Category Archives: LGBT issues

January 22, 2016 · 07:00

Fighting Anti-Gay Jim Crow Laws

9587864_orig

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I was overjoyed when the Supreme Court legalized Marriage Equality last summer in its Obergfell v. Hodges decision. Before it was argued I compared the case with the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1856 and commented on its importance to the LGBTQ community in terms of basic civil rights. If the court had ruled against Marriage Equality it would have been very much like the decision reach in Dred Scott, but even more importantly like the case of Plessy v. Ferguson which legalized Jim Crow laws.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence something that is the heart and soul of the American experiment.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…” 

It is a concept that has always been practiced imperfectly in the nation, Blacks, Women and others have not always enjoyed the same rights as others, and the same is true for the Gay community today. Sadly, even when civil rights of people who are the targets of legal discrimination are advanced and legislated at the national level, opponents often attempt to use local and state laws to legalize discrimination banned at the federal level.

re-criminalize-sodomy

This was done frequently in the post-Reconstruction era, when so called “Black laws” or “Jim Crow” laws were enacted throughout the South. These laws paid lip-service to the Federal law but legalized almost every form of discrimination imaginable and established a culture of legal lawlessness where Blacks were the targets of discrimination, harassment, segregation and violence.

“From the 1880s onward, the post-Reconstruction white governments grew unwilling to rely just on intimidation at the ballot box and themselves in power, and turned instead to systematic legal disenfranchisement.” (1)

In 1896 these codes were upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. That ruling established the “separate but equal” doctrine and ushered in an era of de jure segregation in almost all arenas of life including education, transportation, entertainment and health care. The limited social equity and privileges enjoyed by Blacks were erased with the stroke of the court’s judicial pen. The justices ruled on the concept that only people’s political rights were protected by the Constitution and that in the social arena that African-Americans could not interact with whites and assumed their racial inferiority.

However, Associate Justice Harlan wrote in dissent:

“The destinies of two races, in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all should not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments, which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana.” (2)

While the case of 1955 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education swept away most of the effects of Plessy v. Ferguson, the underlying attitudes and actions of those who support legal discrimination are still with us. Prejudice and discrimination, not only towards African Americans and other people of color, but also women and even more so the LGBTQ community  has come back with a vengeance in the decades following Brown v. Board of Education.  Opponents of equality hate the sweeping civil rights advances made in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recently the advances made on behalf of the Gay community in the past decade. The end of the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA, a law which mush like the Black Codes set up legal barriers for gays to marry and enjoy other civil rights brought forth a plethora of new anti-Gay legislation, especially at the local and state levels. Most of these laws are cloaked in the concept of “Religious Liberty” and permit people to discriminate against Gays in almost any arena of life: to refuse to serve them at their place of business, to deny them service in local government offices and even to deny them health care, should the provider determine that he or she will not serve someone who is gay, all based on the amorphous concept that the providers “sincerely held religious beliefs are at stake.”

Since they failed to stop Gay Marriage, the opponents of Obergfell v. Hodges are doing everything that they can to legalize other forms of discrimination mostly on the basis of “protecting” religious liberty. The opponents of equality, including many leading conservative politicians and their supporters in the “Christian Right” are using overt fear tactics to include raising the specter of Christians being put in concentration camps for opposing Gay marriage, and other equally apocalyptic and patently untrue arguments. Justice Harlan was correct about the intent of the Jim Crow laws and the new anti-Gay laws are no different than Jim Crow. The seeds of hate cannot be allowed to be planted under the sanction of law. These are the new Jim Crow laws, and they must be fought at every turn. Opponents of Gay marriage should remember the words of Thomas Jefferson who wrote:

“I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” 

We must move forward.

Peace

Padre Steve+

  1. Guelzo Allen C. Fateful Lightening: A New History of the Civil War Era and Reconstruction Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2012 p.526
  2. LaMorte, Michael W. School Law: Cases and Concepts 9th Edition 2008 p.300

Leave a comment

Filed under faith, History, laws and legislation, LGBT issues, News and current events

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 10, 2016 · 07:00

The Bible in the Hand of One Man…

kim davis pastor

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

One of my favorite films is To Kill a Mockingbird. I am a convinced that many people that call themselves “conservative Christians,” are so busy protecting their place and power in society that they despise anyone not like them. I wrote some about this yesterday, and this is kind of a follow up to that article. In light of that I imagine that some of these folks would “kill the Mockingbird” in order to ensure that they keep their privileged position in society. The Mockingbirds are those that they have condemned to social inferiority and discrimination and eternal punishment, especially gays and the LGBT community, but others as well, and the fact that someone else gets equal rights doesn’t really end their equality before the law seems lost to them.

This is especially the case of the preachers, pundits and politicians that crowd the airwaves and internet with their pronouncements against Gays, immigrants, Arabs, poor blacks, political liberals, progressive Christians, and for that matter anyone who simply wants the same rights enjoyed by these Christians.

In the book there is a line spoken by Miss Maudie Atkinson, a neighbor of Atticus Finch and his children. She says to Atticus’s daughter Scout:

“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

As I survey the world of Christian conservatives I become surer of this every day. I’ve often wrote about my own fears in regard to dealing with such people as well as the troubling trends that I see. Last week I wrote five articles on the trends that I see in the church, trends toward greed, political power, social isolation and the active campaign of some to deny basic civil rights to people that they hate on purely religious grounds.

The language of some like Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel, Tony Perkins of the American Family Association and a host of others describe actions of governments and courts to ensure equal treatment of all people under the law as threats to Christians, affronts to them and of course to God. Their words are chilling. Matt Staver commented this week that if the Supreme Court upheld marriage equity for gays that it would be like the Dred Scott decision. Of course that is one of the most Orwellian statements I have heard in a while, for the Dred Scott decision rolled back the few rights that blacks had anywhere in the country and crushed the rights of non-slave states.

