In a church!
Two weeks after giving the measure preliminary approval, the Washington, DC, City Council on December 15 adopted a marriage equality law. The 11-2 vote in support of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 was identical to the first-round tally on December 1.
Three days later, in a ceremony at All Souls Unitarian Church in the city’s Mount Pleasant section, Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the measure, with his parents, Phil and Jan Fenty, an interracial couple looking on....
In a church???
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty['s...] staff scrambled to find the perfect location....
Would it be All Souls Unitarian Church, a Northwest house of worship known for its diversity, liberalism and welcoming of same-sex couples? Would it be Covenant Baptist Church...?...
[The Rev. Robert Hardies, All Souls' senior pastor] said Fenty's decision to sign the bill in a church was telling. "This is symbolic of the strong religious support for this bill in D.C.," he said, noting that more than 100 clergy members had signed a declaration in support of same-sex marriage.
The measure was opposed by other religious leaders. The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has strongly opposed the bill, saying that its charitable arm might have to cancel its contract with the city to deliver social services.
What a shameful and embarrassing display! Here you are, purporting to extend rights to people, and flouting the fundamental principle of keeping government separate from religion. The
perfect location? Yes, it was the perfect location to show your lack of respect for constitutional limitations on government.
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210 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 210 of 210Oh God. Synova!
Religious constituencies are still constituencies and can be courted, manipulated, used, persuaded, reasoned with, politicked, won over, lost, etc. Why that's any worse than seeking their outright endorsements, the way the GOP has done for nearly 30 years with evangelicals, is something you'll have to explain to me.
Maybe this is a good for the goose and gander thing. If there had ever been a staunchly and vocally secular faction of the right, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But the fact is that the younger evangelicals just plain got sick of your side's greed. Yes, markets are great and blah blah blah. But it's no longer about that. Markets, after all, don't work so great when you let the economy sink into the gutter. So much for compassionate conservatism.
What you don't seem to appreciate is that there is a difference between theocracy and simply courting a religious person's vote. A religious person might be attracted to a variety of different policies, many of them completely secular. As this one is. Please try to get over it. It's theocracy that's to be avoided, and not just welcoming religious folks or their organizations onto your side. I suspect that's what you're really upset about - the idea of losing an entire, united religious "bloc" vote, and not a blending of church versus state, per se. The latter is not happening but it's possible that the former is.
For what it's worth, I was never bothered by Bush's "faith-based initiatives". And that's because they were used for secular, not theocratic, aims. Learn the difference.
*Turns out the lights, but not before lighting the candles*
"Oh, right. Divide et impera applies exclusively to Christians, because they are the only "real" religious community. Do I understand you correctly, Youngblood?"
No, you don't understand correctly.
I'll break it down in terms that even a dimwit like you can understand and say it really slow:
You. Cannot. Divide. What. Isn't. United. In. The. First. Place.
It's pretty simple.
PS: Also, nice try at painting me as some kind of Christian bigot; I'm actually an atheist.
"After decades of watching the right shamelessly court evangelicals and forming explicitly political alliances with countless televangelists, culminating in James Dobson, this exhortation is supposed to have any meaning.
"Nice try! Reap what you've sown!"
Hey, fuckwit:
As I said last night, I am for same-sex marriage. The guy signing the bill in that church? He was on my side on this issue. Hell, I even like Fenty and agree with a bunch of things he has done. (If I lived in DC, I might vote for him based solelyon the fact that he opposed public funds going to build a new stadium.)
Even so, I still don't think that politicians should go around signing bills in churches, synagogues, mosques, sacred Wiccan groves, or other places of worship.
It's not a Left/Right thing, it's a matter of basic principle.
"Why that's any worse than seeking their outright endorsements, the way the GOP has done for nearly 30 years with evangelicals, is something you'll have to explain to me."
Why you think that's what the problem is only goes to show how shallow your understanding is of the purpose behind removing official endorsement from religion in this country. We do not have a State Religion.
