Quite a tantrum, all in all ...

Lest there be any question ....

... the Vatican issued an article, "Reflections on the Document", with the text of the Congregation for Catholic Education's new instruction on accepting gays for the priesthood. The commentary, written by Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family, was approved by the Secretariat of State and is the only explanatory text the Vatican published with the document.

The article makes clear that gay men are not suitable for the priesthood, even if they have had no sexual experience and are committed to celibacy: "Candidates who have 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies,' that is, an exclusive attraction to persons of the same sex -- independently of whether or not they have had erotic experiences -- cannot be admitted to the seminary or to holy orders. One must free oneself from the idea that leads one to believe that, insofar as a homosexual person respects his commitment to continence lived in chastity, there will not be problems and he can therefore be ordained a priest.." A man with 'homosexual tendencies', Anatrella said, "should not be accepted for formation or, if he was accepted before being aware of his situation, his formation must be interrupted."

The article, which is quite long, provides a lot of fodder for homophobes, inside and outside the Catholic Church, including these gems:

-- While noting that "sexual transgressions" are a particular concern, Anatrella opined that there are "collateral effects inherent" in accepting gay men into the seminary and ordaining them to the priesthood because of "typical behaviors and expressions on the part of these personalities." Anatrella said that gay men tend to have few friends, to close themselves off from others in "a clan of persons of the same type," to resent the claims on their time made by parishioners, to encourage other gay men to enter the priesthood and to deal with authority predominantly as a matter of "seduction and rejection."

-- "It (homosexuality) does not represent a social value and even less so a moral virtue that could add to the civilization of sexuality. It could even be seen as a destabilizing reality for people and for society. It (homosexuality) cannot be encouraged or even less so, supported with pastoral initiatives ..."

-- The Catholic Church has a duty to reaffirm its position that homosexuality is "against conjugal life, the life of the family, and priestly life".

-- "In no case is this form of sexuality a sexual alternative, or even less, a reality that is equivalent to that which is shared by a man and a woman engaged in matrimonial life."

-- Homosexuality is "a sexual tendency and not an identity" and "an incomplete and immature part of human sexuality".

Quite a tantrum, all in all.

I can remember a time -- not too many years ago -- when the Catholic Church spoke with hope and confidence, and sometimes -- some might say often -- a prophetic voice.

And now it has come to this -- a Church acting like a frightened, snarling dog cornered in an alley.

I am astounded.

Do Ask, Do Tell

We knew this was coming, of course.

The Catholic Church makes it official today: Men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" are not fit to be priests. Sexual orientation is now a job qualification for the ordination.

The Church's reasoning?

"... the entire life of the holy priest must be animated by the gift of his whole person to the Church and with an authentic pastoral love. The candidate for ordained ministry, therefore, must reach emotional maturity. That maturity renders him able to put himself in the proper relation with men and women, developing in him a true sense of spiritual fatherhood toward the ecclesial community entrusted to him. ... The church, even while deeply respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to seminary or Holy Orders those who are actively homosexual, have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture. Such people, in fact, find themselves in a situation that seriously obstructs them from properly relating to men and women."

The Vatican document bans gay seminarians because of a finding that gay men do not have, and apparently can only rarely develop, the ability to "properly relate to men and women", and, as a result, gay men cannot properly fulfill the pastoral role of priests.

In short, gay men do not possess and cannot, with rare exceptions, perhaps, develop a critical job qualification for the priesthood, pastoral competence.

The Vatican's finding isn't true, of course, and most Catholics know better. A large number of Catholic priests in the United States -- reasonable estimates range from a third to half -- are gay, and almost all Catholics personally know at least one gay priest who they think is an excellent priest and pastor.

Not so, according to the Vatican. If we are to believe this document, most of the gay priests we know, respect and love -- the gay priests who married us, baptized our children, counseled us during a time of turmoil and need, who tend to our spiritual growth -- lack a critical job qualification for the office.

I don't want to argue with the Vatican about whether or not gay men are qualified to be priests, any more than I want to argue with the Vatican about whether married men should be priests or whether women can adequately represent Christ. I think that the Vatican is wrong, but I think that the Vatican is wrong about many things. So be it.

And I don't want to get into a discussion of the Alice and Wonderland logic behind the idea that a priest must be sexually attracted to women in order to exercise "spiritual fatherhood" to the women in his flock. I'll leave that to the theologians.

What I do want to do is follow the Vatican's line of reasoning a bit further.

In the narrowest terms, the document applies only to seminarians -- those training to become priests. It is they who are banned from ordination, who must be weeded out before they become priests.

Technically, the document does not apply to ordained priests already working in the parishes. Odd, of course, because it would seem to me that if the Vatican believes that gay men lack an essential qualification for the job, it would want to do something about it.

The Vatican will try to talk out of both sides of its mouth for a while, I suppose, taking the line that although gay men must be banned from ordination because their sexual orientation "seriously obstructs" their ability to be good priests, the gay priests and gay bishops who were ordained in the past -- a third to a half -- were the rare exceptions that prove the rule.

But that is bull shit -- a third to a half are not "rare exceptions".

The Vatican is transparent in its hypocrisy -- the document does not apply existing priests because the Vatican knows that it can't do without gay priests in the United States until it has developed a sufficient cadre of foreign priests to handle the large number of parishes in the United States who would be rendered priestless if the Vatican banned gay priests from parish work.

So the Vatican will try to impose a "don't ask, don't tell" blanket over the question of the qualification of gay priests. And it is probably wise to do so, if wisdom is measured by cynical pragmatism.

But if the Vatican is right, it seems to me, what is true of gay priests -- gay priests are not capable of fulfilling the pastoral role, with rare exceptions -- is doubly true of gay bishops, it would seem to me.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a lot to say about bishops and their role in the Church, as you might imagine. But the primary role of a bishop is pastor and shepherd to his flock:

CCC 862: "Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops." Hence the Church teaches that "the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ."

If the Vatican's finding is correct, then sexual orientation is a job qualification for the bishopric, and gay bishops are -- to be blunt -- unqualified and should be removed.

And with respect to the gay bishops, in contrast to gay priests, the cynical pragmatism of the Vatican doesn't apply. The Catholic Church has no shortage of bishops, and the Vatican can easily ordain replacements as and when needed. So the bishopric is not subject to fears of a shortage.

That being the case, I think that it is fair to ask each of our bishops, on the record, whether they are gay -- whether they lack an essential qualification for the office they hold.

So do ask.

I intend to ask my bishops, The Most Reverend Joseph Perry, the Auxiliary of Vicariate VI, and His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, the next time I am within earshot.

And I intend to get an answer, not an evasion.

I urge you to ask your bishops, too, if you get the chance. Or write a letter, asking, and see if you get a response.

Insist on an answer.

And I don't think we should exempt the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ, the Servant of the Servants of God -- the man who is responsible for this madness.

Pope Benedict XVI.

Ask him, too.

And insist that he tell.