Again, as a reminder to readers, especially those new to the site, I spent a large amount of my adult Christian life in that conservative Evangelical cocoon. I worked for a prominent television evangelist for several years, a man who has become an extreme spokesman for the religious political right. I know what goes on in such ministries, I know what goes on in such churches. I know the intolerance and the cold hearted political nature of the beast. I know and have gone to church with Randall Terry, the former head Operation Rescue who once said: “Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…” I have walked in those shoes, I have been whipped up by those preachers. I fully understand them.

As Atticus Finch told his children:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Thus I total reject the message of such people now, not out of ignorance, but because I have walked in their shoes. At times I supported their causes, not to any extreme, but all too often my crime was simply said nothing when I knew that what they preached, taught and lived was not at all Christian, but from the pits of Hell.

As far as them being entitled to hold whatever opinion they want, even if I disagree, yes that is their right. But as Atticus said:

“People are certainly entitled to think that I’m wrong, and they are entitled to full respect for their opinions. But before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The only thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

My conscience will not allow me to be silent when I see men like Staver, Perkins, Franklin Graham and so many others preach hatred towards those who are different than them.

In the movie and the book the Mockingbirds were Tom Robinson, the black man falsely accused of rape and assault and Boo Radley, a shy recluse feared by his neighbors, a man who stories were made up about; stories that turned a simple man into a monster in the eyes of people who did not know him. Today they are others who fit the Mockingbird role, people who just want to get along and live in peace, but who endure discrimination and damnation from those who call themselves Christians.

Jem Finch, the son of Atticus asks his sister a question in the book and the film:

“If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?”

I ask the same question on a daily basis.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under film, laws and legislation, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as , , , ,

December 17, 2015 · 07:00

Prisoners of Hate

got_aids_yet-mardi_gras

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A couple of months ago I read the late Randy Shilts’ book about the beginning of the AIDS crisis, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. As I did so I was struck by a single sentence “Prejudice makes prisoners of both the hated and the hater.”

In the book, Shilts, a journalist and author, discussed the impact of hatred on people. The part of the book I was reading was about the release from prison of Dan White, the San Francisco city councilman who murdered the legendary Gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone on January 7th 1984.

Shilts reflected on how reciprocal hatred between White, his militant-anti-Gay supporters, and the Gay community harmed the whole community, and the response to the AIDS epidemic. The Gay community was angry, and rightly so, about how White who had killed Milk and Moscone in cold blood based was acquitted of the First Degree Murder charge on the ludicrous defense diminished capacity based on White’s being consumption of Hostess Twinkies. That anger was compounded by how many Gays felt about the AIDS epidemic, which at the time the cause was still unknown, and which most government agencies were ignoring.  When White was released, angry Gays protested, some even calling for White’s death. White was out of prison but he was a prisoner of his actions, he killed himself a number of months later.

Shilts wrote, “Prejudice makes prisoners of both the hated and the hater.” In regard to White, Shilts echoed the words of Thornton Wilder who wrote, “There is no need for me to curse you -the murderer survives the victim only to learn that it was himself that he longed to be rid of. Hatred is self-hatred.”

At the time neither the Gay community, nor their opponents, especially conservative Christians could get around the hate. Many people, including men like Gary Bauer, a current leader of the Christian Right who was then an adviser to Ronald Reagan, believed that believed AIDS was God’s judgment upon Gays and fought against public health measures and research.

Sadly, despite all the advances in civil rights that the Gay community has fought for and earned, there are still those who hate them just for being different.

When I read Shilts’s words I was struck with just how timeless they were. While Shilts was discussing the experience of the Gay community in 1984, the lesson can be applied in almost every instance where there is anger about real or perceived injustice; as well as in times like today when societies are deeply divided along political, ideological, racial, or religious lines.

They are truly timeless.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under LGBT issues, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 8, 2015 · 07:00

Separate Ideology & Religion from Sworn Duty: The Legacy of Dr. C. Everett Koop

c-everett-koop-1db591308d7eb474

“At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic many Americans had little sympathy for people with AIDS…. The feeling was that somehow people from certain groups ‘deserved’ their illness. Let us put those feelings behind us. We are fighting a disease, not a people.” C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General 1986

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have mentioned that I have been reflecting on many things over the past few weeks and months. Of course if you follow my writings you know what I think about public officials who refuse to do their duty to follow the law and protect the rights of other citizens, even of those that they happen to disapprove. This came to a head recently with the case of the anti-marriage equity county clerk, Kim Davis. I am not going to revisit her case as I have been worn out by it and have no need to waste any more time on her.

That being said I can point out the case of a public official, a conservative, pro-life, Evangelical Christian who served as Surgeon General under President Reagan, Dr. C. Everett Koop. In an era of extreme intolerance and hatred for those infected with HIV, Dr. Koop became one of the leading proponents of compassionate and responsible care for victims of HIV/AIDS, most of whom were homosexual men. He met opposition within the administration, where despite his impressive credentials he was marginalized and was vilified by conservative Christians.

Dr. James Dobson and Dr. D. James Kennedy, early leaders of the political religious right were particularly vindictive. These unscrupulous leaders helped spread much disinformation about HIV from the a book published by a charlatan named Gene Antonio who wrote what was then a popular book called “The AIDS Cover Up,” They claimed that AIDS could be spread by kissing, mosquito bites or even by touching surfaces that had been touched by those infected. These men were bolstered by their allies in the Reagan White House, Secretary of education Bill Bennett and his assistant Gary Bauer who were the official administration spokesmen regarding AIDS.

