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Loading ...Corvino: Gene Robinson’s scary prayer
When Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to deliver the invocation at the inaugural kickoff event, I expected some conservative evangelicals to complain. And they did.
Forget the fact that Robinson’s invitation seemed like a token gesture after the controversial choice of evangelical pastor (and Prop-8 supporter) Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation—a far more prominent platform.Forget the fact that Warren himself praised the choice of the openly gay bishop as demonstrating the new president’s “genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground.”
Indeed, for the moment, forget common ground. As one right-wing blogger put it, a good evangelical doesn’t seek common ground with the “Bishop of Sodom.”
And so they complained. Not only about Obama’s choice of Robinson, but about the prayer itself.
Yes, yes, and yes.
But those were not the parts that worried the evangelicals who contacted me a few days ago. They were concerned that Robinson’s prayer expressed a theme that they “have been trying to warn people about for some time now,” and they wanted my comment.
What is this worrisome theme? What sinister agenda had the “Bishop of Sodom” expressed in his prayer, wittingly or unwittingly?
It turns out that the troubling line was this: “Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.”
Puzzled? The line strikes most of us as innocuous, or even benign. “Genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences”—who can argue with that?
But that’s not the part that bothered them. They were worried about “freedom from mere tolerance.”
We will not appreciate the right-wing mindset—or for that matter, the culture wars—until we understand why that sentiment scares our opponents.
When Robinson says “Bless us with freedom mere tolerance,” our opponents hear “It is not enough for you to tolerate us. You ought to embrace us. You ought to approve of who we are, which can’t be easily teased apart from what we do. After all, our relationships are a deep and important fact about our lives—just like yours are. So what we are asking is for you to give up your deep conviction that these relationships are sinful and instead affirm them as good.”
That is in fact precisely what we are (or should be) asking for, and precisely what Bishop Robinson is praying for.
No, we don’t seek such affirmation because we need our opponents’ validation. Rather, we seek it because it reflects the truth: our relationships are just as good as theirs.
We seek it for another reason as well, one that frightens them even more. Statistically speaking, some of their kids will turn out gay. I want those kids to know that there’s nothing wrong with them. I want them to be able, insofar as possible, to count on their parents for affirmation and support.
And that’s where the culture war really is a zero-sum game, and “common ground” is impossible without dramatic concession: we want their kids to believe something that is diametrically opposed to what they want them to believe. There’s no point in sugarcoating that conflict.
If I were religious, I might pray over it, as Warren and Robinson do—although when it comes down to specifics, it seems they are praying for very different things.
Or are they? One need not be a relativist to recognize that we all have an imperfect grasp of the truth, a truth that we nevertheless seek. When we find it—or at least, firmly believe that we have—we don’t want it to be merely “tolerated.”
That’s as true of Rick Warren as it is of Gene Robinson.
As I pointed out to my evangelical caller, I’m sure that he wants me, a skeptic, to move beyond “mere tolerance” of Christianity to embrace Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.
No one who values truth wants it to be merely tolerated. We “tolerate” nuisances; we embrace truth.
That doesn’t mean that we believe that truth ought to be forced upon people, as if that were even possible. And this is where I think our opponents’ fears, while palpable, are ultimately unfounded.
We want them to move from mere tolerance to embracing the truth. They want us to do the same—although they see the truth quite differently. We will attempt to persuade each other.
But we cannot force truth—not by legislation, not by court decisions, and certainly, not by prayer.
John Corvino, Ph.D. is a writer, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
Bud and Chad:
Bravo to the both of you. Your post show true grit! More please!
Thank you, Gene Robinson, for giving a wonderful prayer.
I think the idea of forcing people to accept anything is a dangerous one. We can create legislation that restricts what people can or cannot do. We can create legislation that restricts what people can or cannot say. We can change society so that certain things are regarded as commonplace. However, we cannot and MUST NOT fall into the trap of believing that we have the right to change the way people think, to impose our beliefs upon them.
I will never seek acceptance from anyone who isn’t willing to give it. I will seek legislation denying them the right to harm me, to prevent me from exercising my rights, to stop them from abusing me, but I will never support any measures designed to impose restrictions on what people can believe or think.
I’m sure there are people in the US who believe that slavery should not have been abolished. Do I agree with them? Absolutely not. Do I support legislation designed to prevent them from exercising their beliefs and keeping slaves? Absolutely. However, I would not try to force them to change their opinion on the matter, nor would I support others in doing so.
There are some beliefs in this world that I consider abhorrent. There are prejudices that I find detestable. I long for the day when two gay men can walk down the street hand in hand and not even attract a curious look from the people they meet. I crave the day when children can come out to their parents without fear or hesitation.
However, we won’t get there by thinking we have the right to impose our beliefs on those who feel differently.
Mr Corvino, you say “we cannot force truth”, but I must ask, whose truth? Our truth is that there is nothing wrong with being gay, that we should be entitled to the same rights as straight people and that we are just as good as anyone else. That is not a universal truth. To the Christian right, the truth is that we are sinners who are corrupting their society, we will burn in hell and if they don’t fight against us we will take others with us.
Truth, I’m afraid, is relative.
