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To This Minister, Prop. 8 Is Repugnant
As a minister for almost 30 years I have had the joy of performing many weddings. Ministers are called upon to participate in a variety of important moments in the lives of their people; none is more filled with joy than a wedding. In recent years, I have had the opportunity to perform same-gender wedding ceremonies with the blessing of my denomination, the United Church of Christ. But it wasn't until recent months (June to be exact) that I was able to perform such weddings with the authority of the state of California.
Since the state court ruling legalizing equal marriage in California, I have performed eight weddings for same-gender couples. Only one of them had not previously had some other kind of religious or social ceremony to celebrate their relationship. What I find most interesting is how important it is for couples, many of whom have been together for decades, to have the opportunity to be legally married. For most of us straight allies, the right to marry is so fundamental it is difficult to imagine what it would mean to be prohibited from marrying the person we love. Even more difficult to imagine is that the voters of California could conspire to negate my marriage of 25 years! And that brings us to the situation in which we find ourselves regarding Proposition 8, on Tuesday's ballot in California.
The thousands of same-gender couples who have married in the few months since the California Supreme Court cleared the way are in fact married. The notion that a majority vote by people who are not party to these marriages of love, commitment, care and family will have the power to impose a divorce on these couples is flatly repugnant. The idea that those who wish to form relationships that will enhance their lives, provide a framework of support and nurture for their relationship, protect their families (especially their children) from uncertainty at the most vulnerable times in life (particularly illness and death) should be prohibited because of the religious feelings of some and the blatant bias of others strikes me as un-American.
It has often been noted that the Bill of Rights would have a difficult time passing today. The freedom of religion goes both ways. One is free to marry according to one's faith (or personal beliefs) and others are free to marry according to their faith (or personal beliefs). As a minister of one of the oldest religious traditions in America (the Pilgrim Congregationalists are our ecclesiastical ancestors) I stand in the tradition of the freedom of conscience that was the basis not only of Protestantism but of democracy and liberty at the founding of the United States.
"The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice" are words made more famous by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the course of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It was his subtle way of warning those wedded to the ideology of segregation that they were not only inevitably wrong but that the world, despite their best efforts, would inevitably change. Many of the advances of the civil rights era were won at the bar of the court and not at the ballot box. It is sad to see black clergy of the megachurch movement, like Frederick Price of the Crenshaw Christian Center, sullying the moral authority of the black church by partnering with the right-wing evangelicals, Mormons and Knights of Columbus to pass Proposition 8. It is a travesty to see the proponents of Prop. 8 use children like human shields against any charge of homophobia that might rightly be leveled against them. They send out mailers and produce ads that use words like violated and child sacrifice in the same sentence with their protestations against gay marriage. The most ironic part of this unholy alliance is that removing discrimination against a class of people is at the heart of equal marriage. The proponents feel if they can leverage the symbol of the struggle against discrimination (black folks) they can blunt the edge of the argument for equal marriage.
I do pray that voters in California will get on the right side of justice and the right side of history on Tuesday. If Proposition 8 passes it will be a devastatingly painful affirmation of our culture's capacity to inflict intentional harm on millions of persons whose only crime is a desire to live and love honestly. This time it is different from 2000 when Californians voted on Proposition 22, a measure to block same-sex marriage. Then, we had inherited a world in which these relationships were not recognized by law or custom. But now we have entered, although only recently, a brave new world in which all persons may live and love with equality before the law. To go backward would be a tragedy; not just for them but also for all of us who regard as more civilized a society that offers more and not less opportunity for meaningful, legitimate participation by all its citizens.- Posted in
53 Comments so far
Show AllThe court should never have ruled on this issue. Legislating from the bench always causes problems.
Prop 8 should solve the question. Californians will either approve it or not.
I believe they should pass it.
Please state your reasons.
"I believe they should pass it."
I MEANT DEFEAT IT. My bad! Sorry!!!
Wow! Big difference, but I agree and glad to see you're on the right side there.
Mama always said she dropped me on my head when I was young. My only excuse.
Judges are EXACTLY who should have ruled on the issue. This is a human rights issue *precisely* like racial equality. Regardless of how many people in California want to see marriage as a man and a woman, they do NOT have the right to take marriage away from same sex couples.
If there is a legal status like marriage available to one set of people, it HAS to be available to ALL sets of people regardless if whether or not you like them.