They marginalized the Surgeon General; Dr. C. Everett Koop who noted in the early days of the epidemic was “completely cut off from AIDS” by Bennett and others in the Reagan Administration. They were so wrong that Koop, who was by no means a liberal took them to task on their hateful, dishonest and un-Christian proclamations. Koop told a journalist:

“the Christian activity in reference to AIDS of both D. James Kennedy and Jim Dobson is reprehensible. The first time that Kennedy ever made a statement about AIDS, I saw it on television. It was so terrible, so homophobic, so pure Antonio that I wrote him a letter.”

Koop said of Dobson, who he had worked with earlier on HIV/AIDS: “I don’t know what happened to him. He changed his mind, and last August in his paper he attacked me for two pages as leading people down the garden path. But again his arguments were full of holes. I just cannot believe the poor scholarship of so many Christians.”

Despite the opposition and attacks on his character by leaders of the Christian Right, Dr. Koop was undeterred and had no problem taking on these men and women. Some of these supposedly Christian leaders still are with us and spout the same hatred for homosexuals that they did in the 1980s. Dr. Koop realized that many of his fellow Christians really didn’t care about people, and believed that HIV was God’s judgment against people that they already despised and had in their theology condemned to Hell. He also realized that many of these leaders would resort to poor scholarship and even inflammatory statements to influence public opinion.

For doing so Dr. Koop was condemned by fanatical extremists like Phyllis Schlafly who said that Koop’s recommendations in his report about preventing AIDS looked “like it was edited by the Gay Task Force” and Schlafly, ever the loving, honest and ethical Christian that she is accused Koop of advocating that third-graders learn the rules of “safe sodomy.”

Koop replied in a very courageous manner to Schlafly, who in my view is one of the most loathsome people to ever unite religion and politics: “I’m not surgeon general to make Phyllis Schlafly happy. I’m surgeon general to save lives.”

Dr. Koop understood the oath that he took as a physician and the oath that he took when he became Surgeon General; sadly Mrs. Davis and many in the Christian Right will never understand that. In 1988 Dr. Koop said something that most people in positions of any public responsibility, be they public health officials, medical professionals, politicians or even the most partisan political preachers should abide: “I separate ideology, religion and other things from my sworn duty as a health officer in this country.”

Dr. Koop’s words should be heeded by any Christian in public office, but sadly, those who do will be treated with the same scorn and hatred as Dobson, Kennedy, Bauer, and Schlafly heaped on him.

I can understand Dr. Koop’s plight. I have been set upon by some of the disciples of Bauer, Dobson, Schlafly, Kennedy and others for simply defending people’s rights under the Constitution and obeying the oath of office that I took in 1981 and have continued to affirm since. Sadly, the truth is that many so-called Christians will attempt to destroy the lives, reputation and careers of other Christians who do not tow their ideological line, and sadly this has become much worse than it was in the 1980s.

I will write more about this but for now I will wish you a good day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, civil rights, ethics, faith, healthcare, History, laws and legislation, leadership, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 7, 2015 · 07:00

Born that Way: A Star Trek Episode for Today

STTNG517TheOutcast18_zps9b0f7431

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Judy and I were watching a Star Trek the next Generation video the other night and both of us were moved by it. The episode called The Outcast from season five, involved an encounter where the crew of the Enterprise assisted people of an androgynous race to find a missing shuttlecraft.

The androgynous race had believed that they had evolved beyond gender, and members who felt that they were either male or female were outcasts, and subjected to what we might call reprogramming, something quite like what some Christian conservatives call “reparative therapy” or “conversion therapy” in which homosexuals are forced to renounce and deny who and what they are. 

In the Star Trek episode a scientist, of that race named Soren meets the crew of the Enterprise and finds that she is attracted to Commander Riker. It is a highly emotional episode, and when her leaders find that she is attracted to Riker they put her on trial. During that interrogation she is given the chance by Riker to deny who she is and blame the situation on him, but she cannot. Instead she declares the truth about who she is, a truth that is shared by so many of the homosexuals and lesbians that I have come to know over the years. Her argument is so compelling, and has been stated in similar ways by so many of the people that I have known.

“I am female. I was born that way. I have had those feelings, those longings, all of my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured. What I need, and what all of those who are like me need, is your understanding. And your compassion. We have not injured you in any way. And yet we are scorned and attacked. And all because we are different. What we do is no different from what you do. We talk, and laugh. We complain about work. And we wonder about growing old. We talk about our families, and we worry about the future. And we cry with each other when things seem hopeless. All of the loving things that you do with each other, that is what we do. And for that, we are called misfits, and deviants, and criminals. What right do you have to punish us? What right do you have to change us? What makes you think you can dictate how people love each other?”

The leaders of the planet reject her argument and she is subjected to the reparative therapy against her wishes. When Riker attempts to rescue her she rejects the attempt. When I first saw the episode when I was in seminary I was conflicted because I understood that the heart of the matter did not deal with someone being a heterosexual, but toward how we as a society and as members of the Christian faith community have treated homosexuals and lesbians for millennia.

I know and have known many homosexuals and lesbians, many of them Christians, many much more conservative in their faith than me. Sadly, their families, their faith communities, have rejected most of them and until the past few years denied the rights enjoyed by heterosexuals, inside or outside of marriage, including the right to have their partner with them when they die.

Who is to dictate whom people love and the manner in which they love each other? What would I, or you do if someone in a church, or the government, or even our families told us that we could not be who we were born to be? And honestly, what would we think if people tried to change us against our will and against every fiber of our being? Would that not be a crime against our humanity?