You might find that the Vicar of Christ is no more qualified to be the Servant of the Servants of God than Mike Brown was qualified to deal with Hurricane Katrina ...

A Lead?

Earlier this summer, I reported that Dorothy's ruby red slippers had been snatched from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

I checked this morning, and the ruby reds are still at large.

Police Chief Leigh Serfling lamented at the time: "There's not a whole lot of evidence. We're hoping that someone in the community has seen something."



I think that Chief Serfling might want to make a call to Rome.

I don't suppose that Benedict XVI is wearing the snatched slippers.

But he does have a nice turn of the ankle, don't you think?

The Importance of Coming Out

The following essay, called "The Importance of Coming Out", was submitted by Stephen Delaney to his high school newspaper, "The Pride", at Wheaton Warrenville South High School. Wheaton Warrenville is located in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago known for the high concentration of evangelical Christians.

An article in Wednesday's Dupage County Daily Herald, a local newspaper, reported that Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 officials voted not to allow the column to run after what students and staff said was a two-month debate.

Principal Dawn Snyder sent Delaney a letter which said, in part, "Our decision is based upon the district's desire to maintain a position of neutrality in matters of political controversy, our belief that the subject matter is not appropriate for publication in the school newspaper and out of concern for your safety."

The Daily Herald published the essay, which is reproduced below:

At some point in everyone’s lifetime, they find that they are somewhere a minority. While diversity is said to be celebrated in America, today’s teens know that real life can be a different story. There are many pressures to conform to what is normal and to do what everyone else is doing. However, I have found through my self-discovery of who I am that one should never deny who they are.

I have vaguely known I was gay since the third grade. I’m not quite sure when I fully embraced it and became ready to tell others, but I know that I did first come out during the spring break of my sophomore year. I came out to a best friend, one whom I knew I could trust and count on for support. I already knew that she was completely gay-friendly and I could not have received a better response from her. The next girl I told was also a best friend and still is, but there was some trouble associated with her, in that she told someone else. It was understandable, but as a tip for those looking to come out, if you only want one person to know, stress just how completely you want them to keep it to themselves. To the friend who is reading this, I still love you! Ha ha. Anyway, soon, I told a third friend and then openly told a bunch of friends who did not attend South. Soon, I had my first boyfriend and that was when I became comfortable enough to tell all of my friends. In June of that year, I came out to all of them.

While Wheaton is considered to be rather conservative and Christian, I have to say that I still found my friends to be the most accepting and loving group one could ask for. After coming out, I couldn’t believe it took me so long to do so. Coming out has not been a completely easy process, what with the trouble of telling my parents and the drama that came with that. Even then, it all turned out for the best.

However, my main objective of this article is to urge other homosexuals to come out. Even if it is just to one friend, letting out that huge secret is such a relief. Hopefully, the friend you choose to trust will give you such a positive response that you will gain the confidence to tell more people and it will become easier and easier. Even in the textbook for AP Psychology, there is information on a study that linked increased physical illness to the concealment of homosexual identity. It’s basic: It’s not healthy to hide who you are from everyone in your life.

The other important thing is that you are doing the gay community no help when you will not embrace it within yourself. People develop stereotypes about homosexuals because they don’t know many. If those same people found that one of their close friends was gay, especially that they never suspected, they would be forced to reevaluate their opinions. Don’t be afraid to be honest.

I speak from the experience I know best, which is homosexuality, and while my main point of this article was to be true to that if you happen to be homosexual, the larger theme can also be taken. Be who you are, because covering it up is never going to help you. If you are only putting up a facade for people to like, then they don’t really know you and thus, can’t truly like you until they know who you are. The friends that you really want are the ones that like you for your true self.

I have been talking with a friend, "Steve F.", who is in the early stages of coming out in his late forties. Steve is recording some of his experiences in one of his blogs, A Rainbow Flag in Narnia.

Steve is, of course, finding out what everyone who has had the experience learns -- just about everybody already knows, anyway, so thinking that we are keeping a secret is delusion rather than reality.

But he is also beginning to understand, I think, the larger lesson suggested by Stephen Delaney's essay, that living in the closet was not just a matter of keeping a small part of him private, but instead kept all of him hidden, because everything about him is informed by the whole of him -- so long as he tried to hide his sexuality, everything about him remained hidden to large extent, distorting his relationships with other people, removing the possibility of intimate friendships with anyone, straight or gay. And to the extent that he has denied himself the joy of being known, he has damaged himself, however inadvertantly, living behind a shell that kept others from knowing and appreciating him as a person rather than a role.

As Stephen Delaney put it: "Be who you are, because covering it up is never going to help you. If you are only putting up a facade for people to like, then they don’t really know you and thus, can’t truly like you until they know who you are. The friends that you really want are the ones that like you for your true self."

As they say, out of the mouth of a babe ...

Giving Thanks

Last Friday -- November 18 -- marked the second anniversary of the Goodridge decision, the decision that brought gay and lesbian equality to Massachusetts.

In the two years since Goodridge, much has changed:

-- Nearly 6,500 Massachusetts same-sex couples have married.

-- California and Connecticut have adopted broad civil union protections for gay and lesbian couples.

-- The California legislature extended marriage to same-sex couples, only to see California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, expose the idiocy and veniality of the Republican's incestuous relationship with the Religious Right by vetoing the legislation while insisting that the matter should be decided in court rather than in the legislature.

-- Gays and lesbians await high court rulings on same-sex marriage in California, New Jersey, New York and Washington.

In short, the national debate about equality for our gays and lesbians shifted on its axis, focusing on real equality for gays and lesbians, instead of "tolerance" around the edges. Social conservatives have already lost the battle, and know it.

It will take thirty years to bring the struggle for gay and lesbian equality to conclusion -- it is not a bad day to remind ourselves, for example, that gay and lesbian soldiers are putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan and Iraq while forced to live in secrecy -- but the end result is inevitable.

The national discussion surrounding same-sex marriage is a discussion about the nature of society, the nature of our "grand experiment".

It is a discussion that centers around the question of whether the "certain inalienable rights" of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are something we believe in, or simply rhetoric.

It is a discussion about whether Americans will "walk the walk", and not just "talk the talk".

Today is a day to give thanks for our blessings.

Let's remind ourselves that among our national blessings are the seven Massachusetts couples who sacrificed their privacy on the altar of equality, aided by the gays and lesbians who gave their time, talent and tithe to help obtain and preserve marriage equality in Massachusetts in the face of continuous and ugly attacks from social conservatives.

Seven couples, a world of change.

Give thanks.

The Pardon

President Bush issued a Presidential pardon to Marshmallow, a turkey, today.

Not that it is all that clear what Marshmallow did to require a pardon, other than to be a turkey.

The President did not issue pardons to Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Tom Delay or Bill Frist.

Too bad.

I'm in favor of pardoning turkeys.

Bobby, Barry and Bill

Bobby Kennedy, had he lived, would have been 80 this week.

