Friday, October 30, 2009

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RIGHTS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scores of people cheered and waved signs as ministers and religious activists delivered speeches Sunday during a Freedom Plaza rally against same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia.

Chanting “let the people vote,” Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of a church in Beltsville, Md., and Rev. Walter Fauntroy, Washington’s former congressional delegate, were among a series of speakers to call on the D.C. City Council to allow a voter initiative that seeks to ban same-sex marriage in the city.


[For the full article, see here.]

Same-sex marriage, despite much "religious" rhetoric to the contrary, is a civil rights issue! Indeed, LGBT rights is the major civil rights issue of our time!

To deny same-sex couples the civil and sacramental rights that accrue to heterosexuals who wish to make a lifetime commitment to each other is downright discrimination!

And for African-Americans who have a legacy of suffering unspeakable oppression in the U.S. to not understand this fundamental principle is amazing to me, and should be amazing to any rational person!

In the above cited article, Rev. Anthony Evans said, "...We were astonished to hear the chairman of the City Council not only willing to ignore God’s word but was determined to defy the teachings of Christ concerning marriage and defy God by declaring same-sex marriage as not a religious issue but a human rights one.”

Rev. Evans invokes "God's word" but fails to mention (or perhaps even see) Jesus' statement in the context of heterosexual marriage: "For there are some eunuchs , which were so born from their mother's womb...." (Matthew 19:12)

Rather than exegete the above passage here, which Faris Malik has superbly done, it must be emphasized that "God's word" by no means discounts same-sex marriage; same-sex marriage in no way "[defies] the teachings of Christ concerning marriage," and, contrary to Evans' assertion, the conferring of same-sex marriage rights is not a religious issue but is, in fact, a human and civil rights issue!

Same-sex marriage is a civil right, and our civil rights are not to be given or withheld by appealing to the Bible (or, more particularly, certain people's interpretation of selected verses of the Bible), but we are under the Constitution, the Judicial interpretation of which defines our civil rights; those civil rights are not to be up for grabs by the vote of the majority or by the assertions of any religious or secular leaders!

Shame on people like Rev. Harry Jackson and Rev. Anthony Evans who seek to deny the dignity and sanctity of marriage to others, bearing false witness against and discriminating against Gay people, while at the same time profiting from the legacy of civil rights activists that have enabled them to enjoy the liberation that they seek to deny to another minority group!
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3 comments:

Jerry Maneker said...

To Anonymous: I'm not publishing your comment because it's been heard ad nauseam and it neglects the essence of the Gospel, which is "grace" (God's unmerited favor).

You, nor any other person, is called by God to judge others, let alone seek to deny God's LGBT children civil and sacramental rights based upon your skewed interpretation of some selected passages of Scripture.

If you have any intellectual and spiritual honesty and maturity, you will read some of the links in the Links section of this blog and inform yourself as to the fact that there are very intelligent and thoughtful Christian scholars see no disunity between being a Christian and being Gay.

Moreover, if you had the courage of your convictions, you would have had the guts to give your real name, and not go by the name "Anonymous."

genevieve said...

Jerry, this is a subject that I could go talking about for days. I am the antithesis of what same-sex marriage opponents rail against. I'm transgender and have been married 29 years. To say that same-sex marriage threatens traditional mariiage is an outright lie.

If these people are so concerned about traditonal marriage, why don't they counsel those couples who are struggling in your marriages. Denying others the right to marry to save a tradition reeks of hypocrisy.

Jerry Maneker said...

Hi genevieve: They don't care about "traditional marriage" (whatever that is, since that "tradition" has changed in the last few thousand years), but they have disdain for LGBT people! That is their hypocrisy: they use the phony threat to the institution of marriage as a wedge issue to discriminate against Gay people when, in fact, it is heterosexuals who are hurting the institution of marriage by the high rates of divorce.

If religious and secular homophobes were really concerned with the institution of marriage, they'd counsel against divorce and rail against divorce from the pulpit and in other forums (which I'm not suggesting that they should do), but to do so would have a lot of their congregations leave and take their money with them.

Also, congratulations on 29 years of marriage! That's a wonderful accomplishment! Best wishes, Jerry.