Tag Archives: christianity

The “Least” Offensive Ways by Which the Abrahamic Fanatics Carve Out Exceptions on LGBT Rights

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Abolishing Marriage Licenses

On August 29, 2019, over four years after the landmark Scotus ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, Alabama followed through on a lingering threat to abolish marriage licenses. The resulting law is…..interesting, to say the least.

Under the new law, county probate judges are now required to record marriage certificates but are no longer required to issue licenses. Couples are no longer required to apply for a license, and only need to complete and send a marriage certificate to a probate judge, who is required to declare the marriage valid. A ceremony may be held for the wedding, but solemnization is no longer required for a recognized marriage in Alabama.

Coincidentally, this method is similar to how marriage is done in Australia. Over there, marriage licenses do not exist, and are instead carried out in the following manner:

  1. the couple notifies a certified celebrant one month in advance
  2. the couple meets the celebrant in person with at least two witnesses over the age of 18 present
  3. the celebrant recites the required words to solemnize the marriage
  4. the couple signs the certificate in front of the celebrant and witnesses
  5. the celebrant sends the marriage certificate to that state’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, who registers the marriage as valid.

The Alabama system seemingly discards the need for a celebrant of any type. It’s as close as Alabama might get to common-law marriage. Unironically, this makes sense, even with the Respect for Marriage Act codifying Loving v. Virginia and Windsor v. United States into law. Now, on the other hand….

The “Utah Compromise”

I still think about how Utah’s SB 296 from 2015 has been hailed since as the “Utah Compromise” on LGBT rights. It was written to protect against discrimination in housing and employment for LGBT people. And now SCOTUS may further gut anti-discrimination laws in order to force this compromise on those states which have more comprehensive civil rights laws in place.

Only Indiana and Arkansas went so far as to pass their bills into law (Georgia and Arizona’s were both vetoed by Republican governors), and both did so without an LGBT nondiscrimination bill being considered by their Republican majorities.

The RFRA moment reached its crescendo in state legislatures in 2015-16 in the run-up to and aftermath of Obergefell v. Hodges, after which the religious right shifted its war-making in the direction of targeting public accommodations for transgender people.

What if this outgoing Congress had passed the Fairness for All Act, which adds the broad religious exemptions to LGBT rights protections sought by the LDS church? The ACLU criticized the bill in 2019 due to its singling-out of sexual orientation and gender identity for religious exemptions, its attempted undermining of then-ongoing court cases, and its undermining of child welfare protections.

I’m trying to find an example of a federal bill which would have advanced broad religious exemptions to all existing civil rights law, something like what Indiana’s SB 101 did. I’ve seen federal bills attempting to expand RFRA to vaccines and vaccine mandates during the height of the pandemic, but not yet something that would expand federal RFRA into a sledgehammer against all other federal civil rights law.

That’s the problem, IMO, with the Fairness for All Act being framed as a federal analogue to Utah SB 296. It specifically targets SOGI for exemptions, like bills filed during the pandemic by Ron Estes or Marco Rubio targeted vaccines, when the GOP could have gone whole-hog and targeted all civil rights law like Indiana SB 101 did. Meanwhile, Utah SB 296 only protected against discrimination in housing and employment, said nothing about SOGI in public accommodations, and was built into Utah’s extremely-broad religious exemptions for state civil rights law (even on race and color).

SCOTUS, these days, seems interested in carving out such exemptions on SOGI. The question is how far are they willing to wreck the Civil Rights Act(s) and Americans with Disabilities Act in the process.

Notes on the United Methodist General Conference 2019

LGBT, Religion, , ,

After the Vote

The hashtags of #gc2019 and #umcgc are sad to read right now, even to my humanist eyes.

But this one post from Lance Pressley of Mississippi is a warning to anyone inviting dissenting Methodists to UCC, TEC, ELCA, etc.

