Yes, I rise to defend bigotry -- but not to defend acts of bigotry that get in the way of our being that nation "with liberty and justice for all" to which we teach our kids to pledge allegiance. Rather, I rise to defend the naming of those acts as bigotry -- which is critical if we're going to fully become that nation "with liberty and justice for all" to which we teach our kids to pledge allegiance. Because here's the deal.
A nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal can only live up to the high calling of that dedicated proposition by recognizing that all Americans suffer collateral damage when the fundamental rights of any Americans are subject to bigotry-based discrimination.
A case in point is the blog I wrote the week before last calling out Governor Chris Christie for vetoing marriage equality in New Jersey. In it I said that Christie "chose bigotry over equality" and "was standing on 'the Lester Maddox side of history.'" I said it, and I meant it -- and I still do.
And one reader took offense, writing, "I have read your latest post at The Huffington Post and I could not separate your slur on Governor Christie from me. Why must you use Lester Mattox and refer to Governor Christie as a 'bigot?' From my reply:
I did not call Governor Christie "a bigot" ... I said he chose bigotry over equality. It may seem a fine linguistic point but there is an important distinction between critiquing one's behavior and attacking one's personhood. I do not believe that people are ontologically bigots or racists or homophobes or sexists, or ... (the list goes on.)
However, I know that bigotry and racism and homophobia and sexism exist -- and I believe they are on the list of things that keep us from living up to our high calling to love our neighbors as ourselves. And so I believe it is our responsibility to challenge the behavior when we encounter it in order to overcome it.
And when that behavior is bigotry -- which Merriam Webster defines as "obstinately devoted to one's own opinions and prejudices, especially exhibiting intolerance toward those of differing beliefs" -- if we're going to overcome it, we have to name it.
Yes, name it. Even when it hurts. Even when it's hard. Even when it would be easier not to. And even when naming it precipitates questions like this: "Aren't you being just as intolerant by calling people who disagree with you about marriage equality intolerant?" And here's my answer: no. No, we are not. And here's why.
There is a critical difference between feeling discriminated against because you're disagreed with and being discriminated against because of who you are.
And there is a critical difference between people who feel that their marriage is being threatened if the lesbian couple next door can get married and the lesbian couple next door whose marriage is being threatened by ballot initiatives taking away their fundamental right to marriage, by a governor vetoing marriage equality passed by their elected representatives, and by a "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) that denies them 1,138 federally protected rights that their next door neighbors claimed the moment they said "I do."
To be clear: regular or decaf is a choice. Chocolate or vanilla is a choice. Paper or plastic is a choice. Equally protecting all Americans or legislating intolerance against some Americans is not a choice.
In its decision striking down Prop 8 as unconstitutional, the Ninth Circuit Court wrote, "Prop 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." The Ninth Circuit Court also said, "The people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry." In other words, Prop 8 was ballot-box bigotry -- and ballot-box bigotry is unconstitutional.
As a priest and pastor I am very clear that the First Amendment protects my right to decide for myself whom God blesses or doesn't bless. I am equally clear that it does not protect my right to decide for myself whom the Constitution protects or doesn't protect. And so if we're going to be that nation "with liberty and justice for all" to which we teach our kids to pledge allegiance, we need to get religion-based bias out of the civil marriage debate once and for all. And then we need to work together to become the nation we were conceived in liberty to be -- by overcoming bigotry and by choosing equality.
And to overcome it, we have to name it. The defense rests.
Follow Rev. Susan Russell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revsusanrussell
Thank you.
These ballot initiatives are restoring marriage. No rights are being removed.
"...a governor vetoing marriage equality passed by their elected representatives..."
Marriage equality already existed before the action taken by the unrepresentative legislature. The rights and restrictions of state-sanctioned matrimony had previously existed and were shared by all citizens equally, until the New Jersey legislature eviscerated marriage of its pubic essential purpose.
"...a "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) that denies them 1,138 federally protected rights that their next door neighbors claimed the moment they said "I do."
These unique benefits exist for marriage's unique purpose. Any inequality of benefits is shared by every unmarried couple, single-gender or dual-gender.
And while the Ninth Circuit Court found prop. 8 unconstitutional, which would not have been the case if prop. 8 had changed or mentioned parenting (according to the Ninth), the Court still did not find that same-sex marriage, a social convention that would deny a child a father or a mother in every case, was a Constitutional right.
And bigotry is still bigotry no matter how much Ms. Russell would like to explain away her application of the term.
Yres, Jeremiah, very much like you with THIS comment. "These ballot initiatives are restoring marriage." I camn't see that anyone's marriage was destroyed, and yet here you are claiming htat marriage has been restored-- but only for heterosexuals. Meanwhile, what actually destroys heterosexual marriage-- divorce, adultery, abuse-- is given a free pass.
Yup, I'm e-stalking you again
How does divorce, which also denies a child a fathrer and a mother in any case, pass your scrutiny?
And since it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, since we have a 40% divorce rate and a 40% illegitimacy rate in this country-- 70% for a certain vociferously anti gay community-- don't you think you ought to talk to the heterosexuals who are not providing a father and a mother for the babies they are producing?
Yup, I'm stalking you yet AGAIN!!!!!!!!
