethnically diverse and progressive age groups in American history. People born after 1996 tend to espouse similar views to the age cohort just ahead of them, the Millennials, but they are far more open to social change than older generations have been, according to the findings of a new report by the Pew Research Center. The findings mark a shift that could substantially reshape the nation’s political and economic landscape. [O]nly 30 percent of Generation Z respondents said they approved of President Trump’s performance; more than half believed humans were fueling climate change; and 70 percent said they wanted the government to do more to solve the nation’s problems. Those views roughly mirror attitudes held by Millennials, and together, the two age groups may add up to a powerful voting bloc at odds with Republican orthodoxy, political scientists say. “This should be an alert to the Republican Party as they think about generational replacement,” said Elizabeth Bennion, a professor of political science at Indiana University South Bend.

Each succeeding generation of Americans tends to be more progressive than those that came before, Ms. Bennion noted, a trend that potentially poses a long-term threat to the Republican Party’s power.

“If there isn’t a will to change within the party,” she said, “it could become permanently in the minority moving forward.”

Democrats of all ages tend to align fairly closely on major social and political issues, but the report highlights a sharp generational divide among Republicans. For example, more than half of the youngest Republicans surveyed said that racial and ethnic diversity was good for American society . . . . Young Republicans are also more likely to approve of same-sex marriage and accept transgender people.

Michael Schaefer, 18, a politically conservative college freshman from Youngstown, Ohio, said he was in the sixth grade when some classmates came out as gay, and had a number of transgender students as friends in high school.  “For over half my life, I’ve been shown the other side of sexuality and gender,” he said. “I don’t care about their sex or gender, I just care about the individual.”

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans’ political and social views do not tend to drift to the right as they age, according to Kim Parker, who oversees research into social demographic trends at the Pew Research Center.

“The differences we see across age groups have more to do with the unique historical circumstances in which they come of age,” she said, noting that demographers have not seen a generational pattern of growing more conservative or more Republican over time.

The Republican Party has lost younger Americans like Travis Gaither, though, as it has moved farther to the right on issues like immigration, gun control and climate change.

Mr. Gaither, who grew up in Tennessee, described his parents as “typical southern white Republicans” who belong to two country clubs and are active in the Chamber of Commerce. But Mr. Gaither, 20, was chairman of the High School Democrats of Tennessee during his senior year, a political transformation fueled by his liberal social views and cemented by his outrage over Mr. Trump’s hard-line policies.

The Pew study found that two-thirds of Mr. Gaither’s generation believe, as he does, that black people are treated less fairly than whites in the United States.

“I feel like I’ve moved toward the left, as the Republican Party has shifted toward the right,” he said.

Good!  Let's hope the phenomenon accelerates and that the GOP goes the way of the Whigs sooner as opposed to later.

Nothing Has Really Changed for Gays in the Catholic Church

Pope Francis has made a few statements deemed by a gushing media to indicate a softening of the Roman Catholic Church's centuries old anti-gay jihad (even as the ranks of the clergy remain packed with self-loathing gays) and a majority of everyday Catholics in America are supportive of gay rights and even gay marriage, yet as far as official Church dogma and policy go, we remain more or less untouchables.  If we want any possibility of inclusion, we are demanded to live a lonely, loveless life - in short, to be a miserable as much of the clergy that cannot let go of childhood brainwashing and the Church's "natural law" which in essence is based on ignorance and at best 11th century knowledge.  One Jesuit has written a book to try to usher in much needed changes, but he has been met with a backlash from the bitter old men in dresses within the clergy and among the lunatic far right of Catholicism which much like white supremacists always need some one they can condemn and feel superior to. A piece in the New York Times looks at the situation which underscores to me that the best thing gay Catholics and their families can do is to leave Catholicism.  Here are highlights:

The Rev. James Martin knew his latest book – which urges a dialogue between the Catholic Church and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics who feel estranged from it – would be provocative. Even though the book was approved by his Jesuit superior as being in line with church teachings and was endorsed by several cardinals, he did not expect everyone to agree. That’s fine, he said. That’s why dialogue was needed.

