It is important to say these things out loud.

President-elect Barack Obama believes "marriage is between a man and a woman".

Barack Obama does not think gay couples' relationships are worthy of the same stature as his and Michelle's.

He does not believe that gay couples deserve the precise same legal recognition or status that his marriage confers to him and his wife.

He believes we should have a different, inherently lesser, legal framework to protect each other and our children.

It is important to say these things out loud.

President-elect Obama enters the White House with a record of support and  a better platform on issues of LGBT equality than any other president this country has known.

He opposed amending state constitutions to single out gay couples to ban them from marriage. He supports  federally recognized Civil Unions. He oppose federal legislation and constitutional measures that ban marriage recognition for gay couples.

He supports the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, will push the Hate Crimes bill and supports an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination law. 

By all accounts he has a laudable record of pushing for equal rights and we must work with his administration relentlessly to manifest these promises.

But he also believes there is a quality to heterosexual relationships that make them worthy of a higher status by society under the law.

Barack Obama believes "marriage is between a man and a woman".

He says gay couples can have civil unions, domestic partnership, some other, different, diminished copy of an arrangement.

It is important that we not pretend we don't already know this.

I am awed by Barack Obama. His words inspire me. His intellect comforts me. His grassroots campaign was a beautiful, diverse and powerful thing to behold.

After years of a Bush/Cheney cynicism, war, arrogance and incompetence I wept tears of joy for Barack Obama's election.  For the historic shift and transformational meaning that a Black president heralds for our country, I beamed with pride. Change is coming and I am hopeful.

But when it comes to the issue of marriage, Barack Obama is wrong. 

I have criticized  the selection of Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. 

Warren compares gay relationships with incest and pedophilia and runs a psychologically reckless, "ex-gay" ministry out of his mega-church. 

His presence on the dias should be challenged vigorously. 

But I will not lie to myself. I will not make Warren the proxy for the unspoken disappointment and anger at Barack Obama for his more nuanced insult to gay couples when he says "marriage is between a man and a woman". We must be prepared to help President Obama lead and we must be willing to tell the truth when he is wrong.

When it comes to the issue of marriage Barack Obama is wrong. 

Gay people deserve equal protection under the law. Our families deserve precisely the same benefits, protection and legal recognition as straight couples receive.

It is important to say these things out loud.

John Ridley: The U.S. Goes Global With its Anti-Gayness

John Ridley: The U.S. Goes Global With its Anti-Gayness

 

Funny thing about this great land of ours. She's got no problem fighting for what's right (Civil War), but she doesn't always make the simple stand for righteousness (Civil Rights movement).

This past Thursday the United Nations, which excels at issuing proclamations, circulated one that is as marginally effectual as it is symbolically strong. It was just a little ole declaration seeking universal decriminalization of homosexuality.

Wasn't saying Gays could get married.

Wasn't saying Gays could show up at your house and read your kids Heather Has Two Mommies.

It was just saying, you know: "Hey, Iran, when you're done with that show trial, could you possibly not hang those two guys who engaged in a love whose name you dare not speak."

And if you think I'm being hyperbolic, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay notes that ten countries still have laws making homosexual activity punishable by death.

But the U.S. did not sign the declaration. 

READ MORE: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-ridley/the-us-goes-global-with-i_b_152489.html

Newsweek "Takes a Bullet" On Gay Marriage

By Mary E. Hunt

As a theologian, I sometimes wonder if anyone cares about what we write. But Newsweek's cover story (December 15, 2008), "Our Mutual Joy," set off a firestorm of responses so voluminous that it temporarily shut down the magazine's comments function on their Web site. Time's "Person of the Year" issue would be lucky to get as much attention as the enormous response to a religion editor's pro-gay marriage piece. Apparently, religion still matters.

What does it mean, though, that this story has generated such controversy? The most obvious point is that people still care what religions say about matters of sexuality, for reasons that sometimes remain obscure. I doubt that the same reaction, and surely not the same huge numbers and rabid intensity, would have accompanied a progressive religious treatment of the war in Iraq or the death penalty. So why same-sex marriage? Why the private sphere and not the public forum?

One reason is that as Christianity has lost its hegemony in an increasingly religiously pluralistic society, Christian conservatives have staked their shrinking claims on changing personal ethics. First abortion, now same-sex marriage, and soon, end-of-life issues, are seen as litmus tests of orthodoxy. These issues define who's in or out and, more importantly, who's making decisions for a society.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, has learned this the hard way lately. He has been urging his (kicking and screaming) colleagues to acknowledge global warming and join him in "creation care." They tolerated him even as they denied the scientific consensus because they mistakenly took ecology to be a larger-than-life issue that did not touch the daily lives of people.

But when he voiced tepid support, not for marriage, but simply for civil unions for same-sex couples, he was forced out of his position. Marriage is closer to home. That straw broke the camel's back because the issue is easier for people to grasp—and is thus where religious authorities could seem to be wielding real social power. Which is an illusion, after all, since global warming touches a lot more people than same sex marriage.

