Forward!

While those of us who live in Alabama, uh, Wisconsin, are mired in legislative battles with Julaine & Company over whether or not the University of Wisconsin can extend domestic partner benefits to employees and whether or not legislative prohibitions on kids beating the crap out of kids perceived to be gay or lesbian in our schools might impede Christian civil rights, folks in other parts of the country are making progress.

California

California's legislature is expected to pass a marriage equality bill again this session, as it did in 2005.

As was the case with the earlier bill, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated that he will veto the bill.

The last time around, the Governator opined that the matter should be decided by the courts, and I'll be interested to see what lame excuse he comes up with this time.

Connecticut

In Connecticut, a bill legalizing marriage equality is advancing in the House of Representatives. The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-15 to approve the bill, which follows upon the civil unions law Connecticut passed two years ago. The bill stands a good chance in both House and Senate.

However, Republican Governor Jodi Rell, who signed the civil unions law, opposes marriage equality and has indicated that she will pull a Schwarzenegger.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is almost certain to adopt civil unions within a week or two.

The New Hampshire House passed a civil unions bill by a 2-1 margin earlier this month, and the Senate is expected to pass the bill this week or next. Democrat Governor John Lynch said last week that he will sign the bill.

The law will take effect January 1, 2008.

New Jersey

New Jersey's "marriage equivalent" civil unions law went into effect two months ago.

New York

New York Democrat Governor Eliot Spitzer plans to soon introduce a bill to legalize marriage equality in the state, according to the New York Times. The bill faces an uncertain future in this legislative session.

Oregon

A domestic partnership bill that would allow gay and lesbian couples to enter into contractual relationships affording them the benefits available to married couples passed in the Oregon House of Representatives last week. The bill is expected to pass in the Oregon State Senate, and Democrat Governor Ted Kulongoski has announced his support for the legislation.

Washington

And last but not least, Washington's Democrat Governor, Chris Gregoire, signed a law to create domestic partnerships on Saturday, giving gay and lesbian couples many of the same rights that come with marriage.

The law creates a domestic partnership registry and provides enhanced rights for same-sex couples, including hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will.

Unmarried straight couples will also be eligible to register if one partner is at least 62. The "senior" provision, similar to one in California law, was included to help seniors who are at risk of losing pension rights and Social Security benefits if they remarry.

The new law will take effect in July.

Forward!

Alabama, uh, Wisconsin's state motto is "Forward!"

Maybe we should change it to "Left Behind!".

"Left Behind" has a religious feel to it, which should appeal to Julaine & Company, and, unlike "Forward!", it has the ring of truth.

Good for U BY

"Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or orientation and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code.

One's stated sexual orientation is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior or advocacy of homosexual behavior are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings. Advocacy includes seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable."

BYU amended its Honor Code to put gay and lesbian students on a more level playing ground with straight students last week.

The old code, which ran along the lines of DADT, creating the same sort of minefield for gay and lesbian students, read:

"Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the University and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code."

With the amendment, gay and lesbians students can be open about their sexual orientation, just like straights. The playing field is not entirely level -- straight students are permitted more latitude in terms of hugging and such -- but progress, not perfection.

Good for BYU.

Dumb Ass

Tommy Thompson, the former Governor of Wisconsin who thinks that he is presidential timber, is from this area of Wisconsin.

A lot of locals know him, as we do his brother Ed Thompson.

And a lot who know Tommy don't think that he is exactly the brightest bulb in the billboard.

Tommy sure proved it last night, in a scene right out of Borat.

Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, Tommy said: "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

The audience, needless to say, started to giggle at the stupidity of it all.

Tommy later apologized, saying that he had meant it as a compliment, and had only wanted to highlight the "accomplishments of the Jewish religion". Talk about digging your hole with a power shovel.

The sad part is that Tommy is probably sincere in his apology -- he's a nice guy but he really is that clueless.

Oy vei ...

What next? Tommy identifying with gays because he likes dancing? Not out of the question, I suppose. Gays will just laugh him off, so no harm no foul.

But Tommy better keep his mouth shut tight like a Muskrat trap around the lesbians. Unlike his audience the other night, they won't giggle when he tells them he drives a Volvo and likes drywalling. He'd be lucky to get out alive.