His public position on this hot-button issue – most recently in the book, “Building a Bridge,” but also in speeches, articles and social media – has earned him the gratitude of parents of gay children or adults who feel unwelcome at church because of their sexual orientation. But his stance has also led to “joking” threats of violence and insults against him. Conservative Catholics have called him “effeminate,” a “homosexualist,” “pansified” and guilty of “leading young men to perdition.” In recent weeks, campaigns by people opposed to him have prompted three high-profile Catholic groups to disinvite him from events where he was to be the featured speaker.

On Friday, Theological College, the national seminary at the Catholic University of America in Washington, withdrew its invitation to Father Martin, who was scheduled to deliver a speech on Jesus in early October. The seminary said in a statement that the decision was made after “increasing negative attacks” on social media. And while seminary officials “in no way” agreed with the critics, the college wanted to avoid “distractions” during centennial events, the statement said. Of his critics, Father Martin said that even an invitation to listen to L.G.B.T. people has “unleashed this torrent of hatred.”  “It’s insane. This is about reaching out to people on the margins. But on that issue it tells us that we have a lot to learn. If we can’t even begin a dialogue without a charge of heresy, then we need to take a good look at how we understand the gospel.”. . . . . “It’s reaching people where they are. Jesus went to where the people were and spoke to them in their language. And he was always going to the margins.” He had long received desperate messages and impassioned emails seeking counsel or prayer through life’s difficulties, and the publication of “Building A Bridge” prompted even more. He gets about 50 messages daily, in which people talk about things like how a priest would not anoint a dying man in hospice care because he was gay; or how someone was fired from a job at a Catholic institution because of their sexual orientation.

But he has also been the victim of ad-hominem attacks, even from other Catholics who, he said, do not seem to remember Pope Francis’s remark that “who am I to judge” if a member of the clergy was gay.

Despite the name-calling, innuendo and canceled speeches, Father Martin said he will press on. He has received support from bishops – who request boxes of his book — and from his religious order. He will not step back from social media, saying it is part of his order’s tradition to “find God in all things.” “We are not afraid of going to the margins,” he said. “That is what Pope Benedict and Pope Francis asked us to do. As Francis said to us, go to the peripheries where the church has not been serving people or where people need it the most. There is no one more marginalized in the church than L.G.B.T. Catholics. So, I’m right where I should be.”

As I noted above, the best move for gay Catholics and their families is to walk away.  The Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (I technically remain a member) offer wonderful alternatives.  Meanwhile, as history has shown us time and time again, if enough people walk away and cease their financial support to the Church, the fossilized and bitter hierarchy will suddenly have a revelation and adjust its dogma.  Money is and always has been the real god of the Vatican. 

Cherokee Nation: Gay-Marriage Law Is Traditional

Some time ago I cited a book called "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies," that concluded that the tolerance, if not open acceptance of same sex relations, was the norm around the world prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries who, along with small pox and other diseases, a desire to oppress and conquer native cultures, often outright genocide, brought homophobia and animus toward those in same sex relationships.  Indeed, many who were in such relationships were put to death. The irony now, of course, is that cretins - I'm sorry, but in my view no other word applies - in parts of Africa and India for example, claim that homosexuality is a western import.  The truth is the exact opposite and it is the homophobia that they want to uphold that is the western import.   Given this true historic background, it is interesting that a recent ruling by the Cherokee nation affirming same sex relationships cited the fact that tradition within the tribe supported what would now be called gay marriage.  Here are highlights from Bloomberg:

The Cherokee Nation, one of the largest registered Native American tribes in the U.S., has officially decided to recognize same-sex marriage. The tribe, as a separate sovereign, isn’t bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 gay-marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. But its judgment relies in part on evidence of historical recognition of same-sex relationships among Cherokees -- a basis for contemporary gay rights that is different from, and in some ways deeper than, the equality and dignity rationales that the Supreme Court used.

The history of how tribes have been treated in their interaction with the U.S. legal system is complex and often inconsistent -- usually to the detriment of the tribes. But the basic principle of “Indian law” is that tribes are considered sovereign nations: dependent on the U.S. and subject to congressional control in some respects, but entitled to exercise self-government.