That is the question that all of us have to ask, even when we claim that God only blesses certain relationships while ignoring the other clear commands of scripture? When I see people who have multiple divorces, and adulterous relationships condemn homosexual couples who only desire to legally marry and remain with the love of their life, I am appalled, for I know many same sex couples who have been faithful to each other and lived together for decades before their relationships were recognized as legal and proper, even if some religious people disagree.

My commitment is to care for and accept people no matter what their sexual orientation is. As a priest and pastor I can do nothing else. Of course some will disagree with me and that is their right and I will not take freedom away from them, but I do ask that they not impose their beliefs on same sex couples and thus deprive them of the same freedoms the rest of us enjoy.

While the Supreme Court has recognized that gays and lesbians have the Constitutional right to marriage based upon the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1965, that right is still being assailed by its opponents; most of who are conservative Christians.

This is about civil rights and human rights, and at the same time the religious freedom of gay and lesbian Christians who have been denied the right other heterosexual Christians have always had; the right to have the marriage they entered into and blessed by their ministers as legal. For too many centuries those defending the faith, including Popes, bishops and kings engaged in the same relationships that they persecuted others for doing. The list of these defenders of the faith is long, and the people often illustrious and sometimes infamous.

I think that it is time that we learn to accept people for who they are, and not who we think that they should be.

Have a great day,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under christian life, ethics, faith, LGBT issues, marriage and relationships, star trek

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 16, 2015 · 07:00

Kim Davis’s 15 Minutes Are Up

kim davis flag

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am busy today, a lot going on, so just a quick note about the soon to be irrelevant and already mostly forgotten Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky; Mrs. Kim Davis.

Mrs. Davis went back to work Monday, still claiming to be persecuted but not interfering with the five deputy clerks in her office who are issuing marriage licenses to all couples, including same-sex couples. She and her hack job lawyers are claiming that the licenses issued without her name on them may be invalid, a claim rejected by Kentucky’s Governor, Attorney General and the Federal Court.

Going back to work Davis was defiant and again played the victim, though it was she who used her office to deny the rights of others. She asked, “Are we not big enough, a loving enough and a tolerant enough state to find a way to accommodate my deeply held religious convictions?”  But why was she not big enough to find a way to accommodate the legal and civil rights of people whose lives that she does not approve? The irony is rich; especially when you understand the nature of the oaths of office that she swore to uphold nine short months ago, one that stipulated that she would “faithfully execute the duties of my office without favor, affection or partiality.”

The answer is readily apparent to anyone who has any discernment: Mrs. Davis was stupid enough to listen to politically motivated hack lawyers who used the case to fill their bank accounts with the donations of well-meaning people who neither understand history, the law, or the Constitution. For her decision she became a tool of unscrupulous politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, and ended up in jail.

What will happen next is that she will do her job without interfering with her five deputies; the Kentucky legislature will do their job under the state Religious Liberty Restoration Act that they passed to create an exemption that will not compromise Mrs. Davis’s “deeply held religious convictions”; and her lawyers and supporters will abandon her. She is getting  religious liberty award from the Family Resesrch Council, an organization listed as a hate group by the Southern Povert Law Commission at their upcoming Values Voters Summit.  After that she and her husband may get a few appearances on the television programs of some televangelists and maybe a book deal which will net her little money; but she will be yet another casualty in the culture war that these politicians, preachers and pundits are waging. Sadly, she will not be the last. Her fifteen minutes of infamy are over and I though I am tempted to feel bad for her, I don’t. They may have encouraged her, but she made the decision. Call it schadenfreude.

Peace

Padre Steve+

3 Comments

Filed under christian life, civil rights, faith, LGBT issues, News and current events, Religion

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 10, 2015 · 07:00

Gays Get Unalienable Rights Too

re-criminalize-sodomy

Anti-gay Christian protestors outside the Supreme Court

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

In the next day or two, Kim Davis, the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County will go back to work after Federal Appelate Court Judge Jim Bunning released her from jail after holding her in contempt of court. He released her because other clerks were issuing the marriage licences that she had refused to Gay couples. If she does not interfere with clerks who have pledged to continuing to issue the licences this will probably blow over, but if she interferes with or punishes her employees the stage is set for her quick return to jail, something that her biggest supporters including Mike Huckabee seem to want to happen. 

But lost in all of the ranting of Conservative Christians regarding their right to discriminate in the name of Jesus amen against the legal rights of Gays, Lesbians and others of the LGBTQ community is what is happening to the gays.

From the supporters of Mrs. Davis you almost always hear the claim that Gays are trying to get special rights and persecute Christians. If that claim were true, which it is not it would be troubling. Likewise the claim that Christians and others who oppose Marriage Equality are now the victims of systematic government persecution and oppression is equally fraudulent. 

Their claims to being persecuted are an affront to all Christians who have really suffered and died for their faith in Christ. Likewise the claims of Mrs. Davis’s lawyers and the politicians, pundits, and preachers who support her, that she is “like a Jew in Nazi Germany” utterly demeans the lives of the Jews persecuted by the Nazis in the 1930s and the six-million Jews slaughtered by them during the 1940s. 

The claims of these so-called Christians are repugnant and embarrassing. Any Christian with a modicum of honesty, integrity, and ethics should publically repudiate then. Sadly, most, caught up in the emotions generated by the rabid anti-gay politicians, pundits and preachers, don’t know enough history, fact, or Christian theology to do anything else but to follow these charlatans as they lead the church to the abyss, just as the leaders of German churches did during the Nazi era. 

