Same-Sex Marriage, Take Three

Last take for a while on the SSM front.

American society doesn't often change very quickly. Well, sure, transformative changes like the Louisiana Purchase or WWII or state-sponsored genocide or the invention of the Internet can have a sudden impact on any nation. But attitudes don't shift overnight. If this country's population heavily endorses one side of an issue, its mind stays made up for a long time.

This was true regarding the women's right to vote, of interracial marriage, of Sunday liquor laws. Those restrictions on freedom took a long time to eradicate. Decades, generations, lifetimes. (In the case of booze regulation, the fight rages on in several parts of the country, somehow. The mind boggles, as it often does during post-making. What's so special about Sunday that state governments should step in and curb whiskey sales during those hours?)

Focus! The same national resistance to change remains true, to this day, on issues like capital punishment. For decades now, Americans have agreed that the death penalty ought to remain in place, to be applied in certain murder cases. Some national soul-searching in the 1960s notwithstanding, the numbers say we historically do not mind a good-n-bloody execution once in a while:

Thanks to gallup.com for that nugget, which can be found here. But like I was saying, social mores don't abruptly do a 180-degree turn. It takes generations to accomplish great things like abolition, restoration of civil rights, anti-discrimination laws. Sometimes the battle can't be won, and the government gets to keep killing people. Mostly guilty people. Mostly.

But this post isn't actually about the happy subject of capital punishment. Focus!

You know what's bucking the trend, and changing faster than a really really fast-changing thing? Americans' attitudes toward same-sex marriage. And it's moving the right direction, steamrolling the opposition like a really really strong fast thing, one equipped with steamrolling capabilities. (Help me, Simile Metaphor People.)

Before the pretty graph, some pretty numbers, culled from my online sojourns:

Americans endorsing interracial marriage (Gallup poll)
1973 ---- 29 percent
1978 ---- 36
1983 ---- 43
1988 ---- 48
1993 ---- 48

Americans endorsing same-sex marriage (Gallup-Pew Research composite figures, wikipedia link)
2004 ---- 33 percent
2006 ---- 41
2008 ---- 39
2010 ---- 43
2012 ---- 49

What's different? Yeah, the increments.

Here, a graph that illustrates what I'm saying.

Fivethirtyeight.com made this one for me. Thanks, Nate Silver. As the trendlines indicate, this whole SSM hullabaloo could be solved in a short time. How short? Well, interracial marriage numbers make a good model -- once approval crested 50 percent in 1997, it began to skyrocket. Just two increments later, it passed 70; today, approval sits at 86 percent.

Let's project out a similar polling trend for gay marriage, only instead of five years at a time, let's keep using two. Try this on:
2014 ---- 53
2016 ---- 60
2018 ---- 71
2020 ---- 82

Confession -- that looks way too optimistic. Let's tone the numbers down a bit, and say that the increase will be roughly half of what interracial marriage accomplished. Perhaps, instead:
2014 ---- 52
2016 ---- 56
2018 ---- 61
2020 ---- 67

You know who's jumping ship in 2018? Just about all the SSM opponents left in office. You know what's a non-issue in 2020? Yeah, this thing that has us all in a tizzy today.

Victory over the foes of equality is attainable, and quickly. Good thing. The kids I know in households with two moms probably won't mind.

The Mormon Thorn

Preface: I like Mormons.

I have Mormon clients, Mormon acquaintances, and I wish LDS missionaries well when they knock on my door and hand me yet another Book of Mormon. I like the Mormons I've met. Why shouldn't I? They're usually nice people.

I mean, the kids on my front steps, in the ties, stammering about Jesus, they're just kids, doing the best they can. And their parents are usually just parents, doing the best they can, usually.

