Civil Rights

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Pastor Rick Updated

After I did my post on the invocation, I ran across this blog entry by Melissa Etheridge.  She recounts her conversation with Rick Warren and how she now feels about having him do the invocation.

As Bob and I were saying at breakfast this morning, maybe Barack Obama is up to something here – like co-opting the religious right.  Our conversation was triggered by this little note on the Boston Globe editorial page:

Evangelicals: Too outspoken a spokesman
Richard Cizik was forced to resign earlier this month after 28 years as vice president for public affairs with the National Association of Evangelicals, despite expanding the flock among younger evangelicals with his calls for “creation care” on the environment. The last straw for the church hierarchy was Cizik’s Dec. 2 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross of “Fresh Air,” in which he revealed he voted for Barack Obama in the Virgina primary and said he was growing more tolerant of civil unions (though not marriage equality) for gay couples. The worst part is that Cizik’s departure will give cheer to rival Christian activists such as James Dobson, who wanted Cizik fired for his “relentless” campaign against global warming long before gay marriage was a big issue.

As they used to say on Laugh-In,  “Very Interesting.”

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Rick Warren, the Invocation, and Separation of Church and State

I have to admit that I was a bit upset at the announcement that the President Elect had picked Rick Warren to give the invocation, but I did not send an email in protest.  Why?  Well, mostly because I wasn’t sure if this were really a big deal or if  in 50 years it would turn out to be a brilliant move. 

I know that Rachel Maddow called it “Obama’s first big mistake.”  The Nation summarizes

Maddow asked why Obama would want to bestow such an honor on an individual who has compared abortion to the Holocaust, same-sex relationships to pedophilia and incest and has openly advocated for the assassination of foreign leaders.

But I was still with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who thought it was politics as usual and disappointing, but not a reason to stop supporting President Elect Obama.

Richard Kim  writing in the Nation has espoused a really interesting idea:  Let’s pressure Warren and Obama to join forces and promote civil unions which they both claim to support. 

I understand the left’s sense of betrayal, but this reaction to Obama’s choice is off the mark. It’s a sign of how much we have conceded to the religious right that almost nobody asked why there should be an invocation at all.

What has happened to separation of church and state?   Kim’s idea for those of us who support gay marriage:

But here’s the bright spot for gays and lesbians: there’s actually common ground that they might find with Obama and Pastor Rick–it’s just not on religious terms. Both say they support full equal rights for gays and lesbians. Let’s test this premise by pushing forward a federal civil union bill that guarantees all the rights of marriage for same-sex couples, as Obama has suggested in his platform. Perhaps over time, some straights will want in on this God-free institution too, and we’ll have civil unions for everyone. Then Warren will be free to sanctify as marriages only the unions he likes. And I’ll be free to sanctify mine by whatever idol I choose, or to choose not to at all.

According to my search on European Marriage laws there are four basic categories:

  • marriage
    Where the rights, responsibilities and legal recognition given to same-sex couples who marry is the same as those for married different-sex couples.
  • registered partnership
    Where same-sex couples have the possibility to enter formal registration that provides them with a virtually equivalent status, rights, responsibilities and legal recognition to that of married couples (with some possible exceptions). This form of registration is often exclusively open to same-sex partners; however some countries have also made it available to different-sex partners.
  • registered cohabitation
    Where a number of enumerated rights, responsibilities and legal recognition are given to couples who register their cohabitation. This form of registration is oftentimes available to both same-sex and different-sex couples and requires that the couples prove that they have lived together to a determined period of time before they can accede to their registration.
  • unregistered cohabitation
    Where very limited rights and responsibilities are automatically accrued after a specified period of cohabitation. These rights are almost always available to unmarried different-sex couples as well.

Various European countries have adopted various combinations of these, often offering choices to both straight and same-sex couples.

I found an old (2003) American Prospect article  discussing this.  E. J. Graff wrote

But of course, marriage is not just a legal instrument; it’s also a symbolically powerful institution, a religious and political battleground whose rules and borders have been fought over for millennia. Each country that has tackled this issue has had to figure out how to help same-sex partners according to its own traditions. Which means that looking at civil marriage worldwide offers a number of models that differ dramatically from our own, and from each other.

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Those nations that have gone furthest share at least two out of three key elements: profound cultural, political or constitutional commitments to social justice; legal pragmatism about regulating couples, whether or not they’ve said “I do”; and genuine separation of church and state.

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The French Revolution stripped priests of any legal power over marriage, a concept spread by Napoleon’s conquests across much of the continent (and beyond). From Germany to Belgium, couples must take God-free marriage vows in city hall — and only afterward, if they so choose, may they walk to a church, synagogue or mosque for a second wedding. Europeans are often shocked to find that, in the United States, ministers, rabbis, imams and priests can wave the magic wands of both church and state at the same time. The result: Europeans grasp more easily than Americans that changes in civil marriage make no incursions into religious marriage.

Expanding Richard Kim’s idea, lets go for civil marriage with full rights for both gays and straights.  This could be like a registered partnership.  We could make a civil marriage required for filing joint tax returns and other civil recognition.  If you then want to get married in a church one can do so.  Let’s separate church and state.