I agree – we don’t want to be “merely tolerated”, but as mere tolerance is a long way from becoming a reality, and in many countries is just a distant dream, mere tolerance is a more than acceptable goal for now.
Ya know, I’m gonna go with Bud on this one mostly. Yes there are people in this country who still believe in segregation, but those are just views now, not laws.
For nearly 200 years there was slavery on this continent. There was slavery here before there was even democracy!
It took the Civil War to end it, and we still had/have too deal with racial inequality nearly a century and a half later.
Now look at what we GLBTer are up against; nearly two MILLENNIA of christian dogma. Personally I think that we have spent enough time waiting for conservatives to get over their “Ick reflex”.
Personally I like what I saw overall after Prop-8. We got fired up. We took to the streets. Rick Warren was picked, and what did we do? We raised a stink about it. We forced the issue. And I think it worked.
Now I’m not saying that President Obama (man that feels good saying that) needs to drop everything and see to our needs right this instant, but I do think that we need to make sure that we don’t rest after half-measures. The squeaky wheel analogy.
The slogan “Civil Rights or Civil War” is a usable mantra I think. To be clear, I’m not advocating violence, but that there should be no peace on this issue. We should be loud and force the issue of inequality.
To cut a rant short, what I AM advocating is just keeping up the energy we’ve had since Prop-8. I think that we DO need to be loud.
Winston Churchill once said, “You can count on America to do the right thing once it has exhausted all other options.”
What is truth? Can anybody really say what it is? Let me give you an example. What may be true for one person might not be true for another. And what may be true for another person may not be true for the first person. See, what I’m trying to say is this. Truth is different from one person to another. The only person who never lied was Jesus Christ.
No one, but no one, has a right to trash my church, the Episcopal Church. At least we face issues, even in the realm of this hypocritical, purveyors of hate. This business of pushing one’s beliefs on another is NOT in our Constitution. Once again, lay off my beliefs or you too will be judged in the same way!
“Bless us with freedom mere tolerance”, the power of six words…
I stand by what I said. In the examples I cited, people were “forced” to accept the “truth” of the courts’ actions, or pay a penalty … in some cases, jail time. Given the preponderance of case-law in California, *most* people in the public marketplace ARE “forced” to accept the “truth” of California’s non-discrimination laws, or suffer the consequences. No, the konservative kristian kultists will NEVER, EVER *love* us, but they WILL be forced by LAW to accept us, or at least not discriminate against us in the secular sphere.
Chad, that is an excellent point and I could not have said it better.
Bud: I hate to dwell on technicalities, but your whole comment has a flaw in its reasoning: no one was ever forced to “accept” any truth. They were merely forced to live with it or face the consequences of acting against it. The law might help people eventually see a certain truth, but it cannot force it.
That doesn’t mean we need to stop fighting, but it does mean that we need to realize that many people still won’t accept our equality even after we gain it under the law.
We all want acceptance. But I think some more than others. Many of us live in our own little ghetto. Having the other side embrace us is not something we stay up late at night worrying about -that is if it may, or may not happen. But then too it is good to have a broader world view. I think for starters, “mere tolerance” would be a big step in the right direction. Here’s hoping.
I can’t believe anyone is surprised by this. Of course they don’t like it. The truth is that the evangelicals want to take away our rights and commit acts of violence on us. Our history is full of incidents of evangelicals attacking us. They will never stop trying to attack us.
I think Gene Robinson’s prayer was wonderful. There is no way to include all religions and religious beliefs in a ceremony such as this. This ceremony is for the entire country. Since it is impossible, religion should be left out of our civic life. The Obamas could have prayed prior to and after this ceremony if they so wished. Unfortunately, the wall of separation is being knocked down.
“But we cannot force truth …”
What in the HELL is THAT supposed to mean? Excuse me, but we had to fight a civil WAR to end slavery; it took court decisions to legalize integration and “mixed-race” marriages; it took the Voting Rights Act to enfranchise African-Americans; it took the California Supreme Court to (briefly) grant marriage-equality. In each case, the American people have been FORCED (kicking and screaming all the way) to accept the TRUTH that all [men] ARE created equal before the law.
That’s where Libertarians lose the plot. Society, government, business, etc. will NOT “do the right thing” unless FORCED to do so. The BuschReich FORCED us to take up our ultimate weapon, the ballot-box, against the forces of evil and darkness.
Truth will triumph ONLY if good people FIGHT for it. We all know what happens when “good people do nothing.”
Raymond H. “Bud” Burgoon-Clark
San Diego CA USA
a 2nd class citizen, for the present
Many Evangelicals truly would not understand being part of an Episcopal service.
Episcopalians believe that faith and belief are intensely personal and private matters. They do not believe in beating others over the head with what they do or do not believe. This does not mean that we are weak or that we do not have strong feelings of our faith. It simply means that we’re not here to “sell you” on the belief system.
My first experience with Baptist/Evangelicals was upon moving to Georgia. It amazes me that part of their core tenant and belief is that they feel the need to tell others how they should and must live their lives.
Episcopalians are welcoming and accepting of so many faiths and beliefs. An Episcopalian will sit down and discuss differing points of view and ideas.
Bishop Robinson’s prayer was outstanding.