Thus, tribes need not govern themselves democratically -- nor are they necessarily bound by the U.S. Constitution. Instead, basic rights in Indian country come from either the tribes’ own fundamental constitutional principles or the Indian Civil Rights Act, enacted by Congress in 1968.

The act includes guarantees of equal protection and due process of law, the same principles that are found in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that were the basis for the Obergefell decision.

[W]hen Todd Hembree, the attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, issued his binding gay marriage opinion last week, the Indian Civil Rights Act went unmentioned. The decision was based on the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation, which he described as “the supreme written will of the Cherokee people regarding the framework of their government.” Hembree mentioned Obergefell only to cite it in a footnote.

What’s perhaps most remarkable about the attorney general’s opinion is how it grounded its argument in Cherokee tradition. In a section titled “Perpetual Partnership and Marriage in the Cherokee Nation,” Hembree devoted significant attention to a ceremony of devotion that was traditionally performed between two men at an annual festival.

Hembree quoted in its entirety an eyewitness description from 1836 by John Howard Payne, a picaresque writer, composer and traveler. In Payne’s account, the ritual “sprang from a passionate friendship between young men” that led them “mutually to a solemn act of devotedness to each other.” The young men would engage in “silent interchange of garment after garment, until each was clad in the other’s dress.”

According to Hembree, “the relationship described in some respects would seem to parallel a modern-day same-sex marriage” -- and received “recognition by the other members of the tribe.”

The attorney general’s opinion also referred to a 19th century report on Cherokee customs that stated, “There were among them formerly men who assumed the dress and performed all the duties of women and who lives full lives in this manner.” This resonates with contemporaneous reports from many tribes, especially in the Great Plains, of men who lived as women. The anthropological literature long referred to them as “berdaches,” from a French word for the younger partner in a gay male relationship; today the preferred term is “two spirits.”

Hembree seemed to demonstrate to Cherokees that acceptance of same-sex relationships is a core element of their unique cultural and religious traditions.

Now that gay marriage is a legal right, the next challenge is to convince opponents that the best reading of their own traditions favors equal treatment of gay couples. The Cherokee nation’s attorney general is leading the way.

It's long past time that more nations and societies wake up to the reality that homophobia is a western Christian import, brough by the same missionaries that proved so disastrous for so many cultures.   Where you find hatred of others, all too often religion is at the core. 

Donald Trump's Anti-LGBT Supreme Court Picks

Some have tried to claim that Donald Trump would be less hostile toward LGBT citizens than some of the other Republican presidential candidates would be.  Like so much of what hears from self-loathing (and greed motivated, money loving) gay Republicans,  such claims are seemingly nothing more than wishful thinking.  At least that is the conclusion to be reached from Donald Trump's supposed list of potential Supreme Court justice nominees.  None are gay friendly and some are outright hostile or backed by anti-gay organizations.  The Advocate looks at Trump's toxic list of would be Court nominees.  Here are highlights:

LGBT Americans have reason to worry about Donald Trump’s list of hypothetical Supreme Court nominees, which includes a judge who tweeted about marrying bacon and one who upheld public funding for student groups that discriminate.

All 11 of Trump’s potential picks, announced today, have solidly conservative judicial records. Not all have ruled in LGBT rights cases, but those who have are largely unsympathetic, and some have the backing of anti-LGBT activists.

Here’s a look at some of Trump’s favorite jurists.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett: He’s definitely one of the more colorful possibilities, as he’s known for his frequent use of Twitter to comment on legal and political matters. In 2015, as the nation was abuzz over the marriage equality case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Willett tweeted the following: I could support recognizing a constitutional right to marry bacon.  More recently, he made sport of transgender-inclusive school policies.

On Texas’s high court, Willett has not been inclined to recognize same-sex marriage. Last year a Texas judge allowed two women, one with ovarian cancer, to marry before the state’s ban on such unions struck down, and the state Supreme Court dismissed Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to the marriage; Willett dissented. He also dissented from the Texas court’s decision not to take up a case on the validity of a same-sex divorce.

Willett was appointed to the court in 2005 by then-Gov. Rick Perry to fill a vacancy and has been reelected by voters twice. In his 2012 primary, he was endorsed by such religious right types as James Dobson, David Barton, Liberty Institute CEO Kelly Shackelford, and Greg Abbott — then Texas’s attorney general, now its governor.

Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes: Sykes was on a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit that in 2006 affirmed a student group’s right to discriminate against those who engage in “homosexual conduct” but still be recognized as an official campus group and receive public funding. Four years later, “the Supreme Court rejected her approach in a similar case,” notesThinkProgress.  

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras: In 2012, Stras was among the court majority in a case overruling the secretary of state’s assignment of a new title to an anti–marriage equality constitutional amendment going before voters. The original title, chosen by the state legislature, was “Recognition of Marriage Solely Between One Man and One Woman.” Secretary of State Mark Ritchie instead selected “Limiting the Status of Marriage to Opposite Sex Couples,” which legislators thought would make voters more likely to oppose the amendment. 

Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge William H. Pryor Jr.: LGBT activists have been wary of Pryor because he filed a friend of the court brief supporting sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, and he “also cast the deciding vote to oppose hearing a challenge to Florida’s law that banned gay people from adopting,” ThinkProgress reports. He has also derided LGBT rights as “political correctness.”

For the remaining judges on Trump’s list, significant anti-LGBT rulings and comments have yet to surface. They are largely very conservative, though, with records of opposing or at least seeking to limit abortion rights, and seeking to restrict voting rights and workers’ rights.

A Christian's Confessed Change of Mind of Gay Rights and Marriage Quality

I have often said that the best justification for not wanting to call one's self a Christian is the behavior of those loudly embracing that title - especially those in "conservative" denominations.  Instead of love for others, kindness and good works, the hallmarks of such Christians is hate, bigotry, judgment of others, and hypocrisy that would the Pharisees of the New Testament.  I have in many ways ceased to think of myself as a Christian because the word carries nothing but negative connotations.  The exodus of the under 30 generations from organized religion demonstrates that I am not alone in this feeling.  I happened across a piece in DailyExtra by a former conservative - ultra-right wing might be a more apt description - Catholic that explains his conversion on gay rights and his need to leave the Roman Catholic Church, especially after the way his was treated by the "godly folk" when he began to question their hate and animus based beliefs. Here are excerpts:

Pigs flying overhead, hell freezing over and any other clichés you can come up with to describe shock, incredulity or even horror: Michael Coren, writing an article for Daily Xtra! If it’s any comfort, until around two years I also would have thought the idea preposterous. I say it with no pride, and more than a little shame, that for the longest time I was considered an opponent and even an enemy of the LGBT community. That changed, or I changed, after a set of events and experiences in early 2014, which I chronicle in my new book, Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind over Same-Sex Marriage.

The entire process is too long and multi-layered to explain in a column, but the origins were in then foreign minister John Baird’s entirely justified and vital criticism of Uganda’s proposed legislation to make homosexuality a capital crime.

I suppose the door had been opened. Shortly after this, World Vision, an international Christian charity group, announced that people in same-sex relationships were welcome to work for them. Within 24 hours, however, pressure from Christian groups and churches had forced them to backtrack. They had threatened to withdraw their funding. In other words, fire the gays or African children will die. Christ must have been weeping. 

I certainly did. This was not the faith I had embraced so many years earlier. I spoke out against Christian homophobia, called for a new conversation, pleaded that we listen rather than shout. Which led to a campaign of abuse, threats and insults that I have never encountered in a long journalistic career that includes time in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and war zones.

I was seeing a new, deeply disturbing face of Christianity . . . . In June 2014, I wrote my syndicated Sun column — in a dozen newspapers — apologizing for any pain I had caused gay people. I didn’t even mention marriage at this stage, but offered contrition for my actions and words. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.

What happened next changed my life. The waves of love and warmth that came to me from gay people all over North America and even Europe broke my heart. I was also fired from columns, lost numerous speeches and was labeled an adulterer, a thief and someone who was mentally ill. People wrote to my wife, claiming that I was having an affair with another man; my children’s Facebook pages were trolled and they were in turn accused of various crimes.

If the desired effect was to change my mind, it worked. It radicalized me, obliged me to read, think and pray harder and to soon realize that I had been wrong on marriage — to be candid, I think I knew this anyway but lacked the courage to say it. So I did indeed come out, as it were, and declared my support for equal marriage. I also knew I couldn’t remain in the Roman Catholic Church any longer and retain self-respect. I could not lie, could not pretend. I no longer believed in the Catholic Church’s moral teachings.