“There’s a #UMC in every rural community and every poor neighborhood, ministering with the community. There’s rarely an Episcopal congregation nearby.[…] Do you know how many UCC congregations are in this state? A grand total of 2. And they’re both in the Capitol. Tell a kid in Shannon, MS that they should go to church 200 miles away. I appreciate your invitation now, but your denomination hasn’t seen fit to invest in my home state. It leads me to suspect you only care when you can use that care to show how tolerant you are.”

It reminds me of how even the UCC has had a presence in Columbus, GA three separate times in its history, most recently when Forgiving Heart United Church of Christ became a UCC member. The nearest UCC members are small churches in Pine Mountain and Woodbury.

There’s a glut of UCC churches in Metro Atlanta, but where’s the UCC in Macon? Augusta? Albany? Valdosta? Athens?

How much investment is being made in progressive mainline Christianity in non-Atlanta Georgia? or in rural Georgia for that matter?

If progressive mainline Christianity is already having a hard time funding itself and broadening itself to rural areas, progressive Methodists will face a bit of an uphill climb if they leave the UMC.

But forming a new Methodist church may be the only option left.

United Methodism as Colonial Christian Hubris

If anything, #umcgc/ #gc2019 showed one of the hubrises of Western Christianity: the descendants of those who were missionarized in Africa during Europe’s colonization and in Eurasia flexed their weight rather spitefully against a great deal of the European and North American descendants of the colonizers and missionaries who now seek a different course for the UMC on the question of gender and sex than what was preached for over a century to Africans and Eurasians by European and American colonizers.

The minority, somewhat-wealthy White American Methodist right – through such groups as the Wesleyan Covenant Association and the Institute for Religion & Democracy – joined the above bloc and helped lead the charge as a means of taking power away from more progressive clergy.

The American section of the UMC – in the birthplace of the UMC – is now in a weird position. American Conservative Methodists, largely concentrated in the South and Midwest, can claim a victory, and are rubbing salt in the wounds of the Progressive Methodists on social media with the usual “pleasantries” directed toward LGBT people.

The Progressive American Methodists, most reflected in the Western Jurisdiction, will marinate on this and come to decisions in the coming days.

This decision reduces pro-LGBT church caucuses like the Reconciling Ministries Network from a somewhat respected caucus like IntegrityUSA (in the Episcopal Church) to an actively-opposed caucus like DignityUSA (in the Roman Catholic Church) or Affirmation (in the LDS).

Another big issue is whether disaffiliation will be made a lot easier for churches, namely for those who want separation. But it is hard to tell who wants the split of the UMC more: the conservatives or the progressives.

A lot of the progressives are pledging in religious language to stay (but it is far from unanimous, as numerous Twitter posts renounced membership within the minutes of the result), while the conservatives are hoping to drive the UMC harder to evangelicalism by driving out the progressives and also hoping that they demographically dwindle on the vine in a new, less-wealthy denomination for the sake of conservative vindication.

But given the PR crisis that has ensued from this – pitting young against old, rural against urban, nation against nation – I don’t think the conservatives have much else to gloat about than a seizure of power, money, property, and brand from progressive dissenters who they’ve wanted to railroad out of the denomination for decades.

Both sides are dressing their emotions in the religious language of the denomination. One side made a big power play against dissenters, and won. And many are gloating of their victory over “heretics”, “satanists” and “cultural relativists”, or, in less pointed language, professing “love” for LGBT people while maintaining their religious disdain for same-sex relations.

But the most hardcore progressive dissenting members and clergy are “grabbing the horns of the altar”, and refuse to walk out of their own accord at this moment. They’re also not taking, or are actively discouraging, invites to other mainline denominations for various reasons.

The politics of this decision reflect not only the effects of the historic colonialism of the UMC, but also an ecclesiastical system which reflects the crisis of American politics and economics. It may also affect the politics of the United States.

How would the schism of the UMC, the third largest denomination of Christianity in the United States, play out in the United States regionally, ethnically, in gender terms? How would it affect or manifest in American politics and partisan identity?

If the UMC becomes an evangelical denomination and drives as many of its progressive members out as possible, how close will this place the denomination into the realm of the Republican Party and its policies in states like Georgia?

