Hmm--I just saw this headline and figured I should mention it here. I am going to refrain from commentary, at least for now. Vatican Targets Gay Marriage Trend Alarmed by growing legal acceptance of gay marriages, the Vatican is issuing new instructions to bishops and Catholic politicians in an effort to halt the trend. The instructions, which call on politicians to oppose extending rights granted to traditional couples, are in a document prepared by the Church's guardian of orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document — “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons” — will be released Thursday, the Vatican said. Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials have been speaking out for months against legislative proposals to legalize same-sex marriages in Europe, North America and elsewhere. I first read about this on Yahoo News, which also offered a link to the Religious Tolerance.org site's page "Same-sex marriages & civil unions—all sides to the issue" Okay, I guess it seems odd to post this without at least minimal commentary. It naturally does not surprise me that the Pope is against gay marriage. What disturbed me was the push for clergy to try to influence laws about this matter. I really do respect and admire the Pope for a number of reasons. Knowing that he is failing in health, and has been for some time, it saddens me to see him focus his energy on something so divisive at this stage in his life.

I've got a confession to make. I saw Spy Kids 3D yesterday with my daughter. Yes, I contributed to the blockbuster opening weekend of a big summer movie. I feel like one of the "sheep" being led by the marketing people. Roger Ebert would be ashamed of me. But, well, I actually kind of liked it. (Ebert clearly didn't--he gave it only half a star). This would not have been my choice of how to spend my Saturday afternoon. But my son had already seen it, and he kept almost giving away plot points to her. So for the sake of family sanity, I endured 3D glasses and a hyped kid movie with my daughter. One thing I have noticed about the other movies in this series, is there tends to be a "nice" family-friendly moral to the story. Sure, for most people it is overshadowed by the special effects, but it's there. In the last movie the kids had to succeed without their high-tech spy gadgets, and in the end what saved the day was a well placed rubber band. Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, in this movie, one of the characters tells Juni--the boy Spy Kid--at the beginning of the movie, "Remember, everybody is your family." At the time, he says "That makes no sense!" But of course by the end of the movie, he understands. It's a pretty profound lesson--Mother Theresa even said something like that once. Too bad we don't all think that way more often.

Interesting article: Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

I have recently been involved in discussions about the place religion has in politics, in campaigns, and in the United States in our public life. Yesterday morning I woke up thinking about the analogy of an interfaith family--like my own--and a multicultural interfaith country. There are certainly many metaphors and images we can use to describe ourselves as a nation (as there are many metaphors and images we use when we talk about the Infinite). One of them is to see ourselves as a family. Analogies are never perfect, but they can be useful. We may not feel like we have chosen to live in a country with such a dizzying array of beliefs, customs and cultures, but you can't really choose your relatives either. Something binds you together. At minimum you try to live with each other without killing each other, but at best you can learn from your differences. As part of an interfaith family (by choice) there are some rules of thumb I have discovered that may translate fairly well to how we get along as an interfaith nation (or an interfaith Democratic party, or interfaith group of Dean supporters). Because my husband does not share my beliefs, it would be insensitive of me to insist on sending out religious Christmas cards in our family's name, or put religious themed return address labels on mail that comes from both of us. It is also wrong and insensitive to insist on having "In God we trust" on our nation's money. It is wrong to make family members feel excluded just because theirs may be the minority religion (or lack of religion) in the country. Similarly, I have heard that some families create a sort of "mission statement". I don't know how common it is, but I am trying to think of an analogy to the pledge. If I insisted on some statement of what our family stands for and put "God" into it, even though my son absolutely insists there is no God, then I am treating him as a nonentity. I know people who say that taking "under God" back out of the pledge is giving the atheists "too much power". I absolutely disagree. They are part of the family, and it would be terribly self-centered to insist that our pledge has those two extra words because I want them there, while scoffing at the idea that some Americans feel excluded by those words. But one side does not make all the compromises. It would be unreasonable of my husband to insist that I never talk about my Christian beliefs. They are part of who I am, and they influence my decisions and perceptions. So, there is give and take here. Those of us who are "believers" do not have the right to have our beliefs "officially sanctioned" on the money, in the pledge, in 10 Commandments displays at public schools. But neither should we be required to be totally silent about them for fear of making others uncomfortable. This is why I mentioned the comparison with homosexuality in a recent forum discussion in which I was involved. A lot of people feel so personally uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, that they feel they have the right to tell gays and lesbians to never speak publicly of their sexual orientation. No one should have to hide who they are because it makes others uncomfortable. If a straight person is uncomfortable hearing a gay person mention his or her partner, whose problem is that? Similarly, while people need to be sensitive in the way they discuss religion, I don't think it is acceptable to say, "Don't bring that up because it makes me uncomfortable." Just some thoughts I had recently about this issue. It has been an odd experience sometimes, to feel so compelled to speak out from a religious position that is *different* from that of the Religious Right, but often finding myself feeling silenced and marginalized by liberals who, I suppose, have felt "burned" by mainstream religion in the past. A lot of people in the more general left wing forums seem to respond to me with something like "Shh! We don't talk about that here!" I certainly don't have the answer, but want to assert that this is an issue worthy of dialog, and that to be true liberals, we need to be accepting of liberal diversity.

