Post Prop 8 - Ugly scene in the Castro
I didn’t write about Proposition 8 in CA during the election season, primarily because I had become preoccupied with the general election and the historic campaign. However, as all know, Proposition 8 in CA passed and has set off a firestorm of reaction. Protests this past weekend were widespread nationally (see this link for more than most people will want to read).
However, I want to post this video because I hope it serves as a caution to those on both sides of the gay rights issue. I am saddened by the treatment of the Christian believers who apparently were not there to celebrate the passage of Proposition 8, but as a resumption of an outreach. I also believe that the anger and ugliness reveals the rejection that many gays feel from the Prop 8 defeat. I hope leaders of both sides will step up and call for calm and cooling off.
Rejecting violence while experiencing empathy for the angry is not likely to be a popular position. I watch this video and I wonder, how can we live together? How can such divergent value positions co-exist in a society that often changes by degrees and not by fiat? Mostly, as I watched the impromptu march, I just felt sad and long for a better resolution.
Update: Some reactions to this from both sides of the spectrum. Pam’s House Blend says, “This kind of activism isn’t helping” and this blog offers more from the perspective of the group of Christians chased out of the Castro.
GayPatriot has some good advice for activists…
Put your arm around them and take them to lunch or some fun place. One of my mentors used to say - learn the language of youth so you can pass on your exprience. I think we also need to learn the language of others in any cultural context to communicate. You get my shizzizle?? We stop insisting that others understand us and make every effort and insist upon ourselves to really understand others. That does not mean agreeing all the time. It does mean getting inside the life that lives with the drama. the choices, the concepts, the views etc… it will be different than our own.
It said something to the effect that not all people know how to be nice …. sometimes we have to show them kindness first.
Mary,
Well put - I would also like to add that if people feel as though they cannot relate or measure up to those they are interacting with, or if they perceive arrogance or self serving agendas, they will be turned off and not be interested in anything else that the person or group has to say. I feel badly about what happened on Castro Street regarding Proposition 8 but can also understand how and why it happened. Hurt and pain can be feelings covered up and over by anger. Anger can be feelings that cover up hurt and pain. They go hand in hand.
This isn’t that difficult:
Let us be on an equal legal footing.
THEN come talk to us about our “sin.”
If your interpretation of the Bible is superior to ours, if your way of life is better than ours, if what you have to share with us is so much better than what we already have, then you ought to be able to withstand a level playing field.
Boo,
I absolutely agree. Not all christians voted against ( I mean for) Prop 8. And Christians should have enough security in their (pardon me my) religion and my God to be able to withstand a lot of adversity. I don’t see gay marriage as adversity but others do.
Has anyone ever considered that when God makes a law - we all break it, can’t keep all of them, stumble etc…. What in this world makes us think that our laws are going to make people follow God? We can’t even keep track of our own stuff, on our own terms, with our own church members.
I told a friend,”Hey, I’ll vote for Prop 8 if you do one thing for me.” “Yeah?” he said. “Yeah. Stop having sex with your girlfriend because it is against God’s law.” He turned me down although he fought with me over the Prop 8 thing. Go figure - huh?
If we outlawed, banned, or redefined his behavior as illegal, he would still do it - becuase it is illegal according to God and he is doing it. But when it came to gay marriage he was so high on that horse I could barely see a man whom I call friend.
Boo, I get it. I really do.
Mary- do you also get that Fred Phelps is, theologically speaking, a lot closer to being a Christian than the Mormons that evangelical anti-gay forces embraced in the campaign against gay marriage? He believes that Jesus was God incarnate, Mormons do not.
Do you get that it comes off a tad hypocritical to talk as though the (non-violent) actions of a few individuals are representative of “the gays,” but when faced with completely unambiguous hatred and such vile actions as disrupting funerals by screaming profanities, simply declare that the professing Christians involved aren’t “real Christians?” (google “No True Scotsman” fallacy)
Do you get that the best onion rings in the world are found at Popeye’s Chicken? Do you get it Mary? DO YOU GET THE DELICIOUS TRUTH?!
When you have massive spontaneous demonstrations taking place all over the country in response to something that has justifiably created a great deal of anger in a population that has already born way more hatred and discrimination than anyone should have to, the truly amazing thing is that one person getting shoved is the worst that’s happened so far.
Are there any percentages regarding the religions of the people who voted in favor of Proposition 8? I’m not too sure of the demographics but I know there is a very large Asian population in California and most of them are Buddists.