The fact is, that for the first time in our history Gays and others of the LGBTQ community have almost equal rights to all other Americans citizens, the rights so eloquently written in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….”

upstairs lounge massacre

Burned bodies of gay men after the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans was attacked in 1973, 32 men died. The suspect, a gay man who had been thrown out escaped police custody. Witness testimony was dismissed by investigators. Media buried the story while talk radio hosts mocked the victims. No one cared, even most churches which refused funerals for victims because they were gay

And which were finally enshrined in the Constitution by the 14th Amendment, an amendment which from the time it was ratified has been hated by the opponents of liberty for people that they despise, be it based on race, color, religion, nationality, gender or sexual preference. That amendment is precious and there are some co-called conservatives who actually want to get rid of it. I think that it should be memorized by everyone who believes in freedom:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So, Gays are getting rights that they never had before and their critics whine about being oppressed and persecuted for trying to use their religion to deny those legal rights. But how is the right to deny legal rights to others a sign of oppression? I guess it is if you believe that your religious rights trump all other rights because God trump’s all, except maybe Trump.

Mini-StonewallGay Rights protest in 1965

But really, I want you to try to imagine what real oppression is like, that is the official, government sanctioned oppression that Gays went through, until very recent times. I guess if you never served alongside honorable people who put their lives on the line for their country, but who could be tried as criminals simple because someone outed them as being Gay it wouldn’t occur to you why this is so important. But government sanctioned oppression and even violence was a fact of life for gays until very recent times, and this is the kind of country that Kim Davis and the preachers, politicians and pundits who support her would like to return.

Imagine if your activities were monitored, catalogued and reported by local, state and Federal police agencies.

Imagine that police detectives and informants were allowed to spy on your activities.

Imagine that police, acting in the “name of the law” under the merest pretense or spurious accusation could invade your home, business or institution and use physical violence to subdue you, even if you had done nothing wrong.

Imagine if a business rival or a spurned lover desired to ruin you, your business, or your career and professional reputation with only an accusation.

Imagine if the price of your freedom was to name names and condemn others.

Imagine if even suspicion of your activities was considered as grounds for termination of your employment, or prevent you from receiving a promotion.

Imagine if those same suspicions could brand you as a felon with the results of being forbidden to vote, the loss of property and employment rights. 

Imagine that if you went to a bar that if you looked in any direction but straight ahead that you could be charged with accosting others.

Imagine that anyone, anywhere who had knowledge of your behaviors could use that knowledge to have you kicked out of the military, law enforcement or government employment, usually with a felony conviction. 

Imagine that your behavior, even discrete behavior in your own residence could get you locked in a psychiatric hospital and quite possibly the use of drugs and surgery to to include, lobotomy, castration or chemical sterilization “correct your illness” without your consent. 

Imagine if you were a faithful member of your church, were conservative in your theology and politics and supported all the causes of that body, but one aspect of your behavior could lead to your excommunication and banishment from that community. 

stonewall-riots

Police attack Gays in San Francisco during the White Night riot on May 21st 1979. 

I guess if it was your behavior or your beliefs that led to such treatment you would cry foul, you would protest, that you would claim that you were the victim of discrimination; and my friend I say that you would be correct. That would be persecution. Sadly the Kim Davis and those claiming to be victims of “massive anti-Christian” persecution are only being prohibited from crushing the freedom and liberty of people who they consider sinners, not from practicing their faith in any way.

That my friends was the America and Great Britain that Gays lived in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s, portions of which remained enshrined in law until very recently and which a number of high powered and influential politicians, pundits and preachers of the Christian Right would like to go again.

Sadly there are young Gays and Lesbians who take the rights that those who went before them for granted. Thankfully, they have grown up in a more tolerant society, but few know what happened to people just like them in the not too distant past. It should not be forgotten. 

So, when you think about those special “legal rights” being given to a “vocal minority who want to destroy America” ask which America? The one where we all enjoy the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness or the one that denies those rights to certain types of people who have done nothing wrong other than being who they are. Of course those who seek to abridge these basic human rights and freedoms, almost all do so in the name of their God and religion which they use to buttress and validate their prejudice and hatred.

Think about it.

Peace

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under civil war, History, laws and legislation, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

September 9, 2015 · 07:00

With Bible in Hand: Anti-Gay Christians & Religious Tyranny

WCPO_Fort_Thomas_Kim_Davis_rally5_1441659156589_23696760_ver1.0_640_480

Protesters outside Judge Bunning’s Home

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As I write this I can almost hear people echoing these words of Reverend Brown in the movie Inherit the Wind being uttered by some of my less than happy readers against me:  “Oh, Lord of the tempest and the thunder, strike down this sinner, as thou did thine enemies of old in the days of the Pharaohs! Let him know the terror of thy sword! Let his soul, for all eternity, writhe in anguish and damnation!”

But then, what’s new? Since I have stopped the hijacking of the site by such commentators that is all they can do. I tolerated their crap for too long, my generosity was treated with contempt, so screw them. I totally agree with the words of Frederick Douglass who wrote:

“Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels…He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families, — sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, — leaving the hut vacant and the heart desolate. “

According to some readers I represent and stand alongside a vocal minority that is intent on destroying America, minority that is despised and hated by many people in the name of their God. The group I speak of are homosexuals, and their supporters which include me, as well as those people who actually support the rule of law in this country. The 14th Amendment, which was the basis of the Supreme Court’s majority ruling in the case of Obergfell v. Hodges, the ruling which legalized Marriage Equality in all 50 States says:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Sadly, the opponents of Marriage Equality, or for that matter of any kind of civil rights for Gays use the same arguments against the rights of Gays that their Christian ancestors, in both the North and the South did to defend the institution of Southern Slavery. In His book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, British Evangelical-Anglican theologian Alister McGrath observes how “the arguments used by the pro-slavery lobby represent a fascinating illustration and condemnation of how the Bible may be used to support a notion by reading the text within a rigid interpretive framework that forces predetermined conclusions to the text.” Then he asks a dangerous question, a very important question for modern Christians who might be tempted to support a position using the Bible to deny the rights of others for the same reasons today, “Might not the same mistakes be made all over again, this time over another issue?”

