Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Besen: Can conservative religions reconcile with gays?
On Sunday, New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof discussed religious and cultural extremism in Pakistan, where a new cabinet member, Israr Ullah Zardari, defended the torture-murder of five women and girls who were buried alive (three girls wanted to choose their own husbands, and two women wanted to protect them.)
The Times had another article on Monday about an all-girl rock band in Saudi Arabia that is forbidden from playing live concerts because of their gender.At home, former Arkansas governor and pastor, Mike Huckabee, appeared on ABC’s “The View” and said that gay and lesbian equality was not the same as civil rights because homosexuals have not had their skulls cracked and were not hosed down by police. Apparently, he is unaware of the latest FBI hate crime statistics that show bias attacks based on sexual orientation making up 15.5 percent of all reported hate crimes.
In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI is being criticized this week for questioning the usefulness of Interfaith dialogue in a letter he wrote to Italian politician Marcello Pera. What the Pope fails to point out is that thanks to intransigent absolutists, like the pontiff, finding common ground is nearly impossible.
How can we expect interfaith dialogue when we can’t even have Interstate dialogue between two Mormon universities 45 miles apart because they have literally turned religion into a political football?
When the secular University of Utah played its religious school rival, Brigham Young University (BYU), last weekend, the teams treated the End Zone as if it were the Promised Land.
“It’s like a lot of other rivalries, except for those at the extremes,” Michael Anastasi, managing editor of the Salt Lake Tribune told the New York Times.”For them, it’s not only that your school is weak, you’re going to Hell too.”
Two years ago, the rivalry was further soured after BYU quarterback John Beck threw a touchdown pass to receiver Jonny Harline, who sank to his knees — as if in prayer — to make the winning catch. Describing the “miraculous” play, another B.Y.U. receiver, Austin Collie, concluded it occurred because students at the religious school lived cleaner lives.
“Obviously, if you do what’s right on and off the field, I think the Lord steps in and plays a part in it,” said Collie. (For the record, the holier-than-thou BYU was crushed 48-24 in this weekend’s game. I’m guessing the Lord was upset at Mormon involvement in California’s Prop. 8 banning same-sex marriages)
If religious groups become fratricidal based on football allegiance, it seems there is little hope for genuine reconciliation with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. We must still work to enlighten the flock where we can, but fundamentalist leaders will only transform their anti-gay views when popular opinion decidedly turns against them — as it did with race relations in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The strategy for the GLBT movement has been to circumvent the ideologues and create change within mainline denominations. I wholeheartedly support such efforts and have contributed to them. Unfortunately, there is scant evidence to suggest that these religious institutions will thrive and form a substantial bulwark against fundamentalism.
In “America Theocracy,” author Kevin Phillips documents the steep decline of reasonable religion in favor of the rabble-rousing variety.
“Between 1940 and 1985 mainline Protestantism’s share of all U.S. religious adherents was steadily plummeting…Between 1960 and 1997 — the Presbyterian Church, The Episcopal Church, The United Church of Christ and the Methodists lost between 500,000 and 2 million members each. In the meantime, the Southern Baptist Convention added 6 million, the Mormons 3.3 million, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God 2 million and the Church of God (Tennessee) some 600,000.”
The implications are that the GLBT movement may be placing its eggs in a basket that is rapidly fraying. It seems that people are either gravitating towards religious extremism or secular humanism, with little appetite for mainline faith. The Internet also offers easy access to eclectic spiritual beliefs that one can follow without organized religion. So, the hope that mainstream religion, as we know it, will supplant anti-gay denominations seems far-fetched.
The trends of urbanization and the discrediting of corporate Republican-style religion will lead, in my view, to more people losing their faith. However, fundamentalist sects will continue to consolidate market share for those who feel estranged or displaced by modernity. In other words, America will look much like Europe in the coming decades — with a secular majority and a small, but still vocal, fundamentalist minority. (Mostly Islamic in Europe)
I can hear objections from those who rightfully point out that America is more religious than Europe. But, Kevin Phillips reminds us that Europe was once was hyper-religious too — but circumstances change over time.
“As the 21st Century began,” writes Phillips. “None of the western countries in which Reformation Protestantism bred its radical or anarchic sects nearly five hundred years earlier — England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands — still had congregations of any great magnitude adhering to that theology.”
sam: marriage is marriage!
just wondering whether or not you wear magic underwear?
Sam, you’re not gay. You’re a filthy mormon troll who has 10 children with his cousin. Just admit it.
Lloyd, you’re a fool. The catholic church is bullshit. It sucks. You know it. Get over it.
It is so depressing the world you live in Wayne.
The world I live in? Full of hope and optimism. I guess I’m closer cultural friends with the anti-gay marriage Barack Obama than you are.
The big difference is I don’t need other people’s approval to exist.
There are on average 50,000 murders committed in the United States each year. The five that represent anti-gay bigots pales in comparison to the tens of thousands who die at the hands of friends and family for non-gay reasons.
That means put the issue in perspective.