Bobby was one of my two political heroes. The other was Barry Goldwater.

The philosophical principles of both men -- Bobby's thirst for social justice and Barry's thirst for freedom -- have stood the test of time.

Bobby died a young man, cut off by a bullet. Barry lived into old age, fading into political obscurity as the social conservatives perverted the Republican party.

Neither has been replaced in our political system, and we are much the poorer for our loss.

I know without a doubt where Barry would be in the struggle for gay and lesbian equality. He would be an articulate spokesman for equal treatment of gays and lesbians. He lived long enough to see the opening shots of the "culture war" the Religious Right has brought to our country, and he derided the idea that gays and lesbians were second-class citizens -- "You don't need to be straight to fight for your country. You just need to shoot straight."

I can't be as certain that Bobby would be standing with us. He died long before the "culture wars" and before Stonewall. He died before gay and lesbian rights became an issue.

But I am reasonably sure that Bobby would be with us, too. After his brother was shot down, Bobby emerged from an abyss of grief a changed man. Bobby was elected to the Senate in 1964, and as a Senator, he confronted the nation with the racial, economic, and social abuses that remain so evident in our own time. He called us out to fight the demons of racism and economic injustice.

I remember being electrified when Bobby took on Lyndon Johnson, and turned the Democratic Party on its head. And then he was shot down.

I remember that day as clearly as I remember the day JFK was shot. Bobby was killed on June 6, 1968, a couple of weeks after my friend Bill was killed in a car crash, at the age of twenty.

I was stunned and grief-stricken by the twin deaths, the death of a young man who awakened my heart and the death of an older man who called out the best in me.

A dark cloud descended into my life, and I spent months in a fog of grief, brooding and silent.

I learned to laugh again, of course, but I miss them both, still.

And I miss Barry, too.

A thought while I am gone ...

I am in Wisconsin tending to getting my house built.

A thought while I am gone:

"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism." - Barry Goldwater

While we are on the topic of Barry Goldwater, the following is an excerpt from his "farewell address" to the Senate, a clear warning about the continuing danger of religious tyranny:

"Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedoms that document protects ...."

"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars .... Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northem Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"

"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others, unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives..."

"The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. This was true in the days of Madison, and it is just as true today. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic."

How far we have strayed in recent years ...

A sensible balance ...

Washington judge Richard Miller made a good decision yesterday.

The Spokane, Washington, Spokesman-Review, the Associated Press and several other media organizations had filed "open records" requests to view the contents of the hard drive of Spokane Mayor James West's city-owned computer. The media made the request as part of ongoing coverage of the investigation into allegations that Mayor West misused city resources to obtain sexual services.

The judge allowed the request but put restrictions in place to protect the privacy of individuals not directly involved in the investigation.

Mayor West visited the personals on gay.com and other gay-oriented sites, using his city-owned computer. The visits were recorded in the computer's cache.

The judge's order allows a list of the cached web pages to be released to the public, so that the public could see where Mayor West had gone on the web, but ordered that pictures and e-mail addresses contained in the personal profiles could not be released.

The order strikes a reasonable balance, it seems to me. As Judge Miller put it: "This allows the public to answer several questions. It is his actual access to the Internet. ... Clearly the public has the right to evaluate the mayor's performance" but releasing the pictures and e-mail addresses "could 'out' people without their permission."

Mayor West fought release of the computer's contents, contending they were private and that the Internet sites were accessed during off-work hours. The city, like most public and private employers, allows employees to make limited use of city equipment to access the Internet for private reasons.

Mayor West has been accused of abusing his office by offering a city internship to an 18-year-old man he met in a chat room. West has denied any wrongdoing. West has not been charged with a crime at this point.

When the media made the "open records" request, it was clear that releasing the computer records in full would "out" men not involved in the allegations, but that refusing to release the records would withhold information from the public about Mayor West's use of the computer.

Judge Miller's order, in my view, strikes a good balance.

As goes Maine ...

As goes Maine, so goes Alaska, apparently.

In Maine, voters turned down a ballot initiative seeking to repeal an anti-discrimination law last Tuesday.

In response, Maine social conservatives promptly announced that they would seek a ballot initiative amending the Maine constitution to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions in the November 2006 election.

In Alaska, voters passed an initiative banning same-sex marriage in 1999. Last week, the state's Supreme Court held that in light of the marriage ban, Alaska could no longer use marriage as the litmus test for public employment benefits without violating the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee.

In response, Republican State Senator Fred Dyson and Republican Governor Frank Murkowski announced plans to put a constitutional amendment exempting Alaska from having to extend employee benefits to same-sex couples on the November 2006 ballot.

What's the common thread, you ask?

If you have to ask, you haven't been paying attention.

The Midterms are Coming!

As Republicans prepare for the 2006 midterm elections, the Federal Marriage Amendment, repackaged as the Marriage Protection Amendment, is digging its way back up out of the grave.

The MPA reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

The MPA was approved by a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday on a 5-4 party line vote and will go to a vote of the full Judiciary Committee next week. We can expect another party line vote in the Judiciary Committee.

Arlen Spector, the lone Republican on the subcommittee who has announced that he will oppose the MPA on the Senate floor, cast the deciding vote Wednesday. Specter is the chair of the full Judiciary Committee, and he is of the opinion that the MPA should receive a vote on the Senate floor.

So the 2006 Republican strategy looks like it will be a repeat of 2004: "Faggot, faggot ..." 24x7x365.

Not that we can expect much different in 2008, for that matter.

The MPA is sponsored in the Senate by Sam Brownback, who is all but certain to be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

And just in case anyone thinks that the MPA isn't Republican political grandstanding, check the list of sponsors from the Senate website:

Sen Alexander, Lamar [TN] - 1/24/2005
Sen Allard, Wayne [CO] (1/24/2005)
Sen Allen, George [VA] - 2/16/2005
Sen Brownback, Sam [KS] - 10/27/2005
Sen Burr, Richard [NC] - 1/24/2005
Sen Coburn, Tom [OK] - 1/24/2005
Sen Cochran, Thad [MS] - 1/26/2005
Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 1/24/2005
Sen Crapo, Mike [ID] - 1/24/2005
Sen DeMint, Jim [SC] - 1/24/2005
Sen Dole, Elizabeth [NC] - 1/24/2005
Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY] - 1/24/2005
Sen Frist, William H. [TN] - 1/24/2005
Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 1/24/2005
Sen Hutchison, Kay Bailey [TX] - 1/24/2005
Sen Inhofe, James M. [OK] - 1/24/2005
Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 1/24/2005
Sen Kyl, Jon [AZ] - 1/24/2005
Sen Lott, Trent [MS] - 1/24/2005
Sen Martinez, Mel [FL] - 1/24/2005
Sen McConnell, Mitch [KY] - 1/24/2005
Sen Roberts, Pat [KS] - 1/24/2005
Sen Santorum, Rick [PA] - 1/24/2005
Sen Sessions, Jeff [AL] - 1/24/2005
Sen Shelby, Richard C. [AL] - 1/26/2005
Sen Stevens, Ted [AK] - 1/24/2005
Sen Talent, Jim [MO] - 1/24/2005
Sen Thune, John [SD] - 1/24/2005
Sen Vitter, David [LA] - 1/24/2005

The MPA, incidentally, is "SJ 1", the first resolution presented for the Judiciary Committee in 2005.

