Preaching Against Prop 102

Doing my best to look and sound the part of the 'Bishop,' I had the distinct honor and pleasure to preach at an Interfaith service Thursday evening. The purpose was to gather voices of faith to talk about what there is about our faith that compels us to oppose Prop 102 - the attempt to amend Arizona's Constitution to ban same sex marriage (a practice that is right now illegal in the state of Arizona).

I hope soon to have some pictures from the evening. It was marvelous. Participating were representatives from the Unitarian faith, the Jewish faith, Sikhs and Muslims, Catholics and Protestants. It was moving, from the testimonials to the spirit to the music to the enthusiasm.

I apologize for the length, I try to keep these postings brief, but I did want to share my words with you.

Here they are:

‘Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.’

It’s hard to imagine what was at stake when Lincoln spoke those words. Their import and impact extend beyond the years, and remind us both how fragile is this notion of equality, and how utterly difficult it is to build a nation founded on that single fundament.

Still in its infancy, America was discovering that the principles of freedom and equality would never truly be embraced by all. Forces, powers, constituencies, alliances, even armies would all align to undermine governments built to ensure the dignity and worth of all – especially when the equality of the masses would threaten the imagined supremacy of the few.

What Lincoln himself understood was that this notion of equality – this proposition that all are created equal – was an inspired notion, the mere articulation of which was by far easier than its execution; and which preceded by a full century our ability and willingness to live fully into it.

The men and women who imagined that such a nation could be built were truly inspired. The impulses that would engender within them the dream of equality, the vision of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and the hope that their generation would and could make such dreams and visions possible for future generations coursed through their veins. Those impulses manifested themselves in documents, pamphlets, orations, speeches, and sermons hallowed to this day not just by Americans, but by all who on this earth find their bodies enslaved, their souls beaten down, and their livelihood threatened by oppression, tyranny, abuse, and barbarism – and who, in the face us these atrocities, dream about freedom.

Upon declaring our Independence as a nation, having suffered at the hands of a government destructive of these ends, it was written: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

I am a man of faith. I understand well this language, and believe deeply in its assertion: that these enumerated inalienable rights and the fundament of equality are not merely abstract ideals for which we strive but endowments of the Creator. You cannot remove them. We possess them as children of our Creator.

That the founders of this country, the authors of these texts to which I refer, were themselves motivated by religious principles is evident.

What is also evident was their recognition that the same religious institutions which engender such high ideals can themselves become impediments to a citizen’s equality, barriers to a full life, blockades to liberty, and stumbling blocks to the pursuit of happiness. In constructing a government built to ensure these precious and inalienable rights, they were careful to build a wall of separation between the church and the state. They were as careful to make use of governing principles that guarded against the tyranny of the church, the tyranny of the state, or the tyranny of any illicit alliance the two might form.

I am proud to be a part of a faith tradition that honors, understands, and affirms this separation. That religious institutions have the capacity to inform the minds, to stir the hearts, and to shape the moral character of this nation’s citizen’s is testimony to the high calling which is theirs to claim and reason enough for the government to ensure the free expression of religious thought.

I am proud to be the child of an experiment in human history that crafted a Constitution that upheld the Creator’s intent that all would remain free within its borders. I renew my concern that throughout our history, however, this we have failed to fully live out those higher aspirations. And where we have not, we do also note that the same government which shamefully fell short of those ideals permitted the kind of dissent that would inspire and produce amendments to our Constitution that would address those less than noble inclinations. Those amendments would free slaves, re-enfranchise first the black male, and then all women.

Throughout the history of this great nation, its citizens have sought to correct what were the clear prejudices of men and women whose intellect and integrity were large enough to create something grand, but whose times and culture were powerful enough to limit their understandings of just who would be included in this embrace of equality.

The tide of history has served to wash away such notions as: a black is 3/5 human, an especially galling principle in that it served both to dehumanize a proud race of people while using them for political capital; the black could not muster the requisite intelligence to participate in the shaping of a government built to protect and preserve his rights; women were subject to emotions that clouded their judgment and therefore were themselves denied the right to vote; our children are better educated in institutions that perpetuate institutionalized racism through forced segregation.

As a person of faith, it strikes me that what we are inviting the Citizens of this state to undertake should embarrass and frighten us. This invitation to amend our Constitution is an effort to undermine our noble and historic mission to shape a nation where government ensures and protects equality – an equality that we rightly name as the intended endowment of our Creator, a truth we hold to be self-evident.

We are at our best as a nation, as people of faith, as citizens active in the pursuit of our own life, liberty, and happiness when we stand up for those whom others will argue are not deserving of the same rights.

It is as a matter of faith that I reject the teachings and principles of those who would both benefit from the entitlements of privilege and who would also promise some of us a share of that privilege.

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul writes: “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female – all are one in Christ.”

Paul was not arguing that we should obliterate, ignore, or diminish cultural identities, religious practices, class distinctions, or gender differences. He had witnessed class warfare in the empire of Rome, and in Galatia witnessed perhaps the first pogrom as Roman procurators fomented dissent between already tense Greek and Jewish settlements. He was sick of it. And he understood that if the teachings of Jesus were meant to impart anything, it would be that the distribution of wealth, power, and honor would not be reduced to equations of ethnicity, class, and gender. Were it as much an issue in his time as it seems to be today, he would have added to that list there is no longer gay or straight. Just as ethnicity, and gender, and class have no place in the determination of one’s moral or economic status, neither does one’s sexual orientation. That is not only a principle built on sound ethical judgment, it is a theological imperative and a religious fundament practiced and held to be true by those who believe that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and who hold this truth to be self-evident: that all are created equal.

I speak as a respected leader in the Christian tradition and unequivocally state that there is nothing Christian about this inclination to identify members of the LGBT community as second-class citizens in the state of Arizona. There is nothing American about this inclination to identify members of the LGBT community as second-class citizens in the state of Arizona. There is nothing faith-filled about this inclination to identify member of the LGBT community as a second-class citizens in the state of Arizona.

That there are Christian bigots who feel that way does not surprise us. They have existed among us throughout our history. That we would occasionally discover within our own selves tendencies toward this kind of bigotry should also no longer surprises us. But that we would seek to institutionalize such bigotry and prejudice after more than two centuries of impulses which are moving us, compelling us, requiring us to open our hearts sends a chill up my spine.

My faith compels me to oppose this proposed amendment to the Constitution of Arizona – which, as all others written before it in this great land, was written to guarantee and to protect the rights of all of its citizens. I oppose it not in spite of what my faith teaches me, but because of it. I oppose it not in spite of what my scripture teaches me, but because of it. I oppose it not in spite of what our forebears envisioned as possible in America, but because of it.

Like Lincoln’s America, we today are asked to test whether or not a nation founded and dedicated on the proposition that all are created equal can long stand.

God help us all if it cannot. Because this time, if it cannot, it will have been the church, the people through whose forebear’s inspiration and insight this nation was birthed in freedom and liberty, in equality and in justice, who will have ended the dream. As a person of faith, I am frightened by what that might mean, and I add my voice to those who in faith oppose this Proposition – this un-American, un-Christian, un-faithful, anti-liberty-for-all Proposition. And my fervent prayer is that come Nov. 4 we who do once again outnumber those who do not.