When I see the rabid politicians, preachers and pundits supporting the right of a public official to violate the civil liberties of others in the name of their interpretation of scripture, it is troubling. In this case they support Kim Davis, the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky. Mrs. Davis violated the oaths of office that she took, defied the Governor of Kentucky, as well the rulings of multiple courts including the Supreme Court of the United States and was jailed on contempt of court charges.

integration is a sin

It wasn’t that long ago that people used the Bible for this

Sadly I see disturbing parallels in their arguments to the arguments of Christians in the North and the South before the Civil War regarding slavery, and the disenfranchisement of newly emancipated African Americans following the Civil War, during Reconstruction and during the Jim Crow era.

The supporters of Mrs. Davis view the world through the lens of Manichean dualism. Those who agree with them, agree with God and those who do not, are evil, and deserving of no liberty, nor life. Before the Civil War, Southern theologian James Henley Thornwell presented the conflict between northern evangelical abolitionists and southern evangelical defenders of slavery in Manichean terms. He and many others believed that by arguing for abolition that Christian abolitionists attacked religion itself. It was not just an attack on their belief in validity of the institution of slavery, it was an attack on their faith. Thornwell wrote:

“The “parties in the conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders,…They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins, on one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battle ground – Christianity and Atheism as the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake.”

Thornwell was joined by Robert Lewis Dabney, a southern Presbyterian pastor who later served as Chief of Staff to Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign and at Seven Pines and who remained a strident defender of slavery, and opponent of civil rights for blacks long after the war was over. Dabney’s words remind me very much of the words of the militants speaking up for Mrs. Davis and condemning all who support the rights of Gays. Dabney wrote:

“we must go before the nation with the Bible as the text and ‘Thus saith the Lord’ as the answer….we know that on the Bible argument the abolition party will be driven to reveal their true infidel tendencies. The Bible being bound to stand on our side, they have to come out and array themselves against the Bible. And then the whole body of sincere believers at the North will have to array themselves, though unwillingly, on our side. They will prefer the Bible to abolitionism.”

But I think one of the most reveling are the words spoken by the Reverend William Leacock of Christ Church, New Orleans declared in his Thanksgiving sermon of 1860:

“Our enemies…have “defamed” our characters, “lacerated” our feelings, “invaded “our rights, “stolen” our property, and let “murderers…loose upon us, stimulated by weak or designing or infidel preachers. With “the deepest and blackest malice,” they have “proscribed” us “as unworthy members… of the society of men and accursed before God.” Unless we sink to “craven” beginning that they “not disturb us,…nothing is now left us but secession.”

The very personal nature of Leacock’s complaint in his sermon about abolitionists following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 is startling when you compare it to the words of so many anti-LBGT politicians, pundits and preachers, some of who even urge civil war and secession if they do not get their way. Mike Huckabee says that Davis being jailed on contempt of court charges “removes all doubt of the criminalization of Christianity in our country.”

The invective against Judge Bunning, a Republican who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, and all who support the law is reaching the level where frustrated supporters will resort to violence. It has happened before. In fact, one of the leaders, of the protest outside Judge Bunning’s home yesterday on charges of “violating the law of God” was the Reverend Flip Benham. Benham is no stranger to precipitating violence against those he deems violators of God’s law by stoking the fear and anger of his followers. In 2009 one of those followers, murdered a doctor who performed late term abortions in the man’s church. Likewise, Benham has stalked others and he has defended the murderer of others. If he can motivate people to kill abortion providers, why not gays and their supporters? Thus I have legitimate concerns for the safety of Judge Bunning and anyone who gets in the way of Benham and his followers.

Mrs. Davis was released jail yesterday, and ordered her not to interfere with the issuing of gay marriage licenses. Judge Bunning released her because he was satisfied  that her office is “fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.” Her supporters will claim this as a victory, but it will not change the law, and I imagine that if she interferes with her subordinates, Judge Bunning says that she will end up back in jail. She and her lawyers and Mike Huckabee exited the jail to the cheers of their supporters. Their words and actions showed a arrogance and defiance of law that only American Christians of our era, as well as the ante-Bellum South, and the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras seem capable. We will see what happens, I am not optimistic so long there is a dollar and political point to be gained. 

With this “victory” the lawyers who led her down the primrose path to jail will move on and leave Mrs. Davis behind if she complies with Judge Bunning’s order. Their “success” will encourage others to do the same. These politicians, preachers and pundits who led this charge want a conflict, and they need a conflict to legitimize themselves. They also need it to make lots of money donated by their followers without accomplishing anything. They hate Gays, and liberals and make their money playing the victim, when it is they who seek to deny the rights of others. One of their most influential writers, an adviser to Rand and Ron Paul expressly said so:

“The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.”

North’s words apply to everyone who stands against his interpretation of Christian Dominionism.

But with Bible in hand they will go forward, and I am reminded of the words of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird:

“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

These people are a scary bunch. Their right to discriminate against others based on their religious beliefs matters more than the Constitution, and matters more than bearing a true witness of God’s love to the world.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

3 Comments

Filed under civil rights, faith, laws and legislation, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 4, 2015 · 15:24

Kim Davis, Religious Liberty & Civil Rights

150903-kim-davis-mug-535p_2a10fb4a29fd25fb6bf13a4680f1087c.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000

Kim Davis: A Martyr for Tyranny and Intolerance

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am just a putting up a quick and hopefully provocative note to end this workweek before I go with Judy to spend some time with friends over a few cold beers. I waded in to the Kim Davis-Gay Marriage controversy knowing that anything that I said would be controversial. Especially when I dared to directly confront the issue and throw the bullshit flag on her, her lawyers, and the political hacks that support her.