How about it Pastor Rick?  President Elect Obama?  Are you up for the challenge?

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More Thoughts on Prop 8

In her The Last Word Column  in the November 24 issue of Newsweek Ann Quindlen wrote about gay marriage and the decision in Loving v. Virginia.

One of my favorite Supreme Court cases is Loving v. Virginia, and not just because it has a name that would delight any novelist. It’s because it reminds me, when I’m downhearted, of the truth of the sentiment at the end of “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s brilliant play: “The world only spins forward.”

I also wrote about Loving in my post Marriage in Massachusetts.  It is also one of my favorite decisions as well as a wonderful story.

The world is going to continue to spin forward.  The denial of Constitutional rights to a specific group can never last.  There may be one step forward (see Connecticut and New Jersey) and two back (California and other other states which have adopted anti-gay marriage statutes recently), but we will keep moving forward.

And then there is this great Jack Black video.  It has been out there for a while, but it is always worth seeing.

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Race and Corruption

Both the State Senator, Dianne Wilkerson, and as of yesterday, our City Council member, Chuck Turner, have been accused by federal prosecutors of taking bribes and then lying about it.  Both were caught on tape in sting operations.   Chuck is a neighbor.   I know both and have worked with them on various projects including constituant services.  I have supported their campaigns.  So this is a major shock.  I have mixed feelings and a lot of questions about the situation. 

First, there is the question of how much we can trust the Boston FBI office.  This is the office that had agents in bed with the Winter Hill Gang and James Bulger.  One agent has just been convicted of murder and will probably finish his life in prison.  So when they produce evidence that two black politicians representing the largest concentration of African-Americans in the City of Boston I have to feel to some degree that this is racial, a singling out of two office holders who are black and trusted by the community.

Second, assuming that this was a trap set by the FBI why would either of these two intelligent people walk into the trap?  Have they taken bribes all along and just happened to get caught this time?  Why didn’t they refuse the offered money?

Third, why are they being prosecuted when the current Speaker of the House, Sal DiMasi, is suspected of rigging a state contract bid so a friend could benfit?  I do know the answer to that one:  The investigation of that situation is on-going with it just having been turned over to the Attorney General.

Finally, I want someone to do a study of all the African-American officials nationwide and through the last 40 years who have been brought down by scandal.  There has to be more than selective prosecution because of race.  Is there some feeling of entitlement that develops once they have been elected?  And they are all smart people who should have been able to learn from history.

The following quote from Chuck Turner in an interview conducted prior to his arrest which will be published in the Boston Globe Magazine tomorrow as part of a column by Tom Keane  I find troubling.

From an ethical standpoint, I don’t think the vast majority of Congress should be allowed to sit. Ethics should include a commitment to the needs of the people of this country which the Congress has not displayed. Given the fact that all our state governments and the federal government is controlled by money, I think it is hypocritical to talk about ethics when you talk about our political leaders or our business leaders, religious leaders, etc.

Its time for Americans to admit that ethics never have had a significant influence on American politics. If Americans cared about ethical behavior, why did slavery last for two hundred years and neo slavery last for another two hundred? Why does America have the weakest laws in the Western World to protect a working person right to have a fair return on their labor. Why were the Irish treated as animals when they were driven to America by the politics of the English ancestors of the Yankees who treated them as if they were black when they were driven here. I’m surprised Tom. I didn’t think you were in denial of the reality of the moral depravity of this country.

Is Chuck really saying that because the political system is controlled by money rather than by higher moral principles a green light to take a bribe?  Is this the “everyone else does it” excuse?

Yes, there is money in government.  Money gets spent and contracts get let.  That is how governement gets things done.  If he is talking about the election/campaign system being corruptive, there is truth there.  But I’m not sure that money is the only reason slavery persisted and is not the only reason government often fails to act.  Is the real issue that Turner and Wilkinson are still trapped in a world that sees everything as racial, everything though the eyes of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s while the world has moved on?

The Boston Globe quoted several young men who are likely to run for Turner’s seat.  Ego Ezedi, Carlos Henriquez, and Scotland Willis have all run unsuccessfully for City Council.  All expressed the same general idea that maybe it was time to move on.  That maybe it was time to stop looking constantly through a racial lens.  Ezedi in particular looks to Barak Obama:

Ego Ezedi, the executive director of the Roxbury YMCA who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council in 2003, said: “I am not a black politician. I have never represented myself as that. I’m a public servant who happens to be black.

“This is not a black-white issue; it’s an ethics issue,” he said of the arrests of Wilkerson and Turner.

Ezedi added that he draws more inspiration from the way Barack Obama’s campaign energized younger voters. “It’s important for all of us to transcend boundaries of race when it comes to politics,” he said, “and what better time than now, especially when you look at what’s happening nationally?”

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Pot and Gay Marriage

If you look at the referenda that passed in the various states, I’ve heard it said that you can smoke weed, but you can’t get married to someone of the same sex.  Homophobia is alive and well.

Particularly disturbing is the passage of Proposition 8 in California.  I wondered if it were legal given the ruling of the California Supreme Court and it seems that others are asking the same question.  Several lawsuits have already been filed saying it is a violation of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.

Here in Massachusett same sex couples can both marry and smoke pot!