MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

Troy Perry on CA Ruling

Today, I am adding my voice to the voices of people of goodwill everywhere who are deeply disappointed that the California Supreme Court has failed to uphold marriage equality for California's citizens.

It is ironic that the same court that ruled in favor of marriage equality last year has now denied that same right in today's ruling.

My forty years of work on behalf of human rights and social justice offer hope that today's ruling, while a setback for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples, is only a temporary setback in the quest for full equality under the law for all of our citizens.

The silver lining in the court's ruling is that the 18,000 same-sex couples who were legally married before the adoption of Proposition 8 will continue to have full marriage equality under the law.

I am joining hands with civic, political and faith leaders to redouble our efforts to guarantee marriage equality for all of our state's citizens and to pursue every possible option to achieve that goal at the earliest possible date.

~ Rev. Elder Troy Perry founded the Metropolitan Community Church.

How California's same-sex marriage activists could refocus the debate on inalienable rights

By Joe Perez

Clergy Call lobbies for GLBT justice

Clergy Call for Justice and Equality -- two days of prayer and lobbying for GLBT rights -- begins tomorrow, May 4, in Washington, DC. May God be with them!

Clergy of all faith will gather from across the U.S. to worship together and get “tools for the journey,” including specific training on lobbying. Then Tuesday, May 5 is “Lobby Day,” when they make lobby visits to assigned politicians.

They will raise progressive religious voices in favor of important laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. They will also support an end to the military’s Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

This looks huge. My partner looked over my shoulder as I was browsing through the announcement on my computer. “Are those all the attendees?” she asked.

“No, that’s only the SPEAKERS!”

The Clergy Call is sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign. I’m thrilled that the HRC is doing so much about spirituality these days. They are also joining with MyOutSpirit.com to sponsor this year’s National Coming Out Day on the theme “Coming Out Spiritually.”

P.S.  For first-hand reports by participants in Clergy Call 2009, click this link to the Jesus in Love Blog.

Cast the first stone... How will the church respond to Jermaine Jakes?

As I am making my daily rounds on LGBT news websites I came across the story of T.D. Jakes son, Jermaine Jakes being arrested in a "gay sex sting." The first question that came to my mind was, "how will the church respond to him?"

I can only imagine the conversations, arguments, accusations, etc. that are going on within the Jakes family and the Potters House Church. I do not condone Jermaine's behavior, however Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion."

It is important for us to understand the oppression that brings not just Jermaine but others to the point where they have to live their lives in secret. When we are not able to live open and honest lives (no matter what its about) the oppression of our secrets leads to incidents like this. It causes us to live double lives, to go out and get what we need in ways that may not be healthy. We need to be concerned with this oppression and why Jermaine and others feel he has to fear who he is. I hope his church and the church as a whole will understand this and not cast him out.

This is the time where the church needs to open their arms wider, love Jermaine stronger, and not let him go. Instead of calling out the hypocrisy in this situation, let us recognize the oppression which has caused this and hope to bring it to an end.

Spread love,
Azariah Southworth

Music video supports same-sex marriage

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

A touching video supports same-sex marriage -- at a time when group divorce is threatened for 18,000 same-sex marriages in California.  I was moved by seeing images of real gay and lesbian couples set to the song “Fidelity” by Regina Spektor.

Courage Campaign made the music video to inspire people to sign a petition to the California Supreme Court to protect same-sex marriage.  Petition deadline: Valentine’s Day!

News broke Tuesday (Feb. 3) that the state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 5, then decide within 90 days about the validity of Prop 8 and the 18,000 marriages.

Ken Starr -- yes, the prosecutor who led the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton -- filed a legal brief for the "Yes on 8" campaign. It would forcibly divorce the 18,000 same-sex couples married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

When Starr's legal brief went public in December, the Courage Campaign immediately launched the "Don't Divorce..." campaign, asking members to send pictures with a simple message. 

See those beautiful, powerful photos on the music video, and consider signing the petition at CourageCampaign.org.

__

Cross-posted at the Jesus in Love Blog

When is Incest Not Incest?

[The following commentary continues our ongoing conversation on "Reconsidering Marriage."  Read Clayton's first two editorials "Reconsidering Marriage" and "Rick Warren Comes Out for Gay Rights," and additional commentary by our bloggers Azariah Southworth ("Show Rick Some Love") and Joe Perez ("What, was Jeremiah Wright busy?").]

The LGBT community is mistaken about the fight for marriage equality.  Many of us equate the battle for equal partnership rights with the war for equal respect and recognition of our relationships, and the two goals are not the same.

If Rev. Rick Warren - arguably the most influential Protestant minister in the world - is willing to come out in public and say we should have equal partnership rights, we have won a significant battle.  The fact that he does not afford our relationships with equal respect and recognition in his church is not what we are trying to change here, but that is the real reason why we have attacked him since: "He compared our love to incest and pedophilia! He won't let gays join his church!"

We all have different paradigms through which we interpret the world; that is why Gandhi said, "There are as many religions as there are people."  So what is Warren's paradigm that explains how he can say at the same time that he supports gay equal partnership rights and also declare that to him gay marriage is the same as "having a brother and sister together and call that marriage" or "one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage?" 

If we look at the world through Warren's eyes, here's what I think we see:

Slightly more than 50 percent of households are headed by unmarried people, some single and some partnered, and almost a third of children in the United States are being raised in unmarried homes. About 40 percent of unmarried partner households, queer and heterosexual, have children under 18 years of age living in them. Many aging baby-boomers will spend a significant part of their senior years alone. Many will live with relatives or friends in non-conjugal relationships. Increasingly, both married and unmarried adults are serving as primary caregivers for aging and infirm parents or other relatives. Many people live in extended-family households. Needless to say, LGBT people in each of these categories often face the added burdens of homophobia and transphobia.