Turning this into some candy version of "separation" for no apparent purpose or "freedom from" because that's what some people want today just *might* be the defining difference between a mindset that is at heart conservative (cares why dead people did what they did) and a mindset that is at heart progressive (thinks they are so much smarter).
Who *cares* what the men who wrote the Constitution were thinking! That was a long time ago and can't possibly be relevant. And besides, it's so trendy to go with the easy slogans. And since they are value-free and meaning-free, who really cares, as you said here, that religious constituencies are still constituencies? Except that the only ones who ever said they *weren't* were those with trite understandings of "separation" to begin with.
The issue isn't appealing to a constituency. The issue is ENDORSEMENT. The issue is the favoring BY GOVERNMENT... not political parties... but by the STATE itself of some religions over others.
Now, theocracy... it can't and won't EVER happen in this country and those bleating over it don't understand why. The freaking REASON why is because all those scary freaky evangelicals will not EVER accept the dominance of one of them over the others. (And that doesn't even slightly compare to what the Calvinists would feel about the issue. And since the Catholics will only recognize Rome and Rome is the whore of Babylon...) What do you imagine in your fantasy life was the reason behind religious schisms to begin with?
Theocracy requires impossible acceptance of religious authority by people who are EXPERT at being willing to martyr themselves for doctrinal purity. (Without the *authority* issue, we're all usually happy campers.)
Why, really, do you imagine that the overwhelming immediate response to this example of official government approval of a particular church's doctrine was comment after comment that the Unitarians aren't really a church?
"You. Cannot. Divide. What. Isn't. United. In. The. First. Place."
Well put.
Late to the party on this one. Some of you folks sound like you've been playing too much Billy Graham's Bible Blaster.
We only have to respect the "real" religions here? To quote a certain blogger: "What a shameful and embarrassing display!"
No seriously, I kinda like you Althousians. This is beneath you. I mean really, Susan B. Anthony was a Unitarian. Do you guys hate America or something?
Nasty, Nasty, Nasty! This so-called marriage bill is just plain wrong. I have no problems with any gay or lesbian's choice of lifestyles, however the marriage between the same-sex is a big joke. How in the world did we the voting citizens of the District of Columbia get side tracked with this issue. It's as if it came out of left field. I trully did not know that DC was going this way, the wrong way. Please do not vote for anyone on the "Sissy Council" ( with the exception of Barry, Gray, K. Brown, M. Brown, Alexander), and Adrian "Flake" Fenty.
If Youngblood wants to pretend that "people of faith" weren't an umbrella concept, a diverse (in whatever way you want to look at it) yet politically, somewhat connected, entity, that's fine by me.
Just don't tell it to the GOP. All their rhetoric over the last twenty years conveys that they thought the opposite.
Unless they thought it was only a few select sects that mattered - as far as religious constituencies go.
Either way, this represents a change from that.
Divide et impera. I'll keep saying it until you get the point.
"If Youngblood wants to pretend that 'people of faith' weren't an umbrella concept, a diverse (in whatever way you want to look at it) yet politically, somewhat connected, entity, that's fine by me."
When I went to see Ralph Nader speak in 2000, it was at the local Unitarian Universalist church. This wasn't an accident, as the religion's focus is actually an almost perfect fit for the Green Party.
When I lived down South, I would have been surprised if Nader had been invited to speak at the nearby Southern Baptist church, whose members tend to support candidates and causes on the right.
Hell, even within individual denominations the differences can be stark. Put a conservative Catholic supporter of the liberation theology movement (far-Left, pro-socialist) in a room with a traditionalist Catholic (Conservative, strongly anti-Communist) and watch the sparks fly.
The notion that "people of faith" represent even a somewhat politically connected segment of the voting population is, frankly, absurd. At this point, it's clear that you really know very little about religion in America.