Boo–
Phelps may believe that Jesus was God incarnate. The Bible says that the demons also believe–and tremble. Mary’s point is one that Christians rarely make. In this case, she finds Phelps response so un-Christian that she’s gone so far as to question whether he really is a Christian.
Her remarks were not intended, in any way, to justify his behavior. They also weren’t intended to take ‘real Christians’ off the hook. They were simply intended to convey that many sincere Christians take serious issue with the hate message he delivers or the judgemental message of folks like Mary K.
By the way, I’ve never tried Popeye’s onion rings. That’s one more thing to add to my ‘to do’ list for my day off tomorrow.
Eddy,
I wished you lived closer - there is a GREAT place for onion rings out here as well. Happy Thanksgiving!
Mary,
The example of your friend is a good one and all too common of those who judge others while rationalizing or ignoring what they, themselves do. I caught myself doing it yesterday when I was silently observing and judging what someone did and then politely reminded myself that I have done the same thing. I was pleased that I was able to catch myself and keep my thoughts in check.
Proposition 8 is an equal rights issue not a moral one. After the equal rights part has been taken care of then everyone can think what they may. I know I don’t like divorce but I cannot tell someone they do not have the right to get one. I also have personal thoughts about marriage, however, they are my thoughts and must never impede on the equal rights of others.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Are equal rights not a moral matter?
TRiG.
TRIG–
I don’t know….could you share your thoughts on the rest of Ann’s paragraph so we can better understand how you define ‘equal rights’ and ‘moral matters’?
Some people seem to have a very strange definition of morality. Let’s look more closely at Ann’s closing sentence:
Ann thinks it would be wrong (read: immoral) for her to enforce certain behaviour on others. I agree. it is right (read: moral) to restrict other people’s rights only when we have a pressing need to do so. It is wrong (read: immoral) to restrict other people’s rights without a very good cause*.
Some people seem to have a bizarre disconnect between “right” and “moral”, when they mean basically the same thing. Perhaps it’s the idea some religions seem to promote that morality is all about sex, when in fact morality concerns all our dealings with other people. Affording equal rights to minority groups is certainly a moral issue. How could it not be?
TRiG.
* In case you’re wondering, I don’t count My imaginary friend doesn’t like it as a good cause.
Trig–
I think you’re trying to split linguistic hairs here. Most words in our language have multiple uses, often related, but still differing. Notice how in your rebuttal, you put ‘(read: moral)’ after the word ‘right’ almost every time…except you didn’t do it when you said ‘equal rights’. The modifier ‘equal’ made it clear that this use of the word ‘right’ was different.
Ann modified her use of the word ‘moral’ by her sentences that immediately followed. It is clear from her whole comment that she regards restricting ‘equal rights’ as something that is somehow not right…somehow IMmoral. Her use of the word ‘moral’ was clearly referring to ‘morality’. Morality is ‘a commonly held consensus of what is right and wrong’…the ’standards’ that are commonly held. She was referring to the traditional sense of the word.
Now we’d get into trouble with ‘commonly held’…who’s doing the holding? why is their consensus trumping the consensus of others? We could try to slip in the words ‘traditional’ or ‘conservative’ but they still wouldn’t serve us well…whose tradition? is it the view of all conservatives?
When I read you both in your full context…it sounds like you are in agreement. Am I missing something?
Eddy-
I’m one of the sincere Christians who take issue with the hate message Fred Phelps delivers and the judgemental message of folks like Mary K. As to whether Fred Phelp’s name is written in The Book Of Life, no one this side of eternity can say with any certainty. But like it or not, he professes a version of the Christian religion which is a lot closer to historic Christian orthodoxy than the Mormons all the “Bible-believing Christians” were so eager to jump in bed with against The Gays.
The thing is, and I see this over and over when debating fundamentalists, they take any bad action on the part of any gay person as proof of The Evil Of The Gays, yet when you point out the bad behavior of str8 Christians, they rationalize it away with the “not a true Christian” thing. And bad as this is as far as gay rights, it’s much, MUCH worse for the church. There is a cancer infecting the church in society. One study estimates that as many as 96% of evangelical teens will abandon their faith by adulthood, and is it any wonder when they can see with their own eyes that the gay people they grow up knowing aren’t the evil disease ridden perverts painted by their pastors? Or when they get into a biology class and discover that their pastors lied to them about evolution? Or when they get sick of the bunker mentality that says the minions of Satan are hiding under every nook and cranny and they’ll go to hell if they don’t vote Republican?
Of course, as a Christian I believe God’s promise that the church will never be extinguished, but if we don’t start calling out this problem in our midst, we’re headed in the direction of Europe’s near-empty churches.