Yet all of this was product not of a weaker belief, but of a deeper Christian faith, and a belief in a Jesus who accepted everyone and who personified not judgment but love; a man who never even mentioned homosexuality but did scold those who condemned others, and who assumed that only they were pure and righteous.

I joined the Anglican church, where I have never been happier. That move was made public by some right-wing Catholic bloggers and the attacks were multiplied. I was dismissed from more columns and had more speeches cancelled — and while money and career aren’t the issue here, I probably lost half of my income — which is ironic, as one of the attacks on me was that my move was motivated by money!

Now comes a book and, I am sure, more darkness from those who dance in its shadows. But my only regret is that this didn’t happen earlier. Let me say again, even though I have said it countless times: I am sorry for any pain or harm caused. I can’t expunge that, but I can make sure that what years I have left are devoted to what is true, good, noble and liberating. Thank God for my epiphany.   

Few are more mean and vicious than the "godly" conservative Christians.  Like Islamic fundamentalists, hate and mistreatment of others are their main fruits of their religious belief.  The sooner society at large recognizes this reality and the sooner journalists and politicians cease giving deference to such foul people, the better off the world will be.  In my view, the death of Christianity - especially conservative strains - would be a net positive for the world. 

How Southern States are Challenging Gay Marriage

While the South likes to see itself in sanitized version of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind - a land of cavaliers and their fair ladies and beautiful antebellum houses  - the truth is that much of the South's true history has been far different and very, very ugly.  From the scourge of slavery, to segregation and the Jim Crow laws to hate filled evangelical Christians, much of the South's history is based on the subjugation and mistreatment of others.  Some things never change it seems as a number of Southern legislatures - all controlled by Republicans, of course, pandering to what my New Orleans belle grandmother would have deemed "white trash" - are enacting anti-gay laws under the disingenuous smoke screen of defending "religious liberty."  These laws grant noting less that special rights to Christian extremists and, in some cases, are worded so broadly that gays will not be the only ones to face open discrimination.  In Virginia, we fortunately have a governor who will veto the foul legislation.  Other states are a different story and businesses in Georgia are bracing for a backlash and/or considering leaving that state.  The Christian Science Monitor looks at the modern day  equivalent of the effort that undid Reconstruction.  Here are highlights: 

Four more states joined a broad conservative push against same-sex marriage this week, as several moved forward legislation that protects businesses, officials, and organizations who refuse to serve gay couples. In Kentucky, lawmakers pushed to create separate marriage licenses for gay and straight weddings. 

Citing religious liberty, lawmakers in Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi approved bills that they say offers equal protection for same-sex marriage opponents and supporters alike. These are states where there is far less public support for the Supreme Court's June 2015 effective legalization of gay marriage than polls show nationwide. 

Although majorities of Americans support the right to gay marriage, Southern states, in particular, show a different story. In Mississippi, for example, where support for gay marriage is the lowest in the country, only 25 percent support it, and just 54 percent believe it should be illegal to discriminate against gay individuals, according to polls by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Overall, 53 percent of Americans support gay marriage, while 37 percent oppose it; 71 percent support laws against discriminating against gay or transgender people for housing or jobs.

On Friday, Mississippi's House voted 80-39 to pass a bill protecting state officials, faith leaders, and religious organizations who act on their beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman, that sex is only acceptable between husband and wife, and that gender is established at birth. The protections would include circuit clerks and judges, as well as employment decisions, such as firing an employee whose actions are considered out of line with a religious organization's views. The bill is now being held for further debate before going to the state Senate. 

Similar legislation passed in the Georgia Senate on Friday, despite businesses' concern that it could hurt the tourist industry.

Gay marriage supporters, however, say that what such legislation favors is discrimination. 

"We don’t allow people to discriminate against . . . interracial marriages, interfaith marriages, disparate-age marriages. We can’t start this precedent where there’s this one type of relationship that people can discriminate against without any fear of punishment," James Parrish, the executive director of Equality Virginia, an LGBT advocacy organization in Richmond, told the Washington Post.

