Thursday, June 22, 2006

"Jesus is the Homosexual Agenda"

At the 75th Episcopalian Convention Bishop Gene Robinson remarked:
Jesus is the agenda, the homosexual agenda -- I believe that with my whole heart . . . .

I am standing here before you believing that I am the beloved child of God because of God’s action in my own life. When I took Jesus Christ to be my lord and savior, I was speaking about a God who is not locked up in scripture 2,000 years ago, but is alive and well and working in my life as we speak. And my agenda is to speak the witness that I know of this living, loving God who loves me for all I am and all that I was created to be, wants the best for me, wants to forgive me of all my sins and raise me up from all my foibles . . . Jesus rarely pointed to himself in the synoptic gospels, he was always pointing to God and that is what homosexuals in the church want to do, to keep pointing to God and saying this God saved me from what the world and the church was telling me about myself.

While the church said I was an abomination, God somehow, miraculously, gracefully got through to me and said, “Wrong. You are my son, my beloved, in who I am well pleased.” I want to tell the world about that kind of God because the world tells people all kinds of reasons why God doesn’t love and accept them and they are all wrong. Because God loves all of God’s children. That’s the homosexual agenda in the Episcopal Church.

Gays are often said to have an "Agenda;" the assumption being the societal legitimacy or acceptance of homosexual behavior. But the truth is, gays are really asking for recognition of homosexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation. And Robinson is taking it even further; the recognition of the homosexual person as accepted and loved by God. If God loves all his children, why should the Episcopal Church exclude gay people? It is a good question.

But Bishop Robinson's words are important for another reason.
I am standing here before you believing that I am the beloved child of God because of God’s action in my own life.
Gene Robinson is saying that God has acted in his own life in a way that convinces Robinson that he is accepable to God.
While the church said I was an abomination, God somehow, miraculously, gracefully got through to me and said, “Wrong. You are my son, my beloved, in who I am well pleased.”
If Robinson is acceptable before God, how about former LDS Bishop and frequent 'nacle blogger Chris Williams, who recently came out? Or any gay person, for that matter? If they are an abomination to God, why do a great many openly gay people feel loved, accepted and validated by God? How is it that many report The Spirit working in their lives? If God hates the sin but loves the sinner, why do so many religious, but openly gay, people report a firm conviction, often the result of answer to sincere prayer, that "God loves me just the way I am, the way he intended me to be"? Are they parroting someone else's agenda? For Bishop Robinson, the Homosexual Agenda, in the Episcopal Church, refers to gay people bearing witness that they "know of this living, loving God [who] saved [them] from what the world and the church was telling [them] about [themselves]."

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The LDS Church and Constitutional Amendments

Yes, we may be talked out on the subject, but this article from the Salt Lake Tribune, written by Michael Paulos, author of a forthcoming documentary history on the Reed Smoot hearings, seemed too relevant to be missed. It may not be widely known that, in addition to anti-polygamy legislation such as the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, there was actually a movement to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the Mormon practice of polygamy.
A few days following Smoot's election in 1903, the Deseret News reported the following: "Congressman Jenkins of Wisconsin today introduce[d] the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 'No person shall willfully and knowingly contract a second marriage while the first marriage is still subsisting and undissolved. Any person who shall willfully and knowingly contract a second marriage shall never hereafter hold, occupy or enjoy any office of honor or profit under the United States.'" (Deseret News, Jan. 31, 1903). . . Attempts to drum up support for this amendment occurred periodically between the years 1903 and 1906.

Smoot countered by recommending a national marriage law:
I have assured the Senators that I will support any measure, no matter how strict or what penalties it imposes, [with] provisions for the punishment of fornication, adultery, incest, unlawful cohabitation, and kindred offences. I hardly think that we need worry much about this constitutional amendment proposition. (Reed Smoot to Joseph F. Smith, April 9, 1904.)

President Joseph F. Smith responded,
"I say let the national solons amend the Constitution, to punish and insult and degrade this little handful of men who are rapidly passing away, and when they shall see the magnitude of their acts compared with the insignificance of the cause, they and their historians will laugh at their folly, and write them down asses in the broadest sense." (Joseph F. Smith to Reed Smoot, April 9, 1904.)

It goes without saying that the outcome of this past week's debate in the Senate adds an ironic twist to the history of marriage amendments in the United States. Especially considering President Smith's words.