We have 2000 dead in Iraq, we have a war out of control, we have secret CIA prisons in the former Soviet bloc, we have senior White House aides under investigation or indictment for helping expose a CIA agent and then lying about it, the President's approval ratings are in the dumpster, and the the MPA is first on the list?

You bet it is. And why? As Sam Brownback put it: "Just one year ago, the issue of marriage was center stage in the national political debate. When the people spoke at the voting booth last November, they approved - by decisive majorities - every one of the 11 state amendments protecting traditional marriage."

A year ago the American people were focused on the issue of "gay marriage." Social conservatives came out to vote big time. George Bush was elected for second term and Republicans gained firm control of both houses of the legislature.

The Republican tactic of "faggot, faggot" was the most spectacular political success since Richard Nixon deployed the "Southern Strategy" to bring southern racists into the Republican fold.

But a lot changed in the last year, and the Republicans are headed for trouble in the mid-term elections.

So now, when the Republicans are in trouble for the mid-term elections, Republicans are hoisting the "faggot, faggot" flag once again, trying to distract voters from Republican incompetence, corruption and failure.

The MPA is just the tip of the iceberg of the Republican strategy, of course. Republicans are working to put anti-gay initiatives on the November 2006 ballot from Alaska to Maine, in hopes that the "faggot, faggot" swindle will work again.

Not a coincidence. Just Republican politics.

My hope is that it won't work, this time.

I think that Americans are starting to wake up to the Republican swindle. A number of prominent social conservative gay-baiters were retired at the state level in Tuesday's elections, in Virginia and other states.

Sooner or later, Americans are going to get tired of it all at a national level, too.

The Best Wife on the Planet

Paulie Heath, a Christian songstress who bears a striking resemblance to Ellen DeGeneres, the "best wife" of Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine, is upset with Maine voters, and she's letting them have it, right between the couch potatoes.

Excerpts from the The RECORD Online Daily Newspaper, November 8, 2005:

Why did Maine lose yesterday? I believe Maine lost the vote because people don't trust in God or the Bible anymore. ... People don't think clearly or deeply about what they "believe." Instead, they fill every waking moment, following the latest trends, like mindless herds of animals being led to slaughter. They don't see themselves in a higher order for which God created them. ... Instead, they allow themselves to be bombarded with visual and aural images that overwhelm their consciences by appealing to their senses.

Religion has become a nice convenience for many, because it somehow eases their conscience to go to church on Sundays, and take part in soup kitchens and church suppers, and Thanksgiving boxes for the poor. Any deeper commitment makes them uncomfortable, because they may have to do the hard work of overcoming sin in their own personal lives - or worse - standing against sin in the community.

...

If it requires discipline, effort, or self-sacrifice, most people don't want to engage. It's too much trouble, when we can live soft and easy lives instead. Recliners are increasingly more comfortable. Flat screen TVs are increasingly larger with better quality viewing. In fact, home theaters are now all the rage. A whole room added on to the house, with multiple reclining seats, a large wall/screen, and state of the art projection. Satellite TV allows over 150 channels to choose from, and we can download movies for $1.99 each. ... It's just too much trouble to get up out of the recliner, or even sit in it and read a really good book that promotes truth. Besides, that's not very much fun. ... If we really want to get excited, and revved up, we can stimulate our senses by an action-packed R-rated movie that keeps the adrenaline pumping. With surround sound stereo systems, it's almost like really engaging in something active.

But, we must, at all costs not become real "activists." Don't make waves. “Everybody deserves equal rights.” It doesn't really matter what they want them for. ... That's why we lost the vote.

I think I'll go take a nap. That was almost too much thinking for one afternoon.

Well, Paulie, you got the last part right. It was almost too much thinking for you to do in one afternoon.

But thanks for sharing.

As your husband, Mike, put it on his blog: "I have the best wife on the planet. I'm sure you will agree after reading these scribblings. She wrote them the afternoon after the vote on "gay" rights.

Well, Paulie might be the perfect wife -- and even I'll admit that Ellen DeGeneres was hot as hell in "Ed TV" -- but Mike, who heads the Christian Civic League, the social conservative group that spearheaded the failed repeal effort, isn't happy.

And he plans to do something about it: "Now that the gay rights movement has prevailed, we will soon hear the call for gay marriage. We must work to see that this never happens."

Mike announced his plans at a news conference on November 9. He was unclear about the specifics of the effort, but he said he is working for a ballot initiative to coincide with the November 2006 re-election bid of Maine Governor John Baldacci, who was a major force behind the anti-discrimination law.

To get the marriage ban intiative on the ballot, however, Mike will need to win approval from two-thirds of lawmakers in both houses of the Maine legislature and then, to prevail, Mike will need to garner a majority of Maine voters in the November 2006 election.

"A snowball's chance in hell ..." was how one Maine political scientist described his prospects.

So maybe Mike should rethink things -- although it might be too much thinking for one afternoon for him, too -- and spend a little more time with Paulie.

If she really is the perfect wife, an afternoon in bed with her might take his mind off homosexuality for a while.

Isn't that the whole idea behind the ex-gay movement?

Or maybe they could just cool out and watch television ...

The President and Veterans Day

While the Vice President was at Alrington honoring veterans, the President used his Veterans Day not to honor veterans, but to make a slashing attack on Americans who insist on knowing how we got into the Iraq war: "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite history of how that war began."

The President used Veterans Day to go after the many Americans, like me, who want the truth about how we got into the war.

We know -- now -- that false intelligence was used to make the decsion to lead our nation into this war. No WMD existed and Iraq had no active program to create WMD. We were not under immient threat, at the President told us we were when he rejected efforts by our allies to slow down the headlong rush to arms.

That is no longer a question. The question is whether we stumbled into the war as a result of mischance, stupidity, hubris or deceit.

The question is a sensible one. A responsible government would pursue the answer with vigor.

The administration is not pursuing the answer. After months and months of frustration, a few members of Congress have insisted that the question be answered.

The President, instead of answering the question, is fighting hard to make certain that the question is not answered. And he used Veterans Day to launch an attack on those who insist on an answer, blaming them for the failure of his policies in Iraq. The President, who once asked us to believe that we faced the threat of nuclear destruction if we did not eradicate Sadaam Hussein, now asks us to believe that we are not failing in Iraq because elected members of Congress are voicing dissent.

In the Veterans Day slash attack, the President demonstrated his contempt for democracy, which is not surprising, given his record, and his contempt for the lives of American servicemen, which is not surprising, either.

