An Election Reflection

This was the scene at the state Capitol building in Florida on November 15, 2008.  More than 350 LGBT people and their allies marched and cried out for justice against a popular vote that effectively cast me and the hundreds of thousands of others like me into the outer darkness of "No marriage equality for you!"  Florida, along with Arizona, California, and Arkansas, put the civil rights of gay people on the ballot.  And we lost.  And it hurt.  A lot.

I remember it very well.  So many of my straight friends were crying and rejoicing at the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American President and a welcome relief after eight years of the George W. Bush administration.   I, on the other hand, was crying and unable to look people in the eye for the next few days because of what 61-percent of my fellow citizens had done at the ballot box. Adding to the pain was the realization that too many of my straight friends simply did not get why I was upset.  "But Obama won!" they'd say, with a cheerful smile.   A hollow victory for those of us in the gay community of Florida.

November 15th became the day the LGBT community of Tallahassee and the nation became resolved to not take these cynical and punitive assaults on our rights lying down.  Across the country, there were Join the Impact rallies which served as places of public confession about the pain we'd suffered, the anger we harbored, and the need for us to get active to change hearts and minds so that we wouldn't keep getting clobbered every election cycle.  My partner and I were among the organizers of the Tallahassee rally, and it was truly a moment of "Wow!" to finally see a large turn out in favor of gay rights that included more than just the usual suspects of the LGBT community.

That "Wow!" became a capital letter "WOW!" last night.  What a difference four years makes!  Maryland voters said "Yes" to marriage equality.  The electorate in Maine, a state where the voters repealed a pro-equality marriage law by a "people's veto" in 2009, changed their mind and have reinstituted marriage rights.  Same in Washington State.  And Minnesotans didn't take the bait on an anti-marriage constitutional amendment.   Add to that the election of our first openly-lesbian U.S. Senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and several other openly gay candidates, including two new state Representatives in Florida, and, well.... WOW!  A clean sweep of equality. 

What a difference it makes when the President of the United States declares that he has evolved on the issue of marriage equality and believes that people like me should be allowed to marry our partners.   What a change it makes when younger people stream in huge numbers to the polls to make their generation's voice be heard.  And what a softening there is when LGBT people brave rejection by family and friends and "come out", allowing the straight brothers and sisters to see us as we are and not as some ghoulish mock-ups of the incredibly fear-filled political machine.

Yes, there is much rejoicing today for how far we have come in four years.  At the same time, we can not sit contented with the outcome of November 6, 2012.  There are now nine states and Washington, D.C., with marriage equality.  But that leaves the majority of the country without it, and a federal law that still permits this discrimination to be legal.  A married gay couple from Massachusetts on vacation in Florida will have a terrible rude awakening if something goes wrong and one of them is in the hospital.  This should not be OK.  In Florida, it is still legal to fire people from their jobs, deny housing, or accomodation based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.  And--yes--that does happen here.  We have judges who take away children from lesbian moms purely because they are lesbian moms, and refuse to grant second-parent adoptions to same-gender couples.  We have come a long way, but in places such as Florida and much of the southern United States, it still feels a little like receiving that postcard from your northern relatives with the message, "Wish you were here!"

Perhaps what is needed now is another Love-inspired revolution such as that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s marches or the Freedom Riders bus presence in Alabama and Mississippi.  Perhaps it is time for our northern LGBT relatives to join hands with us here and help us remove these stumbling blocks in the way of justice for all in this Deep South part of our country.  We need you all to stay on the battlefield with us.

Mr. President, last night I was finally able to celebrate your victory in the way I wish I had been free enough in spirit to do so four years ago.  But I am still not completely free from the laws that bind the LGBT community.  Perhaps, God-willing in another four years, I will enjoy my full equality under the law of the land.  

Why This Fight

My brothers and I used to joke that if our family ever recorded a Christmas album, we'd use the line sometimes uttered by our father: "Merry Christmas... and Shut Up, Goddammit!"

Please: if you're one who is easily offended understand that my dad meant no disrespect to God. But four children, three of them boys who could be very loud and the lone girl trying to get a word in edgewise and having to raise my volume in order to be heard... well, even the most pious among you might snap under the circumstances!

The war on editorial pages over the phrase "Merry Christmas" has been kicking up again this season. This morning, a friend on Facebook posted one from the Times-Herald newspaper in California with the headline: Did atheists survive another Christmas nightmare? After reading through the author's arguments, I think our family holiday album would be a good gift for this man, and many others who feel the need to use "Merry Christmas" as the launching pad for missiles aimed at those who actively proclaim themselves to be atheists. I do not think that is in keeping with the spirit of the season that we are in.