Boo,
I might suggest to you that gays have taken the bad action of any christian and blamed the whole group.
I am a conservative (maybe not a fundamentalist the way it is defined) but am certainly more conservative. I have felt the the rude comments, hateful comments etc… by gays … especially since I am considered ex gay - for lack of a better word.
So…. the bad press swings both ways. And some of your comments about voitng republican (btw I am a democrat), I do beleive in evolution - but do also beilieve God is behind all of it (and I do not subscribe to all evolutionary theories), I abandoned my faith as a teenager - because that is what many young people do etc….. are just as bias and damaging to the discussion.
Your comments were certainly meant to hurt someone. They hurt me. And yet, I am not republican, not a creationist, and did abandon my faith at one time. And I KNOW what it is like to be gay and be mistreated by christians. Funny thing is, I also know what it is like to be christians and be mistreated by gays. Who would have ever thought that would happen?
And I’m the one who made the snarky comment about Mary K not looking beyond her faith to where others are really at. Snarky and inappropriate - but nonetheless the underlying tone was that her mini-sermon was out of place and lacking compassion and understanding of others.
Can we , those who see homosexuality as a sin and those who do not see homosexuality as a sin find a way to talk? One unlike Mary K and one unlike some that choose to insult my faith?
Personally, I try not to insult people, but I’m certainly willing to make fun of nonsensical beliefs held in the teeth of the evidence. There’s a difference between respecting a person and respecting that person’s religion. To do the first is right; to do the second is ridiculous.
TRiG.
Boo–
I believe that our questioning the authenticity of Phelp’s version of Christianity fits right in with “if we don’t start calling out this problem in our midst, we’re headed in the direction of Europe’s near-empty churches.” On one level, we’re saying “We’re conservative Christians and he doesn’t speak for us”; on another, we’re saying that his hate centered message is so contrary to the real Gospel that we doubt he’s a Christian at all. If that’s not ‘calling out this problem’, I’m at a real loss for words.
Trig–
It would help greatly if you were more specific in your charges. This is a blog so we can’t see who you’re looking at when you speak. A number of people are speaking so when you don’t cite specific individuals or comments, it’s very difficult to determine who or what you think embodies those nonsensical beliefs.
Half the time, I suspect that people are visiting other blogs where the conversations are either vile or nonsensical and then come here and unload. Boo, for example, speaks of debating fundamentalists. But, in this topic and its comments, we’ve had very few comments from people who hold to the mindset she details in her comments that follow that statement.
(On another thread, I’m taking a verbal beating for my support of President-elect Obama. In numerous threads I’ve challenged Christians for trying to legislate their own morality. I’ve cited that many are disguising their personal sin of selfishness by hiding behind Christian beliefs…this goes to my belief that many don’t want to extend equal rights primarily because they don’t want the extra expense added to their health and insurance plans. They have no trouble with the fact that gays are paying taxes to support schools when the majority of them have no children; they have no trouble with the fact that gays aren’t given a break on their insurance premiums based on the fact that they are unlikely to need pre-natal and maternity coverage. Yet they scream about the injustice of having to extend health care benefits to the life-partner or spouse of a gay person. To me that’s both selfish and hypocritical.)
Trig,
I’m not sure about the difference sometimes between a ridiculously held religious belief and science that has not fully discovered the DNA and all of it’s components. In fact, we are all (on any notion scientific or otherwise) a few cards short of understanding everything.
If you think that respecting a person’s religion is ridiculous - then respecting a person’s ideas about himself, where he comes from etc… is ridiculous?
Just pointing out that.
Timothy (TRiG),
Would you be willing to respect the person’s belief about their religion?
Eddie, you have a point. Sorry about that. I hang around the CARM messageboard, and it can be quite a nasty place at times (though it’s also strangely compelling). I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on you lot.
You suggest that Ann and I are basically in agreement about equal rights. It seems we are. I’m just not sure what strange definition of morality Ann is using whereby equality is not deemed a moral issue. I think it’s a fundamental moral issue.
And our morality should, of course, flow from evidence-based thinking.
Well, Ann, I suppose it depends on what you mean by respect. I don’t see how I can, or why I should, respect a belief held in the teeth of the evidence, as the vast majority of religious beliefs are.
I’m not sure what you mean by this, Mary. You seem to be suggesting that we cannot know everything (true) and that therefore all ideas are on equal footing (false). There is a difference between incomplete knowledge and the “Here be dragons” thinking of the religious.
TRiG.