But more to the point, as the President put it: "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite history of how that war began."

Getting to the bottom of a failed policy -- exposing mischance, stupidity, hubris or deceit, if and to the extent such things played into the decision to go to war and the way in which the war was sold to the American people -- is not "rewriting history." Instead, it is the responsible thing to do, the sort of thing government asre supposed to do. It is called "fixing the problem".

Well, fat chance with this administration. What we saw on Veterans Day was vintage Bush -- an unhealthly combination of "blame Canada" (a nod to you SouthPark fans) and further argument for the delusion that if not for the President and his policies in the Middle East, the Islamic radicals would establish an "empire of evil" extending from Europe to Asia.

But the fact remains, as it was once put: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

I listen to the President and I can never decide whether he is ignorant, vile or stupid. Maybe all three, in some combination.

What is not in question is this: I think that the President's use of Veterans Day was offensive. Blaming others when it comes time for reckoning of your own mistakes is the refuge of scoundrels. I'm glad I didn't even think about voting for him.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day, a day which is set aside to honor men and women who served our country in the Armed Forces.

Recent studies suggest that just under 20% of gays and just under 10% of lesbians are veterans. Many gays and lesbian veterans served illegally at a time when gays and lesbians were considered unfit for military service and banned from the military. Even today, under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", gay and lesbian military personnel are routinely removed from service, and the Pentagon refuses to recognize gay and lesbian veterans' groups.

Our country does not deserve the sacrifice of gays and lesbians who served and serve now, any more than it deserved the sacrifice of African-Americans who served during segregation times. You know it and I know it.

It takes a special kind of patriotism to serve a country that doesn't want, acknowledge or honor your service. Our government refuses to thank gay and lesbian veterans, but you can. If you know a gay or lesbian veteran, make it a point to say "Thank You".

It is about time somebody did.

Vengance is Mine ...

It is always a bit horrifying to get glimpses into the minds of social conservatives:

"Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." - Bill O'Reilly criticizing a ballot measure passed by 60 percent of San Francisco voters urging public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting -- November 8, 2005 - Fox News' "The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly"

The First Amendment protects O'Reilly's free speech right to encourage Al Quaeda all he wants, but he should be careful. Under the Patriot Act, if he starts actually helping them along, he might land in jail.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there." - Pat Robertson, to the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, who voted their school board out of office for supporting "Intelligent Design" - November 9, 2005 - "The 700 Club"

Just about the only good thing I can say about Pat Robertson is that he is getting older by the day, and won't last forever.

FOCFam Wimps Out

Focus on the Family runs an affliated website, Troubledwith.com, which describes itself as follows: "TroubledWith.com is a collection of articles, resources and referrals organized by topic around family issues and concerns. Our goal is to help families by providing complete coverage of issues including a brief introduction to each topic, an overview of the issue at hand, Q&A with experts and tips for making things better."

Good As You, which is refreshing GBLT activist site that uses "humor and irreverence rather than anger and protests ... to investigate any organization/media outlet/personality in regards to discriminatory language or actions" reported on TroubleWith.com's META tags on November 10.

In case you aren't familiar with META tags, META tags are located in a hidden section of a web page called the HEAD and are used to provide basic information about a website to web search engines, webots and webdexes, with the intention of helping people using the web to find relevant sites quickly.

Two key elements of the META tag section of a site are the "Keywords" and "Description" tags.

The Troubledwith.com "Parenting Teens - Homosexuality" section opens with a very gay picture and the following overview:

"Though homosexuality continues to gain cultural acceptance, many who consider themselves gay or experience homosexual tendencies feel puzzled and even apprehensive about their sexuality — If this is normal, why am I so confused? Do I have a choice in the matter? Perhaps you’ve struggled with same-sex attraction, making you wonder if you’re gay. Maybe you’ve even sought to meet your needs for companionship and acceptance through a same-gender relationship. If so, realize that you do have a choice in the matter. You’re not simply “wired that way.” For those with unanswered questions or a desire to change, we offer a compassionate message of transformation and truth."

The "Description" META tag generally follows this theme: "Though homosexuality continues to gain cultural acceptance, many who consider themselves gay or experience homosexual tendencies feel puzzled and even apprehensive about their sexuality — If this is normal, why am I so confused? Do I have a choice in the matter?"

So far, so good. Two very gay, good looking shirtless men for the gay teens reading the site and a few teaser questions for their folks. Very good!

But the "Keywords" META tag is something else entirely. Keywords, remember, are indexed by search engines, webbots and webdexes, and target a site for the intended audience.

FOCFam uses the following "keywords" to direct traffic to the "Parenting Teens - Homosexuality" page: "same-sex attraction, ex-gay, sexual partner, life partner, gay, lesbian, lover, butch, effeminiate, dyke, flamer, fag"

I kid you not. I went and checked.

Not, mind you, that I'm particularly troubled by words like "dyke", "flamer" and "fag".

Social conservatives like FOCFam think in such terms, however much they'd like to hide under Christian piety, and God knows that the terms are thrown around a lot by straights with puerile minds. So it makes sense to target Christian parents by using terms they use every day.

Nope, what troubles me is FOCFam's paucity of imagination in drawing in their audience.

For example, what happened to other similar terms social conservatives use to refer to gays and lesbians? Terms like "bender, butch, carpet muncher, cocksmoker (so to speak), bungie boy, donut-puncher, dutchie, fairy, femme, fruit, fudgepacker, homo, muff diver, nancy, nelly, pillow-biter, poof, queen, queer, pervert, ring-pirate, rump-ranger, sissy, sodomite, swish, switch-hitter" and so on?

Come on, FOCFam -- get with it.

If you want to target your "Parenting Teens - Homosexuality" to Christian parents, don't wimp out with "dyke", "flamer" and "fag" ... get right down in the dirt with your audience.

As FOCFam says, "For those with unanswered questions or a desire to change, we offer a compassionate message of transformation and truth."

Well, maybe.

Update: November 21:

FOCFam updated the meta tags on the site since this blog was written. The keywords now used are "same-sex attraction,ex-gay,sexual partner,life partner,gay,lesbian,lover, save-sex marriage," ...

Good As You, which tattled on FOCFam, is widely read by gays and lesbians, and I understand that FOCFam got plenty of e-mail from outraged "dykes, flamers and fags".

Whether that was the reason or not, the site changed keywords as soon as FOCFam's metatags became blog fodder..

FOCFam substituted "same-sex marriage" for "butch, effeminiate, dyke, flamer, fag". An interesting idea, that substitution.

Anyway, FOCFam's update proves beyond any doubt that the FOCFam crew really are a bunch of candy-assed wimps, caving in like that to the "butch, effeminiate, dyke, flamer, fag" crowd. I can't imagine why. It must have been the dykes that scared them.

They stuck to their guns on the faggy picture, though, so I guess they haven't given up entirely on recruiting teenagers.

And FOCFam talks about us fairies recruiting ...

Here's a thought ...