So why do I feel like Mitt Romney's Mormonism is a ticking political time bomb?

whoa

Well, to be perfectly blunt, it's probably because his church has a history of responding to persecution by turning in on itself, looking out too dearly for its financial health, and setting up a cultish-looking hierarchy. It's also probably because his church's theology is very nontraditional... all right, I won't mince words. LDS beliefs are routinely offensive to other Christians. (Not offensive to me, because if someone wants to believe something, they should go ahead and do that. I might disagree, even raise my eyebrows a little, but I do that to Muslims, Calvinists, Jews, Catholics, and witch doctors. Nobody should feel special if I politely scoff at the most preposterous sections of their dogma.)

Tangential Paragraph Alert: I'd like to someday delve into the issues people encounter when they decide to abandon the Mormon faith, but that will have to wait for its own post. Going to invoke the term "someday" here again. In other words, please don't wait up for it. That post requires some responsible wading on my part through various personal horror stories of family bonds irrevocably broken, allegations of brainwashing, and the like, and I'll have to do it with an eye out for veracity and believability. I've started that research already (this website is pretty cool as a jumping off point), but no promises, ok?

What we know for sure right now is that unlike me, many Protestants and Catholics (these are the people who vote!) are intolerant of Mormonism's significant theological quirks. Those quirks include:

a) placement of the Book of Mormon on equal footing with the Bible
b) rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity, replaced with the almost-polytheistic belief that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three different beings
c) a widespread belief, endorsed by church leaders, that humans can become like gods or actual gods in the afterlife, and that in fact, that's what our God is -- a former man himself
d) posthumous baptism of non-believers to ensure their salvation; the recipient of the baptism is said to possess, beyond the grave, the choice between accepting and rejecting the ceremony.

Those are four big ones. Other idiosyncrasies include:

a) a past embrace of polygamy (officially denounced in 1890)
b) eternal marriage -- i.e., your spouse is your spouse in the afterlife too
c) a racially problematic past. Church founder Joseph Smith admitted African Americans to the priesthood, but then, the church refused to ordain African-Americans from 1852 to 1978, and taught that if blacks so fortunate as to reach heaven, they would function there merely as servants.
d) the so-called "magic underwear" prescriptions (wiki leak here if you're interested)
e) a graduated view of heaven, in which the celestial afterlife is divided into differently attainable levels of bliss
f) a hierarchy that puts one man atop the church, based on seniority, and endows him with the ability to receive revelation directly from God. (Women are not permitted to become priests, bishops, or apostles; ascending to the title of Prophet is not a realistic career goal for a young Mormon girl.)
g) the incontrovertible fact that the church makes a lot of money. A lot. A few Google searches turn up that the Mormon church owns multiple large businesses, with revenue in the billions of dollars, while also taking in at least $5 billion in tithes annually.

"So what do you guys want to hear this election cycle?"

What's fascinating is how much those quirks -- which cause many well-meaning Christians to slap the "cult" label on the LDS branch of the Christian family tree -- will matter on a political level for Mr. Romney this fall. Or how little they'll matter, I guess. They didn't matter much when he successfully ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2003. They didn't matter much in the recently completed primary season, at least not enough to deny him the nomination. And Mormon beliefs didn't prevent Democratic Senator Harry Reid from rising to the post of Senate Majority Leader.

So, to recap, voters seem to agree with me: We like Mormons. They have some unique articles of faith, and most certainly a less-than-perfect history, but hell, Catholics have all that too, and in spades.

And Mitt's political positions can't hurt him with the Republican base. Look, the man is pro-life, anti-gay marriage (anti-civil unions, even!), unapologetically pro-business, and wants us all to be taxed at a minus-38 percent rate while we ramp up for nuclear war with Iran, just for fun. There's a lot for conservatives to like about Romney. The 2012 edition, anyway.

Also, he's not named Barack Obama. I hear these days that's a very endearing trait to Republicans.

Still... is the other stuff, the quirk stuff, is that going to matter? And if it doesn't end up mattering, and by some awful practical joke perpetrated on us by the political gods, Willard Romney becomes our 44th President, does it mean that there really exists no religious test a presidential candidate has to pass? You have to admit that if the LDS church is in the American mainstream, it's at the very fringes. Beyond it lies organizations like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the like. If we elect a biracial secret Muslim named Hussein, then a future god in magic underwear, does that mean we've finally broken the mold, and we can focus more on the person's vision for the country and less on his/her nifty ideas for the afterlife?