And, God forbid, Tommy, please stay away from the NAACP. If you tell them how much you like loose shoes, all hell will break loose.

Spreading Manure

While Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are doing the full-court media circus and greed-driven corporate types at MSNBC and CBS are finding religion, the right wing talking heads are circling the wagons around Don Imus.

Townhall.com, for example, reports that "six out of the top ten articles this week were about Imus, Sharpton, and the media's double-standard on civility". Kathleen Parker went so far as to invoke the crucifixion in her column "Don Imus' Via Dolorosa". Good God.

The standard right-wing take this week seems to be that (1) some of Don's best friends are black, (2) liberals and the media are hypocrites, (3) Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are worse than hypocrites, and (4) gangsta rap is much worse than white racism.

It is all off point, which is pretty typical of the right wing.

Racism, sexism, nativism and homophobia are the stock in trade of talk radio, and Imus is just one of the crowd and by no means the worst of the lot.

Take Michael Savage. Among his recent on-air statements: the United States "is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives", gays and lesbians are "perverts" and "the gay and lesbian mafia wants our children", America is a "'she-ocracy' where a minority of feminist zealots rule the culture...together, they have both feminized and homosexualized much of America to point where the nation has become passive, receptive and masochistic", and, on immigrants, "You open the door to them, and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your country and breeding out of control."

I don't spend a lot of time listening to talk radio, but it doesn't take much listening to understand how it works. Talk shows are all alike.

Here's the formula: The host tosses some outrageous morsel of "news" straight out of the supermarket tabloids onto the airwaves, makes a bunch of snappy adolescent comments to build the outrage, and then sits back and fans the flames while straight, while, middle-aged, conservative men spew their hatred about everyone who makes them uncomfortable - gays, blacks, women, immigrants, disabled and so on.

Talk radio is all about fear and anger.

And that's why the right wing is circling the wagons around Imus. The right wing depends on leveraging fear and anger to push its own line of manure on the American public -- racism in America is a myth, white folks are a disadvantaged minority, hate crimes don't exist, gays and lesbians are a threat to straight families and to children, and so on.

Right-wing talk radio is the enabler, spreading manure around to fertilize the fields of outrage upon which the Republican Party depends for its existence.

Within the cesspool of talk radio, Don Imus looks like Walter Cronkite, compared to conservative talk show hosts like Michael Savage, not to mention Ann Coulter, a frequent guest on conservative radio and television shows.

Look, Don Imus, no doubt, is a sterling fellow, the sort of fellow that every right-thinking father would like to have court his daughter, a pillar of righteousness in his personal life. He might even be a prince among princes, a king among kings, for all I know about it.

And there's no question that Imus got the shaft, in the sense that he got nailed when there is a lot worse out there -- Michael Savage should have been given the axe years ago.

But don't weep for Imus too hard. Imus is a radio talk show host who leveraged himself off WKRP into the big leagues of CBS and MSNBC.

When you play in the big leagues, making millions off pushing the envelope just to see how far you can go, you take the risk of being called down when you push the envelope too far. High risk is the tradeoff for high returns, as anyone who knows investment theory can tell you. Imus was well paid for taking the risk, and he knew what he was getting into when he decided to play in the big leagues.

A Time Swept Away

Scene from the Musical, "Showboat"

"It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love." -- Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus, February 1982

Twenty-five years ago Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature passed the nation's first civil rights law for gays and lesbians, and the then Republican Governor, Lee Dreyfus, signed it into law in February 1982.

The bill became law during the last days of the period when the Republican Party lived by conservative principles, just about the time that Ronald Reagan was inviting the Christian Right to take over the party, much to the disgust of constitutional conservatives like Barry Goldwater, who believed in protecting the liberty of individuals under the constitution, fiscal sanity and small government. Goldwater, who was no fool, had clear eyes and could see where Reagan's political greed was going to take the GOP.

In the twenty-five years since then, the Republican Party has become almost unrecognizable. Republicans have become a self-contradiction -- still talking the talk of Republican principles while doing everything possible to destroy those principles.

