In Just One Year...

From the latest Affirmation Newsletter:

Who would have thought a year ago, or even a few weeks ago for that matter, that by the time we got to Pride Month, 2009, that the following statements would be true?

Dick Cheney has come out as more publicly supportive of marriage equality than Barack Obama.1

Iowa is now more gay-affirming than California.2

More people in the United States are afraid or distrustful of Mormons than of gay people.3

1. Dick Cheney came out this month in favor of full marriage equality; Barack Obama has said that he is in favor of the legal benefits of marriage, but not of calling our relationships “marriage.”

2. Iowa is one of six states (with more coming) that now has full marriage equality. The California Supreme Court has now overturned that state’s marriage equality law, creating three legal classes of citizens in California: straight people, who can marry each other (one man and one woman at a time) at will, 18,000 same-gender couples married in 2008, who are married to their present spouse (but who are not permitted to remarry in the event of death or divorce), and the rest of California’s citizens who are not permitted to marry.

3. A Washington Post article on May 29, cites a poll showing that “more people in the United States harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality.” The article goes on to state that 80% of Americans know or work with a gay person, 48% know or work with a Mormon.

4. This is what the post is about.

It's EXACTLY the same...

I posted a link to this video this morning on my facebook page.

And I asked why they didn't run ads like this during the November election.

My roommate posted a response saying that

"they knew it would scare away the undecided and confused who at the very least had concluded prior to the election that they know they don't want to oversimplify and compare discriminating the definition of marriage, with previous issues of discrimination that they felt were morally incorrect. ... The other side already realizes that gay activists want to compare marriage equality with ethnic, age, and gender equality. The gut reaction from the undecided person is - well wait a second there - not really the same thing. ... If the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church was to perform what they want to call a gay marriage - recognized solely by it's church - it can. The state will not stop the ceremony. ... no religious freedom is being interfered with. A church can say anything is anything inside it's own walls. If I want to say Murder is okay at LadderDayScroddy church, doesn't mean the state is interfering with my civil liberties by making it illegal.The state and church are separate. It just so happens that American values align with Judeo-Christian principals."

It is EXACTLY like gender and race discrimination, because BOTH types of discrimination had their origins based in religion, and had a majority of Americans in sound agreement of said discrimination.  Here's a quote from an article I read online:

Christians believed that the African people were a God cursed inferior race. According to Lorenzo Johnston Greene ‘The interweaving of Christianity and white supremacy is considered a defining quality of Southern slavery. Yet this also happened in the North. Not only was slavery sanctioned by the God of the Old Testament, it was a positive duty of his chosen people in the New World, because it brought the Gospel to the pagans of Africa. Thus could a Rhode Island elder rejoice, without any apparent consciousness of irony, when a slave ship coasted in to the wharf, that “an overruling Providence has been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted heathens to enjoy the blessings of a Gospel dispensation.’ --The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620-1776. 

Women were seen as “inferior” because they had “smaller brains” and men carried “the priesthood” ---literally, the power of God.  And besides, women were responsible for the fall of man, too—After all, Eve ate the fruit then dragged her husband down with her—it was a sound and widely held belief… which was later proved false.

Racial and gender discrimination originated because of people’s “gut reaction” to things that they KNEW were right.  It was “the white man’s burden” to treat Africans and women that way.

Not unlike how anti-equality groups position themselves as being “morally correct” and “compassionate” because they are making it harder for families to form (mind you, the families that will form regardless) with no justification than religion and the traditions that were based off of said religion.  They are seeking to demonstrate that same-sex marriage is inferior and “different” and therefore feel justified—nay, smug in their “defense of marriage”, because they tolerate homosexuals so much that they have benevolently created a second-class status of “civil marriage”.

In response to the second part about a church being free to perform any ceremony they choose, in that regard, he is right. But the key point that's missing is that the state is recognizing the marriages of, say the Mormon Church, which uses a unique ceremony and marries people for “time and all eternity”—this is not the same marriage that is performed by the Catholic Church, for example, which marries people with a different ceremony and only “’til death do you part".  The state recognizes all the variations of marriage between the differing faiths—so why not the variation of two men or two women?  Why is the 24 hour marriage of two drunk morons in Vegas of more value than the the committed fidelity of a same-sex couple?

Leave personal feelings aside and look to the heart of the issue. People are being treated unfairly—people who pay taxes and have kids and serve on PTA boards are having their families attacked by people who are “uncomfortable” with a certain use of a word!  It’s absurd, because people won’t stop calling their marriages “marriages” because of Prop 8.  My husband will not become my “partner” because of prop 8.   Everything that people are fighting against is already here, so what are you fighting?

Mark my words—50 years from now, people will look back on this fight with the same disbelief that people look on the ERA amendments and the civil rights movement and wonder “how did people ever believe that discrimination was okay?”

Visiting the Yosemite Ward

This morning I set my alarm to head down to Oakhurst, CA, where I attended my first LDS Church meeting since September.

I want to tell you that it felt good.
I want to describe to you the confirmation of truth I received from the spirit.
I want to express my feeling of foolishness for leaving my beloved church behind.