I just discovered an essay on the Interfaith Alliance web site. It is called Politics: The Mismaligned Calling. It's worth reading. Here is just a brief snippet: Politics is the search for ways of getting along with our neighbors in spite of their and our shortcomings. Any Christian theory of politics has to begin with an awareness of the finitude, sin and fallibility that afflicts us all. Donald Shriver, Jr., the author of the essay, goes on to add Reinhold Niebuhr also nominated, as America's greatest theologian, Abraham Lincoln. Not a church member, Lincoln imbibed from the Bible something of the fundamentals of Christians modesty in bringing religious faith to bear upon political rivalry, struggle and resorts to violence. Lincoln sensed that the God of Israel was critic as well as savior of even a "chosen" people. He surmised ironically that Americans were, at best, an "almost chosen people." Lincoln was by no means perfect, but I am certainly impressed by the honest humility and uncertainty I see in his religious speech. You can read the rest of the essay here.

Pat Robertson has "clarified" his statement about the Supreme Court "prayer offensive." I don't care which three, I mean as long as the three conservatives stay on," Robertson said at a news conference at Regent University, which he leads as president and chancellor. "There's six liberals, so it's up to the Lord. "I'm not telling God what to do," he added. "I'm just saying, 'Lord, help us.'" Robertson, as host of "The 700 Club" on his Christian Broadcasting Network, earlier this month began the 21-day "Operation Supreme Court Freedom." He is asking people to pray to God to change the court after its 6-3 decision in June that decriminalized sodomy. My visceral first reaction is to be angry at Robertson, at his arrogance, narrow mindedness, and sense of entitlement. Upon deeper meditation, I realize that I should be asking God to help me be less judgemental and more compassionate--as Jesus was always compassionate. And I need to pray for Robertson, not a superiority tinged prayer of "Would you give this man a freakin' clue!", but a prayer that the hate and fear in his heart may be healed so that he is better able to see God's loving presence in all of his fellow human beings.

Pat Robertson is truly a frightening man. I hope that word of this gets out and people's eyes are opened. These are not the words of a Christian--at least not in the sense of being "Christ like": "We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." Robertson has launched a 21-day "prayer offensive" directed at the Supreme Court in the wake of its 6-3 June vote that decriminalized sodomy. Robertson said in a letter on the CBN Web site that the ruling "has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest." The same letter targets three justices in particular: "One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?" Judging from the descriptions, Robertson was referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, who was born in 1920, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon cancer surgery in 1999. The identity of the third justice was unclear.

Think of all the different ways that we have visualized or explained God throughout the ages. We have used many metaphors and analogies to try to explain that which we cannot fully understand. In psychology, the metaphors we use to describe the brain or memory have evolved with our technology. Sometimes the brain is compared to a computer. Memory, was once thought of as a "wax tablet" upon which everything we encountered left an imprint. Later it was a library full of books that we could revisit again and again. Later still it was a recording or videotape. Of course none of those analogies is perfect, but the point I am making is the way that our metaphors have changed with our technology. And that long tangent was just to introduce this fascinating little essay in which Rabbi Lawrence Kushner compares life, and the quest to understand God, to a virtual reality game called Myst. Enjoy!