The Republican Party, now beholden to the Christian Right for its existence, is engaged in a war on individual liberty, ranging from the Patriot Act to the assault on gays and lesbians, is building up deficits at a pace that boggles the mind, and is expanding the power and reach of the government into areas reserved by the Constitution for the states and into the private lives of individuals.

What is even more remarkable is that the Republicans are doing all this while denying it all.

Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature, hoping to gain short-term political advantage by tying Democrats to gays and lesbians, led the state down the path to Alabama last fall, but at their own peril. As it turned out, the Republican Party lost big, losing the Governor's race, losing control of the State Senate, and narrowly averting a turnover in the State Assembly.

The Republicans in Wisconsin, who bullied Democrats and ran roughshod over state politics while in the majority, have changed their tune, they say, and now want to cooperate with Democrats to "build a better Wisconsin". It remains to be seen, and I wouldn't count on it.

But whether or not Republicans are willing to walk the walk of responsible compromise instead of just talking the talk, I am certain of one thing: The Republican Party as we've known it since the Reagan years is hearing the sound of its own death knell.

And, oddly enough, it is the Republican Party's embrace of the Christian Right that is setting the death bell swinging.

I read conservative blogs, and I'm intrigued by the blogs written by young, Christian conservatives who vote Republican. Almost all of the blogs sound like they were ghost written by Fox News, for the most part -- with one exception. A significant number don't buy into the "faggot, faggot" drum pounding, and are warning that unless the Republican Party moves off fag-bashing, the party will loose more and more young people.

The young -- including Republican young in their twenties -- don't buy into it, because they know gays and lesbians, and accept them as human beings. They know firsthand that the President is full of shit when he plays the "end of Western civilization as we know it" game, and they -- even those who self-identify as "conservative Christian" -- can see past the "faggot, faggot" curtain.

My guess is that it won't be too long before these young Republicans start to see through the other curtains, as well. After all, if these young Republicans have come to know that the centerpiece of Republican political orthodoxy is based on deception and lie, what is to keep them from looking more closely at other areas of Republican orthodoxy?

My guess is that they will, in time.

I'm stunned, reading their blogs from the perspective of sixty, how uninformed they are, on the whole, about the last thirty or forty years, and how ignorant they are about the basic facts of American society. If these young adults are any indication, our education system needs a kick in the behind.

My kids are no different, although better educated. The world is complicated and young people are quick to draw conclusions based on half-fact because they are too young to have any perspective. I was that way, too, when I was twenty-something.

Most of us get over it as we get older. The kids now just coming into full adulthood will, too. As we grow older, we are informed by our own experience in life, and the experience of others who we've know.

And that is why, in the long run, the Christian Right doesn't stand a chance of stopping the slow but continual acceptance of gays and lesbians into our society as full and equal citizens. The young, from the limited experience they've had in life, know better than to believe them. As they grow older, more and more people in this country will see gays and lesbians for what they are -- no different, really. The Christian Right is fighting a rearguard, losing battle against reality.

I wonder, sometimes, what it must be like to be Julaine Appling or James Dobson or Pat Robertson, knowing that you are on the wrong side of history and will lose the war, all the while having to talk through your teeth to muster the troops for yet another battle.

I wonder, particularly, about Julaine Appling, because I've met her and debated her, and so I feel an empathy for her that I don't feel for James Dobson or Pat Robertson.

Julaine is intelligent, and she seems to be thoughtful enough, although she is as prone to both self-deception and deception of the public as the rest of the Christian Right.

And so I wonder whether she ever thinks about the sweep of history.

It seems to me that she must.

Julaine is a product of the segregation times in the Deep South, now gone, and of Bob Jones University, which, although it now accepts interracial dating, is an institution relegated to the fringe of American life. Julaine is, in a nutshell, a product of a time and culture that has been swept away by history, as surely as the myth of the "happy darkie" portrayed in "Showboat" has been swept away.

I cannot help but imagine that she looks back at her childhood and youth, when racial verities seemed so certain and fixed in stone, and sense how shaky the ground that the world of her childhood and youth was built upon.

