Bullying, Gay Marriage, Religious Conviction, Part 1

A few weeks ago, first Vice President Biden and then President Obama expressed their support for gay marriage.  It is a great day when such a statement is likely to not affect people's voting preferences; more people than ever support gay marriage, and these Presidential affirmations only seem to have further increased the number in favor.

Of course, all of this has a darker side; the day before Obama announced his support of gay marriage, North Carolina became yet another state to "protect" "traditional" marriage.  Despite ever increasing numbers, the polls for so-called "protection of marriage" amendments (more on these in some future entry) have not born this demographic shift out.  Perhaps this is because those who are most energized, and thus the most likely to vote in the issue are against gay rights, are the most paranoid about what might happen if homosexual relationships receive equal status.  In the weeks since Obama's affirmation, quite a few vocal opponents have come out of the wood works.  There was the pastor telling his congregants to beat their gay children straight, or the pastor who wanted to condemn Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, or Queer (GLBTQ) people to concentration camps.  Interestingly, as Justin pointed out, many of those same "Christians" who equated Obama's mandates for women's health care with National Socialism were silent.  

As a person from Kansas, this silence is not surprising.  The now infamous pastor Fred Phelps of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church spent a great deal of time and money protesting the very existence of homosexuality on street corners, funerals, and almost any other opportunity--even going so far as protesting Jerry Fallwell's funeral (Fallwell was apparently too supportive of GLBTQ), declaring that "Jerry Falwell Split Hell Wide Open"--without raising much of a stir.  Sure, folks took note when Phelps protested at Matthew Shepard's funeral, and the play Laramie Project was a direct response to Phelps' horrendous display.  However, Fred Phelps was nowhere near the national icon of infamy that he became after he started his military funeral protests.  Only when the sacred cow of the US military was attacked did many conservatives seem to understand the idea that protesting someone's funeral is despicable.

The likes of Fred Phelps and the above pastors represent extreme examples among opponents to gay rights.  Not all would support concentration camps, funeral picketing, or beating for our GLBTQ brothers and sisters.  We must endeavor to remember this distinction even if the less extreme, much more prevalent religious view that homosexuality is a sin akin to murder, lies, thievery, and dishonesty is not much more comforting, even if it is accompanied with the admonition to love the sinner as one hates the sin.  Moreover, the love the sinner, hate the sin mindset does much more to enable the extremists than those who hold it could realize.  Fortunately, it seems that increasing numbers of people are realizing that the sin is in the hatred itself; it cannot be in love.

I am a Christian...

I go to church fairly regularly (more so now that I found a church which meets at 11 AM), I am into biblical studies not only because it is interesting, but also because the Bible is the foundational text for the church, I love singing hymns, I believe that no one comes to the Father but through Jesus (though I like Amy-Jill Levine's take on it), etc. However, of late, I have a harder and harder time identifying as such and at first I thought it was because I am no longer in seminary, an explicitly Christian context, but that was not it. I work at a faith based organization (for the next few weeks at least). Then I thought, perhaps it is because I am doing "real" work (as if graduate school isn't real work). That was getting closer, but was not quite it. Finally, a few days ago, it struck home. The far right is winning, but not in the way they think.

I have been falling into the trap of letting the loud far right define "Christian." These are the Christians (all men) who go on Hannity and bitch about how Obama insisting that church affiliated organizations (e.g. schools and hospitals, not the churches themselves) must provide insurance with offers complete healthcare for women (read: birth control) is the same thing as Nazism (you keep using that word), yet are silent when a pastor advocates putting people in freaking concentration camps. Or they trumpet the cause of Israel while perpetuating anti-Semitic theology. Or they are the people who claim that there is no war on women (that it was manufactured by Democrats and the liberal media), but rewrite the Violence Against Women Act so that it protects only certain women and certain crimes. Or they are the types who rant and rave about freedom, but are pretty quick to deny it to others. (Yes I recognize that I just associated the Christian Right with the GOP, but unfortunately it is a fact that the far right, both political and theological, has co-opted the GOP.)

This gets to the heart of the matter for me. Like they did with the GOP in the last several elections (both state and federal), the far right is pushing out moderate and progressive voices from the church ("church" in a very wide sense). Or at least it feels that way. To be sure there is not a mass exodus from the church, but there is evidence to suggest that an exodus is starting.

On the one hand, I understand just throwing up your hands and saying "I am done with all of this." It gets tiring when you feel like you have to defend your faith because the dominant definition (and right or wrong) of "Christian" is "judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, hypocrite, insincere, and uncaring," or that homophobia is a hallmark of Christianity. If that is what it means to be a Christian, I want to have nothing to do with it. And I am far from the only one.

Yet, at the same time, it is precisely because of my faith that I am pro-gay rights, pro-women's rights, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, that I am committed to Jewish-Christian dialogue and reconciliation. That I proclaim Jesus as Lord means that I cannot participate in war, that I cannot deny civil rights to my LGBTQ siblings (siblings in the metaphorical sense) or deny full health care coverage to women. My faith is the reason that I am passionately for freedom of (and from) religion. My faith is the reason that I love education and I am in complete support of open and free inquiry (and free/affordable access to the findings of that inquiry), it is because of my faith that I am "pro-science." I care for the environment because I believe that God created the heavens and the earth (though not at the cost of accepting the theory of evolution). I hold to these things not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith.

