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Loading ...Vanasco: Do we need religion to win gay marriage?
06.04.2009 1:21pm EDT
We need to take back the religious and moral high ground.
That was the message today from a conference call organized by the Center for American Progress with Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and Rev. Rebecca Voekel, Director of the Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, plus the authors of two new reports on gay marriage and religion.
What was most interesting is that the two reports - one analyzing an anti-gay marriage propositon in Michigan that passed, and one analyzing the Prop 8 campaign in California – come to the same conclusion: It is very important for the gay marriage movement to break the monopoly that the religious right has on religious and moral arguments around marriage.In the past, the battle has gone like this: The anti-gay right uses Biblical and religious language, plus the infrastructure of religious institutions, to make the case that equal marriage invalidates the sacredness of limited straight marriage.
Gay activists, on the other hand, have a secular message of civil and human rights, focusing on the benefits gays and lesbians get from marriage. We reach out to religious groups, sure, but only once the battle lines have been drawn, and then haphazardly.
This is why we lose, when we do.
The solution?
First, that we acknowledge that religious opposition requires a religious response. Those on the call said that it is very important that we call on GLBT’s who are religious to speak up both in their faith communities and in their queer communities in order to help find common ground.
We must cultivate and support progressive religious leaders who speak out in the media and in the pulpit on our issues. We must show the media and the public that the Religious Right does not speak for all people of faith, or even all Christians.
We must emphasize to legislators and the public that religious marriage and civil marriage are two different states that share the same noun. We must say, as Robinson does, that forbidding gay marriage is a case where religions are infringing on a state’s right to marry those they deem fit.
We must build “strong and authentic alliances” with religious leaders and convince them that gay rights is a matter of justice.
And we must not write off any religious group as unmovable – all denominations and religions have moderate voices.
Voekel said that there are 5 million members of Welcoming Congregations across the nation – congregations that have voted to affirm that they are open to GLBTs. Younger evangelicals are twice as likely as evangelicals over all to support gay marriage, said Winne Stachelberg, vice president for external affairs for the Center for American Progress. 60 percent of Catholics under 30 support gay marriage. 2/3 of mainline Protestant clergy support gay relationships.
New Hampshire showed us the way to a new strategy: confirm religious liberties in the same law that passes equal marriage. Robinson said that “this is a new dimension to the discussion and a very effective one.” He said that the religious liberties confirmed in the NH marriage law are redundant ones, already part of state law. But if re-affirming them is what leads to gay marriage passing, then so be it.
Robinson said, “We need to change the attitudes of religious people and clergy toward LGBT’s, but that’s a fight for another day. That’s a conversation that needs to take place in the denominations. We’re here to change the civil law.”
The Catholics and the Southern Baptists are the largest Christian groups in the U.S. Then, there are the Mormons, who are loud.
Catholics call for celibacy and the other two believe that homosexuality is a choice. In my experience with the Southern Baptists, they stick closer to established dogma than to the Bible, even if it can be used to prove them wrong.
I’m all for respecting religions and their followers, but the big groups are hard-headed as hell. I agree with those that suggest that this could work with younger generations, if we use this strategy at all.
I prefer a secular argument, not only because I’m an atheist, but because I like to see the RR try their best to make their arguments secular. It’s difficult for them. We should be reminding people that the function of the government is to protect its citizens’ rights and marriage equality bans contradict this purpose.
If there is outreach to be done in religious communities, it needs to be done by others in the faith community. As far as I’m concerned, all of religion is man-made–including the concept of god itself. God exists nowhere but in the human imagination and faith is the permission we give ourselves to believe things without reason. Outreach to religious groups does not interest me in the slightest because I don’t think it does anyone any good to coddle someone’s delusions even if they’re on your side.
There are gay-friendly faith communities. They should be the ones doing outreach to the religious groups that want to continue to enshrine their bigotry into law. On some level they speak the same language, whereas I do not.
The battle to win our rights must be fought on many grounds. I, personally, am interested in only the secular realm.
The very thought of succumbing to the manipulation of these,so called,”Christian Religions” is in direct
conflict with our Constitution.What has happened to”Separation of Church and State? The true depravity that these right wing Christian Groups accuse US of,
is THEIR insane notion that Homosexual
Citizens are not entitled to the same civil and human rights as they are.This issue is so clear…it’s black and white…”Liberty and Justice for ALL”
means just that…for ALL.The Constitution doesn’t say,”Liberty and Justice for Heterosexual Citizens Only”
WAKE UP AMERICA! WAKE UP MR.OBAMA!If you take our Tax Money,then give us our Rights!
Roger Ramjet,
there are gay friendly churches around the USA that are gay-friendly and that support marriage equality.
And there are gay men like me who go to church. good churches.
Same I don’t ridicule your atheist point of view, it would nice if you could return the courtesy. And Jesus spent time with those who were deemed the least of their society.
Their are plenty of people of faith who very mcuh want to support the GLBT, and their help would speed things along for increasing equality. Just don’t hurt and insult those of faith both straight and gay who want to be of help.
No, we do not need the superstitious or their witch doctors approvals.
Wow. There are are a lot of great points in both the article and the opposing comments.
I always assumed a two prong approach was best. As an atheist, I think separation of church & state is a good thing until the state becomes the church itself.