To continue with the theme of our nation's "God talk" that I started yesterday, I am including part of a sermon that was delivered by Rev. Mark Belletini at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbus, Ohio. I just want us to imagine, for the sake of a mental experiment, the best possible understanding of the word God. Not God the warrior or God the cruel judge who hurls unbelievers and children into hell, but the God who is Love itself, according to the gospel, or the God who is a doting "mother hen," according to the Hebrew Scriptures, or the God who expects fairness and justice on earth, according to the Qu'ran. If the United States were "under" such a God, I bet I wouldn't see fifty homeless men and women on every single block downtown in San Francisco. I bet if people really meant it when they said "under God" in my sense of the term, we wouldn't have to cook for Faith Mission because families would already have shelter and food worthy of their dignity. It seems to me that if this nation were really "under God" it would mean equal health care for all, no matter what, and it would mean companies that put their employees' real lives first and maximizing profits second. It would mean whatever color your skin happened to be, whatever culture you were part of, you could contribute to the common good and receive from it in good measure without anyone saying to you, "yes, but." It would mean taking literary and science education seriously, and it would include non-embarrassed sex education for adults as well as children. It would seem to me that if we were under a Love God or a Mother Hen God or a Just God, then forthright honesty would actually thrive at the top, excuses wouldn't see the light of day, and politics would only be about the good life in the polis, the city, and not about lying, twisting truths and this sorry business they now call "spin." It seems to me that if this country were really "under God," we would respect God's green earth, revere the first peoples here who once were nurtured by its prairies and forests and who nurtured them back, and we'd cheerfully recycle everything. It seems to me, that if this nation were under God, who said, according to Jeremiah/Yerimiyahu in the Hebrew Scriptures: "Practice justice and the good, and help those who are oppressed, do no wrong, do no violence to anyone: the stranger, the orphans, the widows; and stop shedding the blood of the innocent…" then the United States would look a lot different than it does. So would a lot of other nations in the world if they were "under" a God of love, devotion and fairness. So I learned that though the words "under God" will probably be restored to the pledge by the sheer power of popular outrage, I myself will never say them again, for to say them is not only to belittle the best possible meaning of the ancient word "God" but is to engage in flagrant dishonesty about my country, the United States of America. And who, I wonder, would be so foolish as to actually want any other kind of God than one who expected such loving caring and just practices from a nation with so much promise? The rest of the sermon can be found here.

Here is an excerpt from an essay (sermon?) entitled Does God Really Bless America? In some ways the words, “God Bless America” are packed with meaning. To receive God’s blessing is the ultimate congratulation-- filled with divine sanction and solidarity. We surely can not find a higher, better blessing. But in other ways it is empty slogan that we can fill with any meaning. What do we mean by bless? Do we mean the people? The government? Are we asking for warm heavenly fuzzies or truly seeking divine guidance? The bland meaning easily invites distortion. It can, in fact, become idolatrous if we use the phrase to justify anything our nation does. When that happens “God” shrinks to a socially constructed puppet that merely reflects our human fears and feelings. A tribal god smiles favorably on everything its nation does. When god becomes a national mascot, god cheers military action in the name of justice or anything else that is politically expedient at the moment. And while it may feel good and reassuring to us to believe that we are God’s pet nation, other countries have their own tribal gods cheering them on as well. Thus a multitude of wars turn into “holy” conflicts with tribal gods applauding on both sides of the trenches. Peoples and nations alike hunger for divine approval and blessing and those inclinations easily lead to national idolatry in the name of god. Something always bothered me about the God Bless America signs I saw all over the place. I'm glad someone was eloquent enough to put it into words for me.

Today's recommendation is that you take a look at Rev. Allen Brill's blog and read some of his recent posts. Especially the July 2 entry about his "journey out of the wilderness of homophobia". And, for some 4th of July fun, check out some Cyber Fireworks.

If the whole page won't load, try clicking the maximize/restore button on the upper right corner of the window and see if it helps. I am trying to figure out this problem, and that usually works for me. I didn't have the problem at all before Blogger switched to the new software. I tried switching to a different template, and the problem stopped for a while, but then started again.