Texas social conservatives are on a roll.

Having passed a ban on same-sex marriage by an overwhelming majority in Tuesday's election, Representative Warren Chisum, who wrote the amendment, said Wednesday that it's too easy for spouses to split up.

Chisum wants Texas to repeal the state's no-fault divorce law and study ways "to make marriage thrive more in our state."

"Gee whiz, our divorce rate's higher than New York," said Representative Chisum.

Yeah, well ... what do you expect? Texas' divorce rate is a lot higher than Massachusetts', too.

The simple fact is that the Bible Belt has the highest murder, violent crime, domestic violence, illiteracy, divorce, child abandonment and poverty rates in the country.

And the highest concentration of fundamentalist Christians.

It isn't coincidence. Ignorance and poverty breed social disorder and religious fundamentalism. The two go hand in hand. And that's a fact.

But I do want to congratulate Representative Chisum on his insight.

I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever hear a social conservative pronounce the words "divorce" and "protect" and "marriage" in the same sentence.

I guess I now have ...

A caution, though: "Gee whiz, our divorce rate's higher than New York" doesn't have anywhere near the marketing punch among fundamentalist Christians, more than half of whom have been divorced, as "Oh my Jesus, we've got to keep the fudgepackers from destroying our marriages!"

So here's a thought, Representative Chisum: Repackage your bill to repeal or limit no-fault divorce the "Protect Divorce Amendment", line up a herd of fundamentalist preachers to rant "Oh my Jesus, we've got to keep the fudgepackers from destroying our divorces!", and put it to the voters in 2006.

Chances are, the fundamentalist Christians will be duped again.

Maine Voters Reject Discrimination

In Maine, a ballot measure to overturn the state's LGBT civil rights protections was rejected by voters.

The law amends the Maine Human Rights Act by making discrimination in employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal.

The measure passed the Maine legislature after the Senate agreed with the House to add a clause addressing concerns of opponents that the bill would be a gateway to gay marriages. Language was added to say that the human rights bill did not extend to the issue of marriage. The law was signed by Governor John Baldacci in March.

The Christian Civic League of Maine immediately began a repeal effort, gathering enough signatures to force the issue onto next month's ballot.

The league has forced referenda on similar bills three times in the past decade and gays have seen the protections erased at the polls each time until Tuesday.

Recent polls have shown that a majority of Maine voters opposed repeal, but so did polls in the earlier referenda. As anyone who has worked in politics knows, polls don't mean much -- what counts is who actually votes.

Social conservatives have used voter lethargy on GLBT rights in the past to good advantage, whipping religious conservatives into a frenzy to ensure a high voter turnout among Christian conservatives, in contrast to low voter turnouts in the general population.

It didn't work this time around. Maine joins the other five New England states in protecting basic rights for GLBT citizens.

Cowboy Coupling

Texas, to nobody's great surprise, voted overwhelming to protect traditional marriage, Texas style, by a margin of about 75% to 25%.

In the spirit of Texas, where nobody tells a lie but the truth is often bigger than necessary, Governor Rick Perry signed the legislation sending the amendment to voters last July, although his signature was not needed.

Perry, about whom there have been rumors, said the symbolism was important. You bet it was ...

But protecting Governor Perry's reputation as two-fisted rather than limp-wristed was not the primary motivation for overkill, methinks.

The census bureau estimates that there are about 43,000 same-sex couples coupling in Texas, a number that scares the horses, making it more difficult for Texas cowboys to get a little during working hours.

Ah, hell ... can't let that go on ...

Flag Burning

Members of Old Paths Baptist Church, an Indiana church opposed to homosexuality, demonstrated on the campus of the University of Indiana then marched to a Bloomington gay-owned store where they burned the Rainbow flag.

Carrying signs that said "Fags Die, God Laughs" while signing hymns, the group denounced the University for diversity programs, and then marched to The Inner Chef a gay-owned kitchen supply store in Bloomington, where they set a rainbow flag on fire.

John Lewis, pastor of the church, said: "The elite city of Bloomington harbors an elitist, faggot business called The Inner Chef which openly and unabashedly claim they are against God Almighty. We burned the flag, and we will do it again."

Bob Easterbrook, a clerk at the store, was the only person working there at the time:
"I was playing on the computer and somebody came in and said to look outside. I was like, 'Ahh. Uh oh.' I'm going to hell, I guess."

My own view is that we should encourage Old Paths to buy a lot of rainbow flags and burn them at will. Every dollar spent buying a rainbow flag is a dollar coming to a gay-owned business, as likely as not.

What else did you get for Christmas?

I remember back, years back, when a teenage taunt aimed at someone who was honking his car horn was "What else did you get for Christmas?"

The taunt has gone the way of all flesh, replaced by such teenage marvels as "Well, helloooo ..." and "How gay is that?" and so on, but the very human tendancy to overuse something new remains with us.

Social conservatives, having discovered boycotts, are in danger of wearing it out.

As Peter LaBarbera, head of the Illinois Family Institute and a conservative activist, put it: "It's getting so that if you're going to boycott based on principles, you practically have to show up for work wearing a barrel and eat nothing but grass."

What LaBarbera means, of course, is that too many other social conservatives are horning in on the game.

The IFI is no slouch when it comes to boycotting. LaBarbera is considering boycotting Kraft, Walgreens and the other companies hosting the 2005 Gay Games in Chicago, and has from time to time issued boycott calls for other companies on other issues, not that anyone is paying all that much attention.

But the big guns of the social conservative movement have also caught boycott fever.

In the last year or so, social conservative groups have urged their millions of members to stop buying brand after brand. American Girl, Disney, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Movie Gallery, Pampers, Proctor & Gamble, Target ... the list goes on and on.

The left has been using boycotts for decades, of course. A national coalition of farmworkers, college students and liberal ministers recently ended a four-year boycott of Taco Bell chain after securing a promise of better working conditions for migrant tomato pickers.

But protests that come from social conservative groups create more of a media splash because the American Family Association, the Traditional Values Coalition, Focus on the Family and other social conservative groups can quickly mobilize, thanks to online newsletters and Christian radio stations, and none of these groups are exactly shy about blowing their own horns. And they are doing so in droves, using boybotts as yet another fund-raising technique.

It is very hard to tell whether this broad scale boycotting will have much effect.

The traditional boycotts used by the left tended to be effective, because the boycotts were few in number and long-term efforts.

Social conservative boycotts tend to scattershot and have a flavor of the week urgency to them.

At some point, even the most concerned social conservative is likely to echo LaBarbera's lament: "It's getting so that if you're going to boycott based on principles, you practically have to show up for work wearing a barrel and eat nothing but grass."

To make matters even more problematic, many companies are ignoring the boycott threat.

Advertiser spending in the gay press was up almost 30% last year, despite boycotts and boycott threats. The number of ads directly aimed at gay consumers more than doubled in the last year, according to Prime Access Inc., a New York advertising agency. Viacom's new 24-hour TV channel Logo, aimed at the gay market, has dozens of big-name advertisers, including Motorola, Orbitz, Sharper Image, American Express and Anheuser-Busch.

