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June 11 Gay Marriage and the American TalibanIn a little more than a week gay marriages will be legal. Finally! When will the religious folks who oppose gay marriage realize there are TWO marriage contracts when one marries...one of them legal and one of them religious. It's perfectly fine with me if a religion chooses not to marry gay folks. That's their right. It is not their right to impose their religious beliefs on me or others. It's not their right to restrict my church or Meeting from performing marriage ceremonies that are as legal as theirs.
Civil contracts, including the civil contract of marriage, should be available to everyone, regardless of gender or orientation. But some religions seek to impose their own beliefs on everyone else, much like the Taliban did in Afghanistan. Like the Taliban, some religious folks would like to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. Their next step, should they get into positions of power with the ability to impose their beliefs on everyone, might be to restrict statues of the Buddha, or to close temples, or even to mandate that every teacher must espose Christian values. Make no mistake, the movement to restrict marriage to only a man and a woman is a movement to impose religious beliefs, specifically right wing, conservative, Christian religious beliefs, on everyone. To compare these folks to the Taliban and to others who would have this country be a theocracy is not such a large step in logic.
They would like to say that their conservative Christian religious beliefs somehow are right and my liberal Christian beliefs are wrong. They would like to define "Christian" by their own brand of Christianity. In fact, Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) strongly encourages each individual Meeting within PYM to consider marrying gay folks who asked to be married by the Meeting. If I were married, I would strongly challenge the laws restricting marriage. I would challenge it under the provision of the constitution that imply that no religion may dominate any other. We are not a theocracy, though the anti-marriage folks would have us become one, promoting their own brand of Christian ethics. Many Friends Meetings currently treat gay marriage in the same way they treat heterosexual marriage. As Friends we believe every marriage, including gay marriages, are sanctioned by God. As Friends we simply recognize what God has already joined together in marriage. We also agree to put energy into keeping healthy and whole all the marriages under our care. I personally believe that Jesus stands with any two people who love each other, regardless of gender, and that God sanctions gay marriage as he does heterosexual marriage.
Not all Friends sanction gay marriage, but many do. Each year more and more Meetings say "yes" to gay and lesbian couples who are part of their community and who asked to be married under the care of the Meeting. Some Meetings have refused to perform any legal marriages until ALL marriages under their care are legal. Friends gave up holding slaves 100 years before the rest of this country did. I'm proud that many Meetings are doing the right thing and are on the forefront of saying "No" to this form of slavery and human degradation.
Stop the American Taliban! Vote NO in November on their move to change California's Constitution by initiative. Stop the American Taliban before they start restricting other rights simply because your religious beliefs, like my Quaker beliefs, are different from their beliefs. Stop the American Taliban from trying to establish a theocracy in America. No one is free unless all are free and the American Taliban, those who would restrict our civil rights, should be shown to be as homophobic, bigotted, and hateful as any who would restrict the rights of woman, imposing their beliefs on what women can and can't do in the world. Let them amend the California constitution and next they'll want to restrict the rights of women, minorities, and anyone else who disagrees with them. Make no mistake, these folks are as dangerous in their way as any of their Afghan cousins. As you consider voting for what these folks want, consider what else they might want, especially regarding the rights of women and minorities. Do a little investigation of the folks behind the anti-marriage intiative. Find out what the rest of their beliefs are, then ask yourself if you want to send women back to being subserviant to their husbands, or to send someone to concentration camps because they are gay. If you think that's an exageration you haven't done your homework! Find out what else you are voting for when you support these religious bigots! June 01 Tribute to Tony HenryI was asked to give a tribute to Tony Henry at the 90 year celebration of AFSC yesterday at the Athletic Club of Los Angeles. Some folks asked if I'd make copies available, so I said I would put this on my blog. It's not exactly what I said. As a good professor, I often prepare a lecture and speak off the cuff in class. Most of what I said yesterday is here, though I think I added some stories not in this prepared eulogy. Anyway, here it is:
I'm not sure why I was asked to give this tribute to Tony Henry. There are certainly people in this room who knew him better than I, or worked with him longer. Would those of you who knew Tony raise your hands? You might want to talk to these folks if you want to know more about Tony than I can say in the 5 minutes I've been given at the end of today's program. One thing I consistently remember about Tony was the long meetings in which he would often appear to be asleep, only to, at just the right time, wake up and say the right thing, the thing that would get that committee to do what he, in fact, wanted them to do, while all the while they thought it was their idea. He was a master at doing that. When I asked him about it once, he told me that when you had been through as many meetings at the AFSC as he had, they tended to repeat themselves and so you could wake up just about anytime and know what had been going on! As I was thinking about this short eulogy, I thought about how much I wanted to be eloquent, but how eloquent can I be compared to the stunning work of over 50 years that Tony did for peace and justice. In fact, I am stunned by the work of the AFSC staff and former staff in this room. Your work, like Tony's, is truly stunning. Toiling for peace and justice is not easy. It is tremendously difficult work, filled with little success and few tangible rewards. Yet Tony and you, our staff, continue to help those speak who have no voice in our society. You continue in spite of great odds and sometimes at great personal cost. I salute you as I honor Tony. Do you know what courage Tony had? As an 18 year old boy he had received a wonderful college scholarship that would allow him to go to any college in the country. He chose to go to school at the University of Texas because he wanted to help desegregate that school. When I got into trouble for being arrested on the job, Tony was one of the folks who supported me in his capacity as Associate General Secretary for Program. Tony believed, as I do, that you must not hide your light under a bushel, but let it shine in the world. Tony led mostly by example, his experience quietly infusing those around him with his knowledge and support. I also wanted to be generous about Tony's contributions today, but how generous can I be compared to you donors and volunteers who have given so much to Tony and others. You have made possible Tony's work and the work of other staff in this room. You have done this in spite of the fact that AFSC tends to work for unpopular causes. I've often thought that Betsy Deisroth's work is the most difficult at the AFSC, because she must convince folks to give to some very unpopular causes. It was AFSC who championed gay rights back when it was thought to be an illness. It was AFSC, a great deal of the time under Tony's tutelage, who took on work on desegregation. Some of you may not know this, but Tony was with Dr. King on the day of his assassination. They were at a meeting together in the morning. Tony was helping to put together the Poor People's March on Washington. Tony left the meeting in the morning to return to Washington, only to receive the phone call about Dr King's death. It was AFSC that took on the work of feeding German children at the end of the Second World War. Now it's fashionable these days for Quakers to congratulate themselves on that piece of work. Yet many Quaker Meetings were against helping the Germans after the war. It was the prophetic nature of AFSC to call Friends to do that work. Tony often found himself in trouble with Friends. This is as it should be. It's the nature of a prophetic organization to call the comfortable to be uncomfortable, the privileged to share their privilege. AFSC needs to continue being in trouble with Quakers. As Tony understood, it means you are doing the job we want you to do. To call us out. To raise us up to be our better selves. We Friends believe in "that of God in everyone." We call it the Inner Light. We, all of us, are light bearers, bringers of the light into the world of darkness. Tony was a light bearer. I know from personal experience that the more one bears the light in the world, the brighter that light becomes. Tony was a beacon in this world of trouble and darkness. His light gave others hope and courage. He called all of us to be beacons of hope in a world that sorely needs our courage. The world is a brighter place because of Tony Henry and I miss him dearly. |
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