You are not being hounded day and night. You are not the subject of a Nazi style fatwa where you have to hide in an attic for years fearing that you will be gassed.
Lighten up and fight your battles on constitutional grounds and leave the histrionics and hyper-fear to others. It took hundreds of years for slaves to be set free. It took hundreds of years for women to have the right to vote. I think comparatively, since 1969 it’s been a bullet train for gay rights comparatively.
And stop being so depressing. In your expensive house. With your expensive clothes. Eating your expensive food.
God, liberals are such losers even when they have more than 90% of the world has!
Jeff – get your perspective right – Gays have been persecuted for centuries not since 1969. I am so over you self loathing conservative getting upset at the LIBERALS who scream for equality. you just piggy back on our activism as if you really contribute! Get a life!
Michael,
My perspective is right.
Everyone has been persecuted for millenia. There is not one ethnic group, religious group, or segmented sub-culture that hasn’t been persecuted for THOUSANDS of years.
Now, conservatives who speak out are being persecuted by people like. Just read your own invectives.
I don’t need the monetary benefits that the government is denying you. Why? Because I don’t believe those monetary benefits should exist for ANYONE.
Get rid of them all.
Now tell me that’s self-loathing or true equality. Leaving government out of my life completely, except to protect me and you from other governments.
True equality.
No one gets tax breaks.
Or are you THAT greedy?
The answer is no. Gay rights will never thrive with an uneducated populace. Right wing christians are fools believing in a sick book of fairy tales used to destroy nonbelieversl
I would ask Jeff B. these questions. When is the right time to do right? How long must one wait to be treated fairly? How many times must a lie be repeated before it is called the truth?
The answer is clear to me: The time is now to do what is right. Do not wait one more day to demand to be treated fairly. Do not hesitate to stand up for the truth for one more moment, even in the face of a thousand years of lies.
Just because it has always been so, does not make it right. Religion has been too long used to subjugate women, enslave humanity (in shackles and in mind), and its lies have been repeated too many times.
Fundamentalist religion is the bastard child of ignorance, fear and loathing. When one has the faith to believe that god is on their side, infallible and omnipotent, one has license to do terrible things in this world.
Revealed religions are myths, superstitions and lies. There has never been presented any proof otherwise.
Given the hold that religion has on people, (think 9/11) I find it hard to believe that fundamentalists and less educated Catholics will ever come over to support gay marriage and any legal recognition of gays. I know a Catholic, real believer, and we debate monthly on these issues. He is a perfectly decent, nice man, about 65 (i’m similar), well educated. But when it comes to gay rights, the church has essentially blocked in his mind the recognition of the idea of equal rights for gay people. He is wrapped hook line and sinker around their thumb. He both buys their line re no rights, and is mentally blocked from changing. These churches are basically fabulous psychologists.
On the other hand I know both a college student – real believer Catholic, who said to me a couple years ago – “anything gays want re equality is fine with me, but please don’t call it marriage”. And a retired professor (Cath) who voted republican said he strongly supports equality for gays, but as civil unions. Why – he sees gay marriage as an impinging of his churches rights, even if it isn’t.
These last two are part of the “moved middle”. The issue with gay marriage is they see marriage as primarily a religious ceremony, while gays see it as a legal issue. The groups are not talking the same language at all. And the people don’t “hate” gay people.
So, if gay people can get civil unions that specifically say that they are to be accorded all legal / contractual / employment benefits identical to that of hetero married people, I’d be happy. In fact I would divorce my wife, and re-appear with her at the head of the line at the courthouse for a CU. Symbolic.
And this looks like how you build majority support for gays having equal rights. Would it eventually morph over into marriage, or would civil marriage morph over into cu’s for all couples is a question. What ideally should be done is to make “marriage” a religious term only,with no legal connotation.
As for the fundies, forget it. You may be able to tone down the rhetoric, and get some acceptance by those people, though doubtfully from their pastors who have spent their lives telling fables and lies, and always needing a group to hate, blacks, Jews, gays, even catholics – they are as unrepentant as hitlers gang.
And why did the catholic church put in the current pope – because he was the head of the group that kept the doctrine “pure”, or IMHO the head of the church’s own KGB.
And remember that what you want to do is show catholics there is another way besides the church’s way. The church is still opposed to artificial birth control (more victims and hence power for the church, nothing to do with ‘life’). But 94% of Cath’s ignore the church on birth control. You want to help build momentum among their parishioners for gay equality whatever it is called. Keep notching away at the church’s power. It is happening big time in Europe, and somewhat in south America- just look at gay equality laws there.
And don’t forget that the great majority of the Episcopal church, which in many ways is similar to the Catholic church, but much more modern , will in a few years represent a very positive source of equality and acceptance for gay people, and a religious refuge from those whose current leader, as a youngster of about 17-18, said “Seig Heil”. Young or not, he is stained, and never should have been elected pope.
A Different Jeff:
Valid questions. But you have to reorient your thinking. Food Stamps are not a right. Unemployment benefits are not a right.
They are government monetary benefits.
