Dirty Hippies » Religion

On Marriage and Sacredness

Tom Sullivan — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 01:46:19 +0000

Over the years, I have made an offbeat, sociological argument regarding same-sex unions: that supporters would have an easier climb in securing equal rights for same-sex unions if woman-woman and man-man unions had unique names for each. Something other than marriage. Recent events have got me thinking about that again. Tina Dupuy at Crooks and Liars posted Suzie Sampson’s (The Tea Party Report) on-the-street interviews in the wake of President Obama coming out in support of same-sex unions. Sampson hit on the same solution:

Gay Marriage – Obama Comes Out for Love. Do You?

“The word marriage has a connotation,” an Amendment One supporter insists (more on connotation later). “They can have the same right, but not the same name,” says another man. When Sampson suggests pronouncing same-sex unions as “marry-äzh,” both are immediately fine with that. Why? When gay marriage opponents argue that “that’s not what it means,” or insist that marriage is between a man and a woman, it is often dismissed as a thin cover for bigotry. But is there more to it than that? What’s in a name?

On April 11, David Blankenhorn and Elizabeth Marquardt (originally from NC) of the Institute for American Values in New York City and supporters of California’s “Proposition 8,” penned an op-ed for the Raleigh News and Observer opposing North Carolina’s Amendment One, writing:

In the California “Prop 8” case, David felt that he could testify on behalf of traditional man-woman marriage in good conscience, in part because California some time ago passed domestic partnership legislation to extend legal recognition to same-sex couples. He argued in favor of domestic partnerships, more commonly called civil unions, while also insisting that marriage, because of its unique role in uniting biological, social and legal parenthood – a great gift to our children – is its own institution, deserving of its own name, and should remain, as it has always been, the union of a man and a woman. [emphasis mine]

I submit — and the examples above suggest — that there is something more subtle going on than equal rights vs. bigotry in the argument about the definition of marriage. Blankenhorn says he supports equal rights for same-sex unions. But he opposes using marriage to describe them. Now, the horse is out of the barn on whether or not to use the term marriage in advocating equal rights for same-sex couples. The We Do campaign, for example, is built around having LGBT couples ask local Registers’ offices for marriage licenses. In part, because there are legal differences in how the federal government treats marriage nationwide as opposed to other legal, state-sanctioned arrangements. That’s an issue blogger Bob Hyatt of Portland, Oregon’s Evergreen Community addressed recently:

The State needs to get out of the “marriage” business. It should recognize that as long as it uses that term, and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation, and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries where the State issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and then those who desire it may seek a marriage from the Church.

In past conversations, however, my suggestion (as a political strategy) about not using the word marriage in the fight for equality, or about inventing unique words for same-sex unions, was dismissed as relegating same-sex unions to second-class status. That puzzled me. Why worry about the verbiage as long as the legal rights and privileges are the same? Perhaps — and maybe few on either side consciously recognize it — this fight is over something more, something beyond the legal definition of marriage: sacredness.

Not that definitions don’t matter. Words mean something. Echoing the U.S. Supreme Court, Mitt Romney says, “Corporations are people, my friend,” and it sounds ludicrous. One hears people argue that marriage is only a union of one man and one woman. It is historically a male/female union, sure, but not necessarily involving only one of each sex. How many wives did Solomon have? 700? We have special words for multiple, opposite-sex unions: polyandry, polygyny, polygamy, etc. But not for describing woman-woman or man-man unions.

Bear with me here. Going back to Genesis 2, humans name things to distinguish this from that. It is basic cognitive processing, and marriage is an established mental construct. Those do not bend easily. Point to two men or two women and say marriage, and people like those in the examples above object, insisting that that is not what the word means. Is that bigotry? Maybe. For some, probably. But try this naming thought experiment (in your mind’s eye):

I hold up a cup and call it a box.
I hold up a plate and call it a bowl.
I hold up a spoon and call it a fork.
I hold up a kitten and call it a puppy.
I hold up a can and call it a jar.
I hold up a square and call it a circle, etc.

Trying that the other day induced a headache. Because the mind is a difference engine. It knows that even among similar things, this is not that.

When we see that opponents are unwilling to share the word marriage with LGBT couples, that is part of it. For them, two men or two women is not a marriage. First, because it conflicts with a mental construct fixed since childhood. It may be marriage-like, but it is different, requiring a separate name. But secondly, they oppose same-sex marriage because they refuse to accept that LGBT unions can be sacred.