Read the rest here:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/865/newsweek_takes_a_bullet_on_gay_marriage/

New ?York Times Bloggingheads: Ban Marriage?

Bloggingheads: Ban Marriage?

 

Jack Balkin of Yale and Ann Althouse of the University of Wisconsin debate whether marriage should be replaced with civil unions for both gay and straight couples.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/15/opinion/1194835653812/bloggingheads-ban-marriage.html?th&emc=th

The Associated Press: Top evangelical resigns after backing gay unions

Top evangelical resigns after backing gay unions

An outspoken and polarizing voice in conservative Christian politics
resigned effective Thursday from the National Association of
Evangelicals after a radio interview in which he voiced support for
same-sex civil unions and said he is "shifting" on gay marriage.

The Rev. Richard Cizik's comments — made on a Dec. 2 "Fresh Air"
broadcast on National Public Radio — triggered an uproar that led to
his stepping down as NAE vice president of governmental affairs.

A fixture in Washington for nearly three decades, Cizik has played a
key role in bringing evangelical Christian concerns to the political
table. But in recent years, he earned enemies in the movement for
pushing to broaden the evangelical agenda. His strongest focus was on
"creation care," arguing that evangelicals have a biblical
responsibility to the environment that includes combatting global
warming.

READ MORE: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jARZSY_v6MYj98bNdK2rolNhIsSwD950RJH80

New ad blasts "No Mob Violence" ad

New ad blasts earlier ad condemning Prop 8 violence

The Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 11, 2008
Man behind it says 'I had to set the record straight.'

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

A pro gay-rights organization in Brooklyn, N.Y., has placed a full-page advertisement in today's Salt Lake Tribune, decrying the arguments made by religious leaders in an earlier full-page ad defending Mormon involvement in passing California's Proposition 8, a ballot measure that defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.

The ad that ran Friday in the New York Times was headlined, "No Mob Violence," and condemned any attacks on people of faith, especially members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who have taken the brunt of the hostility. In the ad's final paragraph, signers pledged to oppose and publicly shame "anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry, against any faith, on any side of the cause, for any reason."

That conclusion enraged Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, the nonprofit organization that placed today's ad. "I had to set the record straight."

The new ad carries the headline, "Lies in the name of the Lord," and features a cartoonish figure of Pinocchio and a Bible emblazoned with the words, "King Colson, Donohue and Cizik Version," referring to three signers of the earlier ad, Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship, William Donahue of the Catholic League and Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals. The ad blasts the New York Times ad as "misleading," especially its characterization of recent protests at Mormon temples as "mob rule."

Those protests were "remarkably peaceful," Besen said. "They took isolated incidents of people misbehaving and exploited that to make it seem like mob violence. It is immoral."

Brian Brown, executive director of National Organization for Marriage, which created the first ad, has a different perspective.

"There was not just one instance of vandalism," Brown said. "I was there in Westwood, [Calif. at the LDS temple protest]. I saw signs saying, 'Mormon scum,' and others encouraging the sort of hatred and violence we condemned. There have been fairly widespread attempts at intimidation, like calling Proposition 8 supporters at 2 a.m. and screaming into the phone."

Beyond the issue of whether gay protests constituted a "mob," Besen argues that the signers of the earlier ad are hypocrites for saying they will not use anti-religious rhetoric.

"These new defenders of the Mormon faith have long been the most prolific Mormon bashers in the nation," Besen said. "They have nothing in common but their anti-gay rhetoric. Promoting legal discrimination [against gays] with a group that would happily discriminate against you is a strategic disaster in the long run."

Opponents of gay couples marrying often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.

Our Mutual Joy

Lisa Miller

NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Dec 15, 2008

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

The battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a decade, but within the last six months—since California legalized gay marriage and then, with a ballot initiative in November, amended its Constitution to prohibit it—the debate has grown into a full-scale war, with religious-rhetoric slinging to match. Not since 1860, when the country's pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwell—and the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecher—this time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections.

The argument goes something like this statement, which the Rev. Richard A. Hunter, a United Methodist minister, gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in June: "The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same-sex marriages because this stands in opposition to Scripture and our tradition."

To which there are two obvious responses: Read more at http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653/output/print

Orlando LGBT Community and Allies Form New Unity Coalition

Orlando LGBT Community and Allies Form New Unity Coalition

One Orlando unites a broad spectrum of diverse organizations and
individuals in a common purpose to obtain equality and dignity for all
Floridians, and to repudiate and oppose anti-gay bigotry and
discrimination.

Established in the aftermath of the passage of the discriminatory
"Marriage Protection Amendment" to the Florida Constitution, One
Orlando has been formed to unite the larger Central Florida community
in an effort to counter prevalent and dangerous anti-gay bigotry.
Nonprofit organizations, civic and community groups, faith
institutions, businesses and individuals throughout the Central
Florida region will combine their resources and talents to oppose
discrimination and prejudice wherever it occurs in our community. The
new coalition will also organize the local efforts of the national
grassroots movement Join the Impact.