From state to state, conservative lawmakers claim their religious beliefs against gay marriage face discrimination, not gay couples themselves. 

[M]ajorities of all Christian groups surveyed support non-discrimination laws to protect gay people, and majorities in all but two of those groups oppose letting private businesses refuse them service: 56 percent of white evangelicals, and 58 percent of Mormons. 

The demographic trends are pointing in a direction decidedly against the conservative positions, yet the older-generation leadership of the party is still wedded to the former consensus," George Mason University's School of Policy, Government and International Affairs Dean Mark J. Rozell told the Washington Post. "The Republicans frankly haven’t figured it out yet." 

As has been the case through so much of its history, the South is out of step with the rest of the nation and suffers a well deserved reputation of a region where hate and bigotry thrive.  Here in Virginia, the backwardness is especially acute in Southwest Virginia, a region of the state where coal industry jobs are drying up, unemployment is soaring and few businesses seek to locate because of the region's backwardness and bigotry.

Virginia Gave Birth to Gay Marriage in the South

Being gay has changed a lot since I "came out" and moved out of the family home in 2002.  Gay sex no longer exposes one to a potential felony conviction, same sex couples can now marry, and gay couples are being welcomed as members in local yacht and country clubs.   Much still needs to be done to end the lack of non-discrimination protections in employment, housing and public accommodations.  On the same sex marriage front, I had a front row seat if you will since the lead plaintiffs in the marriage litigation were personal friends.  The other strange twist was that David Oakley, the attorney representing the Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk, was also someone I knew both socially and professionally.  He did not take kindly to some of my comments on this blog and argued that he was involved in the case to ultimately have the issue resolved, not because he was anti-gay.  He has a guest editorial piece in the Virginian Pilot today that looks at this sea change for Virginia and the South.  Here are excerpts:

THE COURAGE shown by a few Virginians led our commonwealth to become the first Southern state to allow gay marriage, but the debate continues to define the parameters of Virginia law.

It all started on what was otherwise an ordinary day in the office of George Schaefer, the Norfolk Circuit Court clerk, when Timothy Bostic and Tony London asked for a marriage license.

Like others before them, they were politely and respectfully turned down because the Virginia Constitution allowed marriage only between one man and one woman. Yet, Bostic and London were the first gay couple ready to push forward, armed with a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court [the Windsor ruling]. That decision came close to, but ultimately deferred ruling on, whether same-sex marriage was protected by the Constitution — one of the defining social issues of the times.

It took courage of the Norfolk parties, whose personal and professional lives were subjected to intense scrutiny. Bostic and London chose to pursue their case in the federal court system knowing that many disagreed with their goal. Virginia’s newly elected attorney general, Mark Herring, showed courage in the face of backlash when he changed his position and vigorously argued to strike down Virginia’s marriage laws as unconstitutional.

Schaefer, an elected official, was now a necessary party to the case.  If he had refused to defend Virginia’s marriage laws as they existed, the courts would have lacked what is known as a justiciable issue. In other words, without a party to prosecute and defend both sides of an issue, the courts will not weigh in. . . . . Thus, he stood his ground and defended Virginia’s ban on gay marriage, asserting it was the commonwealth’s right to define marriage as voted upon by its citizens.

The presiding U.S. District judge was criticized by many in the days following her historic ruling. But her ruling was clear: Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution.

The split in opinion among the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal’s three-judge panel showed the battle was still unsettled; not everyone agreed. But the door had swung open to allow same-sex marriage in the Southern states. The public debate was no longer theoretical. Same-sex marriage arrived in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. 

Recently, Judge Steven C. Frucci of the Virginia Beach Circuit Court was asked to rule in a custody dispute between two women going through a divorce.   Just a short time ago, the non-biological parent in that relationship would not have had custody or visitation rights, but Fruicci correctly ruled that today she does.

In the end, David Oakley was right and with his assistance, George Schaefer, the Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk, and Tim Bostic and Tony London helped force the courts to strike down unconstitutional laws.

Is Ted Cruz Trying to Dupe Christofascist Repulicans?