Marriage is not a religious affair. It is a civil contract that must be open to all. If you don't like it make sure that your church doesn't preform the ceremonies, that way we all win those who want the contract get it, those who don't want gays to marry don't have to let them.
Religion OUT government now and always!
Sorry this is not a human rights issue in any form. Child labor is a civil rights issue, this is a social issue.
Marriage is performed by the church usually, and no one can or should be forced to make a religious ceremony available to anyone. If they want to use the generic term...marriage, I see no problem.
You are incorrect sir. Every marriage in the US is a civil contract and only a portion are religulous. If you want to be married you need to apply to the state, pay a fee to the state, meet their requirements, get their certificate. THEN and only then can a clergyman (again - approved by the state) marry you in a ceremony.
Marriage is two things. It is the contract that everyone must partake of to get government sponsored rights like visitation and survivor benefits and freedom not to testify against one another. The other marriage is the ceremony in a church or mosque or whatever.
The first "marriage" government controls and thus must be universal. That second "marriage" no government in America may control and can be as exclusionary as you like.
Therfore it IS a civil rights issue like child labor, interracial marriage, equal rights or universal sufferage.
I urge you NOT to enter into a homosexual union if you don't want to be in one, but I defy you to stop someone that wants to be in one.
I would not do either myself. But its not a civil right no matter how you care tom present it. In California if the citizens there agree its Ok then it is. If they don't, its not.
It can be legal in California and not in Florida, because it is not a "civil" right like voting.
OK I sort of lost your argument here and not sure what you mean really.
To state clearly. The right to marry anyone you want IS a civil right. It is covered by the 14th amendment section 1 to the constitution in allowing due process to all citizens and the constitutional guarantee that no state shall, "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Since the state controls all aspects of marriage in the US and grants rights along with that status that include but are not limited to immunity from testimony at trial, visitation rights, survivor benefits and numerous other benefits that, again, come from the STATE not the church, then those benefits HAVE to be granted to all citizens equally. That is the very basis of civil rights laws.
This is the reason that California's prop 189 that denied all sorts of things to illegal immigrants was overturned. That is why prop 22 was overturned. It is common in CA for the initives to be overturned when tested against the 14th amendment.
Your child labor example is not a civil rights issue. You might want to look that up.
"Your child labor example is not a civil rights issue."
Don't have to, knew when I saw what I wrote.
I think the whole thing gets bogged down in the word marry. Check below on my posting to toast.
Legality aside, in your opinion, do you consider it a human right that GLBT people have equal rights with non GLBT people? Since they are human. Or do you believe that they are deviants that need to be "cured"? Or are sub human?
You must be kidding? Of course they should have equal rights, under the law or any other way. This really comes down to the word marriage and religious ceremony which confuse the issue. A civil union or civil marriage should carry exactly the same rights, privilages and responsibilities as a religious marriage, besides which thety are both civil contracts as someone pointed out.
"Or do you believe that they are deviants that need to be "cured"? Or are sub human?"
If thats your opinion you need help.
That's not my opinion at all.
That's the opinion of some, the more hard core ones, who oppose gay rights.
My point is that this IS a matter of human rights, since this is a matter of GLBT people being treated equally as non GLBT people. And that if they are not treated equally, then equality, equal rights, aren't rights at all. But privileges, extended and withdrawn, based on the whims of the majority.
Let's assume it's legal in California, but not in Florida. So, a GLBT couple married in California, but say, vacationing in Florida, or who have moved to Florida, would not be considered married then?
How do you propose to reconcile this?
...freedom of religion and freedom from religion...
Jesus.....no wonder you were confused, I meant DEFEAT it. Geeezzzzzz, absolutely sorry about that.
But ask anyone here, my typing stinks and sometimes I goof.
Not a human rights issue in any form?
Are GLBT people humans? Do they, in your opinion, have the same and equal rights as non GLBT people?
Churches should not be force to make a religious ceremony available to anyone. Yes. I agree. Who's doing that? Are churches forced to marry non believers? Believers in other religions? If a church doesn't want to marry a GLBT couple, it can decide that that couple is "unfit" to belong to it.
While I appreciate the Reverend coming around to the right way of thinking, he misses the underlying problem. Other Reverends, with every bit a compelling story as his own, can draw from the same religious traditions and Bible as he does, yet come to the opposite conclusion. It's the religion that's the problem.
