The nation’s largest gay religious group and largest gay political group will co-sponsor what is predicted will be the largest gay civil rights event in history. It is to be staged in Washington, DC in the year 2000. The organizer of three previous gay marches on Washington, lesbian comedian Robin Tyler, approached the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches and the Human Rights Campaign to put on the “Millennium March on Washington for Equal Rights” and the leaders of both groups have agreed to go ahead. According to Tyler, she wants to correct for the fact that the past three marches tended to be biased against “mainstream” gay men and lesbians and their organizations. “If there’s anything we’ve learned from the `90s,” says Tyler, “it’s that the majority of this movement is mainstream. You can’t deny this, and there’s nothing wrong with this.” She says there must be more public visibility for the interest in family and faith that exists among lesbians and gay men nationwide. But in the meantime, some gay and lesbian activists are objecting to the financial burdens of mounting such an effort.
Gay and lesbian bookstores around the country report that this winter’s second-highest-selling general interest book is Bruce Bawer’s Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity.
The Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado announced in January that it will give $700,000 to nongay nonprofit groups, showing that lesbians and gay men care for the welfare of others besides themselves. On a smaller scale, Evangelicals Concerned in New York City has always contributed all of the offerings received at its worship services to nongay charities.
The First United Church of Oak Park, Illinois has announced grant offerings to benefit gay and lesbian ministries for the next three years. The church, affiliated with both the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ, will allocate some $50,000 to gay/lesbian ministries applicants in 1998.
Philip Yancey and Lewis B. Smedes endorse Mel White’s new video. Smedes, who is retired from teaching Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, says: “I devoutly wish that every Christian I know would hear
Mel White’s compelling sermon about the love of Christ. The message and the messenger are one in witness to the goodness that there is a wideness in God’s mercy.” Says Yancey, an evangelical writer and columnist for the evangelical magazine, Christianity Today: “Mel’s question may be the most important starting point for a Christian dialogue on homosexuality.” That question, the title of the video, is: “How Can I Be Sure That God Loves Me, Too?” White used to ghost write for Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Billy Graham, Ollie North and others. Having now come out as gay, White is involved in interfaith justice ministry. The new video is available from Soulforce, P 0 Box 4467, Laguna Beach, CA 92652.
Old Testament scholar Thomas D. Hanks addressed a November meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. His topic was natural theology and unnatural acts in Romans 1. A tape of the talk is available by calling 1-800-642-2287 and asking for tape number EV97081. Hanks presented another paper on the theology of oppression and sexual minorities at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. He recently participated on a panel on homosexuality at Fuller Theological Seminary. An openly gay man and an evangelical Bible teacher and missionary to Latin America, Hanks is founder of Other Sheep, an international support ministry for gay and lesbian Christians.
A retired Christian Reformed pastor, Earl Holkeboer, protests the term “homosexual lifestyle” in his letter to the editor of the CRC’s church-wide magazine, The Banner (February 2, 1998). He points out that “There is no more a `homosexual lifestyle’ than there is a `heterosexual lifestyle.”’ He goes on to say that “To characterize a gay person in this manner is to betray a hidden predilection that his or her style of life is devious and suspicious — and probably sexually promiscuous. It tends to feed the deep-seated prejudice so prevalent in us, and perpetuates a falsehood unbecoming for followers of Christ.”
The Greater Dallas Community of Churches has voted unanimously to welcome into membership its first openly gay and lesbian congregation, White Rock Community Church. There are over 300 churches in this association that aims at “giv[ing] visibility to the essential unity of the Church as the body of Christ.”
A Boston College professor of Christian ethics has written a book entitled Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics published by Cambridge University Press. Lisa Sowle Cahill is critical of liberalism’s over-emphasis on individual freedom but also argues that Bible passages on same-sex acts be read in light of the New Testament’s central moral norm of inclusive community for the marginalized.
Bishop Edmond Browning, in his Final Address (as Presiding Bishop) of the Episcopal Church, made the following remarks “on our struggles around sexuality … something central to each of us, at the very root of our being.” He said: “As Anglicans, we discern God’s will through Scripture, tradition and reason. However, some have chosen to embrace biblical literalism instead of our Anglican tradition. History tells us that biblical literalism was used to support both the practice of slavery and the denigration of women. We have moved past slavery and we are moving past the oppression of women. It is time to move past using literalistic readings of the Bible to create prejudices against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”
The new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is Frank Griswold of Chicago. According to a press release from Integrity, the denomination’s lesbian/gay caucus, Bishop Griswold “has long been a supporter of the full participation of gay and lesbian persons in the life of the Church.”
The Anqlican Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, has called for the age of homosexual consent to be lowered from 18 to 16. He is chairman of the Church of England bishops’ group on homosexuality. Bishop Harries says that “recent evidence from the European Court, the British Medical Association and elsewhere suggests that people’s sexuality is well formed by the age of 16.” He adds that “the idea of prosecuting people of 17 for having sex really is very unproductive.” Harries is the author of C. S. Lewis: The man and his God.
