A DESPICABLE POLICY BY THE CENSUS BUREAU TOWARD SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

I just read this article entitled, "2010 Census Won't Recognize Same-Sex Marriage Responses,"
and anyone with an ounce of self-respect would storm the barricades on this one.

Part of the article reads as follows:

"The U.S. Census Bureau will actively edit the responses of same-sex couples on the 2010 Census, classifying all legally married same-sex couples as 'unmarried partners.'"

“'We are just showing the data published in a way that is consistent with the way every other agency publishes their data,' Martin O’Connell, chief of the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch, told the San Jose Mercury News Sunday."

Their exclusionary hatred must be condemned! The more they rub our noses in their heterosexist hegemony over the social structure, the more the indignities heaped upon LGBT people should enrage increasing numbers of decent fair-minded people, and certainly same-sex married couples who will be increasingly incensed that their marriages are not viewed with dignity and respect by the government to which they, and we, pay taxes.

This dictate of the U.S. Census Bureau does the following:

1. It, in essence, views as invalid the existence of same-sex marriages that have been legally obtained in Massachusetts and California (unless the voters overturn the California State Supreme Court's decision in November, which I'm cautiously optimistic will not happen).

2. It invalidates the inherent dignity of same-sex love and same-sex marriage.

3. It shows its view that same-sex marriage is in some way inferior to heterosexual marriage and is, therefore, not to even be counted as legitimate, regardless of what any given state has declared to be legal.

4. It further alienates in the public's mind the very legitimate nature of same-sex love, hence helping to further create the "outsider" and "deviant" status of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

5. It further consigns Gay people to a nether world of "inferiority," sanctioned and encouraged by the federal government.

6. It further "justifies" and foments a climate of hate against Gay people and their relationships by dismissing and discounting them, despite the fact that Gay people pay the taxes that help pay for those who stigmatize them and their relationships and, in the name of the citizens of the U.S., heap further discrimination upon Gay people.

In a sane world, a church that claims to represent Christ on earth would be in the vanguard of condemning this agent of the federal government's edict that accomplishes the above, further consigning God's LGBT children, and same-sex love, to an inferior status within a country that views itself as a democratic republic, "with freedom and justice for all."

However, most of the institutional Church either encourages, even leading the way toward such discounting of the legitimacy of Gay people and same-sex love or, just as cowardly, remains silent in the face of the grinding oppression of LGBT people by assorted "religious" and secular forces.

I have no doubt that those who worship their own interpretation of selected biblical passages rather than worship God' who, in fact, equate the Bible with God; who equate their own fallible interpretations borne of their own preconceived, often hateful, prejudices with what they sanctimoniously call "the will of God," will one day move on to choose another minority group to which they can again impose their false gospel of exclusion, once LGBT people are seen in secular society to be fully deserving of, and finally acquire, full and equal civil rights.

That was the institutional Church's modus operandi regarding the equality of women (save for certain "traditionalists," who still discriminate against women) and African Americans, so we should have no doubt that the institutional Church will again play the caboose in civil rights gains for LGBT people that will first be won in secular society, and only then, when full and equal civil rights are won in secular society, will most of the institutional Church jump on board the bandwagon. This scenario betrays not only the pathetic state of much of the institutional Church but also shows how far removed so much of it is from the will of God that demands of God that Jesus articulated as His mission in His first public pronouncement in His ministry:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." (Luke 4:18-19)

How dare the prejudiced haters and hate-mongers who act out their animus against LGBT people in the name of the Prince of Peace call themselves "Christians!" Most of the institutional Church is so far removed from Jesus' call to all who would be His disciples to follow Him and be agents of His grace and love in this world, that their explicit or tacit approval of discrimination against LGBT people and same-sex love puts the lie to their profession to be Christians!

If the institutional Church roundly condemned discrimination against LGBT people, I have no doubt that such an atrocity that is currently being perpetrated by the Census Bureau, as well as the atrocity of there being absolutely no federal civil rights protections for LGBT people and same-sex run families, would not only cease to exist but would not have likely come into existence in the first place.

However, most of what comprises the institutional Church has shown itself to obey Caesar rather than God; to dance with the devil of materialism; to align itself with some of the most reactionary forces of the state. Hence, there is no incentive for any part of the federal government, or for a great number of people, many of whom consider themselves to be "Christians," to abstain from hateful discrimination against LGBT people, or any other "enemy" de jour that they construct for their own materialistic, psychological and, all too often, hateful purposes.

I strongly encourage all people to email Lambda Legal to ask them to vigorously pursue legal challenges to the Census Bureau's decision regarding the counting of same-sex marriages, and to email the Human Rights Campaign and tell them to be far more aggressive than they have been in confronting such injustices as that perpetrated by the Census Bureau, as well as the rest of the federal government in its clear discrimination against LGBT people and same-sex love and marriage.

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