(Ir)religiosity

How will support for same-sex marriage change over time?  Significantly.  The generation gap is huge right now.  Some gurus at Colombia University have broken down the statistics by age and state.  Money quote: “If policy were set by state-by-state majorities of those 65 or older, none would allow same-sex marriage. If policy were set by those under 30, only 12 states would not allow-same-sex marriage.”

That’s the title of one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most underrated and least well known speeches.  A speech that he gave in 1967 opposing the war in Vietnam and voicing dissent toward American tolerance of economic injustice.  I hope very much that we will remember, especially as we enter the age of Obama, that the egregious realities of classism and racism still exist today.  Simply electing a black man president is no magic bullet to change the status quo nor does it warrant the convenient dismissal of our dark history.  It is grounds for exuberant rejoicing, yes, but let us continue to remain vigilant in our pursuit justice and truth.

In honor of King’s full dream and legacy, here are a few exerpts of that speech we have sadly forgotten.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. … A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

An interesting take:

[L]et us debate about sex and marriage rather than war and violence. Let us concentrate on the bedroom rather than the war room. Let us liberals get trapped — as always — on the right side of the wrong question. I write this in protest against that deviation from what fundamentally concerns the Bible, the biblical God, and Jesus, namely, that escalatory violence that by now threatens our world with destruction.

I think he does have a point.  But — I can see this line of thought leading us to ignore the problem altogether.  And we don’t need that.  We have enough religious people using the bible and religion in general as a weapon to deny persons their civil rights; we need more religious people actively challenging that position.  And yes, maybe even more religious people to say enough with the bible for a while.

To be fair, I don’t think that is what Crossan is suggesting.  He is simply trying to demonstrate how absurd it is that we are even having the argument over same-sex marriage and gay rights at all.  And like I said, that is a valid observation.  But I think we have to be careful that we don’t ignore those that are being marginalized in the meantime by sweeping the problem under the rug.  It should be faced head on.  Those that use religion as a wedge to separate “us” from “them” aren’t afraid to do that.  It’s time that those of us who believe in the “we,” of which all the great religions of the world bear witness, saddle up as well.

What do you think?

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Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.

“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. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really looking forward to this movie.

[Ht]

[Ht]

All the more reason for me to like Apple:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

[Ht. Dave]

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Here are some of my brief Earth Day reflections. I plan to liveblog the Pennsylvania primary later on tonight. Until then here you go. Oh, and I guess I’ll throw in a bonus: a sermon I gave last Sunday on Earth Day and climate change. It’s kinda long. And I don’t normally use a manuscript, so I or may not have actually said what is written. Bear with me.

Today is April 22. Today is Earth Day.

Today is the day we celebrate and appreciate our environment. We raise awareness about ecological sustainability and perhaps participate in eco-activism and acts of eco-justice.

As a Christian I reflect on my divine responsibility and my divine mandate to care for God’s good creation, not because there is an impending problem (though that fact is undoubtedly compelling!), but because God saw that creation was very good before human beings were even on the scene. And as beings created in the image of God we are given the wonderful responsibility of ensuring that creation remains good. That is our divine responsibility. That is our divine mandate. That is our original stewardship.

If anything I sincerely hope that we will all examine our lifestyles and our actions today, and everyday, realizing that they do indeed matter and they have deep implications not only for our collective future, but for our belief in and about God. We live what we believe. Are we participating as co-creators with God as creator, or are we participating as co-destroyers with God as destroyer? Our actions have already answered that question. Indeed, they have been answering the question for some time.

Further, I hope that we gain a new understanding of what it means to “Go Green,” realizing that we don’t have to go out any buy a new trendy t-shirt made of organic material to show that we care. The answer to solving the climate crisis and living more ecologically sustainable lifestyles lies not in consuming more, but in consuming lives and become better, more responsible stewards of what we already have. Until we are liberated from the arrogant assumption that we can simply buy ourselves out of our problems we cannot even being to addresses the real problem. The real problem is our hyper-consumptive nature that drives our politics, economics, religion, and so on. We must humbly face that demon, and remove that plank from our eye, before we can even begin to address other issues.