She is not a new Rosa Parks, for Rosa only wanted a seat on the bus, not to kick people off of the bus. She is not a new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for he only sought to ensure that blacks had unimpeded civil rights and voting rights. In that she is much more like George Wallace, or Governor Ross Barnett who defied a Federal order to allow James Meredith, a black man to attend Ole Miss in 1962. Governor Barnett’s stand led to violence and attacks on Federal Marshals and his supporters wanted nothing less than to reignite the Civil War. If you want to read a great book about that incident read Walter Lord’s classic The Past that Would Not Die. 

Likewise Davis is not like a Jewish victim of the Third Reich, for Hitler’s argument against the Jews was over his view that the Jews were a race; thus even Jews who had converted to Christianity were still considered Jews by Hitler. In fact she was not fired for her race, but for failing to obey a law that she disagreed with, or to fail to serve someone she despised. That is something that the Jews of Germany never got to do. As a historian who spent the majority of his undergraduate and graduate work studying Weimar and the Third Reich, I know a bit more about this than Davis’s hack lawyer Mat Staver, who raised this specter yesterday.

There are all kinds of things that Mrs. Davis is not; and civil rights martyr is not one of them. She is much more like the county clerks of the Jim Crow era who denied civil rights to blacks than she is Rosa Parks, or for that matter, any other real champion of civil rights. She is a champion of her right to discriminate based on her religious beliefs; she is a martyr for the cause of religious tyranny and oppression. For two months she has refused to carry out the law. She has refused to honor people’s civil rights, or even to allow her employees to do that. That is the issue. If a Moslem clerk refused a Christian a marriage license would she or her supporters back them? Of course not; that would be Christian persecution, but when Christians do it to Gays, that is freedom of religion.

I have begun reading a fascinating book by the late Richard Hofstadter, a remarkable historian who studied American politics. The book I am reading is The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays that he wrote not long after Barry Goldwater’s abortive presidential campaign. In the book Hofstadter wrote concerning that movement words which are incredibly accurate when looking at today’s so-called religious-conservatives, or more correctly called the Christian Right. Goldwater, who Hofstadter critiqued fairly harshly said a number of things that those who claim to be conservatives should pay attention to or doom them and their cause to irrelevance. Sadly Hofstadter died well before Goldwater had his epiphany regarding the Regarding the Christian Right he said:

“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’ ” Barry Goldwater 
(1909-1998) US Senator (R-Arizona) Source: Congressional Record, September 16, 1981

Goldwater later explained his understanding of religious tolerance and compromise that was the core of American civil religion versus the intense sectarianism embodied by the Christian Right:

“Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution.  We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution.  We treasure the freedoms that document protects… “By maintaining the separation of church and state,” he explained, “the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars… Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers?  Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?” 

He also said something that is coming true today: “Well, I’ve spent quite a number of years carrying the flag of the ‘Old Conservatism.’  And I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics.  The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength.” 

Hofstadter wrote about the dualism and lack of ability to compromise embodied by such people:

“As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”

Davis and her supporters fit this to a tee. Compromise is hateful to them and victory must be total or it is not satisfying. Compromise and partial success reinforces the powerlessness they feel. That is why today, in the wake of the ruling of a judge appointed by George W. Bush, they are apoplectic because they know that they will soon be yesterday’s news.

I will write more about this soon, and probably re-write some older articles on the subject to reinforce my point. For those who think I am anti-Christian or want to crush religious liberty, instead I want to preserve it for all, not just a few.

So tonight I wish you peace, love, and good craft beer,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

39 Comments

Filed under christian life, civil rights, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 3, 2015 · 16:30

The YUCK Factor: Religious Freedom & Kim Davis

valuesvoterssummit

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am getting so tired of people who decide that their religious freedom trumps everyone else’s freedoms as well as the law. The example of the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky, Mrs. Kim Davis provides us a shining example of this from the Christian side of the house; and I can only say YUCK! So today I am taking a certain amount of delight that she is now in jail, the German word for my feeling of joy is schadenfreude. It’s a great word that we don’t use often enough.

I cannot speak authoritatively about non-Christians who decide that they can disobey law based on their religious freedom, and frankly I haven’t heard about too many of those cases;. However, as a Christian, a historian, a theologian, and a military officer charged with upholding the law; I can comment on Christians who decide to disobey the law in the name of their faith.

Freedom of religion is the most abused freedom that we have in this country. For the most part it is we can blame politically powerful conservative Christians abusing it. For them their religious freedom is a constitutional absolute which allows them to pick and choose what laws they do not want to obey; of course should a Moslem public official attempt this these same people will scream about Moslems trying to impose Sharia law on non-Moslems.

The fact that there are thousands of Christian denominations and split offs makes this messy. It is messy because while most of these Christians claim to believe in Jesus and the Bible, most cannot agree on any doctrine; except that they hate Gays. Other than that there is there is almost no consensus of belief. American Christianity is a pick-and-choose smorgasbord of beliefs, in which the individual’s right to choose what they want to believe about God is now spilling out of the church, and over into society at large. They chose what laws they will obey, and the religious beliefs that they want the government to enforce against others based on their “sincerely held religious views.” 

To that I say YUCK! As Attorney Alan Shore played by James Spader said in Boston Legal “Enough with this freedom of religion crap. Yuck. Yuck, yuck.”

But this is the latest “in-thing” for Christian bullies to do. In fact, the failing Presidential Candidate and seminary drop-out Mike Huckabee, got in on the act today. He commended Mrs. Davis today, saying that he called her and “let her know how proud I am of her for not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for religious liberty…” Likewise Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are conniving to find a way to legislate ways for Christians to do this, while forgetting the legal precedent that would allow others to do the same in the name of their religion, and they will cry foul when a Moslem uses that precedent.