What it leads me to conclude is [a] they didn't actually READ the part about rejecting naming anyone as ontologically a bigot, homorphobe, sexist or whatever or [b] once again, when you have Sole Possession of the Absolute Truth you have license to make up whatever facts you want to. Check it out: http://www.nomblog.com/19892/ ... and ask yourself when did lying became a Traditional Family Value and (for you biblical types) ... what part of the the 9th Commandment don't they think applies to them?
The question here really is: What kind of fabric are we talking about? I think it's important to know because, for example, linen would not only tear but would wrinkle like crazy... especially when you're talking "asunder" kind of tearing, you know?
To learn more about what you can't do about this important issue - and to vote in a fun poll about the fabric of society - please visit us on the web at www.mymarriageruinsyours.com
My point: adults can do with their lives what they want. When it comes to kids they should have the very best opportunity to fully develop. To get love and empirical experience regarding growing up. My experience of boyhood help more with my son than my daughter; she didn't have that empirical advice. Girl Scouts helped a lot.
I am taking a purely "pro kids" position. We owe the next generation more than our personal choices.
Currently, there is a campaign to institutionalize a vehicle to remove a father or a mother from a child, and this vehicle is same-sex marriage.
Yet, the reason I am not a bigot is obstinacy. I hold views that can be changed if I was provided with adequate evidence to the contrary. The reason I retain my beliefs is that I have been presented with more evidence to support my views than contradict them.
You can have any religious views you want. Once you decide yours are "correct" and become intolerant of those whose views are different than yours (and intolerance includes words used against those who practice religious just as much as it includes those who use hateful slurs against gay people), you become a bigot. You have stated your own religious view, then declared it NOT EQUAL to someone else's, and implied that it is both clearly more logical and more valid. That statement fits the exact definition of bigotry, especially when you consider the poor attempt you made to use logic as the basis of your beliefs, even as you don't provide any logical explanation.
Now, you sound like you must be a religious person, and you think that belief in deities and spirits can be more logical than not believing in them. Thus, belief or non belief is a matter of opinion, and not one that facts and logic can resolve. At the same time, I doubt you have done the type of research and thoughtful assessment of the evidence as I have. Thus, your assertion that logic and facts can't prove the severe improbability of non-material agents/forces is like telling a climate scientist that global warming doesn't exist.
As a child of the 60's reverand...I cannot agree with you more!!! The ironic problem is having to decide how to get the religion-based bias out of the civil marriage debate. One suggestion I have made is to remove and ultimately disarm the religious-based groups. I do not mean take their guns away!! I mean remove them from the equation. At this time, all states license religious practitioners to perform marriages. I suggest all new civil rights laws concerning same-sex marriage contain a statement that, "religious based organization representatives SHALL NOT engage in performing same-sex marriages" and "at a time when said religious based organizations or individuals wish to seek licensing for said same sex marriages the State will review said request and determine an appropriate course of action."
This would immediately and without question enforce the First Amendment. The action would disarm the religious quest to prevent civil liberties and end this costly argument that ultimately will succeed.
It is not a terrible idea...it truly defines the First Amendment...separation of church and state.
Read that twice, anti-gay folks. You are not victims.
Complaining that someone's marriage is against your religion is like me being mad that you're eating a doughnut because I'm dieting for a bodybuilding show.
Nobody's taking away your right to talk trash about people. You do NOT have a right to tell me how to live just because you think I'm "icky". Get it?
"What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes... Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few ...
"What then is the spirit of liberty?
"I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of those men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias..."
False dichotomy. "Religious beliefs" and "sanctity of marriage" indicate the actual problem: forcing of your religious beliefs on people who dont share them. Marriage is a civil contract, and has nothing to do with sanctity, as the seven marriages of Gingrich and Limbaugh will attest...
...and which the first Amendment forbids the government from considering.
I DO deny that the two rights are at odds in any meaningful sense, any more than the tolerance for the existence of multiple religions endangers anyone's religious freedom. They are at odds because YOU are the ones defining this as a religious issue, not us. No gay person is interested in forcing any church to do anything. That's just a fantasy of the RRW. And what about OUR freedom of religion? What about the freedom of the many pastors, churches, and whole denominations who do not want conservative Christian belief legislated into law.
Ballot initiatives to decide whose religious beliefs hold sway in a secular democracy as the exact opposite of religious freedom. Beware that it doesn't come back to bite you.
If you think same-sex marriage is wrong, don'tr marry someone of the same sex. If you think it is immoralm, don't come to my wedding. I won't expect a gift.
And why should the views of certain religions define civil rights? There are plenty of religions, denominations, and parishes that support and perform same-sex marriage. Do these religions not count? Are their views not considered?
You can deny that religious rights and equality before the law are not at odds here, but you are denying the reality of the situation. Religious feel it a tremendous infringement upon their ability to live their religion without government oppression when the government steps in and tells them marriage is no longer what it has always been. I think most religious would not have a problem extending equality of opportunity, privileges, and rights to same sex couples. The issue at hand is whether government should impose a redefinition of the institution of marriage, which is inextricably tied historically with relgion in the USA.
Now if we can just work on that "under god" part of the pledge for we non-believers.