I know many who are atheists, or non-Christians of another stripe, who participate in the secular celebration of Christmas. And while giving and receiving expensive gifts and eating to excess is not supposed to be the focus of the celebration for Christians, face it: we do it, too. We are a part of our culture, and we enjoy the secular fun of Christmastime. We put on Santa hats and stuff stockings. We eat Yule log cakes, and adorn and adore our Christmas trees which make our homes smell nice and woodsy. We're all a little pagan at Christmas.

But for those of us paying attention to our Christian celebration of the holiday, we recognize the gift that is given to us is Love. As the lyrics to the hymn say, "Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine." "The Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing", as we sing, "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord". This is the special gift given to those who believe, offered freely and without reservation. Those who accept that gift, receive it. Those who don't want the gift are not forced to take it. It will remain for them whenever, if ever, they choose to take it. Ah, but this is Christmas... and the gift-receiving is to be reciprocated with the gift-giving. So what is the gift we are to give?

Our selves. Without excuses, caveats, and black-out dates in the same way that Love is loving us in our perfect imperfection. This is the best gift we can give to the one who promises eternal life.

Does that mean that people who don't participate in this gift exchange are without presents during this season? No. And it isn't, nor should it be, our purpose to flaunt this gift and hold it over their heads and taunt them in the senseless way the cited opinion piece does. Wrongly setting up Darwin and evolution as some kind of God-denying fiendish scheme is hardly a Christmas-themed message. The first creation story in Genesis reads like a description of the evolutionary process. New scientific discoveries, including the recent find in Israel of a humanoid species that may pre-date the first known homo sapiens, are signs that we are constantly evolving in our thinking and reasoning and searching. Those, too, are gifts of God. Science and faith are partners in our quest to understand our world, not enemies at war with one another. So let's stop fighting over this.

Wouldn't that make this a merrier Christmas?

Jesus Camp

Last night, I watched the critically-acclaimed documentary "Jesus Camp", which mostly follows three children on their journey from their homes in western Missouri to North Dakota where Pastor Becky will train them to be soldiers in "God's Army".

They are going to war. And they are forming themselves into battalions for Jesus Christ in the battle to claim America's political, social, and cultural venues and institutions for a hell-fire and brimstone belief that only through Jesus Christ can one be saved, and only a belief in Jesus Christ is correct. These children are young. These children are like sponges soaking this in. And these children are as radical as all get out.

At one point, the freckled-face Rachael, who accosts strangers and tells them that God told her to talk to them in her effort to "save" them, was explaining what type of church God likes. She referred to "some" Churches as being "dead churches".

"God is not in every church," she says as she draws and colors in a large crucifix on a piece of construction paper. "There is a certain thing... they're call... there is a certain church, they're called 'dead churches'. And the people sit there, they sit there like this: (turns side ways, sits straight, head bowed, eyes closed, trance-like) 'We worship you, God. We worship you, God.' They sing three songs, and they listen to a sermon."

Turning back to the camera, she continues:

"Churches that God likes to go to are churches where (she stands, smiling and gesturing) they are jumping up and down, shouting His name, and just praising Him. They're not acting, they're not quiet (resumes bowed head pose), 'We worship you...', (breaks from trance-like state, punches fist in the air) they're 'Hallelujah, God!' You know, and...depending on what... how they invite Him, He'll be there or not."

One might dismiss this as the words of a child under the influence of evangelical Christian parents. But the film makes it clear that for Rachael, and the other big star of the movie named Levi, this is a theology that they have internalized deeply, and say they are willing to die for it.

And as one who attended college for four-years in mid-Missouri, this is not a joke. Rachael is the next generation of undergrad living on the 8th floor of Schurz Hall!

Mind you, on one level I am not bothered by the very basic premise that these kids are going to a camp. Lots of churches run Vacation Bible Schools where kids learn songs about Christ... and even get some of the roots of Christianity through learning what Moses imparts in Deuteronomy about writing these words on the doorposts and such. But that's the very basic part. The fact that the adults are confirming for the Rachaels of western Missouri that there are "dead churches" and reinforcing a theological belief that somehow God only "shows up" in some places and not others... and needs an "army" to "take back" our political, social and cultural institutions... that's disturbing.

And then there is the thought in the back of my mind that in that room there at this camp there is very likely a child who will be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And their mouths are getting duct taped with the word, "Life" in a place that, from my perspective, denies it by indoctrinating them into a belief that there is only one way to think, only one way to believe, only one way "to be". Woe onto that kid who comes out! And it does happen. And they do suffer.

Pastor Becky, the leader of this Kids on Fire camp, believed that the "liberals" who would see this movie would be "quaking in their boots" to see this generation of youngsters so fully prepared to win back the country for Jesus Christ. As one who is often called, "liberal" and attends one of those "dead churches", I would say I wasn't quaking in my boots watching this film. I was made mindful that the mentality that pushes people to join a mob to disrupt a health care forum has its roots in a camp in North Dakota. The mentality that denies evolution and mocks scientific research without seeing how God remains present in both has its roots in a camp in North Dakota. The mentality that argues why I, as a lesbian, should be driven out of the Episcopal Church has an ideological and theological tie to a camp in North Dakota.