"Just don't tell it to the GOP. All their rhetoric over the last twenty years conveys that they thought the opposite."
Not really. The Republican Party has reliably reached out to traditionalist and conservative religious factions. This is hardly surprising, given that the Republican Party is America's Conservative party.
Since the majority of Americans are Christian, they have reached out to traditionalist or conservative Christians over the past couple of decades. More recently, they have begun reaching out to Orthodox Jews.
I have yet to see a lot of Republican outreach to other "people of faith", such as Wiccans, neo-Pagans, Muslims, Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists, and so on.
Which goes back to what I said: You can't divide what was never really unified in the first place.
"Unless they thought it was only a few select sects that mattered - as far as religious constituencies go."
Yes, actually, they thought and still think that only certain religious congregations are worth courting. It is no surprise that a Conservative party would court believers like Mormons, whose beliefs line up more closely with their own than Unitarian Universalists, whoses beliefs are in opposition.
"Either way, this represents a change from that."
No, it doesn't really. Since its inception in 1961, Unitarian Universalism has been an intensely Leftist religion and has focused heavily on Leftist causes. They don't necessarily see themselves as being aligned with other "people of faith", and other "people of faith" don't necessarily see themselves as aligned with Unitarian Universalists.
"Divide et impera. I'll keep saying it until you get the point."
And you'll continue to sound like someone whose arrogance forces him to speak authoritatively on a subject he doesn't know the first thing about.
Merry Christmas! (And I say that unironically and with no sarcasm whatsoever. Have a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. If not, have a great day.)
I don't see why you would agree with me on the point that the GOP speaks to (certain) religious constituencies as if they represented the entirety of non-atheist America, and then go on about my "arrogance" and alleged ignorance. The only time they got even remotely less vague is when they used terms like "Judeo-Christian", which in any event is properly a civilizational reference moreso than a religious one.
So, if pols of the other party want to make displays with religious groups that go against the idea the GOP promoted, that consisted of intentionally blurring the lines between denominations so as to provide the appearance of a better and more united front against "secular America"/godless liberals/atheists/"Darwinists"/etc., then yes, this certainly represents a change from that, IMO. And it represents a change from anything Ralph Nader did because ultimately, this will be part of a successful and more popular showing than anything achieved by a guy who could never get more than a few points of the electorate to vote for him and only a few important pieces of legislation passed - which had to do with the infinitely less contentious and transformational concept of consumer rights rather than civil rights.
So good tidings of whatever you like to you too, but remember: Debate framing matters. And in politics, as in other things, image can become, and usually does become, reality. To wish that weren't so, to wish that the public should just ignore the way a certain party (i.e. the GOP) deceptively frames a debate or a constituency and pretend, therefore, that the opposing party's exposing of that false framing is not a victory (in this sense, by the tactic I mentioned) is just as unrealistic as believing we in full command of every bit of knowledge in the universe.
So good day to you too, and I hope you'll forgive me in advance for harping on this point. But it should explain a political reality which is more salient (however inaccurate) than any religious or social reality that you wish to educate me on - while really talking past what I'm saying.
P.S. For what it's worth, courting Mormons is a pretty recent tactic, at least as demonstrated by the difficulty the GOP had in accepting the possibility of a heretofore heretic, such as Mitt Romney, as the putative nominee. Just because the lines are fluid as to who's tolerated and who isn't doesn't mean the GOP wasn't playing a game of presenting a narrative of unity as if it were a reality. It means precisely that. It was just important to allow for a possible expanding of the tent to account for both the number of previous "believers" the left was starting to pick off, and new constituencies such as Muslims whose ability to be persuaded by the GOP was never conclusively demonstrated. But if the GOP is forced to give up the "people of faith" meme and to rally less effectively around that - (and that seems to be the case), then the Democrats are achieving a real and durable political victory.
Call it whatever you want.
wv: cabledio
If I still bothered with cable TV I might have a theological or musical explanation.
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