Got Milk? Equal Protection for "Gay and Lesbian People"

The newspaper headlines this morning said, "Iowa's Gay Marriage Ruling Today" and the editorial page invited readers to "Share your thoughts on the gay marriage ruling."

OK, I will.... Easier said than done. For me anyway.

How do you go about "sharing your thoughts" on "gay marriage"? Where do you start?

After reading the newspaper I looked up a couple of passages in the Bible (The Message by Eugene H. Peterson). Leviticus 18 is entitled "Sex."

Verse 22 says, Don’t have sex with a man as one does with a woman. That is abhorrent.

Then in Romans 1 Paul talks about people who knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Part of what makes this whole "gay marriage" issue so controversial is the debate among religious scholars (the guys Jesus was so fond of) as to what the texts say & what they mean. Don't get me wrong. The proper interpretation and application of Scripture is important and not always easy to figure out.

On the other hand, some of the debate about the Bible's teaching on homosexuality may be like the disciples wondering what on earth “rising from the dead” meant. (Mark 9:9-10)

(Peter: "James? You think he actually meant he was going to die and then...?"
James, "C'mon, Peter! Are you KIDDING!")

In spite of what certain mainline folk would lead us to believe, the Bible (thus I believe God himself) is clear. Homosexual behavior is sin. This by no means ends the theological debate for many but for me it's clear. Problem is that a lot of newspaper readers with whom I might venture to "share my thoughts on the gay marriage issue" either don't see it the way I do or don't care what the Bible says.

So I read some more in order to say something other than, "There shouldn't be no gay marriage because God says so." Or, like the guy with the poster...

I went to Darrell Bock's blog and read his quite lengthy interaction with a 2008 Newsweek article on gay marriage.

http://blog.bible.org/bock/node/439

As I'm reading all this I kept wondering if I really understood what had actually happened at the Iowa Supreme Court so I went to the Des Moines Register online. Everybody was excited. People were twittering like crazy.

It was hard enough to understand what the article said (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090403/NEWS/90403010)

much less the 69 page opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court.

More websites looking for arguments...

I liked Maggie Gallagher's Institute for Marriage and Public Policy http://www.marriagedebate.com/
and Dinesh D'Souza's site, To The Source, http://www.tothesource.org/)

Before I knew it I had cut and pasted my way to an 18 page Word document. It's a lot easier for me to find articles, copy them and paste them into a document than it is to "share my thoughts" on gay marriage.

I kept coming back to the Court's opinion to understand what they had actually said.

Here's what I sent to the Register. These are my "thoughts" on "gay marriage" that I will "share" with you.

The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that the Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution. The Court says “civil marriage” should not be limited to “a man and a woman” and that “gay and lesbian people” should have “full access to the institution of civil marriage.”

I agree with the intent of the ruling to give gays and lesbians equal protection under the law.

I don’t agree that "gay and lesbian people" should have “full access to the institution of civil marriage.”
I don’t agree because this requires changing the definition of marriage.
I don’t think you can broaden “civil marriage” to include “gay and lesbian people” without eventually including “three to five gay and lesbian people” or “polygamous people.”
Other laws could be written to give “gay and lesbian people” “equal protection” as couples without changing the meaning of marriage.
There are good reasons for limiting marriage to one man and one woman.
(How does homosexuality fit into Darwinian “survival of the fittest”? Would there be as much disease or poverty in the world if the only sexual activity was in a marriage of one woman and one man?)

I think there are moral absolutes.
I think, for example, that racism, genocide and rape are actually wrong for everyone everywhere.
I think homosexual activity and adultery are also wrong.
I think every human being deserves love and respect.
I think labels such as “gay,” “lesbian,” “straight,” or "homophobe" conceal as much as they reveal.

The Power of a Picture: Shulman's Images Help Us See

I took my daughter to school this morning so my wife could sleep a little longer before going to work. Before we leave I offer to do stuff for her but she usually declines.
Today I carried out the waffle her mom toasted & set it on the dashboard.
She’s taught me all the short cuts to avoid the traffic at the junior high in our neighborhood.
We listen to her favorite station on the way to school while she eats her waffle & does her makeup in the visor mirror. I say things to her to let her know I’m glad to be with her. Sometimes we have conversations. If we don’t it’s OK.