It might be, though, that the point is the boycott itself, rather than whether the boycott is effective. Boycotts can be an effective way for social conservative groups to raise funds, and appeal to the vindictive streak in social conservative culture. As LaBerbara put it, commenting on the limited effectiveness of boycotting in an age where everything is boycotted: ""But we have to teach them a lesson."

And maybe that's the point.

Pastor Ralph and the Pilgrims

Two years ago, we conducted a campaign which we called Operation Saturation. In the campaign, individuals paid the postage for us to mail the brochures Homosexuality: The Truth and What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality to about 70,000 rural families. Beginning this month, we are mailing to other rural homes those same two brochures plus our flyer on the proposed amendment to our state constitution which would, if the people of Wisconsin approve it in the 2006 election, ban so-called same-sex marriage in Wisconsin and state-created "civil unions." Of course, the brochures also contain a gospel message. These mailings will go to rural addresses in areas where we do not normally lit drop. Our October mailing went to 4,167 Wausau homes. We are making these mailings with the help of gifts to PCC's public ministry fund. By God's grace and the help of His people, we hope to do a mailing a month until summer. - Pastor Ralph Ovadal, Pilgrims Covenant Church, Monroe, Wisconsin



I ran into Pastor Ralph and his Pilgrims Covenant crew at the Circus World parade in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in July 2004.

Pastor Ralph was standing on a portable stage in the town square, surrounded by a phalanx of clean-cut, strapping young men in white shirts with their arms folded in front of them, backed by dramatic signs denouncing homosexuality, and he was exhorting the locals about sin and destruction.

Pastor Ralph is well known in Wisconsin for public protest and (as he puts it) "lit drops" against the "homosexual lifestyle" -- he is something of a wannabe Fred Phelps.

Wisconsinites -- that's Mr. Cheesehead to you, incidentally -- are used to him, and generally just ignore his ranting, as the crowd did in Baraboo.

But Pastor Ralph created something of a ruckus a couple of weeks ago when he dispatched his minions into Illinois. Pastor Ralph and the Pilgrims deposited Homosexuality: The Truth and What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality in Freeport's Historic River District, a neighborhood with a large (for Freeport, anyway) gay population.

The flatlanders (as we Cheeseheads call them) were not amused.

Randall Skeens, a community activist for cleaning up Freeport, said: "This is terrible and I am outraged. This hurts. I think the man needs to apologize. Christians are supposed to help communities, not destroy them. It is not fair to say we are ‘filthy, wicked or ungodly."

Well, the chances of getting Pastor Ralph to apologize for his homosexual obsession is somewhat less than zero, I would imagine. Pastor Ralph and the Pilgrims are obsessed with homosexuality, and by definition, obsessions are, well, obsessions.

As Pastor Ralph put it: "Really, it's just part of a ministry we have been doing for years regarding this whole issue of homosexuality and getting biblical truth out about it." His obsession, he told a Freeport newspaper, arises from his "sense of duty" as a Christian: "I'm not just sitting in the comfort of my church."

Yeah, well, true. I don't imagine that there are a lot of gays and lesbians to tackle in the comfortable confines of Pilgrims Covenant, although it would be fun to show up, a few hundred strong, some Sunday.

The only problem with that, apparently, is that there is no there to go to.

Pastor Ralph has been ranting about homosexuality in the public forum for more than a decade, and has been in Wisconsin courts at least 18 times since 1989, being cited for disorderly conduct, profane public behavior and illegal distribution of handbills, among other infractions. Pastor Ralph told a Freeport newspaper that he has received death threats, which is why he keeps church private and chooses to do most of his work via the Internet.

But some good did some out of the Freeport invasion. Finding the literature on his doorstep convinced Skeens that it was time to come out and publicly condemn the actions of Pastor Ralph and other homohysterics who are trying to drive gays and lesbians back into the 1950's.

Skeens called on Freeporters to stand up against homohysteria. And, apparently, people in Freeport, straight and gay alike, began to do so.

Skeens said people in the Freeport neighborhood called him after receiving the tract. Their reactions, he said, were "worse than mine. This is making us look like dogs, like filth of the earth. The only people I know are loving and caring and giving in the gay community. We show creativity and beautify homes and yards. It's the only thing we have, and now we have pamphlets going out and saying that we are evil."

My guess is that Freeport is just the beginning, as Pastor Ralph and the Pilgrims begin distributing the tracts around Wisconsin as the fight over the anti-marriage amendment scheduled for vote in November 2006 heats up.

A Rainbow Flag in Narnia

A friend of mine, not too much younger than I am, is in the process of coming out.

He is recording his journey out of the closet in a blog,
A Rainbow Flag in Narnia.

If you are gay and have made the journey out of the closet, or straight but gay-friendly, you might want to follow the blog.

I know I am going to be reading his blog with real interest over the coming months, and not just because he is a friend. I'm interested because, although many others have told me their coming out stories in retrospect, A Rainbow Flag will allow me -- and anyone who reads the blog from time to time -- to follow his journey from the inside out, as it takes place. I expect to be fascinated to watch his growth.

I know that he will be reborn, in a sense, as he integrates his sexuality into the rest of his life, shedding the prison of compartmentalization. He will, I am certain, find a new happiness and a new freedom as he moves forward into an integrated life.

I often kid him about "putting on the pink tutu". It is a private joke, so don't ask, but the picture gives it away, I guess.

Behind the joke is a point -- coming out will free him to be himself, and he will discover himself in new depth as he puts on the "pink tutu" and comes to live the life he was created to live.

I am happy for him, and I am eager to see how his journey will turn out, six months, a year and a few years down the road.

In any event, I invite you to follow A Rainbow Flag and share your support, hope and experience with him in coming months.

In their own words ...

I ran across a window into the thinking of social conservatives on the issue of same-sex marriage.

Steve Satterwhite published an article in The Texas Observer recently in which he let social conservatives who testified before the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee on May 19 on the topic of the proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions speak for themselves, in more depth than was possible at the hearing.

The following are excerpts from the article, in which social conservatives speak for themselves:

Mary Ann Markarian, Sugarland, Texas

The bible is very clear -- homosexuality is an abomination, and I do think homosexual marriage should be illegal. This is not just my opinion. This is God's opinion.

I'm an ordained minister for M.A.P. Ministries, Inc., and my message is the message of love -- the love of God and how much he cares about us. I'm going to encourage people to vote appropriately [for the amendment], but not because I dislike homosexuals. I know a lot of homosexual people who are wonderful people, who are very kind and gracious, who are my friends.

Q: What about the scientific studies of animals that suggest that homosexuality might be caused by nature or genetics?

But sin is sin. We're not animals. We're people, and I do not believe that you're born homosexual. They only have two signs over at the hospital: blue ones for the boys and pink ones for the girls. God knows when we're born what we're supposed to be.