So yeah, a Mormon president, I would like that very much. In theory. Anything that leads to a confirmed atheist becoming President, I'm cool with. Or a Muslim, or a Hindu. No religious test, just like it says in Article VI of the Constitution Thingy, right? I'll take a Mormon, sure. As long as it's not Mitt Romney. Or any Republican.

Same-Sex Marriage, Take Two

When it comes to the confluence of homosexuality, love, marriage and what the Bible has to say, we all think we know better than God.

(By "we all," I don't mean my fellow liberals and me. I mean all of us. Like all the humans. All, like "everyone." Meaning people. Peoples everywhere.)

We all think we're so smart, we all think that God should just shut up already and let us talk about what love is, and what it isn't. We human beings are the experts, after all.

It's clear, by our behavior, that we all think God hasn't put enough mental energy into this whole love business. And let's not even get started on marriage. God's pretty clueless in that aspect too.

Exhibit One: Literalists who aren't literalists. A literalist's arguments against gay marriage go something like, "the Bible forbids it," "Leviticus is clear on this topic," "Even the New Testament says being gay is sinful," "God ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman."

Then that same person goes ahead and reads the exact opposite meaning into a neighboring verse. Or he dismisses it out of hand. Translation: I may pretend to believe every word in the Bible, but I reserve the right to change my mind on a whim. God didn't REALLY mean we should stone anyone. Silly God.

The main four arguments a fundamentalist Christian makes are easy to annihilate, one by one. The Bible forbids lots of things, like any sort of work from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, upon penalty of death. Leviticus is also clear that we should stone people for minor offenses, like jaywalking. The New Testament also calls debate, jesting and foolishness sins, which don't appear to count, ever. And God ordained marriage to be between one man and *at least* one woman, as evidenced by a cursory jaunt through the book of Genesis.

So God knows best, literalists say, except when it's inconvenient. Biblical arguments against same-sex marriage rely on an assertion, spoken or not, that I Know Better Than God.

Exhibit Two: Agnostics and atheists who dismiss the Bible out of hand. When they agree to meet believers on their terms, atheists will often say the Bible is ambiguous or inconsistent on the topic of homosexuality, which is only possible if you willfully ignore scriptures that condemn man-on-man love. (In their defense, Jesus didn't address homosexuality at all, so there's nothing there to ignore in the first place.) But their theological choices are basically one giant I Know Better Than God, If God Even Exists statement. Same difference, in the end.

Recap: Religious extremists have decided that God's not serious about curtailing, for example, divorce, but is simultaneously very serious about stomping out homosexuality. Silly God, they're saying. Agnostics and atheists, by definition, don't care much what God thinks or is purported to think. Silly God, they've concluded.

Where does that leave the rest of us -- those of us who care about what and who God is, but are not willing to read the Bible ungullibly? What about those of us who like to examine scripture (all scriptures) with an eye out for what the text, rather than what it says? Those of us who like to witness love, to respect love, to enjoy  love in as many non-abusive forms as possible?

(Are there even that many of that kind of "us" out there?)

I believe it leaves us with only one option: removing the Bible from the discussion altogether, and practicing a deference to law. Deference to the law of man, that is, not the law of God. If a person can make a convincing constitutional case against SSM, without once invoking divine authority, then they should go ahead and decide to believe that way. If another person can succeed in re-defining marriage in legal terms as a covenant between two consenting adults, then they should try and implement their idea of marriage, through legal and political means.

But in the meantime, society would be better off if we stopped pretending we know better than God.

Same-Sex Marriage, Take One

Maybe you've heard.

President Obama expressed his support for same-sex marriage yesterday afternoon. He is, as one deduces pretty quickly, the first sitting president to do so.