No church should be forced to marry same sex couples if they don't want to.
No law should prevent same sex partners from making the civil contract that we call marriage.
They can find a church that will preform the ceremony, or they can do what I did and go in front of a judge.
Makes perfect sense.
I still don't understand your support for Prop. 8, if you are o.k. with a legal contract.
Jesus.....no wonder you were confused, I meant DEFEAT it. Geeezzzzzz, absolutely sorry about that.
But ask anyone here, my typing stinks and sometimes I goof.
Thank you Rev. Shockley. These are troubled times and call for bravery beyond standard measure. Your efforts are appreciated.
I have been married to the same woman for nearly 40 years. I sincerely wish that everyone of age living in this land of freedom, could enjoy the same opportunity that was accorded us, as a means to establish a long lasting union... no matter which sexual/gender orientation one enjoys. That stability makes us all stronger.
Religion should never dictate to state. Equal marriage rights do not force any religious institution to perform same sex ceremonies... it only affords those who wish to embrace all people in the pursuit of happiness, the right to do so and to have that union recognized by state.
Those exclusionary, discriminatory and protectionist interests who attempt to maintain control over all, would have us believe that it is their right to demand that, in this case, there is no separation of church and state... that they are one.
It is a wrong that no can longer be supported by anyone with good conscience.
I do have a question. You write:
"The notion that a majority vote by people who are not party to these marriages of love, commitment, care and family will have the power to impose a divorce on these couples is flatly repugnant."
You seem to be suggesting that Prop. 8 would automatically dissolve any same sex marriage that was legally performed prior to (a projected) passage. It was always my understanding that any challenge to prior marriages would need court process... that there was nothing automatic about dissolution if this abuse passes.
In fact, I believe Jerry Brown, the California State Attorney General, has clearly stated that marriages prior to any change in law would remain valid. I interpret that to mean that there is nothing automatic. Your statement seems to suggest something else. Could you please point to sources that might support what you have written?
In any case, I hope Prop. 8 goes down and stays down. Those who believe others should suffer as a result of ownership of the pursuit of happiness, need to take a close look at the foundations of their belief system. It has a deeply dark streak of unnecessary cruelty... and borders on sadism.
There is enough pain in this world without deliberately and unnecessarily adding to it... especially in the name of a god of questionable compassion.
"You seem to be suggesting that Prop. 8 would automatically dissolve any same sex marriage that was legally performed prior to (a projected) passage. It was always my understanding that any challenge to prior marriages would need court process... that there was nothing automatic about dissolution if this abuse passes."
I believe you are correct here. The precidents that have been quoted that I have seen support that. It was legal when it was done so it isn't automatically voided.
Frankly it seems to me it would be better just to defeat it and let things stand. As long as no relegion is forced to perform a gaty marriage ceremony what is the real difference? I can't remember if it was you or a young lady that changed my mind about the term "marriage" but whichever one of you said "we were married in a civil ceremony, does that mean we are not "married"? Of course it doesn't. Therfeore, why not gay "marriage"
How quickly people forget their own oppression and join in the oppression of others. Much like Jews in Israel, some Black Americans seem to have forgotten what it was like to be outcasts and victims of hate. Now they themselves have joined in the hate.
Sad.
i'm sure hoping this noxious legislation doesn't pass. I wish people would stop with the homophobia and just leave us alone to lead our lives the best we can. I sure wish gay marriage had been an option when i was younger!!
The California State Supreme Court (six judges were appointed by Republican Governors, the seventh was by a Democrat) did the correct thing, their job, actually, to decide if Prop 22 was constitutional, which they ruled is not. It is their job to decide if a measure or law is in accordance with the constitution. If Prop 8 passes, I would think that it will be challenged also, and the court should decide that a majority of voters cannot pass a discriminatory measure, no matter how large the margin of victory may be. Perhaps Prop 8 will be struck down and this whole affair can be put to rest, once and for all.
Precisely. The very definition of the rule of law and the prohibition on the tyrany of the majority when it is unjust.
Actually that is one of the main difference between our form of government (Constitutional Republic) versus a democracy (majority rule.)
Proposition 8 is an atrocity and I certainly hope any non-profits like the Mormon church who have been muddying the waters are investigated for potential legal violations. It is beyond my understanding to grasp how people who have been ostracized can forget their own history so easily.