The fact is that this pompous attempt to make Evangelical Christianity a State Religion, is positively abusive toward all other citizens.  To be fair the attempts by Mrs. Davis and her political and legal supports needs to be called out by Christians, if we want to be taken seriously. If we don’t we as will denigrate our witness in the community and if the time ever comes, will forfeit our rights if someone wants to use the legal precedent that we set against us.

Dr. Mark Silk, Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college’s Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, calls this “Spiritual Libertarianism” and it is dangerous both to society, as well as the church. Or should I say churches, since given the chance and the backing of the government, a big church with the majority of adherents in an area will always oppress smaller churches, non-Christian religions and unbelievers. Since I have written a lot about this facet of religious liberty I will not go into that in depth here. Just put “religious liberty” or “freedom of religion” in the little search box on this site, and you will see my long list of articles on the subject, most dealing with our religious history.

kim davis flag

But I digress… These people, including the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, Mrs. Kim Davis, all claim to be obey the Bible, but they totally ignore other parts of the Bible. Jesus said to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” and the Apostle Paul commanded Christians in his letter to the Romans, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

So, this absolute right that Davis and so many others a championing is overplayed and dangerous. To quote attorney Alan Shore:

“Ugh, please. It’s a dumb freedom….And I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little tired of this freedom of religion thing. When did religion get such a good name, anyway? Be it the Crusades, the Reformation genocides, the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, mass slaughters supposedly in the name of Allah, and then, of course, the obligatory reciprocal retribution. Hundreds of millions of people have died in religious conflicts. Hitler did his business in the name of his Creator. 9/11 was an act of religious extremism. It’s our greatest threat today—a Holy Jihad. If we’re not ready to strip religion of its sacred cow status, how ‘bout we at least scale back a little on the constitutional dogma exalting it as all get-out?” (Boston Legal “Whose God is it Anyway” Season 3 episode 5)

I am beginning to believe, like Alan Shore that religious freedom is a dumb freedom. This is not because I do not value it, but because it is so abused by people who want to establish a theocracy. This is something that our founders and even influential religious leaders of their day, did their best to avoid.

The fact is that these true believers, like Mrs. Davis, who desire to have their religious beliefs exalted over law and the rights of others are dangerous. Eric Hoffer wrote, that true believers, especially the religious type were likely to see themselves as “as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish.”

People are looking for something different than this and they are fleeing the church in droves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945 wrote something about German Christians of his time that more American Christians should take to heart:

“Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God, either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God, too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there will be nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words… never really speaking to others.”

Christians no longer have a good name in this country because we act like we are better than everyone else. What Mrs. Davis and her supporters are doing is to make that even worse. A pox on them.

Davis told Fox News before the ruling, “This is a heaven or hell issue for me and for every other Christian that believes…This is a fight worth fighting.” In other words, she is a Christian that believes and Christians who do not agree with her are not.

If you wonder why people are fleeing Christianity look no farther than Mrs. Davis’s and her supporters. Their perverted and insidiously malignant “Christianity” is the cause of this. As I said yesterday by the standards of Christian orthodoxy she is not even a Christian based on her beliefs about the Godhead. In Calvin’s Geneva and almost all countries with state churches in Europe, as well as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she would have been burned at the stake for her beliefs; beliefs that she now presumes to hold as the standard for all other people. Basically, she has just had the nerve to say, in so many words, that the rest of us are going to hell. Of course in Jesus Name, Amen.

As to the ruling of Federal District Judge David Bunning which sent Mrs. Davis to jail until she complies with the law: it also requires her deputies to carry out their duties and authorizing county judges to issue marriage licenses. Five of the six deputies have agreed to follow the law. 

Now the Kentucky legislature which has tried to avoid the issue, and to kick the can down the road until next year might actually have to get off their asses and do something to amend their laws regarding marriage as well as what officials can issue a marriage certificate. That is if they want Mrs. Davis to keep her job and get out of jail before the next legislative session in 2016.

Davis and her followers, including the crass politicians trying to carve out exemptions for people like her to disobey the law have poisoned the water for anyone wanting to actually be a positive influence on society as Christians, and I include conservative “pro-life” Christians, as well as progressive Christians who advocate a more inclusive faith and relationship to society.

But, as more people flee the church and the Christian faith, the leaders of this movement to impose Christian beliefs on others through the power of the state, will have no one else to blame. They are the cause of this. The Barna group did a scientific survey of the attitudes of 18-29 year-olds on what phrases best described Christians. The top answers were “Anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical and too involved in politics.” This view was held by 91% of non-Christians and a staggering 80% of young churchgoers. Another Barna survey mentioned Hypocritical, anti-homosexual, insincere, sheltered and too political. Another Barna survey of Evangelical Christians of the same demographic found that they believed that, “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” while 20% said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” while 22% said that “church is like a country club, only for insiders” and 36% said that they were unable “to ask my most pressing life questions in church.” 

As for now I am glad that she is in jail. The sad thing for her though is that the people who helped get her to jail at Liberty Counsel, will jettison her as soon as they can no longer make money off of her cause; and that will not be very long from now. They will move along and find some other dupe to do their bidding. By dupe, I do not mean a devout Christian, but rather one stupid enough to trust the judgement of politically motivated lawyers like Liberty Counsel who get them tossed in jail, and pocket vast amounts of money for their next legal crusade.

But then there seems to be an unending supply of dupes who think they are doing God’s will, and sadly, not just in this country. The Middle East is full of them.

God help us all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, History, laws and legislation, LGBT issues, News and current events, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,