This does create moments of cognitive dissonance (but who does not "suffer" from that?). My stance on nonviolence makes me against abortion (I do think it is murder), yet I support the work of Planned Parenthood, including providing abortion services. (The real way to reduce abortion is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies through sex education and access to birth control.) Or even stranger (at least on the surface), I am in total support of the existence of Israel (though I think the modern nation state is not the biblical Israel), yet I am also in support of the rights of the Palestinians and a critic of Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians.

I think what frustrates me the most is that the way conservative Christianity has co-opted the language of faith. They are the ones who (get to?) use words like "faithful" and "biblical" and "Jesus the Savior" and "God the Creator." They are usually portrayed as the ones who act out of "faith" or "religion" while the progressive elements act out of a desire for "tolerance," "civil rights," or "equity." However, this is not necessarily true. I believe in a biblical (there is no such thing as the biblical anything) justice; justice that is concerned for the least of these, that teaches love thy neighbor and love the Lord, that holds us accountable for failing in these things, that holds us especially accountable if we knowingly violate these things, a justice which places human dignity before profits or personal wealth or being practical. I have had enough of the Right defining what it means to be a Christian. It is time for progressive Christians to stand up and reclaim the vocabulary of faith. When speaking about social justice, we must use "biblical" (though with far more humility that the right does), we must speak of God's will for humanity. I am not advocating for "praying in the streets" (Matthew 6.5), but I am advocating reclaiming the language of "faith" from the far Right. They are not the spokesmen and women of Christianity, and it is time that we stop letting them be so.

UPDATE, 5/31/2012: Case and freaking point. Seriously. WTF?!

Thoughts on Memorial Day

I do not subscribe to cable or dish, so my viewing of Comedy Central, MSNBC, Food Network, or anything else is by and large limited to what these networks make available on podcast or live streaming. I guess this last weekend, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes caused quite a stir on his show, when he discussed the ways in which we remember our fallen soldiers might contribute to the glorification of war, and thus help to perpetuate our involvement in the conflicts that make heroes of ever increasing numbers of our young men and women through their deaths.  Our usage of the word "hero", Hayes asserts, contributes to our understanding of war as a glorious thing, and justifies our lengthening of conflicts.
Many have interpreted Hayes as begrudging our fallen soldiers the title of "hero".  Fox News and other media outlets were eager to encourage people to reach this conclusion.  As usual, any such interpretation demands a deliberate effort to miss the point of Hayes' discussion and to obfuscate its context.  Nevertheless, the fallout has been sufficient that Hayes has issued a statement apologizing for his remarks.
I find this to be a sad development.  Hayes' point was not to begrudge the heroism of our fallen soldiers.  He merely suggests that in our zeal to make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain, we tend to engage in conflicts that produce ever increasing numbers of heroes and leave broken lives, families, and homes in their wake.  I find this very difficult to argue with, and Hayes' discussion reflects my viewpoint well. 
The Memorial Day holiday is always a matter of conflict for me.  On the one hand, I find myself in awe of the sacrifices a relatively small group of people have made to preserve life as we know it.  (Whether this is always the case is a matter for discussion, too, but this is the message we have all almost constantly received).  On the other hand, I find myself depressed that many of the men and women in the military are from backgrounds of poverty, having joined to achieve a better life, while serving their country on the way.  The military offers training, opportunities for education, and the chance to break the cycle of poverty, but all too many of our young men and women die in combat before gaining these benefits.  Do these folks and their families deserve our gratitude and our sympathy?  Absolutely.
Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, and other similar holidays come with a certain air of cynicism for me, even without considering the commercial extravaganzas that have been made of them.  How many veterans' combat-related illnesses and injuries--mental or otherwise--are inadequately cared for?  How many veterans wind up homeless?  The answer to both is disturbingly high.  I also remember the number of people my age who were clamoring for war in Afghanistan and Iraq was much higher than the number who were volunteering for military duty.  On a very cynical level, it seems like we can demand sacrifices of other people, care inadequately for their injuries for most of the year, set aside a few days of gratitude, and call it even.  Just as long as we "support our troops" and label anyone who disagrees "un-American".

An introduction

I suppose all blogs have to begin somewhere.  I will be honest in saying I have not read too many blogs.  I was part of a blog in the dark days before Facebook made it big, all of five years ago, when blogs were the revolutionary new way of catching up with friends.  Now, I guess Facebook may have been around a little bit longer than that, and perhaps Facebook had already entered my consciousness as the first of many annoying apps friends were trying to get me to download.  It is amazing how many people are on Facebook now, how many apps, how many folks feel it is worth our attention every time they get their toe nails clipped.  Little wonder that its potential as an advertising tool has been greatly overestimated, as indicated by the IPO....

But I digress.  This will not be that sort of blog.   I have noticed that I spend a great deal of time following politics, researching current events.  More time than I tend to spend on my dissertation, which might at least partially explain its sorry state.  I have also had difficulty simply writing the thing, and so perhaps this blog will help bring me toward writing again.

After spending a great deal of time talking to Justin, it seemed logical to begin a blog with him in which we could discuss a wide range of things, though largely focused on our primary interests of history, politics, and theology.  There will be discussion, but there will also be a great deal of ranting about the cognitive dissonance and intellectual dishonesty of the right wing, much of which would be hysterical were it not connected to real political power.  If you are one who drinks the Limbaughjuice, a) ew. b) you have received fair warning.  For those who might be wondering about the title.  All I can say is that obviously, you are not a golfer.