Today, I turned 48. When I was seven years old in 1967, interracial marriages were banned in 17 states. The same deplorable reasons were used by equally deplorable people and at the end of the day, humanity triumphed.
A timely topic as the US elects its first African-American president(sorry Bill.
Excellent point!
As a 25 year old gay woman who has been in a commited and wonderful relationship for 6 years, I have a real sense of dread today. I don't live in California. I actually live in Massachusetts. However, if this proposition passes, it will be a slap in the face.
Unless you are gay, nobody knows what we experience. You can't understand the fear and hatred that gay people are subject to - even in more progressive communities. It's truly sickening. I find it sad too, that I fight for the rights of other groups that have been subject to horrible oppression, but you will rarely see them fighting for me.
I live in Massachusetts too. Let's hope we get to win in California. They really threw money at it out there. $$$ creates an unlevel playing field. I hope to marry someday if I find the man I am to marry. It's strange that the Democrats are supposed to win really big out there yet Prop. 8 may still pass. This is one of the many many many many reasons I don't vote for either major party. If they don't get basic rights they haven't earned my vote.
Unless you are gay, nobody knows what we experience.
____________________________________________________
I feel ya, but don't be too certain that gays and straights are fated to be 100% mutually alienated. I'm straight (and more than twice your age), and I feel pretty much the same way you do. FWIW, I believe that traits such as understanding, sensitivity, and empathy transcend sexual identity, expression, and practice, such that alienation is more of a semi-permeable membrane.
Even from the "outside", I fully share your despair over the lack of mutual support among oppressed groups. One of the most aggravating and distressing pathologies that occur among oppressed groups is quarreling and one-upsmanship over which group is "truly" more authentically oppressed.
It's just too ignorant and tiresome to set up a ranking or hierarchy of oppression, which is usually expressed in order to determine who is King of the Moral High Ground. And which in turn, consciously or unconsciously, establishes a scale for allocating resources in an indefinite but finite supply of support.
IMO, the self-serving tendency to lapse into this comparative and disconcertingly competitive attitude contributes to the lack of mutual support you rightfully deplore.
So, let's both keep our fingers un-straight and, um, hope for the best. (And I mean actual ordinary, retail hope-- not the homogenized and de-pastorized Hope™ marketed by political campaigns.) ;)
J.Russell,
We have every reason to fear.
From Max Blumenthal's Huffpo blog:
Who is funding California's Prop 8, the country's most controversial ballot measure? The Mormons' donations are well known, and are a source of outrage among the church's more moderate elements. But little attention has been focused on two of the proposition's biggest individual donors: Elsa Broekhuizen, the mother of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, and Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., the reclusive theocratic millionaire who inherited $300 million from his philanthropist father at age 18.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/who-is-the-mystery-man-be_b_140801.html
Christianity and Judaism forbids homosexual sex. Any Christian or Jew who condones it is not following their religion. Period.
Christianity and Judaism also allow slavery. Does that mean if I oppose slavery, I am not following my religion?
The Talmud specifically permits abortion in some circumstances. Are you implying that a Jew that is against abortion isn't really a Jew?
Truth_Forward
So true!!
It is the people who made up the religion who forbade homosexual sex. i don't think that God(s) really give the matter much thought
Are you a scholar of religion, a theologian, or a Biblical scholar to make such a sweeping, absolute statement? From where did you gain your expertise on Judaism and Christianity? The fact is, there are many religious scholars, theologians, and Biblical scholars who disagree with you. There are also many who don't. Clearly then, the issue isn't quite as black and white as you make it out to be.
Another fundamentalist atheist; *sigh*.
Christianity and Judaism also forbid other things. Such as eating various foods, even wearing clothes made from various materials.
Most people, whether believers, or atheists, are not fundamentalists, thankfully.
I'm sorry you don't find anyone to support your cause. It does seem strange that others subject to similar oppression rarely fight for you. Sign me up. You have every right to do what you want.
When did the churches gain control of the political act of marrage?
I think the easiest way to sum this up is to say I don't believe God restricts love by sex.
The emotional center of gravity on the abstract issue of "marriage" is located right on the boundary between the lizard brain and the pre-frontal lobes. Worse still, there are lots of neurological synapses and ganglia and things that associate the elaborated, artificial human concept of "marriage" with the primal biological function of "mating"-- the biological imperative, the Prime Directive.
