Monday Male Beauty

Who Would Jesus Marry?

Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has a timely column in the Washington Post that looks at the question of who would Jesus allow to marry? Her argument parallels that of the recent Newsweek story that has caused Christianists to have conniption fits. I agree with her thoughts and again it shows that the anti-gay Christianists in reality act like the Pharisees whom Jesus roundly condemned. Here are some highlights:

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Would Jesus have been willing to officiate at gay weddings? There is nothing in the Gospels that would indicate that he would not. Indeed, the Gospel writers do not record one word Jesus ever said condemning homosexuality. But Jesus does say, "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you...For the measure you give will be the measure you receive." (Luke 6:37, 38b)

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What kind of hard heart does it take to see people weep with joy at being permitted to marry and respond with schemes to take their marriages away from them? Some of these gay couples have lived together in loving support and faithfulness for 20, 30 even 40 or 50 years. And yet, there are some who would change the law to take away their marriages and others who would make laws to prevent them from marrying in the first place. Whom does Jesus teach us will be condemned for these judgments? Those homosexual couples who marry for love or the hard-hearted heterosexuals who would try to prevent them?

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Heterosexuals have been invited to the banquet of love and joy that is marriage. They have had the freedom to marry and they have refused it and abused it and often made a hash of this great feast of human companionship. So now God is inviting the outcast, the gay men, the lesbians, the bisexuals and the transgendered to come to the banquet of love. God says to them, 'come and rejoice with me because there is room at the banquet table of love.'

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Yes, there is a scriptural case to be made for gay marriage and that case is nothing less than the all inclusive love of God as taught to us by Jesus Christ. But there is also a word in scripture for hard-hearted heterosexuals who won't face up to the sorry state of heterosexual marriage and who want to blame it on gay people and everybody but themselves. And that biblical teaching begins with the words, "Woe to you who...."

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Yet Another Closeted Gay Movie Star

The list of closeted gays from Hollywood's past just seems to get longer and longer. Besides Tony Perkins, Merv Griffin, Raymond Burr, Rock Hudson, Richard Chamberlain, and Tab Hunter to name a few, it appears that the name Van Johnson can be added to the list. Johnson died on Friday in Nyack, New York at the age of 92. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times both avoid any mention of Johnson's sexual orientation and apparent arranged marriage back in 1947 at the directive of MGM chief Louis B. Mayer with Evie Wynn. Her obituary from back in 2004 shows a far different reality from the one engineered by Mayer, et al. It is unfortunate that even in this day and age major stars feel compelled to pretend to be someone other than who they really are. Hopefully, some day soon a star will feel that he/she can be out and not suffer damage to his/her career. Here are some highlights from the Independent's 2004 article:

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In 1999, when Evie was bitter and near poverty, she finally stated that MGM had persuaded her to marry Johnson, one of their top stars of the Forties. "They needed their `big star' to be married to quell rumours about his sexual preferences," she said, "and unfortunately, I was `It' - the only woman he would marry."

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Although rumours quickly circulated that the MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had ordered the union to cover up potential scandal, the truth is cloudy. The writer Arthur Laurents states in his memoirs, a sunny male star caught performing in public urinals once too often was ordered by his studio to get married. His best friends, a young comedian and his wife, divorced so that he could marry the wife.

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She was briefly reconciled with Johnson and travelled with him to London in 1961 when he starred on stage in The Music Man, but the couple finally parted when Johnson began an affair with a member of the show's cast. Ned Wynn writes that his mother told him that Johnson had left her "for a man - a boy, really. He's the lead boy dancer."

More Sunday Male Beauty

The Increasingly Delusional Virginia GOP

As a one time Republican, the increasing insanity of the Republican Party particularly here in the Old Dominion is getting harder and harder to fathom. One cannot help but wonder what drugs or strong Kool-Aid is being imbibe by the party base. The party has suffered repeated losses of late but rather than moderate and acknowledge the state's changing demographics, the Republican Party of Virginia ("RPV")retreats increasingly to the far right alienating even more voters. Pam's House Blend has a good recap of the bat shittery to use her term of what's going on within the RPV. Here are a few highlights:

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In case the RPV didn't notice, the Democrats carried the state and added a new U.S senator during this month's election. White conservative voters are a shrinking part of the electorate. Republicans can get 100% of the conservative white vote, but it wouldn't be enough to win state or nation-wide. So, what is the RPV's plan to build a coalition that will make them competitive? Move further to the right!

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So, let me make sure I understand this strategy. The party just lost the state to a democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1964, the state has changed from red to blue, they just lost the other U.S. senate seat to a Democrat, they lost control of the state senate, and have a 7 seat lead in the house of delegates, and they want to move even further to the right. This illogical thinking is what is driving people like me and others away from this party in droves. What should the party do?

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The first thing they should do is to get rid of their racist chairman, Jeff Frederick. Last month he compared Senator Obama to Osama bin Laden, saying, "they both have friends that bombed the Pentagon." Which of course is not true. Frederick has yet to apologize for his ignorant remarks...Not one person in leadership from RPV called him to task on this insidious comment.

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As long as the RPV continues to inject race into their campaigns, require conservative litmus tests for participation, and ignore the changing demographics of the state, they are destined to continue losing seats and elections.