Requiring marriage as a way to access legal recognition and the economic support of a caring society is not a viable option for millions of households. Consider, for example, these kinds of families: senior citizens living together or serving as one another's caregivers, partners, or constructed families; close friends or siblings who live together in long-term, committed, non-conjugal relationships, serving as each other's primary support; extended families living under one roof (a practice common in many immigrant communities). [1]

Same-sex couples and these other diverse, non-traditional partnerships would benefit greatly from the rights and responsibilities currently only associated with heterosexual, conjugal marriage, but, while Rick Warren recognizes that these families would benefit from equal partnership rights, he rejects that those partnerships be called "Marriage."

This means that in Warren's paradigm, "having a brother and sister together and calling that marriage" doesn't necessarily mean incest. This is why he declared that he has never equated same-sex couples with incest or pedophilia - it wasn't what he meant.

The LGBT community should see beyond our own narrow issues and build a broad coalition, including Warren, to call for a broader definition of family so that marriage, for all who choose it, is only one option among many, not the only way people can access essential government protections and supports like unmarried partner access to health insurance, second-parent adoption, and survivor benefits for Social Security and pensions.

We should take this rare opportunity to fight for legislation to provide access to a flexible set of household benefits and options that are separated from the requirement of conjugal or marital relationship.

What form does victory take?  On December 30, Ali Shams and Kaelan Housewright, two straight California students, introduced a ballot measure to eliminate marriage from State legislation, guaranteeing everyone equal Domestic Partnership rights and voiding Prop 8.  If we can relinquish the word "marriage" to non-governmental (i.e. sacred) recognition, we have the chance to help millions of households by pursuing civil unions for all.  LGBT people will no longer be seen primarily as a self-interested constituency, but as partners in a larger, multiracial struggle for social and economic justice for all.

I believe we will eventually win the war for equal respect and recognition of our relationships, but let's go ahead and win the fight for equal partnership rights in the meantime.

Love,
Clayton

[1] This article includes quotes and statistics from KAY WHITLOCK's "The Perfect Storm: Why Progressives Must Reframe the Narrow Terms of Marriage Politics," PEACEWORK MAGAZINE, April 2007.

What is Your Favorite MLK Quote?

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Julian Bond discusses Dr. King and gay rights on IN THE LIFE:

Gay Bishop Kicks Off Obama's Inauguration

I have not been able to find professional photos or video of gay Bishop Gene Robinson's invocation yesterday, yet, (HBO did not start broadcasting until after he spoke) but here is an amateur video, the text of his prayer and, below that, an interview he gave MSNBC about this historic event:

Here is the text of Bishop Robinson's prayer that HBO censored:

RICK WARREN COMES OUT FOR GAY RIGHTS

This SHOULD have been the headline around the world after the Rev. Rick Warren, Pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, gave this significant interview to Beliefnet.

Unfortunately, a misunderstanding of Warren’s comments has been widely and loudly disseminated by my fellow progressives, describing Warren as bigoted and hateful, when, in fact, his comments reflect an unusual depth of understanding about gay marriage as a civil rights issue.

Warren may be, as The Task Force warns, an outspoken opponent of reproductive choice and stem-cell research, and that should concern us, but he has never equated marriage between same-sex couples with incest and pedophilia.

In this video, posted on the Saddleback website on December 22, the Sunday before Christmas,  Warren says, flat-out, "I believe no such thing. I never have."  In the video, Warren explains again that he has always firmly believed that gay couples – and other non-traditional families – should have equal access to the rights and responsibilities of marriage.  He just doesn’t think it should be called “Marriage.”

Does this necessarily mean he is ready to give up his legal marriage and go to the wall for civil unions for everyone, as MyOutSpirit.com wondered in “Reconsidering Marriage: Are Gay Activists Fighting the Right Fight?”

Probably not. 

At the same time, framing this passionate and unrelentingly civil Christian leader as a hateful bigot in the style of Jerry Falwell is unacceptable and counter-productive.

I take that back.  Attacking Warren is only counter-productive if you value dignified and thoughtful coalition-building for the long-term success of our movement for the equal rights and recognition of LGBT families.

If your priority is increasing year-end fundraising, riling up your base, or keeping your issues in the news, then attacking Warren makes perfect sense.

We should be better than that, especially as spiritual LGBT people.  We should educate our community to have deep perspicacity about our issues, and to have the maturity to do the long-term work of creating change.

LGBT activists from around the country will convene in Denver, CO, at the end of January to train and network and get inspired at The Task Force’s Creating Change conference, and I hope the messages that emerge will reflect the world as it is, and not the twisted sound-bites and caricatures that too often define the discussion, as in the case of Rick Warren.

Let's resolve to do better in 2009.

Love,

Clayton

P.S. Of course, these are MY views and do not neccessarily reflect the views of MyOutSpirit.com or its 1,000+ members and resources.

Thanksgiving: A time to thank straight allies

The following Thanksgiving thoughts are taken from a lesbian’s thank-you letter to her neighborhood association in California after the election.

“Thank you to all our straight neighbors, allies and friends who put up yard signs, made phone calls and supported the huge lesbian and gay civil rights movement to make marriage for our people legal in the State of California.  I loved those NO ON 8 SIGNS!!
 
“…I remember the days when there were no straight people at any of our events, and certainly for decades straight people wanted nothing to do with us.  Now something amazing has changed, and I feel proud of our little neighborhood where people literally put signs in the yards that I felt personally supported me.  I smile every time I drive by all your houses now because I remember where all the signs were.”

Read the whole letter at the Jesus in Love Blog