(Ir)religiosity

“How long? Not long! Because no lie can live forever.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ve posted on homosexuality before, but I think some of that sentiment bears repeating.

I am a white, married, heterosexual male who attended one private institution for undergraduate work and is now attending another private institution for graduate school.  I was born into and continue to occupy a position of overwhelming privilege.  Simply the mere fact that I have both the time and the money to “blog” rests the case.

I don’t have the slightest idea what it feels like to be oppressed, subjugated, or marginalized.  I don’t know what it feels like to have fundamental rights stripped from me nor do I know the feeling of being told I cannot marry my partner.

That being noted, I feel that the least I can do is speak the truth as I see it and to stand in solidarity with those who struggle.  For me, silence is simply a ghastly affirmation of the status quo.  The written and spoken word are the tools of my trade so I feel that the least I can do is use them to raise my voice in opposition.  It is with that in mind that I wrote this post, because to not speak out would be dishonest on my part.

November 4 was a bittersweet night for me.  I was happy that Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States, but at the same time I was deeply saddened to learn that Proposition 8 was passed in California.  Propositions banning same-sex marriage were put to vote in four states this year: Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, and California.  To be honest, I expected the first three to pass by a wide margin. What I didn’t expect was the outcome in California, where Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%.  I assumed that a state like California, with a high gay population, would maintain it’s open and progressive policy.  But it did not.  It’s one thing to deny a person or group their rights outright, it’s another to strip those rights from them after the fact.

Many fellow Christians have been up at arms about Prop 8 and homosexuality in general, scared stiff that somehow the “sanctity of marriage” would be threatened if gay partners were allowed to marry.  As if every gay person in America has a secret agenda to destroy every heterosexual marriage and tarnish the integrity of the “traditional family.”  This is puzzling to me.  I simply do not understand how gays are to be blamed for threatening the sanctity of marriage when half of heterosexual marriages are doomed to end with divorce — many of which are Christian — nor do I understand how committed same-sex couples are the cause of tearing the traditional family apart when many children are being raised by a single parent, or no parent at all as a result of divorce and infidelity.

Appeals to the bible are being made to justify banning same-sex marriage.  That is understandable I suppose.  Religious folk are prone to proof-text from their sacred scripture in arguments.  It has become a way of automatically trumping any other appeal.  Nevertheless, I am perplexed to see Christian using texts from sections of the bible are simply outdated in terms of social conduct.  I know of no Christians who condone slavery or advocate killing disobedient children; I know of no Christians who insist that persons caught working on the Sabbath or wearing clothes made of two different types of thread should be put to death.  And yet, as soon as gay marriage is placed on the table Christians insist on lifting a handful of verses out of context and elevating them as the social norm.

Nowhere in the bible is a single, committed homosexual relationship mentioned.  Nowhere.  Texts that seemingly condemn “homosexual behavior,” when taken within their context(s) are an indictment of sexual infidelity and promiscuity — ironic methinks.  So all things being equal, if Christian leaders insist on banning gay marriage I would suggest that before doing so they ban divorce and adultery and take a long hard look at themselves before passing judgment on those in committed relationships.

It both saddens and infuriates me to see people using religion as a means to deny entire groups of people rights the rest of take for granted and abuse on a daily basis.  My religion, at its core, is not about stripping people of their dignity and thereby invalidating them as fellow human beings.  No, quite the contrary; my religion was founded on the principles of love and justice, peace and reconciliation.  It was founded by a poor man who told us that the most important thing we could do — more important than any other law — was to love our God and love other human beings as much as we possibly can.  That same man believed in love and justice so much that he was willingly to be executed for them.  I don’t see any of that in the war that is being waged against homosexuals.  I see its absolute antithesis.  Its absolute antithesis.

Some religious leaders suggest that Christian shouldn’t take a stance either way.  They say that neutrality would be the “pastoral” thing to do.  I fear that “being pastoral” — which I’ve written about before — is a simply euphemism for upholding the status quo, a convenient guise behind which persons can silently affirm injustice in the name of comfort and thereby sacrifice the truth.  Dante is credited with having wrote that, “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” In this fight there is no compromise and there is no neutrality.  Silence is an act of affirmation directed to those in power, a vote of confidence to the establishment.  On this I do not waver.  When forced to choose, I will always aggressively and unequivocally side with the marginalized, the ostracized, and the rejected.  I make my home with them.  And today, I stand in solidarity with those who struggle.

On that note, it is encouraging to see, that according to the California exit polls, same-sex marriage appears to be a generational issue, with younger votes being open to it and older voters being against.  That gives me hope.  Hope that one day this will be a non issue.  Hope that one day my children and grandchildren will look back at us now as we do to those who advocated segregation and wonder what we were thinking.  Hope that one day, not long from now, this too shall pass.

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