Perhaps for a similar reason, LGBT friends balked at adopting alternate terms for their legal unions, terms that might decouple the fight for legal rights from social acceptance. They use gay marriage, same-sex marriage, or marriage equality instead of civil unions or domestic partnerships, and not just for the statutory differences. Because if same-sex unions are not marriage, they are not sacred and do not feel equal. It is a yearning buried in the sub rosa conversation. But in addition to legal equality, whether their relationships — their marriages — are sacred, whether neighbors in the community accept their unions as sacred is as meaningful for gay people as for everyone else. Civil union doesn’t quite cut it.

Still, if one’s goal is just to get to the other side of the mountain, going around or climbing the lowest pass will do. You don’t climb the steepest face without understanding that summiting makes getting to the other side harder. Recognition of LGBT relationships as sacred is a tougher climb, and not achievable through legislation anyway, any more than the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts settled the equality issue for African Americans. But by establishing their legal rights, passing those acts did lever open the door of acceptance a bit wider. On paper, at least. Recognition of sacredness for LGBT relationships will likely work the same way: over time.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

70 Year-Old Pennsylvania Man Stoned to Death “Because the Old Testament Refers to Stoning Homosexuals”

Joshua Holland — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:51:29 +0000

Ugly story out of Pennsylvania:

Authorities in suburban Philadelphia say a 70-year-old man was stoned to death with a rock stuffed in a sock by a younger friend who alleged the victim made unwanted sexual advances.

According to the criminal complaint, 28-year-old John Thomas of Lansdowne has told police he killed 70-year-old Murray Seidman because the Old Testament refers to stoning homosexuals.

Delaware County authorities announced Friday that Thomas was arrested and charged with murder.

If the perpetrator were following the uglier dictates of another book of myths — say the Koran — then this would obviously reflect poorly on all his fellow adherents. As it stands … well, just a lone nutter.

Exorcising the Demons of Park Avenue

Greg Basta — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:20:00 +0000

Is JP Morgan Chase ignoring homeowners’ pleas for help because they feel they’ve done enough already? Or that they just don’t care?

Clergy members in the New York Metropolitan Area offered a new theory – maybe they’re possessed. That’s why Thursday afternoon, ministers from churches throughout the area joined New York Communities for Change to perform an exorcism outside JP Morgan Chase’s headquarters on Park Avenue.

“JPMorgan Chase did you figure in your calculations that the hundreds of thousands of us who have lost our homes did not lose our souls? And did you figure in your calculations that we are rising up like a great storm that will trouble your executive sleep?” asked Reverend Billy, leader of the revivalist activist group The Church of Earthalujah.

Throughout the financial crisis, JP Morgan Chase has often been portrayed as “the good bank”, which is more than just generous….it’s flat-out wrong. As reported by loan counseling operations in New York to the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, of the 1,027 homeowners with Chase mortgages who came to get help, only 6% now have a permanent modification. A full 80% of these homeowners who asked for a modification have not received any offer of a modification whatsoever.

Members of New York Communities for Change have been working with Chase victims for several months now, pressuring the bank to put in place a mortgage modification process which produces permanent, affordable, transparent, timely modifications whenever these have a positive net present value. Last month, the United Federation of Teachers and Transit Workers Union Local 100 stood with NYCC to announce that if Chase doesn’t change it’s ways, the unions will direct their pension systems to pull all investments from Chase (which are estimated to be over $300 million). Two weeks ago, New York City Council Member Jumaane Williams marched to a Chase branch with dozens of NYCC members to shut down his Chase account (security at the branch tried to tell him the bank was closed. It was 10 AM on a Thursday). Thursday, it was the leaders of several prominent Churches that descended on a local Chase branch to shut down their accounts.

Over the next few months, New York Communities for Change Members will keep relentlessly applying the pressure on JP Morgan Chase through their Not The Way Forward campaign. On March 18th, hundreds of NYCC members will be joined by United Auto Workers and many NYC elected officials to rally outside Chase headquarters. And let’s just say that employees at Chase branches throughout NYC should be prepared for some interesting events throughout the spring.

“The Good Guy Bank” gives its CEO a $17 million bonus and benefits from ridiculous tax breaks while teachers are being fired, homeowners are getting kicked to the curb, and working families foot the bill. It really does sound demonic. Or at the very least, criminal.

Vatican: Priests Have Been Raping Nuns to Avoid Hookers with HIV

Joshua Holland — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:37:54 +0000

Let us take a moment to recall Pope Benedict’s view of what caused the Holocaust:

As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.