She’s a junior in high school & will be gone sooner than I realize. Then I’ll give anything for twelve minutes in the car with her on an ordinary Thursday morning.

She’s the last one. We’ve fledged three others but after her our nest will be empty.
How did she get to be seventeen and so beautiful?
We know so little about each other’s interior worlds,
the vast and complex regions of emotion, memory and desire.

She struck me this way recently. She was “getting ready” in the mirror by our front door as I came home. I saw her through the sheer curtain.
When I came in I said, “Wow! I saw you through the window. You look so big!”
This did not have the effect I was going for.
I have since learned not to use this word to refer to any female older than, say, about six.
(I’ve also realized that “frizzy” is not the word of choice in describing her long, flowing, to-die-for blonde hair but that’s another story.)

We pull up to the school. She puts the finishing touches on her face and grabs her backpack.
I touch her on the shoulder and say something nice.
Then she’s out the door and I watch her go into the building.
I zip her makeup bag shut and pull away.

I usually switch the radio to NPR on the way home and did so today.
There was a story on Morning Edition by Susan Stanberg about Julius Shulman,
a 98-year-old architectural photographer.
(“Photographer Captures L.A.'s Vintage Homes” NPR Morning Edition March 26, 2009)
It was very interesting. Shulman’s photographs of Southern California homes are famous.
He took photos of Steven Spielberg’s home.
For $6,000 or more, Shulman will take pictures of your home.

The story was about Shulman taking photographs of Shondell Spiegel’s home.
It described his method and style. At the end of the piece there was a quote from Shondell Spiegel that stood out to me so much that I scribbled some notes on a napkin so I could find it again. It interested me because I’m getting ready to teach a Sunday School class on parenting. I’m no expert on parenting, just experienced. We have a lot of couples with young children at our church and we think parenting is really important so we offer classes on it.

Anyway, Shondell Spiegel was reflecting on Shulman’s genius when she said this,

He makes you see what you take for granted. And we do that in our houses.

But she went further. For some reason I think she applied the lesson she learned from the photographer's images of her house and applied them to her home.

Spiegel continued, We do that in our marriages. We do that with our children.
He has ability to stop time and let you see it and to remember why you fell in love with it.

Interesting. I don’t know how or why Ms. Spiegel made the jump from her house to her home (marriage and children) but I really like what she said. She said she’s got this fantastic house but she takes it for granted. She doesn’t “see” it anymore.
She said paying Julius Shulman $6000 to photograph her house helped her remember why she fell in love with it.
Then she suggested that we can take our marriages and children for granted
and that we need to "stop time" and “see” them in order to remember why we love them.

That’s what I want my parenting class to do.
I want us to "stop time" and "see" our children and remember why we love them.

Maybe if I charged $6000…

Doctor, doctor... part 2

A friend called the other night rather late. After making plans to ride three days of RAGBRAI he unfolded a rather bleak litany of burdens. One of his parents has cancer and was starting chemo.
He's working longer hours. Two guys doing the work four guys used to do.
His child got sick and had to go to the ER.
His family's going out-of-town for spring break so he'll be "batching it."
He's involved in a legal situation that will probably "go his way" but still takes a toll.

More than once he assured me he was OK. I prayed for him over the phone.

He compared his relationship to his parent with that of a friend from work who hasn't spoken to her father in ten years. "I can't imagine the world without them," he told me.
He was grateful for the love they shared. "I've been really fortunate," he said.

Next morning I read this:

A Message from the high and towering God,
who lives in Eternity,
whose name is Holy:
“I live in the high and holy places,
but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed,
And what I do is put new spirit in them,
get them up and on their feet again.
For I’m not going to haul people into court endlessly,
I’m not going to be angry forever.
Otherwise, people would lose heart.
These souls I created would tire out and give up.