How much you pay in taxes is a monetary benefit, not a right.
A drivers license is not a right.
You have to start realizing that there is a difference between a constitutional right and a governmental privilege.
So, in answer to your questions,
1) The time to do right is always.
2) One must always stand up and fight to be treated fairly.
3) Bluntly – until enough people agree.
I’m no Barack Obama. I won’t tell you all the hopey unicorn stuff and then shove Hillary Clinton and her cronies down your throat.
But I will tell you looking right into your eyes that fairness has ZILCH to do with tax breaks and insurance benefits.
Government needs to get out of the marriage business where it does not belong.
No child tax credits.
No governmentally mandated insurance benefits for spouses and kids.
No 20 mile an hour speed zones around schools.
Hell, do away with government paid schools from my tax dollars.
True fairness is protection by the government from foreign and domestic threats to our lives and END there.
If you can’t be on friendly terms with your neighbor because he lets his dog poo on your lawn, then how the hell are you hoping a faceless sea of governmental employees to be truly fair?
No money, no mas! 800 billion dollars every month – and you want a piece of it don’t you?
This is NOT about gay rights! This IS about tax breaks and insurance benefits and inheritance benefits.
In short MONEY.
So you’ve changed your argument once again, Jeff. It rarely gives them pause, but the degree of ease and cogency of disagreeing with someone like Jeff Barea should. And all of that was simply a dodge, and the introduction of a new agenda based point. And that quasi libertarian agenda is ridiculous.
The rights vs. privileges argument applied to, say, same sex marriage goes out the window when one 1. it is incoherent to define a right wholly distinct from a privilege without expressing a poor understanding of what the words mean, 2. that marriage is licensed by individual states. If it were a privilege, as the argument goes, like chewing gum (though, I’d say that this a right, too), then there’d be licensing. As it is, there is, and I see nothing wrong with licensing marriage in a contract that is upheld by a neutral third party.
And if you really think that human rights are only those found in some kind of state acknowledged document, you’ve got a lot of education ahead of you.
Tank:
Geez,
I was waiting for the “Human Rights” morons to show up.
A bunch of white dudes got together and wrote down what they agreed were something called “Human Rights.”
Now, tell me what’s wrong with that picture?
Point B: So easy to allege inconsistency, so hard to show it apparently. Lazy arguer you are.
The fact that there is hundreds of years of case law regarding privilege vs. right is mindboggling.
But, you are arguing that “Human Rights” supercedes human law. Just say it without all the flash and lack of substance.
Problem is, you are all arguing for GOVERNMENTAL ACCEPTANCE. Which means, you want the state and the national government to acknowledge what you define as a human right.
So get married and enjoy all the great gay sex.
The ONLY reason you want state/national recognition is all based around money.
There is no human right to tax breaks, salary, insurance, etc. That’s why you degrade into insults, because you cannot explain how money is a human right.
Shelter? Every shelter is a right now? Or just access to one? Malcolm X would have told David Geffen to use his billions to build gay shelter.
See how this works? It’s not human rights you are after. It’s a piece of the MONEY pie.
Go apply for part of the bailout too. Get a slice of THAT money too.
You’re playing race card about human rights and how white guys determined what are human rights? Get out of here, stupid! LMAO!
Hundred of years of “case law” distinguishing rights from privileges. One word: false. Furthermore, it’s question begging by assuming the truth of this myopic, limited, totally anemic understanding of legal positivism (a right’s a right iff it’s written and enforced). I have respect for some of them, but certainly not you…LOL
Anyway, you haven’t countered my claims that same sex marriage is NOT a privilege; it is a right. I’ll repeat it: it is A RIGHT. I have demonstrated that, actually, in the post you’re responding to.
Read a book….start with some enlightenment thinkers, and work your way up to rawls, friedman and nozick.
You don’t get to pick and choose what are basic human rights. Neither do you get to suggest that same sex marriage is about money, when it’s actually about fairness, you sloppy boor.
No less a body than the u.s. supreme court acknowledges that it’s a right. If you disagree, read the majority opinion for loving. Your gripe is really with the constitution, and specifically the ninth and fourteenth amendments.
And even if it were about money, your point is? Whatever it’s about, there isn’t a single sound argument that can demonstrate that marriage is a privilege that “SHOULD” be enjoyed only by opposite sex couples. Not a single sound argument.
Anyone who claims to be christian and gay is fooling themselves. There is no merging of the two. Christianity despises sexuality and fears any type of same sex desire. If you are christian and gay you undoubtedly suffer from self-loathing that could possibly find a healthy outlet in masochism. I suggest that you embrace this element of you sexuality with further exploration by being tied up and beaten. I’d be happy to help. I’ll wail on you with my size 11 doc martins and then piss on you just for fun. If you’re a mormon I’ll even take a crap in your mouth to make you feel better.
I am Christian and Gay. There is no conflict with the two and my church has embraced gay men and women for decades. There is no self-loathing on my part and if you think that you’re going to “wail” on me, you best be big enough to take me. I’m very good in a fight.