Commenting on the civil rights bill signed by Governor Dreyfus in 1982 in the Capital Times last week, Julaine had this to say: "We certainly wouldn't celebrate it. It's the first time we, as a state, have given special protection to a group of people based on a behavioral preference."

Julaine said that she remembers thinking, when Dreyfus signed the law in 1982, "Why is this necessary? I don't see it as necessary now. I think it was a political move to meet the demands of people who were being quite overt and quite demanding in getting this special recognition, if you will, in state law."

And yet even Julaine knows that she cannot turn the clock back, as much as she might wish to do so, and that the law will stand, and be celebrated.

And so, I cannot help but imagine, she must, at times, see that her prolonged battle against gay and lesbian equality is equally doomed. I don't suppose Julaine dwells there, but I wonder what it is like to get a glimpse that your life's work is a useless battle against human progress, and that you will be remembered, in posterity, with pity.

A Religious Connotation

"Well, I think that marriage has a religious connotation in this society, in our culture, that makes it very difficult to disentangle from the civil aspects of marriage. And as a consequence it would be extraordinarily difficult and distracting to try to build a consensus around marriage for gays and lesbians. What we can do is form civil unions that provide all the civil rights that marriage entails to same sex couples. And that is something that I have consistently been in favor of. And I think that the vast majority of Americans don't want to see gay and lesbian couples discriminated against, when it comes to hospital visitations and so on." - Barack Obama, The Situation Room

I have no doubt at all that civil marriage has a "religious connotation in this society". I spent enough time pounding the ground in Sauk County last summer and fall to learn that a hundred times over. Our county is largely Protestant, in terms of denominations. Unlike Jews and Catholics, few Protestant denominations -- and particularly the fundamentalist denominations -- have an articulated theology of "religious marriage" as opposed to "civil marriage", and, as a result, few make a theological distinction between the courthouse marriage of two God-denying atheists and the church wedding of two Christians.

In fact, the confusion is so embedded that most of the Christians around Sauk County, when asked, don't know that a church wedding consists of two marriages -- a religious marriage witnessed out front, and a civil marriage created by a paper signed in the back room by the couple and the minister, who is empowered by the state to perform civil marriages. So I know, as Obama does, that all marriages are, in the popular imagination, church weddings.

Against that background, I have no doubt, either, that folks are more ready for civil unions than for civil marriage. I learned that, too, wearing out my boots last summer and fall. I don't like it, because I know, after a lot of listening, that the cornerstone of "separate but equal" is "unequal" -- the whole point of civil unions are that they are not civil marriages -- but Obama is factually correct on this score.

I know, too, that Obama has a solid history on gay and lesbian issues, both in the Illinois and United States Senates. Not perfect, by any means, but solid. He has an 86% HRC rating, for example. In Illinois, he sponsored the bill to eliminate job and housing discrimination against gays and lesbians. In the United States Senate, he voted against the FMA, co-sponsored legislation to bring Medicaid coverage to low-income, HIV-positive citizens and co-sponsored a bill to expand federal jurisdiction to reach serious, violent hate crimes perpetrated because of the "actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or disability" of the victim. So I have no doubt that Obama has his money where his mouth is.

And, of course, I know that his background as a lawyer, as well as his personal thoughtfulness, leads him to make nuanced statements like the statement he made in The Situation Room, rather than speaking through sound bites like most of the candidates in the 2008 Presidential field.

I also know that Obama is right-sized enough to know that he could be wrong about marriage equality, and say so. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama says: "I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided." It is not as if Obama's views are set in stone.

Nonetheless, it bothers me to read between the lines of Obama's statements on the struggle for gay and lesbian equality. What is missing, I think, are two things:

Equality

Obama does not seem to have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality for gay and lesbian citizens under the law. Instead, Obama seems to think that the goal is to end discrimination -- he would, it appears, be satisfied with a landscape of disconnected laws addressing instances of discrimination rather than addressing the core issue.

In that, Obama is no different that Wisconsin's Anita Bryant, Julaine Appling, who opined before the election that she didn't care if legislation giving gays and lesbians the rights of marriage were enacted, so long as Wisconsin did not pass a law that recognized the relationship of gay and lesbian couples through civil marriage or civil unions. Julaine has since changed her tune, of course, and now opposes any legislation intended to grant rights to gays and lesbians, but the point remains.