This is important even for those who are not Methodists, or even Christians, or even theists. Whatever results from this crackdown will affect the rest of us.

The Digging-in of Heels

How can the progressive American Methodists dig in their heels when the UMC is becoming less American?

They clearly failed to convince the African and Eurasian delegates of the urgency of the One Church Plan. They failed to appeal to the hearts and minds of the African and Eurasian delegates, whose growing numbers come from countries whose Christian denominations are way too frequently antagonistic against LGBT people and who support state and corporalviolence against LGBT people. They are literally living the same ideology taught to them and their parents by Euro-American Methodists missionaries and colonizers, and their chickens came home to roost in St. Louis.

How did the progressive American Methodists think this was going to go down? Who were they seeking to convince? How do they expect to convince the African and Eurasian Methodists now?

I don’t think there will be convincing at this point.

Compare and contrast between the SBC and the largest mainline denominations:

  • SBC – 16 million US members, six seminaries, 44 Unis and colleges – highly conservative on sexuality and socio-economic justice
  • United Methodist – 7 million US members, 13 seminaries, 100 Unis and colleges – moderate on sexuality, liberal on socio-economic justice
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – 3.6 million US members – 10 seminaries, 27 colleges and universities – liberal on sexuality and socio-economic justice

Mainline Protestants constitute some 16% of the US population. SBC members are 5% of the US population, and constitute just under half of the Baptist population in the US.

How “Southern Baptist” Pastors Created the Modern Republican Party

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Just read an article about how the Southern Baptist Convention is part-and-parcel of the #SouthernStrategy, as well as the SBC’s aid in the rise of Trumpism.

After reading this, I wonder how the SBC is able to retain so much political power that even the Roman Catholic Church, the only Christian organization with a larger parishioner size in the U.S. than the SBC, can find themselves at odds with them on several economic and immigration-related issues.

  • There are 33 million Baptists in the U.S., 16 million of whom are members of SBC-affiliated congregations throughout the U.S. (as of 2013) but the highest rates of which are concentrated in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.
  • The SBC provides funding to six seminaries, and the SBC’s state convention affiliates provide funding to nearly 50 universities and colleges in 19 states.
  • At the same time that the South was going through the end of Jim Crow and its immediate aftermath, the SBC was in the throes of its Fundamentalist Takeover.

All of this is crucial in understanding where the SBC is right now.

You know what’s funny? When Democrats, liberals and big gubmint are accused by Christian conservative-libertarian folks of “using poverty to stay in business,” of “keeping poor people poor.”

Doesn’t Matthew 26:11 (KJV) say the following?:

“For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.”

How does the government “keep poor people poor” when the poor are declared by your “Lord and Savior” to “always” be with us, despite whatever the government does to alleviate the general condition of poverty?

Anti-Queer Sentiment is Still Anti-Queer Sentiment

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You know why most of us American LGBT people are not sold on cultural Christians spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric in regards to Muslim homophobia? Because we meet, know, are parented by, governed by, ostracized by, domestically-oppressed by, attacked by, and seek strategic allyship with more Christians than we are with Muslims.

To tell us American LGBT people that Muslims in other countries are the greater, more existential problem to our lives but not our fellow American citizens’ conduct and laws towards us here and now is pretty dishonest.

You never notice our organizational advocacy work with LGBT organizations abroad unless its regarding a historical “enemy state” like Russia during the 2010 Olympics.

You never notice that many of us advocate for the safety and safe refugee status of LGBT people in Iran and Iraq.

You never notice that we are angered and saddened by Saudi or Malaysian or Indonesian or Ugandan homophobia. “But ISIS throws you off buildings!” And?! What do you want us to do? If you were us, what would you do about defenestrations and beheadings and tortures? There is literally nothing more to do at this point except to dodge U.S. laws and join the Peshmerga or YPG at the front lines.

It’s a useless exercise to remind us about what ISIS does to gay men and boys. We know this. We can’t do anything about it except pressure for safe passage for LGBT refugees from the Levant to safer spaces abroad, as we have been doing since before you took notice of Muslim homophobia.