The Uniting Church of Australia, in national assembly, has agreed that one’s sexual orientation is in itself no bar to ordination and that regional presbyteries of the Uniting Church can give some recognition to same-sex relationships.
The gay/lesbian affirming movement among United Methodists added 21 congregations and 4 campus ministries to the denomination’s collective witness in 1997. This Reconciling Congregation Program now encompasses 140 congregations, 20 campus ministries, 6 regional conferences, and many thousands of individuals dedicated to “open[ing] the doors of the United Methodist Church to the participation of all people, regardless of sexual orientation.”
Jimmy Creech, the senior pastor of Omaha’s First United Methodist Church has been acquitted of a charge that he violated the “order and discipline” of his denomination by conducting a same-sex union ceremony for two women in September. In the church trial by a jury of fellow ministers held in Kearney, Nebraska, the vote fell one short of conviction. Said the jury foreman: “We struggled – no, agonized – together in a spirit of love, and our hope is United Methodists everywhere will receive our verdict in that same spirit.”
A stained-glass window in support of gay men and lesbians has been dedicated at McKinley Presbyterian Church in Champaign, Illinois. It features the rainbow flag and pink triangle, symbols associated with gay/ lesbian solidarity and Nazi persecution of homosexuals during World War II.
Former President Jimmy Carter says, “We are all inclined to condemn most severely the particular sins of which we are not guilty. Heterosexuals who may be guilty of adultery or other crimes or sins feel quite free to condemn homosexuals because we happen not to be gay.” He was quoted in the Charlotte [NC] Observer.
Disney World will be a Baptist youth camping site. In spite of a Southern Baptist call to boycott Disney theme parks and products, the Kentucky Baptist youth camping program called Passport has selected the Orlando venue for two weeks of its program in June.
Gonzaga University, a Roman Catholic institution in Spokane, issued a strongly-worded statement through its acting president following incidents of hate mail and threatening phone calls received by four gay male students. The administration’s statement read: “Homophobic acts attempt to silence and erase the lives of individuals who are, and continue to be, valued members of the Gonzaga community.” Meanwhile, the university’s board of trustees has set up the Institute for Action Against Hate, for which $100,000 is sought.
“I thought marriage would be the quick cure for my sexual struggles,” says the “ex-gay” founder of a Canadian “ex-gay” organization. But “three months after we were married, I fell into sex with another man.” His sexual encounters with men continued on the mission field. He and his wife then attended an “ex-gay” conference which, he says, has made the big difference, even though his testimony still contains admissions of resistance to his wife’s initiatives, “many months of celibacy,” and the fact that “I still struggle with lust.” In conclusion, he assures readers: “God is using the healing we have found to give hope to others.” This is the featured testimony in a recent newsletter of the Exodus “ex-gay” network.
The American Psychoanalytic Association, in December, adopted a pro-gay marriage resolution. This development contrasts with the “ex-gay” movement’s increasing tendency to explain homosexuality in terms of outdated psychoanalytic notions and vocabulary.
Homosexuality in Mormon history? That’s the theme of historian D. Michael Quinn’s book, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example. The book has just been awarded the American Historical Association’s prestigious Herbert Feis Award. Quinn, once a full professor at Brigham Young University, was excommunicated from the Mormon church in 1993 for his continuing research on gay Mormons.
The Salt Lake City Council repealed its month-old human rights ordinance in January. The law prohibited discrimination against same-sex citizens. The vote, 4-3, overturned the ordinance that was passed 5-2 in December, before three newly-elected members came on board. Supporters of the law compared the need to protect gay men and lesbians today with the needs of Mormons in the last century, but Mormon opposition to the new law was overwhelming.
Voters in Maine have overturned the state’s law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In a low turnout — 30 percent voted –the law was repealed by a vote of 52 percent. The opposition was led by the Religious Right’s Family Research Council, the Christian Civic League and the national Christian Coalition. They held rallies to proclaim that “God hates homosexuality” so voters should reject “special rights” for homosexuals. Ten other states have laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and leaders of the Religious Right are vowing to get them repealed.
Same-gender partners in British Columbia have won the legal right to call each other spouse. This does not sit well with the Council of Christian Reformed Churches in Canada. In a letter to the premier of British Columbia, the CRC Committee for Contact with the Government protests: “There may well be a very close rapport and a significant development of community between the persons in the relationship, but that does not transform it into a real marriage.” The Committee goes on to assert that it is “of the opinion that same-sex couples should not legally be called families, that their union should not legally be called a marriage, that non-parent partners should not be considered legal stepparents, and that partnership should not be identified as a spousal one.”