The difference between supporting legislation piecemeal while avoiding the issue of gay and lesbian equality under the law, on the one hand, and supporting legislation piecemeal because of a commitment to gay and lesbian equality under the law, on the other, is a subtle difference, I know, but I think that it is an important difference. I'd like to hear Obama speak about equality instead of discrimination, just once.

Religion

Obama does not seem to have an understanding of, and commitment to challenge, the destructive force of the Religious Right in our society and culture.

In the Audacity of Hope, Obama spends a lot of time talking about faith and religion, but does not mention the seminal role of the rhetoric of the Religious Right -- mainstream leaders like Dobson, Falwell, Haggard and Robertson, as well as the marginal rabble-rousers -- in creating a climate of hate and division in our country affecting gays and lesbians, Jews and immigrants.

With the dominance of the Religious Right on the American religious scene, religion has become a dangerous force in American politics. Although its Latin root, religio, means "to bind", the shallow and arrogant sense of dominionist entitlement of the Religious Right has served primarily to legitimize people's shared hatreds in both red states and blue states, intentionally and unintentionally.

Unlike Barry Goldwater and others with clear sight, Obama has not, as far as I know, addressed the issue. And that bothers me, because I suspect that Obama's own religious history -- a late-comer to faith, and an adherent of a non-denominational but socially conservative form of faith -- has blinded him to the danger.

Obama seems to think that his co-religionists are as cooly rational is he is, and could hold a position similar to his about the conflict between his religion and the thrust of history: "In years hence, I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don't believe such doubts make me a bad Christian." You can bet that most Christians on the Religious Right don't think that, or anything near it. To them, the world is black and white, right and wrong, and doubt is not in the vocabulary.

In short, Obama seems to believe the Religious Right will evolve out of its dominionist fantasy and emerge into the mainstream of American respect for the Constitution and individual freedom. And in that, he is wrong, I think.

The Closeted Debate

Social conservative talk show host Dennis Prager wrote an article on Townhall.com the other day that asks a number of interesting questions:

"Why can't a gay person oppose redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex? Why can't a gay person believe that it is best for children to start out life with a mother and father as opposed to two fathers and no mother or two mothers and no father? Why does one have to be a heterosexual in order to make that argument?"

The answer, of course, is that a significant number of gays and lesbians prefer civil unions to marriage equality, for a variety of reasons, and believe that children do best when raised by the married, straight couples who begat them, as opposed to children who are raised by single parents or in "blended" families, straight or gay.

Gays and lesbians take a wide variety of positions on social issues, including issues affecting gays and lesbians in a variety of contexts -- adoption, foster parenting, in vitro fertilization, workplace protection, hate crimes, and so on.

Most of us who are gay or lesbian know others who hold religious, social and cultural positions at odds with our own, and it isn't hard to follow the arguments within the gay community on these issues through blogs and forums.

And yet, clearly, the voices of gay and lesbian social conservatives are not being heard in the mainstream. Why aren't the voices of gay and lesbian social conservatives heard in our public debate about gay and lesbian equality under the law? Why are the voices of gay and lesbian Republicans muted virtually to silence?

The answer is contained in another question that Prager asks in his column: "And why do gay Republicans and conservatives deserve to have the most private part of themselves revealed to the world?"

In the world of Republican politics, dominated by social conservatives, gays and lesbians -- unlike the straights who drop pictures of their wives and kids around as freely as ambulance-chasing lawyers drop their business cards -- are expected to treat their sexual orientation as "the most private part of themselves". In the world of Republican politics, gays and lesbians are supposed to be ashamed of their orientation, or at least, very, very quiet about it.

The few conservative gays and lesbians who are out in public, and make no bones about it, are ostracized, marginalized, or dismissed. Faced with the culture of conservative Republican politics, conservative gays and lesbians conclude, albeit wrongly in my view, that they can best contribute to the national debate if they remain closeted and taken seriously as a result.

It is no secret. Numerous gays and lesbians, after the fact, have written books, articles and blog entries attesting to the culture of conservative Republican politics, and the pressure to remain in the closet in Republican circles.