It’s a pointless critique of liberal U.S. LGBT people to distract us from the pressures we face at home. This mass shooting took place at home. We are fighting for equality, dignity and life at home. Hateful ideas attack us here at home.

Let’s take care of home first. Let us grieve. Let us build bridges. Let’s continue making this country better for LGBT people, and not settle for where we are now. #Orlando

The Fake “Black Genocide”

Politics, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Christian anti-abortion folks who harp about a “black genocide” are some of the most uncaring, hard-hearted, shame-projecting liars.

  • As if any of them care one bit about AfAm women’s lives, equities or freedoms as much as their uteri.
  • As if any of them care that the fetuses which develop into infants will grow up into less-than-desirable AfAm women and men.
  • As if specifically *our lives* matter to the anti-abortion activists.
  • As if any of these activists think of AfAm women outside of the “welfare queen” “poppin’ out babies” stereotype.
  • As if any of these activists consider that birth control, condoms and other tools of hygiene should receive more investment and less demonization.
  • As if any of them are not the ick-attracted authoritarian jackasses who never offer solutions beyond “ban abortion” and “make sex sacred”.
  • As if you care much about the growth of the AfAm population for as long as abortion has been legal in this country, but that’s an inconvenient truth which disrupts your feigned “black genocide” martyrdom.

Seriously, I wonder why the Southern Baptists ever allied with you lying jackasses after their racist hissy-fit over integration. But you lie about a lot of things to get your ban in place, especially about AfAm women, their bodies and the women and men who love both.

You are as fake as the Exodus, Willie Lynch, the “War on Christmas” and American exceptionalism. We won’t live by your savior narrative. Look at yourself, and say no to #misogynoir. #BlackLivesMatter

Australian Opposition Leader gives the business to right-wing Christian lobby

Amazing speech. And its not just because he directly supports marriage equality in his speech. Or the fact that he said this in front of the right-wing, anti-gay Australian Christian Lobby. Or the fact that he quotes MLK and JFK. Or that he directly addresses income inequality and cuts in foreign aid. YES.

via Bill Shorten speech to the Australian Christian Lobby 2014 Conference – YouTube.

What the fuck.

Via JMG:

Phillip W. Unruh and Sandra L. Unruh today filed a motion to intervene in the ACLU’s marriage equality case in Kansas. As laid out in multiple points in their brief, the Unruhs declare that legalization of same-sex marriage would constitute the literal theft of their straight Christian marriage, a property which is guaranteed to belong only to them per the Fifth Amendment.

The full brief is here.

via Joe. My. God.: KANSAS: Straight Couple Seeks To Intervene In Marriage Case Because Gays Literally Want To Steal Their Marriage.

There are better ways of making an impact than casting pearls before swine

LGBT, To Export, , ,

Noah Michaelson, editor for HuffPo’s Gay Voices, takes on gay evangelical businessman Matt Stolhandske’s publicized offer of a $150,000 “olive branch” donation to a anti-gay Christian fundamentalist baker couple who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple:

Well, guess what, Stolhandske? You are an apologist for homophobes. And this kind of anti-gay behavior shouldn’t be rewarded. While I don’t like to see anyone suffer, this wasn’t something that just happened to the Kleins. They willfully disregarded the law — they went so far as to close their store rather than offer their services to a gay couple — and when you break the law, there are consequences.

Besides, what kind of a message does paying for these people’s fine really offer? It’d be one thing if Aaron and Melissa had shown any sign of remorse for what they did or promised to change their behavior, but they haven’t, and it doesn’t appear that their minds (or hearts) will change anytime soon. Instead, they’d rather lose their business and put their family in jeopardy. And now Stolhandske wants us to co-sign their hate because of some misguided mumbo-jumbo about love and acceptance.

Michaelson provides a list of organizations at the end which would do more good with Stolhandske’s money.

via Here’s a Better Idea for the Gay Man Who Wants to Raise $150,000 for Anti-Gay Bakers | Noah Michelson.