Barack's Big Decision, revealed in a television interview and confirmed in an e-mail sent to supporters, is no doubt News with a capital N, and is no doubt worth celebrating.. (My favorite line: "Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn't dawn on them that their friends' parents should be treated differently.") 

Who knew: a Christian chief of state is capable of finding his moral compass from time to time, after all.

Still, the miracle here is not that a President "courageously" came down on the side of compassion and equal rights for all citizens. It's that a middle-aged outspoken Christian role model can no longer be legitimately defined by his homophobic attitudes.

I'm not exaggerating. According to a study done by the Barna Group (an evangelical polling company), the first word or phrase that unchurched 18-to-29 year-olds use to describe Christians is "anti-gay."

Not "Christlike"; not "compassionate." Not "exclusive"; not "hypocritical". Not "loving"; not "religious."

Just anti-gay.

It's not like the final numbers are all that close, either -- that's the first thing mentioned by 91 percent of respondents. The first thing! By nine in ten young adults! Hating gays is the defining characteristic of Christianity, by a long shot, from the outside looking in. Remember, this poll was conducted by a company run by evangelicals.

(While that sinks in, here's an advertisement. If your interest is piqued, this is the book in which the study appears. It's an exploration of young people's attitudes toward the Church and its members.)

Commercial break over. There's a not-too-ancient spiritual song that you'll recognize if you grew up in the church. The opening line goes, "They will know we are Christians by our ..." Well, by our what? According to the song, the next lyric is "love." 

Pshaw. Fantasylandtalk. The people have spoken, and the way they plan on knowing someone is a Christian is by detecting disdain for gays.

Congratulations everyone. Turn to your neighbor in the pew, and give him a well-earned pat on the back. Not the lower back, though. TOOO GAAYYY

In Which I Defend Individual Gun Rights, Sort Of

It took a while, but I finally figured out why the gun rights debate in this country bothers me so.

It's not because the Second Amendment is so very malleable. Those seeking greater regulation quote the second clause, which begins with the words "a well-regulated militia." Those seeking less regulation point to the final words, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment is beautifully vague -- it supports, at least on the surface, both arguments. (The authors of the Bill of Rights were most excellent in their foresight, in ensuring that the wording they chose would keep debate perpetually alive. Slow clap for those guys.)

Don't blink

It's not because I look down on hunting for sport. I do shake my head at senseless killing, but that's a matter of personal preference, not constitutional law. Hunt, if you want. Fill out the right forms, get a license, then go ahead, shoot some Bambis dead this weekend. My disdain is showing again. Have this helping of honesty to balance it out: truthfully, it's not the actual death of the hunted animal that bothers me. I like meat. There's something that feels right about executing our food chain responsibilities. Something feels natural and orderly about it.

Going on, the gun debate is so maddening NOT because I sympathize with activists who dedicate their lives to curtailing individual gun rights. I admire their work, but I could never do it, it'd be way too depressing. The culture and history of this country make any effort to curb handgun availability an exercise in futility. You might as well try and convince believers that there is no God. Ever tried that? Don't try it. Try other things first. Try every other thing first!

No, it's because whenever one of the "sides" scores a temporary victory, the balance of rights and responsibilities is upset once again. Witness:

When gun rights advocates get their way and win another round of legislative Russian Roulette against evil regulations, the end result is that more people die. Period.

Less regulation means more accidents happen, more disturbed people get their hands on more guns more easily, more kids blow their brother's or neighbor's head off. Did you know that the District of Columbia, immediately after enacting its citywide handgun ban, suddenly had the lowest rate of teen suicide in the nation?

Did you know that a gun in the home is 43 times (43 times!) more likely to kill a friend or family member than an intruder? (43 times.)

Guns make it easier!

Did you know that the firearm-related death rate is 12 times higher for American children than for kids in 25 other rich countries -- combined? You read that right. Twelve times higher than the sum of the all the rates in 25 other countries. Go team USA!