Cruz with wealthy gay donor

Ted Cruz is relentlessly pandering and prostituting himself to the Christofascists in the GOP base, especially in Iowa where he has garnered endorsements from leading anti-gay hate groups.  Meanwhile, he is down playing the Wall Street money that is funding his campaign and his ties to Goldman Sachs, a leading supporter of LGBT equality and gay marriage.  Michelangelo Signorile has a post in Huffington Post that looks at how Cruz may be playing the Christofascists for fools.  Here are excerpts:

Ted Cruz has been attacking "New York values," something he declined to describe at first, saying people across the country would simply "know" what he means, until Thursday night's GOP presidential debate, when pressed to give more detail. He then said, "Everybody understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal and pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage. And focus on money and the media."

That was rich considering how much he and his wife Heidi -- a Goldman Sachs investment manager for several years -- love that New York money, and thus support the very values to which he's pointing. Not only are some of his biggest campaign contributors Wall Street financiers, like the hedge fund operator Robert Mercer, who backed Cruz with $11 million (and who lives on Long Island) but as the New York Times reported yesterday, Cruz and his wife took an undisclosed loan from her employer, Goldman Sachs, to fund his first Senate campaign, in addition to one from New York-based Citibank.

But it gets richer: Just a few months before Cruz took that Goldman Sachs money, Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of the New York-headquartered investment banking firm, had been given an award by the Human Rights Campaign, because Blankfein and his firm had become leaders on marriage equality. Goldman Sachs wasn't just another "pro-gay" company -- it was one that had been a driving force on influential Wall Street for LGBT equality. Goldman had long provided full benefits for domestic partners, and since 2002 had even paid for gender confirmation surgery for transgender employees.

As commentators have discussed, disclosing the loan also would have sent the wrong message to the tea party at the time when Cruz was running as a tea party darling. Banks were being bailed out, angering tea party activists, and Goldman had been at the forefront of the firms whose reckless actions led to the mortgage crisis.

But what's been less noted is how the religious right, another force behind Cruz, would have responded if it knew at the time that Cruz was taking a loan from a company that had helped make marriage equality a reality in June of 2011 in New York State, less than a year before Cruz took that loan. Much of Cruz's campaign has been based on his supposedly uncompromising evangelical beliefs, including opposition to gay marriage.
Certainly any card-carrying evangelical opposed to marriage equality should have been loudly lambasting Goldman Sachs at that time -- and even now -- and should have been boycotting it rather than taking a loan from it. And let's not forget that Cruz had no problem being hosted at the Manhattan home of two gay hoteliers in New York last year who introduced him to some funders -- until the news got out and Cruz ran for cover.

It would certainly be interesting to know what evangelicals think now of Cruz taking a loan from Goldman Sachs rather than railing against the firm at the time for contributing to what Cruz claims is "the very definition of tyranny." Maybe gay marriage -- and New York values -- are not tyrannical enough to turn money away.

Godly "Christians" Continue to Use Lies and False Research Against Gays

Christofascists continue to lie about gay parenting

As America ponders how and why a young Muslim couple could have been motivated to go on a shooting rampage, godly Christians continue to use false "research" and "science" to try to justify their ongoing religious based jihad against LGBT citizens. Poisonous, twisted religious belief in both case justify violence and deliberate lies and denigration of others.  Both apparent reactions against modernity and religious tolerance.  Both stemming from "holy books" that laud murder and mayhem and genocide.  In addition to a massive gun confiscation program, perhaps we need copies of the Bible and Koran to be collected and burned.  Both books are the source of much hate and evil.  But back to the Christofascist lie campaign against gays.  Despite the fact that EVERY legitimate medical and mental health association in America have concluded that gay parenting is just as healthy and supportive of child rearing as heterosexual parenting, the Christofascist persist in claims that gay parents are bad for children.  A column in the Los Angeles Times looks at the knowingly false campaign of deliberate lies.  Here are excerpts:

Now that the Supreme Court has found a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples, it seems logical that the parallel national debate over same-sex parenting might also be over. After all, the two issues were proxies for each other. Social conservatives had argued that marriage equality would increase the number of motherless or fatherless households, a climate they argued was bad for kids. Once gay and lesbian couples could marry — strengthening their parental ties — their opponents would seem to have less room to challenge their right to be parents.

