Rick Warren and gay politics...

[fajrdrako]

There are two interesting links to essays about Rick Warren on lilithlotr's LJ today.

The second is written by Melissa Etheridge and it impressed me no end. Gave me a sense of hope: a reminder that things aren't always as black and white as they appear. There is so much sensationalism and polemicizing, it's refreshing to see an essay that looks at other possibilities. And yet, and yet... being of a peacemaking, see-both-sides-of-an-issue temperament myself, I find it difficult to be optimistic for the hopes of peace or progress in this particular battleground.

The first essay is by Alan Cumming, whom I love as an actor.

I found the two essays an interesting case of cultural comparison. Against stereotype, American Melissa Etheridge is the voice of peace and conciliation. The British Alan Cumming talks as if the UK has torn down all barriers with the legalization of 'civil partnerships', gving him all the human rights a gay person could need or want. John Barrowman would agree with him. What's in a word?

As a Canadian - happily accustomed to gay marriage being legal, and being called such - I find myself baffled. How can it be equality, when one group of person gets one thing legally (civil partnership), and another group of persons gets another (marriage)? Something from which the first group is barred? If marriage is a desirable state, shouldn't it be accessible to those who want it? How can it be said that 'marriage' has meant a certain thing for thousands of years when the word didn't actually enter the English language (such as it was) till the 13th century? And since definitions of words are arbitrary and change with time anyway, why are we letting this be a stumbling block to human rights? Is there any reason to remain governed by the same laws as 500 years ago, or a thousand, or two thousand?¹

Seems to me that partial equality is not equality at all. And it also seems to me that the olive branch of compassion is a little demeaning when equality is denied. Which is why I like Alan Cummings' statement: "It is about human decency and respect." Acceptance is the word I'd use. I don't think I can demand respect - that has to be earned, individually - but I can demand equality, and each and every one of us has a right to that.

Has Barak Obama made any statement to the press (or to gay rights groups) about his thoughts on the matter - why he chose Rick Warren to speak?

Gay rights aside, regardless of what Rick Warren believes about anything, I am philosophically more troubled that the USA is thought to need a public and ceremonial Christian invocation to start off a Presidency. Long tradition, I know, but it seems to me that the basic conflict is between religious doctrine and secular change. A spiritual speaker with no religious affiliation - ah, well, I can dream, right?


~ ~ ~

¹ And those laws were not what people think they were, either, but that's yet another issue.

Comments

[gillo]

The British Alan Cumming talks as if the UK has torn down all barriers with the legalization of 'civil partnerships', gving him all the human rights a gay person could need or want. John Barrowman would agree with him. What's in a word?

It's perhaps worth noting that almost everyone I know actually refers to these civil partnership ceremonies as "weddings", and to the individuals as spouses or partners. And that a huge number of people of all genders don't even bother to get married at all these days.

Whatever the legal term, we do tend to think and refer to them as marriages. So teh name isn't all that important. Most people would be surprised to think of it as anything else.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's perhaps worth noting that almost everyone I know actually refers to these civil partnership ceremonies as "weddings", and to the individuals as spouses or partners.

Yes, I've noticed that. I think it's yet another example of the law - and the legal wording - lagging behind the actual common usage. To the perception of everyone except the letter of the law, this is marriage. And as such, the difference is irrelevant to people undergoing it. Even for me, the difference is ... theoretical.

And that a huge number of people of all genders don't even bother to get married at all these days.

Yes. It isn't an issue for everyone.

we do tend to think and refer to them as marriages. So teh name isn't all that important. Most people would be surprised to think of it as anything else.

It's just that... if what you call it doesn't matter, I would like the law to reflect that, so that whatever it is or isn't called, it's the same regardless of anyone's orientation.

In a way this is all a moot point for me, because I don't personally care much what the laws about marriage are - I just want to see equal rights reflected in legislation.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

... a huge number of people of all genders don't even bother to get married at all these days.

That is hardly surprising, seeing how many "marriages" fail after just a few years. I also have seen other people (such as my sister) be happy in a long-term relationship without a formal wedding.