A United Methodist same-sex marriage caucus group has been organized within America’s second-largest Protestant denomination. This Covenant Relationships Network is urging clergy to officiate at same-sex covenant ceremonies as an “essential form of pastoral support.”
Coretta Scott King endorses gay marriage. The widow of Martin Luther King has joined a growing group of non-gay supporters of marriage rights for lesbians and gay men. Among these: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York City’s Riverside Church, and over 1,300 United Methodist pastors who have signed a statement endorsing “appropriate liturgical support” for same gender marriages.
Same-gender couples in New Jersey will now be able to adopt children jointly under an agreement reached with state child welfare officials in December. The break-through case involved the adoption of a 2-year-old foster child who had been born to a drug-addicted mother who has since died of AIDS. Antigay fundamentalists are angry over the decision they call “a loss for children and a victory for the homosexual agenda.” But in a letter to Time magazine, someone wrote: “The real agenda of proud papas Jon Holden and Michael Galluccio is to provide two-year-old Adam with a loving home — exactly what the dedicated couple have been doing as foster parents since Adam was a cocaine-addicted infant. What could be more Christian than that?”
Catholic Charities have invited the People With AIDS Coalition of Long Island (NY) to share its offices. Barry Feldstein, director of the AIDS group, says he’s “pleasantly shocked.” Long Island has the highest suburban incidence of HIV infections.
Mobil Oil and Amoco are now offering same sex domestic partnership benefits to their workers. Upset with this the Tupelo, Mississippi–based American Family Association is calling on Americans to “vote with their pocket books” and return their Mobil and Amoco credit cards.
Christian Coalition of Oregon is supporting antigay leader Lon Mabon’s efforts to amend the Oregon state constitution to limit the legal definition of family to “one man and one woman in a marriage covenant and their children.” In 1994, Mabon’s Oregon Citizens Alliance failed in its attempt to pass a so-called “Child Protection and Minority Status Act” that would have prohibited civil rights laws protecting Oregonians from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Colorado for Family Values announced in December that it is renewing its opposition to what it calls the “forced affirmation of homosexual behavior in our communities.” CFV, now led by Rev. Paul Jessen, is the group that wrote and championed the infamous Amendment 2 which was later ruled to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
Jerry Falwell, Beverly LaHaye, Gary Bauer and other antigay leaders of the Religious Right have been the featured speakers at Sun Myung Moon-sponsored events and millions of dollars of Moon money are sought and received by the Religious Right. This is reported in the February 9 issue of the evangelical publication, Christianity Today.
“The Homosexual Exception” is the title of an article in The New York Times Magazine (February 8, 1998) reporting on in-depth interviews with 200 middle-class suburbanites of Tulsa, Atlanta, San Diego and Boston. Alan Wolfe, University Professor at Boston University summarizes: “Nonjudgmentalism is the reigning moral precept of American middle-class life. … Yet there is one exception to America’s persistent and ubiquitous nonjudgmentalism. However much they are willing to accept almost anything, most middle-class Americans I spoke to were not prepared to accept homosexuality.” He says that “the farthest most people were willing to go in the direction of toleration was to say that while they did not like homosexuality, gay people deserved respect because all people deserve respect. Four times as many people we spoke with condemned homosexuals as were willing to offer them positive acceptance.” Wolfe explains that, contrary to the evidence that gay people themselves testify that their homosexual orientation is not a choice, the most homophobic Americans say that homosexuals’ homosexuality is their choice.
“Our black churches, both denominational and storefront, are fertile soils for planting and cultivating homo hatred,” according to Irene Monroe, a black woman who is a minister, a Ford Foundation fellow, and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School. She says that most people in black churches “believe that many of society’s ills are traced to Jews, feminists, liberals, and queers …. [They] do not see — or choose not to see –compulsory heterosexuality as oppressive …. [Their] use of scripture … becomes their excuse.” Her essay, “A Garden of Homophobia,” appeared in the gay/lesbian newsmagazine, The Advocate, in December.
Angie and Debbie Winans, the youngest siblings of gospel singers BeBe and CeCe Winans, have released an antigay song, “Not Natural.” They credit “God [for] the lyrics,” saying that the song was created in response to Ellen DeGeneres’ “coming out” on national television.
According to Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader: “I have a duty to lift that gay person up to the standard to ask if they want to live the life that God wants them to or live the lifestyle that they want to live.”
AND FINALLY:
“It’s the world — not the Bible — that says we Christians are supposed to be kind and gentle and always on the losing end. We’re terribly afraid people will think we’re not loving. But the Bible gives us a warning about when all men speak well of us. We’ve forgotten that.” This is what the Religious Right’s World magazine approvingly reports was said by fundamentalist Philip Irvin in his outspoken opposition to Seattle’s gay rights initiatives. “Remember,” he says, “David used Goliath’s own sword to cut off his head. That’s what I’m doing.