It's fatally easy to conflate the disparate issues of marriage and mating, which obviously ARE inextricably intertwined, and view one through the unconscious prism of the other. Reaction and opinion are formed in a sort of gamy primordial soup in which the Breeders collectively and unconsciously assert themselves as the Dominant Noodles.
So, if you'll pardon some more technical jargon, the subject is so powerfully energized that the public goes completely nuts and hysterical when the issue is evoked.
There seems to be no way to reverse the persistent confusion over the civil and religious institutions of marriage.
The opponents of civil gay marriage exploit, even if they also share, this confusion. Thus, there's a sort of nascent, infantile concept that Marriage is the social ratification of Breeding, by definition reserved for one Male and one Female.
"People were meant to live two by two," the Stage Manager calmly avers in "Our Town". It occurs to me now that the Stage Manager really is wiser than I realized, given his choice of words. But they're uttered in the context of marriage, and are generally taken to mean that a man and a woman join to become one flesh. So, again, marriage implies propagating the species.
I'm not suggesting that any of this is necessarily conscious; I'm trying to describe the primordial soup that produces a common view of marriage as a twin sacrament administered by church and state, and typically requiring ceremonies at an altar and a government office. My view is that society is actually hung up on the atavistic tradition of paying homage and reverence to Breeding, such that male/female mates, prototypical Breeders, can actually skip the religious ceremony and be considered "married" with wholesale social approval.
Generally, society accords Marriage-Certified Breeders status; and both individuals and groups jealously guard status and its concomitant power. If social status, like a sow's milk, is a zero-sum finite quantity, one may expect consumers to resist any force that threatens to move them further from the teat, or cut into their supply.
Thus, ignorant, bigoted, stupid, and unreflective folk harbor a powerful feeling that traditional heterosexual marriage is Special, and intended to edify and ennoble the Breeder-Configuration. And, given this superstition, they are susceptible to react with fear, hostility, and rage when they're led to believe that some deluded or malicious intent to put the stink on Marriage is gaining force.
This is why the normal checks and balance questions are just out the window. Of course it doesn't, and shouldn't, make one damn iota of difference to YOUR successful traditional heterosexual marriage if the gay couple next door marries. But if you're centered on superstition, indeed gay marriage can be viewed as bad juju, a sacrilege that stains the hallowed status of Marriage for all.
Reactionaries whose ideas are formed by deep emotion and/or dogma are also susceptible to the silliest misunderstandings, e.g. that supporters of gay marriage wish or intend to "mandate" (force) religious institutions to administer gay marriages willy-nilly. Again, I argue that this defensive attitude, this paranoid view of gay-marriage supporters as encroachers and PREDATORS, is evidence of misplaced jealousy of Marriage and hostility towards a perceived threat to one's status.
Breeders! Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. ;)
I believe in straight talk. These issues are the ones that power mongers drool over. They are always in an eternal struggle with their personal devil. They want to control ALL life.
The people who usually try to make these laws are men with tiny little dicks and they need to have everything and everyone under their control, and that goes for abortion too.
The female, the human female is the only creature on the earth that can bring forth human life. If you can control life, you have the power to control everything.
Ain’t gonna happen! Women have for tens of thousands years have been making the choice to give birth … or NOT. The decision to do so has always depended on how one is to survive in the environment. That will never change even if THEY manage to pass any fanatical laws.
Marriage before the 16 century was NEVER condoned by the church and was actually frowned upon. It was a Pagan ritual.
Today marriage is a bond used to strengthen the unit. The unit can be anything and anyone. Although, humans do not do a very good job of it, we try. We should never tear us under by tearing down the unit…no matter what the sexual ratio may be.
I'm assuming proposition 8 passed? The polling data I saw indicated that blacks & hispanics are responsible for this travesty. Where do we go from here? I'm safe here in Massachusetts, but my heartfelt sorrow goes out to all the people of California. This will embolden these haters even more. ):
Looks like it passed.
And GLBT initiatives didn't do well in other states either.
Gay marriage has been banned in Arizona, Florida. Child adoption by GLBT couples has been banned in Arkansas.
When will the stupidity end?? I feel so bad for the people of California, Arkansas, Florida and Arizona. This will embolden the haters and mean that we will have to keep going through this psychologically damaging fighting for our basic rights.