Tag: same-sex marriage

As Goes Iowa: Asking Presidential Candidates the Right Religion Questions

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by Andy Kopsa

Every four years the national political eye shifts to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.  With the 2012 presidential election only 15 months away, the campaign frenzy in Iowa has already begun.  Local and national media are eagerly following Republican presidential hopefuls as they glad-hand farmers, eat local delicacies and stump, flanked by American flags, through soybean fields.

In February next year, Iowans will head to their local caucus to give a traditionally coveted victory to one Republican who could go on to face President Obama in the general election. That Republican – be it Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich – will need to secure the blessing of the radical religious-political group The Family Leader.

Bob Vander Plaats, the outspoken head of The Family Leader (TFL), is the man The Atlantic has called a Republican political “kingmaker” in Iowa – and the man who The Hill just ranked as having the ability to give one of the top 10 “endorsements the presidential candidates covet most.”

The media has documented his – and the TFL’s – statements about homosexuality (worse than second hand smoke) and women’s role in society (producing lots of babies). Last week TFL made national news again with its Marriage Pledge – already signed by Bachmann and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania – touting the benefits of slavery to African American families (after vocal push-back, TFL has since removed this from the pledge).  None of Vander Plaats’ work would be half as interesting a story if The Family Leader, a Focus on the Family affiliate, hadn’t been built with over $3 million in federal funds. Continue Reading →

By the Power Vested in Meby the State of New York

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That New York state would eventually join the increasing number of those in the US to allow same-sex marriage was of little question.  We here at The Revealer have never been ones to uphold marriage as worthy of protection by the state because we’ll never be convinced that it’s the state’s business to regulate how we partner, love, have sex, or procreate.  But we love equal rights.  And we do like religious exemptions–for the most part–of which this bill has several.  These in particular protect religious institutions from legal address if they refuse to marry gays.  You can read the exemptions here, but it will be hard to do so without thinking about miscegenation laws that not so long ago regulated marriage between blacks and whites.  What makes these laws different from, say, exemptions for Anabaptists from military service or health care insurance?  We’ll have to get back to you with specifics on that but perhaps it has something to do with how a clergyman acts as a representative of the state when sanctioning marriage? Continue Reading →

Applying Liberation Theology to theArgument for Gay Marriage

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Amy Levin: Last Wednesday, June 15th, something historic happened…for the fourth time. The New York assembly approved the same-sex marriage bill, known as The Marriage Equality Act, which spearheaded a hopeful telos to allow same-sex couples to enjoy benefits and protections of marriage under state law. The New York Senate currently has 31 backers of the bill, including two Republicans, and is waiting for one more to pass the bill. Publicity of the bill has awoken a slumber of supporters and opponents alike, as many realize that among the five states that allow same-sex marriage, New York is by far the most populated, and hence, the most consequential for social change.

As long as we’re making history, it can’t hurt to be cautious of what is at stake when we narrate our steps to marriage equality in America. While opponents of same-sex marriage often fall under the categories of religious, conservative, Christian, and/or Republican, we should be careful not to turn a potential victory of marriage equality into a victory of secular liberalism over religious conservativism. To help delineate why, the work of political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry is quite useful. Featured in last month’s essay by Peter Montgomery at Religion Disptaches, Harris-Perry believes that “LGBT Advocates Need Public Progressive Faith.” Continue Reading →

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States of Devotion, a publication of NYU’s Hemispheric Institute edited by Ann Pellegrini, has a new “dossier” of articles that address same-sex marriage in the U.S. Pellegrini’s introduction reads:

That same Christian Century article contrasts the rising support for gay marriage, especially among younger Americans, with public attitudes towards legalized abortion. The survey found that support for abortion held steady over the past five years, but so did opposition to it. More significantly, there was no demonstrable generation gap, as there is on the same-sex marriage issue. That is, both support for and opposition to legalized abortion held steady across age groups.

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As Goes Iowa:The Family Leader, Religious Politics and 2012

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by Andy Kopsa

America’s culture wars are at full throttle: defunding Planned Parenthood, chipping away at a woman’s right to an abortion – and if possible taking away that right altogether, preventing or ending gay marriage (because it could lead to Sharia law), enacting Religious Freedom Restoration Acts to “restore religious liberty” that was never lost.  State after state after state serves as a front on which the Christian Right and their willing Republican legislators wage these wars.  Iowa is a perfect microcosm, an example of the powerful Christian Political Action Committees (PACs) leading the effort.  Iowa’s powerful and successful The Family Leader is a model to which all others can be held.

The Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC), which recently changed its name to The Family Leader*, is the most vocal and political anti-gay organization in Iowa.  As a federally funded chapter of the Family Research Council (FRC), IFPC railed against gay marriage leading up to the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision granting marriage equality for same sex couples.  They started the “LUV Iowa” (Let Us Vote) Campaign to bring a Proposition 8-like ballot initiative to the state.  They sent lobbyists to the state capital and held ‘pro-family’ rallies. Continue Reading →

Evangelicals and The Gay

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Jay Bakker’s going out on a limb for The Gays.  In his new book,  Fall to Grace:  A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Bakker proclaims that homosexuality is not a sin.

While this may be a revelation (Bakker’s church is called Revelation NYC) for Cathleen Falsani, who reviews the book at Sojourners, and other evangelicals with gay friends, one can’t help but match up Bakker’s proclamation of tolerance and love to the rather all-male-all-straight-all-white leadership at his church and be disappointed. Continue Reading →

Gays Get One Tent

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Mary Valle:

O. Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa reports that a gay-marriage opposing state senator Merlin Bartz wants to stop more-inclusive “spouse” language in the Department of Natural Resources‘ rules. Family and non-family rates are the same, but families are allowed to set up more than one tent on the same site. Senator Bartz, if you really are opposed to same-sex parents, wouldn’t you want them in another tent for all the unBiblical homosexing I’m sure you imagine they’d be doing in front of the kids? Or, what if they’re just platonic homosexual liberals who allow their teenager to bring along their same-sex/other sex “friend?” Maybe different tents would be a good idea? Cramming all the members of a family into one tent, no matter what their orientation, seems like the far pervier option.

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"It's the way I was raised."

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Chicago democratic representative Deborah Mell announced her engagement on the floor of the house yesterday. Personal announcements aren’t uncommon, but Mell’s caused a stir; she is one of two openly-gay legislators in the state of Illinois. She said:

“I know our governor and many of you on both sides of the aisle do not consider me equal to you and our relationship equal to the relationship you share with your spouse,” Mell said. “I think we are more alike than we are different.”

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