The concept of marriage has always been vague, but (IIRC) many of the right-wing issues these days are of *much* more recent vintage than they often claim, often being rooted in 19th-century Victorian ideals that did not make much sense even when they were being enforced. [I have read books about this, but darned if I can track them down now. The general view of medieval and ancient history is often much more stereotyped than one might realize. I suspect that's (part of) what you are referring to in your footnote about ancient laws.]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

many of the right-wing issues these days are of *much* more recent vintage than they often claim

So very true! They claim it has been a certain way 'forever', which is only true if you define 'forever' as 'over the last few hundred years'.

The general view of medieval and ancient history is often much more stereotyped than one might realize.

Utterly true! Marriage wasn't even a part of the Christian Church till a thousand years ago.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Certainly, that's my understanding of it, too. Everyone calls it 'marriage', and it's carried out by the same civil registrars who do straight civil marriages.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That reassures me.

[lilithlotr.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wish we hadn't adopted the word "marriage" for non-religious civil unions - then at least the semantic issue would be lessened. If there's one thing I agree with the right-wing about - and always have thought so, long before it was any kind of issue - it's that "marriage" has religious connotations. One of the reasons I never wanted to be "married" was exactly for that reason, so I am not surprised that the uber-religious define it similarly.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wish we hadn't adopted the word "marriage" for non-religious civil unions - then at least the semantic issue would be lessened.

Interesting point.

I don't agree that "marriage" necessarily has religous connotations, though. Lots of marriages are totally irrespective of religion - I know many athetists and pagans who are married - and marriage existed long before Christianity. "Matrimony" is the Christian religious word.

But I don't want to be married either, so it feels a little like someone else's business!

I just want to see the rules equalized.

And I suppose it just confuses the issue somewhat that your country and mine have taken a different approach to the subject - that the US and UK seem to be opting to have marriage-like rules under another name, while Canada and other countries have simply extended the conditions of marriage. So no wonder I see the definition as something different: my whole country sees it that way.

[binkbink.livejournal.com]

They don't just want to prevent a group from making a certain kind of contract, they also want to dictate how a certain pattern of sounds (and its symbolic representation in text) can be used.
I don't understand how a certain group thinks they can own a word they didn't make up or how they believe they have the right or the power to keep a meaning from changing.

But things are improving. When my first two children were born, I was not permitted to check myself into the hospital. A male relative (husband or father) had to be there to sign for me or I would have had to deliver in the parking lot.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

they also want to dictate how a certain pattern of sounds (and its symbolic representation in text) can be used.

As if that means anything - ! A word is just word. Shifts meaning as easily as waving your hand, according to need, fashion or whim. You can't make it happen and you can't stop it, even if you try.

I don't understand how a certain group thinks they can own a word they didn't make up or how they believe they have the right or the power to keep a meaning from changing.

Maybe because they're stupid? okay, okay, I'm politically biased in this one! But... really.

A male relative (husband or father) had to be there to sign for me or I would have had to deliver in the parking lot.

Ugh. Yes, thank goodness things are changing. Even over the past ten years, things are immeasurably better.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

When my first two children were born, I was not permitted to check myself into the hospital.

That can only be described as unutterably stupid ... and an all-too-typically Victorian attitude. :-(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Luckily it changed. Other attitudes can change, too.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting those links. I got teary-eyed from reading them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. Both remarkably good, I thought, in interestingly contrasting ways.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I remember that Charles and Camilla's marriage is actually a civil partnership. But technically they got married.

I agree with Alan Cumming though.

On the Daily show though John Stewart did say that marriage has been redefined many times.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I remember that Charles and Camilla's marriage is actually a civil partnership.

I didn't know that.

But technically they got married.

Being of the right respective genders.

John Stewart did say that marriage has been redefined many times.

He's right.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

Yeah well that's why they got married in that church except where they would usually get married.

I like the idea of civil partnership though

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of civil partnership though

I do too. It lacks a lot of the traditional baggage attached to marriage.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Chaz and Millie didn't get married in a church, but a registry office: they had a religious blessing afterwards. Some Anglican clergy have peculiar attitudes about divorce.

My parents had a registry office marriage (a civil partnership) back in 1964, because my mother was raised as a Catholic (but got better), my father is non-Catholic, and a Catholic marriage would placed my parents under obligation to have any offspring raised as Catholics. As a result, when my mother went to arrange her mother's funeral with a priest in 1981, the priest accused her of 'living in sin', because they don't recognise civil marriages between straight people, let alone gay. She told him where to get off.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Seems amazing what church officials think they can tell other people to do.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

I appreciate these articles.