I WANT to tell you those things. But they would be lies.

Wending my down CA-41 from Fish Camp to Oakhurst, I listened to Trail of Dreams, a Mormon Pioneer musical that I have referenced before.

"Past the farthest farmhouse, to the open plains
every step we've taken, one less step remains!
On, like ancient Israel, leaving Egypt in their day,
and praying God will lead us and will open up the way!

Rolling on!
to sage and pinion!
Rolling on!
to the plateaus!
Rolling on,
to make the mountain valleys blossom as a rose!"

One of my favorite things about Mormonism has always been the Pioneer Heritage. I belted the songs out loud, which moved my soul to a great extent--I had tears rolling down my cheeks as I drove.

My heart palpitated considerably as I arrived at the Chapel, finding not a single parking space. I ended up parking on the curb, which placed my "No On 8" bumper sticker facing almost everyone who'd leave the lot. It was partially obscured by my bike, but it made me feel conspicuous anyway. I spied at least one "Yes On 8" sticker, and my heart tightened.

I remembered vividly the whole experience of why I left.

Walking inside, I thought it must have been ward conference--apparently, they had just combined two wards, perhaps in a money saving measure, but it meant that now the cultural hall was perpetually necessary to accomedate the memebership.

The hymns, which are usually my favorite part of a meeting, were especially bad. They picked hims I could care less about, and the congregation sang with about as much spirit as a man dying of starvation. Timid bland vocals sung at whisper volume. Why are we as Mormons so bad at Worship?

I didn't feel much at all during the whole meeting. I honestly tried to be optimistic and open minded, and sought out the truth in what people said during their testimonies. However, unlike my distorted memories, the spirit didn't speak to me at all. I felt like I was listening to old woman after old woman telling some anicdotal bullshit story and then lamely tying in the gospel. No one referenced scripture, no one quoted the prophets--the Bishop spent more time making allusions to Ben-Hur than describing the story of the woman and the well. (John 4:4-42).

I do miss the church, but I miss it in the same way one might miss a friend that use to be very close and important to you, but whose actions changed your opinion of them. They are still there, you could still hang around with them--but that isn't the person you miss--the person you miss is gone.

That's my latest thoughts on the church.

Contrast that experience with going to Yosemite afterwards, and feeling nothing but JOY and PEACE and happiness for being in God's beautiful creation, this beautiful earth. It's like night and day.

Speaking of night, it's about 2am now, so I should head to bed!

Emotionally Heightened

This morning as I was driving into work, I was listening to NPR.  They were doing a whole series of stories about Barack Obama and the activities and stories leading up to the inauguration tomorrow.

They started off with a story talking about how Barack Obama was taking today to visit people thank them for their service, and asked all Americans to take MLK Day as an opportunity to re-dedicate themselves to service.  This touched me, because just the other day I had decided to look into reading to children as a way to give back to the community.

Then they went on to report that Tuskegee Airmen (African-American fighter pilots from WWII) across America had been invited to have front row seats at the inauguration.  These men had been placed into a program that was designed to fail--they wanted to "prove" that African-Americans were incapable of piloting planes.  But they fought hard, and won the respect of many.

The man they interviewed had flown over 140 missions in WWII, and when he returned home to Los Angeles, he faced discrimination in his efforts to procure a home.  But he persisted, eventually becoming the cities first African-American realtors.  He's old and frail now, but listening to this man speak, I became overwhelmed with love and gratitude and joy for him.

I was driving southbound on the 101, heading into work, tears pouring down my cheeks.

He had to fight his entire life to get things that most people took for granted--but he stood his ground, loved his country and served others.  And thanks to sacrifices of thousands of men and women of all creeds and colors, we're going to be swearing in an African-American President.

I'm beaming with pride because I feel really optimistic about Obama.  Sure, he's just a man, and undoubtedly will make mistakes.  But he seems genuinely interested in listening to both sides of each issue and making the choice that he feels is best for the nation.  And most important of all, he's bringing America hope--hope that "Yes, We Can" build a better tomorrow.  And in the end, as Harvey Milk said, "you gotta give 'em hope".

Of course, I was immediately drawing parallels to the struggles the GLBT community.  When I consider how dramatically the world has changed in the last 60 years, I realize that I need to relax--we are on the right side of history, and I pray that before I'm an old man our nation will have learned to treat all it's citizens with dignity and respect.  That we will not be judged by the gender of our spouses, but by the content of our love.   That our nation will live up to the promises of it's most holy writ--the bill of rights. 

Yesterday, I passed the Hollywood Lutheran Church.  They had a huge banner outside their beautiful sanctuary that proclaimed their "No on 8" stance, and that they would continue to fight for marriage equality.   I pray that the first and most sacred amendment to our constitution, which proclaims that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" will finally be respected.  Here is a church that welcomes, supports, and marries gay and lesbian couples--yet the force of law prevents them from having their unions treated equally under the law.

Anyway, I have been moved to tears multiple times today, and it's time I get back to work.

I'm very excited for tomorrow, and for the future in general.