...

Now I know this is not real pleasant, but the truth needs to come out. When we say the word "gay," we're really just hiding because we're really not understanding what that word really entails -- what it means, what people are doing, and why this can hurt society as a whole. It's never been an accepted lifestyle. If we allow this to become accepted, then the numbers will grow astronomically. Now they want to take it into the classroom, to teach our children that this is okay. Our society is two to three percent gay, but if you teach children that homosexuality is okay, then we're going to have a lot of problems.

...

Think about it, and then tell me that God doesn't have some problem with this whole thing -- that God isn't speaking. It's unnecessary to put my name in the paper -- you can just say that "God said," and here's the statistics.

Monte Watkins, Houston, Texas

...

I have absolutely nothing against the homosexuals; what I am against is their way of life. It's not the person, it's the sin.

I don't believe in killing, stealing, or adultery either, and to me all of those things are in the same category [with homosexuality]. We have laws against theft, murder, even against lying, so it doesn't make me a bad person because I disagree [with the gay rights crowd] on this homosexuality issue, too.

I was raised in the church, but I have not always been a Christian. Until Christ got ahold of my life, I was a mess. My daddy is a farmer, and I started out chopping cotton, driving a tractor, and riding in the rodeo in Central Texas. I did not finish school, but scored high enough on my GED that Baylor accepted me as a student. I had three children very early -- my first child when I was 16 -- and a couple of divorces, but then I met Ned, and we've been married for 36 years. I worked for 50 years in the real estate business before I retired. As a single woman, I know how hard life can be, and is. I know that Christianity works, and I know what the other side is.

This was the first time I had ever testified before a [legislative] committee in my life. I was apprehensive and prayed a lot because I want so badly for people to see my heart -- that I am not a radical, that I don't hate anybody. But I saw what they did to Anita Bryant. I heard what they said about Geneva Kirk Brooks [President of Citizens Against Pornography in Houston] -- "Burn Brooks, not books."

A few years ago, my husband and I were at one of the [Gay Pride Week parades]. After the parade broke up, some of them walked by us, talking to each other, but I heard them look around and say, "Mess with us, and we'll rape your kids."

Alan Ward, Stephenville, Texas

The people of the state of Texas are about to vote on gay marriage, and this amendment is a "get to" -- we are going to "get to" see where Texans stand on this issue -- where "we the people" stand. We pro-family Christians have been on the defensive for a long time. Some have called us ultra-conservatives who only want to vote against issues, to vote issues down -- like we were bigots, almost -- so now we want to vote for something -- for the family.

The sign on my church says "Baptist," but I am more Christian than Baptist. No man is perfect except for Jesus who died on the cross. He taught us to love people, so we love people, but, simply put, we do not tolerate or stand for the homosexual lifestyle.

The Bible is what my wife and I choose to live by, and it's one of the reasons that we are totally pro-family. We speak for the family because we are a family. There is a natural way that human beings are crafted to operate, and that is on a heterosexual basis.

We had a homosexual in my family, a young man. During high school, he learned to be gay; he wasn't before that. Was that different for my family? You bet it was, because we are a family of heterosexuals who really believe in being heterosexual. About two years ago, that young man learned not to be homosexual, and he has a girlfriend now. Right in the midst of all this social controversy, he learned to be gay, and then he learned not to be. I've seen him changed, and I've seen two or three or four changed.

Logically, [policing sexual behavior] is out of the reach of the government, but I'm not saying that I believe it should be. There is not enough manpower -- not enough people working for the government -- to go into every home of every professing homosexual to put eyes on them and watch to see that they do not commit homosexual acts. That's not possible. There is not enough manpower.

Sarah and I can both say with a clear conscience, "We do not hate the [gay] person." We are against the lifestyle, not the person. In our years of running this college ministry, we have ministered to, talked to, and befriended gay people. Do we condone the lifestyle? No, we don't. It wouldn't be right to do so. You wouldn't watch your child doing something you strongly disagree with and say, "It's okay. Continue." But you don't "not love" your child, although some Christians may mess up.

...

Noe Reyes, Austin, Texas

From my perspective, it is absolutely critical that we fight to maintain the family structure, which is one of the most, if the most, fundamental institutions in our society. If we can protect the family, I think that will lead to an overall better society. Because of that deterioration of family structure you can see a tear at the moral fabric of the United States.

In a family, the mother and father each have important roles -- certain leadership abilities of the father, and the special physical connection that only a mother and a child can have. Those different roles -- and neither is less than the other -- are critical to the development of a child who will grow up with principles of self-accountability, self-responsibility, discipline, and respect. I think that a definition of matrimony as anything other than a union between a man and a woman -- and I am choosing my words carefully -- is one of those things that could destroy the family structure as, in my opinion, it was meant to be.

Q: So, if gay marriage was legalized there would be more homosexuality?

I think the answer to that is yes. In some states, people in gay marriages or civil unions can now adopt and raise children; those children will not be raised the way a man and a woman would raise that child. [In those unions] homosexuality will also be promoted, and it continues to grow. We see it on TV shows now. We see it everywhere. Everywhere. It is slowly becoming more acceptable. When I raise my child, and he goes to school with a child with gay parents, do I mind them hanging out? No. That wouldn't go against what we believe, but you can see how those ideas can make their way inside the church, inside society.

Would I say that a practicing homosexual is going to hell? No, but I would say that it is between them and God. I can only tell you what the Bible says is a sin based on our interpretation of scripture, but one's standing with God -- that's only between God and that person.

Q: Can homosexual Christians join your church?

I would say they can join my church. I mean, I can't turn them away. I can't turn away homosexuals, prostitutes, drug addicts -- I can't. Because if I could turn those people away, I'd have to turn away every single person in my church. I would have to leave church -- you know what I'm saying? Because church is a place where you come to clean up. You come before God to fight all that.

You're asking tough questions, and I know my answer may not be popular with some people -- "Oh, gay people in the church, oh my gosh. They're here to infiltrate." As much as homosexuality is a sin, that's how much we have to confront it, why we have to deal with it. I know many Christian churches will disagree with me, but I don't think welcoming them into the church affirms their lifestyle.

Q: Is prejudice against homosexuals similar to racism?

No. I don't think being born a Hispanic is a sin. Nowhere in the Bible do I see "Thou shalt not be an Afro-American, thou shalt not be Asian." I think this is entirely different.

Do I see it as discriminatory? Discriminatory would imply that somehow you think those people are less, or that somehow you think you're better than them. Personally, my fight isn't that.

And again, supporting this amendment is not an act of hostility. It's not a personal act of violence. Perhaps as a church we've done a poor job of articulating that, maybe because at times we're not mature enough in our relationship with God that we can articulate it that way. But I'm not going to question a person's Christianity because they're flinging words of hate at homosexuals. I won't agree with it, but I'm very careful about making a judgment call and saying, "Hey, I don't think you're Christian."