In Canada, the debate seems to be settled, but it's obviously *not* settled in the U.S. Far too many mental dinosaurs seem to still dominate and stick their oars in with their own brands of Victorian beliefs.

To quote the well-known "beadle" in Oliver Twist: the law is an idiot. Especially in the contemporary U.S.A.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

To quote the well-known "beadle" in Oliver Twist: the law is an idiot.

Didn't he say 'the law is an ass'? Or was that someone else?

It's amazing what sticking points in law there can be. That make little sense, and are, in fact, contrary to common sense.

I keep thinking of such items as slavery and women's rights: of course the notion of 'freedom and equality' applies to 'everyone', except those to whom it does not apply.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

(second attempt -- computer not cooperating)

Thank you for the links to the essays, especially to Melissa Etheridge's. I have been listening to her October 2007 album The Awakening, and am embraced by hope.

How can people say that marriage has been a man-to-woman institution for thousands of years when the word is so relatively young? Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance. You do know the mindset which presumes that things have always been the way they are right now ...? Couple it with the mindset that "my idea of an ideal world is THE model of an ideal world, and every sensible person will agree." I'm tired of the whole thing. The world is now populated by loud, short-sighted unintentional bigots (and some intentional ones, too).

President-elect Obama chose that minister for this prominent role mainly to show everyone that he actually is going to "walk the walk," now, and that we all also have to step up and follow our big talk with some big actions. Once I realized this, I was fine with his choice. I still will debate people like that, but I certainly don't deny them the right to exist, and if one of them is going to come halfway and speak for a man who believes that it is likewise wrong to try to hold everyone to only one set of beliefs, then good. Truly, it is time for those of us who respect Obama's idea of coming together and blurring the distinction of a mainly two-party system to just get over our pride and do the work at hand. Does any of that help explain? I think it's an American thing right now: the divisions created in my country by the greedy corporate presidential reign that is soon to end has poisoned a lot of people's thinking, and it is going to take drastic measures like Rick Warren's invitation to start to close the divisions up again.

That is exactly what Obama has stated his intention is.

As for religious invocations starting off a presidential inauguration... sigh. Well, at my recent national union convention, each of the five days were opened by an invocation from a different spiritual leader. One day we had a Catholic priest, one day a Buddhist monk, one day a rabbi... so on. The connection between religious observation and political life is a very strange one, here. When someone complains that the godless gay conspiracy (or whoever) has stripped our government of its original connections with God, as the Founders intended, I am frustrated even trying to speak, as they are literally unable to hear me when I recount that Thomas Jefferson was a deist, one step away from atheist (and was accused of being an atheist, during his life, by his enemies), and that there are almost no references to God or Providence in any of our founding documents. There is a great t-shirt out now, a quote from George Washington, something about the downfall of any government begins when it joins hands with a religion. Small-minded, fearful, bigoted people who live in the present moment and the small sanctity of their own minds.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You do know the mindset which presumes that things have always been the way they are right now ...?

Yes. It's everywhere. And people who don't know better are taught it's true by others who don't know better. (I'm shaking my finger at The Church, here.)

President-elect Obama chose that minister for this prominent role mainly to show everyone that he actually is going to "walk the walk," now, and that we all also have to step up and follow our big talk with some big actions.

Walk which walk? Being conciliating with enemeies?

Does any of that help explain?

In a way. I think I'd figured it out. Peacemaking becomes more important than individual principles? End divisions before progress can be made?

I hope that's it. Otherwise it looks like compromising ideals and catering to the enemy. The point is not doubt not to have enemies - but shucking our ideals or even our goals isn't a good idea either.

at my recent national union convention, each of the five days were opened by an invocation from a different spiritual leader. One day we had a Catholic priest, one day a Buddhist monk, one day a rabbi... so on.

If Obama did that, I'd be much happier!

The connection between religious observation and political life is a very strange one, here.

So I have seen. It is very clear than in the US, church and state are not separate.

a quote from George Washington, something about the downfall of any government begins when it joins hands with a religion.

Yay George!