Peterson, E. H. (2002). The Message (Is 57:15). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news

It's interesting to me how we can entrust our bodies to doctors who'll probe, ask personal questions, prescribe incredibly expensive treatments or even cause us great personal pain via exams or surgical procedures and we "take the medicine" in order to get well.

People fly all over the country & even the world to get treatment with little regard for the time, effort & cost because their lives are at stake.

We may complain that doctors don't really understand our condition but if we're sick we know it & we'll take their partial knowledge over our ignorance or "Web M.D." any day.

Another interesting thing to me is when people who seem to be fine come up with awful illnesses "out of the blue." Some guy's in great shape out cutting his grass & has a massive heart attack and he's gone. Other times I've visited people in the hospital who seemed like they were on their death bed. They look AWFUL. But they respond to treatment and recover!

Why are some people so sensitive, yea paranoid, about their physical health but so spiritually numb. And why do people have so little regard for the care & feeding of souls?

Nonviolent Communication, or, You can teach an old dog new tricks.

I had an interaction with my adolescent daughter yesterday.
I thought she was trying to get out of school by saying she had a migraine.
(I'll reflect on my tendency toward skepticism later.
For now just chalk it up to my bent psyche & parenting three other teens.)
This happened while I was reading a book my son recommended called Nonviolent Communication.
I'd just read about identifying and expressing our feelings so I went to the long list of feeling words & wrote the ones that described me in my journal...

"I feel skeptical, suspicious, troubled, vexed, pessimistic,
displeased, frustrated, hesitant, confused, annoyed..."
[I haven't achieved the level where my feelings come in alphabetical order.]

I didn't know if I was right or not.
I didn't know if I should say anything or not.
I knew I risked getting into an argument either way.
(And I'm not good at nonviolent communication when I'm arguing).

But I had all these strong feelings.

So I asked her to join me for a private conversation.
I told her I was truly sorry if she had a migraine.
I told her I didn't know how she felt.
I told her how I was feeling. (See list above.)

She then expressed her own list of feelings,
very few of which seemed warm, tender & loving toward her father!
She said, "Dad, with all due respect I feel that you are an idiot."
[Just kidding. She may've thought it but she didn't say it.]
She told me what she thought about school.
It was a nonviolent exchange.
I felt good because I expressed my feelings & thoughts without blaming or accusing.
I felt even better because I could tell things were open & peaceful-- even affectionate between us.

And for the record I was wrong. She did have a migraine.
And she wasn't trying to get out of anything at school.

"...speaking the truth in love...Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully..."
Ephesians 4

We've got a place!

We're going to Florida for Spring Break this year as in other years.
We start daydreaming about beach sounds and squinting in warm sunlight.
The excitement ramped up a couple of notches when we found a condo that was available.
My wife called me. I could hear the excitement in her voice.
"Well, we've got a place!" she said.
Something about having a place down there-- our place-- makes it more real.
More real, more exciting.
Daydreaming gives way to planning. What should we do now in light of then?!

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most
for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.
It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world
that they have become so ineffective in this.” C. S. Lewis

"There are many rooms in my Father's house...
I am going there to prepare a place for you." (John 14:6)

Does God have a tux?

Barbara Walters had a special that ran just before the Oscars.
She interviewed Hugh Jackman.
He told about singing at Carnegie Hall (search Hugh Jackman & Carnegie Hall on YouTube).
When his dad found out his son was singing at Carnegie Hall he was determined to be there even though he had to travel to New York City from Australia and return the day after the performance.

Hugh told his dad it was a black tie event so to be sure to wear a tux.
Later they changed the dress code and when Hugh found this out he told his dad not to worry about the tux.
The evening of the performance, Hugh Jackman's dad showed up at Carnegie Hall wearing a tuxedo. The only tux in the hall.
"Dad, I told you it wasn't black tie! You didn't need to wear a tux. They changed the dress code."

"Son," his father said (Australian accent),
"if my son's singing at Carnegie Hall, for me it's black tie."
Hugh Jackman's dad sat on the edge of his seat during the whole performance, tears streaming down his face. Proud of his son.

I wonder if God the Father wore a tux when his son died, was buried & rose again...