I can be angry with religions, but not the existence of religion.
There will always be people, no matter how poor or scholarly, looking for answers we can’t have or wont accept.
Spirituality provides humans with things facts cant and, for all its misfortunes and abuses, does great things for communities.
The point is that religion is going to be a global, eternal constant.
You all may as well learn to include it and work with it rather than hoping for everyone to believe as we atheists. If you succeed in “squashing” it, youve only martyred the concept of free and independent thought, however odd it is.
Ultimately, I feel we should work with religions. We dont have to foster their power in politics to forward a dialogue with the majority who simply have been misled and/or dont think as we do.
Remember, the power of religion is in the pews, not behind the pulpit. If you show the people in the pews enough respect, you neednt worry what the man behind the pulpit is telling them; his or her career is always going to be shorter than the lives of the crowds that follow a path into a church.
I think it would be far better to use their argument against them. Since there are religions that support GLBT rites and marriage, we should argue that people are discriminating against those religions beliefs. This would essentially force the court into the undesirable position of validating some religions over others – something it would not do. “Freedom of religion” SHOULD include the freedom of pro-gay religions to support and recognize thier GLBT congregants the same way anti-GLBT religions support theirs. It’s essentially a lose-lose argument for them if presently correctly, and I think this approach might have been utilized in Canada during their successful march towards gay equality.
After reading the article DC Clergy For Marriage yesterday, I was amazed and grateful to see 135 clergy representing different churches and synagogues in the DC area announce their support for same sex marriage. This article represents a new religious voice that should be heard by all people across America. More clergy across America that also support same sex marriage should also gather together not individually but as the Clergy For Marriage did, letting their voices be heard loud and clear.
The Pope, The Mormons and the far right Christian extremists that have ignited all the hate it spews need to know that there are other clergy that do not share their views on same sex marriage.
“God is love
and love is for everyone.
In the spirit we raise our
voices in the struggle for
the right and freedom to
marry” – Clergy For Marriage
You all do realize the Catholic Church, for some reason accepted as a “moderate” religion, is leading the veto drive in Maine.
Why would anyone want to work with religion? We need to KILL IT.
Victor, would you please cite where in our founding documents, God (Christian or otherwise) is mentioned?
The Declaration of Independence, while important, does not bear on our laws, per se. The ONLY document that counts is the Constitution of the United States of America. All of our laws spring from it. It was purposefully left without mention of any specific religion.
Wrong, wrong, wrong:
1. Religion is a lie. Why join them in lying?
2. It is a secular issue…fight their wanting to own secular marriage, don’t cede the higher ground.
3. Moral systems are better without religion. Fight them with a moral code that beats them, as a secular moral code by definition is better, as it removes the evil influence of religion.
4. They lie. it is not about denigrating the sacred-ness of matrimony. It is about keeping homophobia alive. If it is ok for us to marry, they lose the protection of the closet they like to have, if not for themselves, for their sons and brothers and nephews that might turn out gay.
I know this means a longer, harder fight, but fighting religion in my opinion is a much more important goal than marriage equality.
Because without religion there would be ZERO homohpobia and we’d have civil rights.
Remember, religion originated and teaches homophobia. Fight the cancer on our minds and we win so much more than marriage equality!
To have liberal religious groups counter the homophobic religious ideas of fundamentalists and Catholics is very important. In Canada, the United Church of Canada was very instrumental in securing equal rights for gays across the board, including same-sex marriage. Their full-fledged support for glbtq marriage deflated the argument that all religious communities were anti-gay, and that was essential in building broad public support for equality. Here is a link to the gay encyclopedia’s article on the United Church of Canada, which is the country largest Protestant Church: http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/united_church_canada.html
With some religions, they may prove a pragmatic approach. With fundamentalists, it would be a choice between banging our heads against the wall or waiting for them to die out. I opt to wait it out and use our energies where they will be far more productive. Willfully ignorant people who don’t even acknowlege that it’s even possible that they can be wrong, aren’t an ideal group to maximize our efforts with. In the meantime, we can shore up our bonds with religions that do support us and use our resources to build bridges where bridge building can actually occur.
I completely agree with trying to reach out to anti-gay religious communities, however, FUNDAMENTALIST born-again Christians believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, “living Word of God”. The more literal a particular denomination takes the Bible, the more conservative they will be. Although us educated scholars know that even fundamentalists cherry pick biblical verses ’til their fruit baskets are full, we still have yet to convince them that rules and moral codes from books like Leviticus are pretty much outdated. It is nearly impossible to rationalize with a fundamentalist, because they let their Bibles and their pastors do the talking (and thinking). We have to convince them that same-sex marriage legislation is more than just condoning sodomy, as they believe that we define ourselves by a sinful sexual behavior. If we were somehow able to scientifically prove that homosexuality was biological, we might convince some, but others would just categorize it as a biological predisposition, similar to how we do with alcoholism. Perhaps a combination of scientific study on sexual orientation and a generation of living by example (forming psychologically stable, monogamous gay/lesbian relationships along with functional same-sex parenting) will change a few fundamentalist minds. I’m willing to try….
You’ve got to admit that adding the “religious protections” amendment to the marriage equality legislation in CT, VT, ME and NH has had a positive effect.
Whether we like it or not, we have to engage.