Those folks fighting for fewer gun restrictions can couch all their arguments as deep as they want in the language of rights, but the corporate irresponsibility they display is reprehensible.

"Your nephew died in an accidental shooting? Your cousin got shot at work? Your brother-in-law took his own life? Not my problem. Get your filthy paws off my guns."

But enough picking on people who don't care if the defense of their rights costs us lives we didn't have to lose. Flip the coin with me for a second, so we can pick on other people. I don't want to live in a country where constitutionally guaranteed rights are endangered. Do you? I might not be crazy about guns, but I sure as hell want the option of choosing my own religious beliefs, and I'd like to have a responsible, aggressive free press someday again, not just in theory, but even in practice. Items in the Bill of Rights should be pretty well untouchable. (Including habeas corpus, but NOT NOW JOHN STAY ON TOPIC)

So no thank you to those who would strike the Second Amendment from the constitutional record. No thank you to those of us whose reading comprehension fails miserably somewhere in between "a well-regulated militia" and "shall not be infringed." No thank you to who can not see the trees (individual rights) but for the forest (corporate responsibility). How is that at all in keeping with the spirit of freedom that makes this country so great?

Then what about a compromise? What about a happy ending? A happy medium, where citizens debate back and forth, working together to smartly craft gun laws that protect rights and encourage responsibility at the same time?

What about I stop asking question and admit a sad truth: The happy medium doesn't exist, not that we have the people in place to get us there anyway. Have you even been paying attention to our politics, like, ever?

No worries. Like many other instances, a reasonable answer comes not from addressing the problem of gun rights on a collective scale, but on an individual one. When I exercise my right to be disgusted by the NRA, I'm actually confirming someone's right to join it. Good thing, too.

So by allowing folks to stash guns unsafely in their homes, I'm actually preserving my right to tell my kids that guns are dangerous. I'm protecting my right to forbid them from playing in homes that contain guns. I'm free to keep instilling in them that for reasons of corporate responsibility, we don't do guns. If others like to collect death toys, well, that's the world we live in, be on your toes, they have that choice.

Conclusion: if others weren't allowed to make the wrong choice, we wouldn't be allowed to make the right one, nor would we be allowed to point out the violent, ridiculous legacy of the past 250 years of "debate" on this topic. And I'm not ready to lose my right to make good choices, or my right to assign ridicule and blame where ridicule are blame are due.

Hey look, this post is done. Whew. Just shoot me now.

A Bumpy Ride

Welcome to the new blog, which is like the old blog, but in a new place, with a new name.

It's still my place to vent about presidential politics, pretend that I know how to properly critique what passes for American culture, and sometimes pontificate on some obscure sports topic.

And yes, we'll talk about God. Much like small children might go on about romantic love, or much like cavemen might discuss portable cloud storage. Or maybe how dolphins might go on and on about modern art. Honest myopia interrupted by accidental brilliance, is how I'd describe the inevitable God posts in this place. At least I'll be doing the heavy lifting myself.

Like a taxi, but bikier

That's where the rickshaw comes in. It's an unassuming contraption, powered by the sweat of a single person, designed for brief sojourns through congested urban areas. It's not a very serious mode of transportation, and it doesn't get you very far, and the ride can get bumpy at times, but at least it's environmentally friendly. If I had to pick my three favorite rickshawian adjectives, they would be "social," "intimate," "self-powered"; those will do just fine.

Green transportation

Social: I write because it's a way of interacting with you, dear reader.

Intimate: I like to share my fears, my doubts, my mistakes, my visions, my epiphanies.

Self-powered: I don't like to parrot other people's views -- not on purpose, I should say. If I write something that's been conjectured a thousand thousand times before, it's not because I stole it from a brighter mind; it's because I just failed to be the first one to come up with it.

So please, hop aboard this little rickshaw, maybe for the first time, maybe for the hundredth. Climb in, watch your head, put your feet up, munch on a little snack if you like, and let me spin us a tale while I take you a short philosophical distance to a nearby intellectual location.

Put your wallet away, silly. No charge.