So what happens? The rigorous debate we should be having is conducted subrosa, with out gays and lesbians on the left dominating the public side of the discussion, and closeted gays and lesbians on the right allowing maniacs like Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum to speak for them, without qualification or nuance.

Going back to Prager's questions -- "Why can't a gay person oppose redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex? Why can't a gay person believe that it is best for children to start out life with a mother and father as opposed to two fathers and no mother or two mothers and no father? Why does one have to be a heterosexual in order to make that argument?" -- the answer is that many conservative gays and lesbians do hold those positions, and should speak out as gays and lesbians.

But they don't, by and large. Obviously, the debate suffers as a result. But that is only half the story.

The fact that almost all gays and lesbians in Republican politics are closeted lends support to a sickness in our national society, in which being gay or lesbian is considered shameful, something to be kept "most private".

It harms the conservative cause, because it denies the cause gay and lesbian witness and voices.

It harms conservative gays and lesbians because gay and lesbian conservatives are left without role models, and are taught, by example, that the only way in which they can have their voices heard in conservative circles is to keep very, very quiet about who they are. It harms gays and lesbians because authentic, conservative gay and lesbian voices are not being heard in our national debate.

It harms the closeted conservative gays and lesbians personally, as well. It is axiomatic that "you are only as sick as your secrets", and most of us have learned, through hard experience, the truth of the axiom. Hiding out, twisting pronouns, parsing positions, pretending and posturing are all self-destructive behaviors. All of us who are gay and lesbian have seen it time and time again, in friends who remained closeted. Closeting leads to self-loathing, and self-loathing leads to self-sickness.

And so, in answer to Prager's questions -- "Why can't a gay person oppose redefining marriage to include two people of the same sex? Why can't a gay person believe that it is best for children to start out life with a mother and father as opposed to two fathers and no mother or two mothers and no father? Why does one have to be a heterosexual in order to make that argument?" -- I would suggest that Prager is addressing the wrong audience when he rants about the supposed liberal orthodoxy of the gay left.

Prager should be addressing conservative, Republican gays and lesbians, and Prager should be asked them this question: "When are you going to get honest, get out of the closet, and get into the debate?"

The Messiah?

Right-wing Christians are going bonkers over a statue depicting Barrack Obama as a messianic figure.

Reaction has not yet reached the hysteria occasioned by a chocolate, crucified Jesus recently displayed in New York (about which Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League opined "This would rank as one of the worst, most vile, obscene and blasphemous assaults on Christian sensibilities that I have ever seen ...", apparently forgetting the decades-long scandal Catholics have endured at the hands of child-molesting priests and irresponsible bishops who carefully protected the molesting priests at the expense of children) but reaction seems to be building, if the conservative blogs I read are any indication.

I think that it is time for a reality check, not that the folks who are up in arms are likely to make room for reality.

David Cordero, a senior student at the Art Institute of Chicago, said of the statue: "All of this is a response to what I've been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins. In a lot of ways it's about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped."

In other words, the statue is a visual representation of "The way some people talk about Obama, you'd think he walks on water ..."

Fair comment.

I know Obama slightly as a former neighbor, but I know his political career in depth, because he was my State Senator when I lived in Chicago. I worked on his first campaign and I've followed his career. He's smart, thoughtful, well-educated, innovative, and he thinks out of the box. I think that he'd be a good President for all those reasons -- far better than most of the mopes running in either party -- so I've signed up with his campaign website.

But a water-walker he's not, and I've been astounded at the expectations folks have been laying at his feet. A lot more people than is healthy really do seem to think that he's a political messiah. It is as if we are in the grip a national transference, standing Barrack in for the ideal parent most of us didn't get when the parent cards were dealt us.

I don't understand what is driving it -- maybe its deep-seated frustration with all the right-wing "men of faith" who have sold us all down the river in recent years -- but my guess is that we are in the process of destroying the political career of a good man, a man who we should nurture and grow.

Obama will never measure up to the expectations that foolish folks are putting on him, and their fury will be fierce when he turns out to be just a smart, thoughtful, well-educated, innovative man who thinks outside the box.