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I would further add that besides abandoning the politics of racism, the RVP needs to dump its Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell element and likewise stop listening to profession homophobes such as Victoria Cobb at The Family Foundation.

The Reality of Civil Unions

No matter what you call it, unequal rights are still unequal rights under the law.

Sunday Male Beauty

Christianists Seek to Destroy Jefferson's Statue for Religious Freedom

A group has been formed - centered at least on its face at Christopher Newport University ("CNU") in Newport News, Virginia - seeking to overturn Thomas Jefferson's wonderfully elegant and forceful Statute for Religious Freedom which is still the law in Virginia even though the Virginia Legislature has ignored its spirit by enacting anti-gay legislation and other legislation that discriminates against those who do not subscribe to a Christianist version of religious belief. The Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom in fact is one of the three things for which Jefferson wanted to be remembered and appears on his tomb at Monticello. The pretense for the new statute is the alleged persecution of Christians by secularism because some self-centered Christians who care nothing for the religious freedoms of others are increasingly unable to force their religious beliefs upon the rest of society as a whole. By dishonestly describing the intent behind Jefferson's statute, they seek to change Virginia's long standing law in order to enable them to place their belief system above those of other Virginians.

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The reality is that Virginia has changed drastically over the last few decades and its population includes individuals of many diverse religions. In this area of Southeast Virginia alone one finds many Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Bhuddists, assorted Christian denominations and other faiths. Northern Virginia has an even more diverse range of religious traditions. The side effect is that certain Christian groups are upset that case law and court decisions have limited their ability to inflict their particular set of religious beliefs on other citizens and hence the disingenuous claim that they are being persecuted by secularism. The truth is that they are free to practice their version of religion without any impediment so long as they do not seek to inflict their beliefs on others in the public realm or otherwise. Unfortunately, this is not enough for these people self-center, self-absorbed people. I encourage you to contact them at New.Virginia@verizon.net and tell them what you think of their effort to subvert Thomas Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom. Better yet, contact the University President, Paul Trible (a former conservative U.S. Senator) at (757) 594-7000 and ask him WTF is going on with some of his staff. Virginia residents should contact their representatives in the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates and likewise ask them to investigate what the Hell is going on at CNU.

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In closing, here are highlights from what Jefferson had s to say about those who sought to force their religious beliefs on others:

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the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical;

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. . . . our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right

Wither Goes the Future of Evangelicals?

Richard Cizik was forced from a leadership position at the National Association of Evangelicals last week largely because his views on maintaining a never ending anti-gay jihad are shifting and he seems to recognize that the evangelical Christianity of James Dobson, Tony Perkins and other professional homo-haters is becoming increasingly toxic with moderate and independent voters not to mention the youngest generation of Americans who increasingly see Christianity in a negative light. Cizik's sin of actually having an expansive view of the problems facing the world was a mortal sin for those who in my view come across as closet case homophobes. Seriously, no one gets as hysterical about homosexuality as Dobson, Wildon, Perkins, et al unless they have some pretty serious personal emotional issues going own. In my experience, heterosexuals who are comfortable with their own sexuality are no frightened by LGBT people.

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I believe that the gay-hating evangelicals will lead to the decline of Christianity with future generations if their hate filled mantra is not eliminated and a more tolerant and embracing version of Christianity adopted. In keeping with this view are comments that Jim Wallis at Sojourner made on Cizik's forced reignation. Here are highlights from his remarks:

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Rich Cizik has been a pioneer in the "new evangelical" movement and a real hero, especially to the next generation of young believers. Rich has helped lead the way to putting "creation care" and climate change on the mainstream agenda of the evangelical movement. His pilgrimage to a deep passion for the planet that God made for us has been, in his own language, a "conversion" and an "epiphany." Because of that, he has become a powerful spokesperson for many in the Christian world who are having that same conversion.

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Rich Cizik still supports the Christian tradition of marriage between a man and a woman, which he reiterated after the interview, and that his strong pro-life commitments certainly included abortion, even though in the interview he said that pro-life commitments should include more than just abortion. He pointed out in the interview that younger evangelicals don't have all the same views on gay and lesbian and rights as their parents do, that more of them have friendships with gay people, and are more sympathetic to their equal protection under the law and issues like civil unions. That Cizik admitted that he identified with those shifts created the firestorm.

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All of this is very sad for many reasons. . . . . Already, leaders from many faith traditions, including many national evangelical leaders, have expressed great dismay at the loss of Rich Cizik in such a key role. And the Religious Right is already using Cizik's resignation to attempt to roll back the wider social justice and environmental agenda of the NAE.

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I encourage the NAE's leadership to stay on the path they have chosen and resist the efforts of those who would again seek to narrow the evangelical agenda in unbiblical ways and make it again subservient to a conservative political agenda.

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As for Rich Cizik, he will continue to be a leader in the new faith coalition that is emerging now, and that will replace the Religious Right, without becoming a religious left. Pioneer's sometimes get into trouble and even pay a price for their explorations into new territories. But in the new moral center that is now visible, Rich's prophetic voice and leadership will continue to be heard and felt.

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I hope Wallis is correct in his hopes. The Christian Right is neither right nor Christian and have turned the Gospel message into a message of hate. The sooner Dobson, Perkins and others of that ilk are banished to the political and religious wilderness, the better for all people of good will.