It was a ballsy statement coming from a man who was once a member of the Hitler Youth and now leads the Catholic Church, but the argument is not uncommon. ‘What is morality to a Godless atheist?’ is a common refrain among ‘radical clerics’ of every faith.

Anyhoo …

The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns.

Most of the abuse has occurred in Africa, where priests vowed to celibacy, who previously sought out prostitutes, have preyed on nuns to avoid contracting the Aids virus.

Confidential Vatican reports obtained by the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly magazine in the US, have revealed that members of the Catholic clergy have been exploiting their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favours from nuns, particularly those from the Third World who are more likely to be culturally conditioned to be subservient to men.

The reports, some of which are recent and some of which have been in circulation for at least seven years, said that such priests had demanded sex in exchange for favours, such as certification to work in a given diocese.

In extreme instances, the priests had made nuns pregnant and then encouraged them to have abortions.

I don’t get how they could be so sleazily predatory without the moral relativism.

Cross-posted at AlterNet and on my butt-ugly personal blog.

Murder of Abortion Docs as Justifiable Homicide

Frederick Clarkson — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:56:21 +0000

Now that the brouhaha over a proposed bill in the South Dakota legislature that would have redefined the murder of abortion providers as “justifiable homicide” is largely over, and the bill has been tabled, let’s consider the origins of the idea.

The justifiable homicide concept burst into national consciousness in 1993. It was contained in two “Defensive Action Statements” which were signed at various times by 33 people. The text of the first as authored by a well-known Gulf Coast antiabortion activist, Paul Hill in 1993 read:

“We, the undersigned, declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force. We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child. We assert that if Michael Griffin did in fact kill David Gunn, his use of lethal force was justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children. Therefore, he ought to be acquitted of the charges against him.”

The second, using similar language, was issued on behalf of Paul Hill who had murdered Dr. John Britton and his unarmed escort. Hill had previously also issued a 13 page manifesto about the need for “defensive war” and called for the formation of Christian militias to lead a revolution against the federal government. The Army of God in turn, is populated with people who adhere to similar ideas, many of whom see themselves as engaged in a long-term theocratic revolutionary struggle.

The idea was also introduced via a crude cartoon by far-right Catholic priest, David Trosch. The cartoon depicted a man holding a gun on a doctor performing an abortion and was titled: “justifiable homicide?”

Meanwhile, Operation Rescue activist Michael Hirsch a law student at Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School, had developed a legal theory of the justifiable homicide of abortion providers which was the core of his 1993 Regent University Law School thesis. It had been prepared for publication in the school’s law review, but all 500 copies of the review were suppressed prior to publication because Paul Hill’s assassination of Dr. Britton suddenly made the article a PR nightmare. Hirsch has argued that the murder of Dr. David Gunn was “consistent with Biblical Truth” and under Florida law, justifiable if one “reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the immediate death or great bodily harm to himself or another.” Hirsch wrote that the “presuppositions” he brings to any discussion “come from the Bible… it is impossible to fully consider the hypothetical defense of Michael Griffin without Scriptural support for the argument.”

Hirsch later sought to test his theory in an appeal of Hill’s murder conviction, but his theory was rejected by the courts, and Hill was executed by the state of Florida for his crimes.

The notion has evolved over time. In the 1980s, attorneys seeking to defend people accused of arson against abortion facilities, unsuccessfully sought to offer the “necessity defense.” In theological circles, the idea of vigilante action on behalf of what was thought to be “God’s laws” was variously called “Defensive action” and “interposition.” Whether approached via the law or via theology, the idea was to justify criminal acts against abortion providers on behalf of the unborn.

But over time the notion of justifiable homicide has stuck, although it has no legal basis whatsoever. The Army of God uses the term to justify the assassination of Dr. George Tiller by Scott Roeder, for example. Roeder, although he had discussed justifiable homicide in 1993 with Army of God leader Michael Bray, sought to use the necessity defense in court, but the judge denied this approach was applicable.

No court in the country to my knowledge has allowed any defense in which the crime is acknowledged but excused via a necessity defense or the argument that murder of an abortion provider constitutes justifiable homicide. That is why it would have been significant if the South Dakota legislators pushing the idea had prevailed in passing the bill. It would probably have been struck down by the courts, but it would have once again raised into national debate about whether the entire notion that the assassination of abortion providers was somehow moral and legal.

In 1993 the idea that even a few people thought that the murder of a doctor was justified was shocking. But as woolly-headed as it may seem to some, the idea lives on.

(For a more detailed discussion of the origins of the theory of the murder of abortion providers as justifiable homicide see my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, Common Courage Press, 1997.)