Yet the battle continues. In Utah last month, a judge ordered a baby girl removed from her foster home because the couple parenting her were lesbians. (He later rescinded the order and passed the case to another judge.) In Kansas, conservative state senators are pushing a bill to pay straight — but not gay — couples to be foster parents. In Texas and Alabama, state authorities are refusing to allow or recognize some adoptions by gays and lesbians. And in Nebraska and Mississippi, advocates were forced to mount court challenges to undo laws restricting the ability of same-sex couples to adopt or foster.

One of the primary justifications invoked for limiting gay parental rights is “science.” . . . . But a closer look shows that what is being cited as “science” in these situations is anything but. In fact, flawed scholarship is being used as a smokescreen to create the illusion of legitimate debate where none exists.

We have identified 77 studies that address the well-being of children with gay or lesbian parents. Seventy-three of them find that such children face no disadvantages from having gay or lesbian parents. The studies used a wide range of methodologies, many relying on small sampling pools but some on nationally representative data. The aggregate result is an overwhelming scholarly consensus that having a gay parent causes no harm, one reason that every major professional organization that deals with child welfare opposes discriminating against LGBT families.

As to the outlier studies, all share the same fatal flaw. At most a handful of the children who were studied were actually raised by same-sex parents; . . . . So in the end, the outlier studies don't tell us anything about same-sex parenting; they just tell us what's long been known: Family stress and disruption are bad for kids, while stable ties are good for them.

In 2014, the outlier research was presented in court in defense of Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage. Federal Judge Bernard A. Friedman wasn't buying it. He singled out Mark Regnerus, a sociologist from the University of Texas and one of the outlier researchers, for a scalding rebuke. Evidence had been presented that Regnerus' research was not only underwritten by a group opposed to same-sex marriage, but that close collaboration between funder and researcher had undercut its scholarly independence: “The funder clearly wanted a
specific result and Regnerus obliged,” wrote Friedman in overturning the Michigan ban . . . .

[T]he authors of the outlier studies are substituting ideological beliefs for scientific accuracy . . . 

When a judge in Utah or legislators in Kansas ignore solid scholarship and cite flawed research instead, it's nothing but a rear-guard attack, a quest to block or roll back LGBT progress. For some conservatives, the end of the debate just creates more reason to fight, even if it means weakening ties between parents and their children. 

Christian Extremists Blame Gays and Abortion for California Mass Shooting

As seems to be thew norm nowadays when something terrible occurs, the "godly folk" and the parasitic professional Christian crowd - who need to whip the sheeple into a frenzy to keep the money coming in - blame gays and abortion as the real causation.  A case in point is Christian extremist Alex McFarland who says God allowed the San Bernadino shooting to occur because of abortion and the "mainstreaming of sodomy."  Under McFarland's fairy tale beliefs, e.g., that there is a mythical god such as he describes, one act of possibly religious based terror is the result of America's failure to subscribe to yet another form of extremist religious belief that would murder or at least denigrate millions of people.  McFarland concludes his hate fest by saying Barack Obama is a secret Muslim.  In my view, the real solution is to remove ALL religion form society and the world.  Right Wing Watch looks at the batshitery. Here are highlights:

Right-wing Christian apologist Alex McFarland was on Dove TV's "Focus Today" program yesterday to discuss the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino, California, earlier this week, which he blamed on abortion and gay marriage.

"People are saying, 'Why didn't God prevent this?'" McFarland stated, "Look, we've for 45 years told God to leave us alone. Fifty-seven to sixty million babies aborted, now our Supreme Court has deviated from natural law to case law and we've redefined marriage ... God forgive us for the murder of the unborn, God forgive us for kicking prayer out of public schools, God forgive us for making sodomy mainstream and redefining marriage."

"The greatest sin of all is abortion in our nation," he continued, "and the judgment of God only escalate until we turn to the Lord."

Later, McFarland declared that President Obama supposedly refuses to fight radical Islam because he is secretly a Muslim.

"In my heart, I'm going to be honest with you, I suspect he is a Muslim," McFarland said. "I really do."

No doubt "turning to the Lord" includes giving money to charlatans like McFarland.  The real evil in the world is religion which has hate and division as it principal fruits.