Participating organizations include: The GLBT Center of Central
Florida; Equality Florida; Metropolitan Business Association (MBA);
Human Rights Campaign (HRC); ACLU of Central Florida; PFLAG (Parents,
Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) of Orlando, Brevard and Polk
Counties; Gay & Lesbian Lawyer Association of Central Florida (GALLA);
Joy Metropolitan Community Church; First Congregational Church of
Winter Park; Hope Unites United Church of Christ; First Unitarian
Church of Orlando; Oasis Fellowship Ministries; St Dorothy's Catholic
Community; Orlando Gay Chorus; Rainbow Democrats; Log Cabin
Republicans; Orange County Democrats; The Ryan Skipper Foundation;
UCF's GLB Student Union, GLBT Alumni Association, and Office of
Diversity Initiatives; Orlando and Lakeland Youth Alliances; Be Real;
Rollins College Office of Multicultural Affairs; Planned Parenthood of
Greater Orlando; and NOW of Central Florida.

OneOrlando.org invites all like-minded individuals and organizations
to join us in this all-volunteer, grassroots movement as we stand
united against destructive anti-gay discrimination and homophobia in
our city and state. Upcoming events include a holiday food drive, and
a candlelight vigil on Saturday, December 20, 2008 at First
Congregational Church of Winter Park. Details will follow.

# # ##
OneOrlando.org is a unity coalition of Central Florida nonprofit
organizations, faith institutions, businesses, and individuals which
are united in a common purpose to combat discrimination and anti-gay
bigotry in Florida. More information is available at
www.OneOrlando.org.

Will You Join Me? Wed Dec 10th 6pm

From: "Bart Coyle" <bartsrq@verizon.net>

Dear Friends,

 

Will you join with me?

 

There is a place in Iran where people go to die, it is called Edalat Square. In 2005 two young boys in their teens were hung for the crime of being "homosexuals". The United Nations is trying to shun this kind of behavior by instituting a declaration against the imprisonment and or the execution of gay people. Yet the Roman Catholic Church is lobbying the United Nations to allow the imprisonment and execution of gay men and women throughout the world. I am sure that some Catholics are good with this thinking but I am more than sure that the majority of Roman Catholics want to have nothing to do with this absurd teaching as they would have nothing to do with the Church's teaching on birth control. Catholics that I know do not want people murdered because they are gay, however the official word from Rome is that Catholic Bishops do. There will be a candlelight vigil at the Catholic Cathedral in Venice, FL on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 6:00 PM reminding the Catholic Bishop of Venice that hate is not a virtue. I may be the only person standing on the steps of the Cathedral with a candle on Wednesday because the word got out late but know this, the voices of hate will in time be silenced.

 

 

Bart

Shepherding Truth my Version

 

NEWSWEEK: The Religious Case For Gay Marriage

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653

Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy | Newsweek.com

Excerpt:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their
word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham,
the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his
beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children
with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham,
Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these
fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of
marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an
indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle
Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for
those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than
to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm
endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any
contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their
wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about
gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have
it be so.

For more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653

A Letter From A Loving Mother

My Child is Subhuman

From the day I found out I was pregnant she has been a ray of hope in my life.

She was a beautiful child . Helpful , very intelligent, giving, loving and kind.

She has grown in to a very competent woman . Civic minded, a productive member of the community.

I found out today she is not human. She does not deserve basic human rights according to this countries popular vote.

She cannot find legal or financial security in a partnership.

She, who has the ability to love a person for who they are, not because of their gender, but because she loves completely is not allowed to adopt a child if she chooses.

She is not allowed domestic partnership rights, health insurance, to hold the hand of her partner if they are dying in a hospital.

My beautiful girl who loves all is not allowed to love completely. She is not allow to celebrate her love publicly, legally or in the minds of most people evidently she cannot celebrate her love honestly.

She is your niece, cousin, friend, she is a human being in this country without human rights.

If you voted to not allow domestic partnerships in Florida, you also voted to not allow hetero partnerships too. There are a lot of folks who are widowed , who will lose their pension and other incomes of they get married again. So if they are lucky enough to find someone to spend the rest of their days with they will have to do so in poverty or with out human rights.

Evidently most people think this was a gay rights issue and it didn't have to do with them. It was a human rights issue that affects everyone. Your grandma or grandpa, your aunt, your uncle and eventually it will affect you.

If we are lucky enough to have another vote on domestic partnerships I hope you are able to think of the individuals concerned and not some ideology or perceived moral, ethical issue. It is about human rights, all humans...all citizen of this country deserve the blessing of liberty.

If you agree with this email please pass it along. If you do not, then I will hope you will eventually allow the gift of understanding and unconditional love enter your heart.

Think of my child and what an incredible person she is. Try to remember if she added something to your life and then think about what you are taking away from hers.


Elizabeth Sturino
Pandora's Box
2454 Central Ave.
St. Petersburg, FL