I hope that Obama doesn't come to believe his more ardent followers' press releases. The health of his political career is one thing; the health of his soul is another.

God Knows

Americans like to talk a lot about the Bible, but few of us know it anymore.

A Gallup poll revealed that only about half of American adults can come up with the name of a single gospel -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- which are the seminal books of Christian faith, and less than half can name Genesis, which begins it all, not to mention the other four books of Torah. We are, as George Gallup put it, "a nation of biblical illiterates".

That was not always the case. In a earlier time, the Bible was actually read by Americans, believers and non-believers alike, and our people understood biblical allusions in politics and culture.

Abraham Lincoln, a non-believer, used allusions to scripture accurately and powerfully. In a nation that had read the Bible, his audience understood him. Faulkner's books interpret biblical themes in modern settings, as do a few of Hemingway's. Our national culture was rooted, if not in faith, in the Bible.

No longer, and we are the poorer for it.

I can't imagine how anyone who doesn't understand the story of King David can understand Absalom, Absalom, for example, not to mention Joseph Heller's hilarious riff on the life of King David, God Knows. And what did most Americans think about Ronald Reagan's heretical reference to the "Shining City on the Hill"? Did they even recognize that he was declaring America the New Jerusalem?

The stunning fact is that it is not just "secular" Americans who know virtually nothing about scripture. You would not expect Americans raised in non-religious families to know scripture. But you would not expect Americans seeped in religion to be biblical illiterates, and that is, indeed the case.

A significant number of practicing, professing Christians are biblical illiterates.

I learned this years ago, while working as an RCIA catechist. I encountered wave after wave of fundamentalist Christians -- practicing, professing, believing Christians -- who could quote proof texts, but who could not put the proof text into story or context if their lives depended on it.

Most of these folks, I was astonished to learn, not only couldn't tell you the story, but didn't seem to be aware that there was a story being told. To them, the Bible was a collection of proof texts, dots without connectors, and they had no background of story against which to test the proof texts.

I was reminded of this recently by a couple of posts on blogs I read.

In one, a post about the new Harry Potter book, Steve anticipates questions from fundamentalist Christians: "How can you debase your faith by reading a book about witches, wizards and the occult? Haven't you READ Exodus 22? Haven't you READ Deuteronomy 18?"

In the other, a post about swearing, Neon says: "Question: Is it a sin to cuss/swear/curse? Answer: It is definitely a sin to swear (curse, cuss, etc.). The Bible makes this abundantly clear. Ephesians 4:29 tells us, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Proof texts pass for biblical literacy in modern America. And it is dangerous to our freedom and democracy.

The Religious Right is pushing their twisted version of "biblical values" -- their cultural biases wrapped in disconnected proof texts -- on our political landscape, and Americans, who know virtually nothing about the Bible other than that it exists, are unable to assess and evaluate their misuse of scripture.

Time magazine ran a lead article a few weeks ago titled "The Case for Teaching the Bible".

The article reported on a small but growing effort to teach the Bible the context of literature and social history. The effort is controversial, as much among the Religious Right, who fear that biblical literacy will undermine their hold on their followers, as it is among secularists, who fear that Bible study will be used as a subterfuge to teach religion in our public schools.

Both concerns are legitimate, it seems to me. I've seen with my own eyes the religious transformation that comes over adults who have been raised on proof texts when they start to actually read the Bible as story, and I don't have any doubt that some teachers will use biblical literacy courses to push religion in the public schools.

But it seems to me that, on balance, we would be well served as a nation if we made an effort to increase biblical literacy, because religion, or more accurately a stunted, water-thin version of religion, is being pushed so vigorously in our public and political discourse by the Religious Right. Americans need the tools to evaluate that discourse, and biblical literacy would go a long way in helping Americans evaluate the claims made by the Religious Right.

Palm Sunday

It is Palm Sunday today. The passion is read in its entirety in Catholic churches all over the world today.

Michael was reading his mail yesterday, and came out of his room looking distressed.

I asked him about it, and he said, "I just read three really ugly e-mails from Christians about hate-crime legislation ..."

How far Christians have journeyed in 2,000 years.

I don't pretend to get it.