Quake in my boots? No! It is an inspiration to counter this theology that actually negates the saving gracious act of Christ on the cross by putting that power to save into the hands of a freckled-face Missouri girl handing out Jack Chick tracts to strangers in bowling alleys!

To those of us still worshipping in so-called "dead churches": we can not reason with people who will not employ reason, and don't encourage it in their children. We can not share tradition with people who consider our tradition to be "dead". But we can learn, mark and inwardly digest Scripture and not just leave it to the Jesus Campers to talk about God's word. Let's do it.

Charles Darwin...and why some Christians DO get it!

I often visit the blog Of Course, I Could Be Wrong written by the man known to the blogosphere as Mad Priest. I enjoy the wit and the banter on the site, so if you have never been, you should give it a go...and see what this priest in the Church of England is posting.

Of particular interest to me was this piece from Dr. Denis Alexander on the upcoming birthday of Charles Darwin and the anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. The article is an excellent analysis of an age-old and, in my opinion, extremely tired debate about religion vs. science. There is a school of thought out there amongst the circles I travel in that if one is a Christian, or professes a belief in God, then you are "guilty by association" of being a Darwin-hater. I'm bothered by the immediate leap some will make to say that Christian belief means a rejection of evolution. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least for me.

As I have noted before in this post, I don't see evolution as contrary to Christianity and vice-versa. The first creation story told in Genesis reads like an ancient people's myth to explain how things came into being...and it sounds remarkably familiar to evolution. And, if you read Dr. Alexander's article, you will find that many of the theologians of Darwin's day seemed to be thinking in the same way. This battle between biology and theology seems to be more of a post-Darwin development. And it's a shame that the two have become entrenched in their positions. Not very evolutionary thinking, is it?

Why Evolution is Biblical*

It's ark time in North Florida as Tropical Storm Fay is currently dumping a ton of rain on Tallahassee. The ground outside the front door of our house is a sopping wet mess, and I can hear the sirens of fire trucks and police cars off in the distance. And I'm sure the cat has curled up in the corner figuring there is nothing better to do than to sleep and hope this storm ends soon.
I'd join in her that, but I am wide awake, and energized, and will more likely do some "not so light" reading for my Education for Ministry class. Nothin' like reading about the Priestly creation story in Genesis with its "waters of chaos" while there's rainy wind gusts of 30 miles per hour blowing against the windows!
And speaking of that particular creation story...let me launch headlong into that heated topic of evolution.
For reasons I don't really understand, as a species, human beings really want things to be black or white, right or wrong. To entertain the idea that there could be a middle path seems to cause a great deal of discomfort. I know. I was up close and personal with the 2000 presidential election in Florida. People don't handle messy very well at all.
The same seems to be true with evolution vs. creationism. Understand, I don't think one should read the creation stories in Genesis as being absolute literal truth of how things happened. I believe these stories are told, and were told by the people of that time, to make sense of the world and why things were the way they were. But I also see in the P story of creation at the start of Genesis a description of evolution.
If you read it, you'll see a progression that seems to track how the world evolved to the state of us having human beings. Ah, but wait: in the P story, the writer never says that God created the apes which then evolved into human beings. That's true.
In the First Chapter of Genesis, God creates living creatures, and birds, and sea monsters and orders them to go forth and multiply on the fifth day. Then he creates cattle, creeping things and wild animals...and once he's done that, now it's time to create humans in "our own image". Do the animals "evolve" into people? No, not in the writings here, but I am not focusing on that. What I think is more important is to see how this progression of creation takes place. And it happens in an order that would seem to follow the course of events as understood by science. All things came into being over a period of time (and God's idea of evening and morning are probably eons as opposed to hours) with humans being the last to arrive on the scene.
Sounds like a description of evolution to me!
Yet it seems those who are firmly in the scientific camp and those convinced creationism is the only right answer can't, or won't, entertain the possibility that they both are right at least in the P story of creation. The sides dig in, and lob hand grenades at each other. Because we humans seem to want winners and losers, black and white, right and wrong. Sigh.
By the way, I do think we evolved from the "wild animals". I can't look at the skeleton of any number of animal species and not see how closely we resemble them in structure. But even in my belief in evolution, I don't think these are just random mutations or experiments gone awry, but likely part of a plan that we can not comprehend, but isn't it fun to try. Recognizing the evolution of the various species doesn't take anything away from a power greater than ourselves that made it all possible.
Speaking of which, I have some "not so light" reading to do.
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Sometimes the Universe is just a little too cosmic for me! I wrote this post this afternoon, and the New York Times ran this article on its website tonight. A Florida-based story no less. Ha!