More smart people saying more smart things about the “culture wars” and the culture warriors who fight them.
Chris Clarke: “An open letter to the right wing in the wake of the passage of Amendment One in N.C.“
We are people who would really rather be left alone to live our lives. And we would rather leave other people alone to live theirs.
That’s why you’ve been able to push things this far. We’ve kind of been hoping that you’d wake up one morning, look at the things you’d written or said, the sermons you’ve preached, the blog posts you’ve published, the hateful things you’ve screamed at children and grieving parents, and suddenly see them with new eyes. We’ve been hoping that you’d wake up. No, not hoping — assuming. It happens often enough. People drop their fear all the time, shake their heads, make amends for the harm they’ve caused and start living their lives without the poisoned anger and hatred.
Because despite what we say sometimes when we’re frustrated, we don’t actually think you’re stupid. Not most of you. We’ve actually been expecting you to figure this all out on your own the way smart people do.
But that doesn’t seem to be going well. In fact, you just seem to be getting more and more afraid of everyone who doesn’t share your very specific beliefs.
Jason Pitzl-Waters: “Christianity and Marriage Equality“
The real, unfortunate, truth is that Christianity is working against the lives of gay men and women, save for a small percentage who have broken away.
These laws not only tell gays and lesbians to get back into the closet, to forget legal protections or societal acceptance, they also work to limit the religious freedoms of non-Christian faiths. Belief systems that don’t endorse their views on marriage or morality are swept aside, invisible within the lens of Christian privilege. The fight for the equal rights and treatment of same-sex couples ultimately benefits the religions that support those rights, and destabilizes the ones that don’t. So it’s little wonder that opposition to same-sex marriage is regularly portrayed as a struggle against “paganism.”
Pam Spaulding: “It’s just the beginning for N.C. after passage of Amendment One“
The coalition-building here has afforded North Carolinians for the first time to discuss the rights of LGBT neighbors and friends. It has shown the country that yes, the South has politically active voters of strong faith that are against discrimination for all of the right reasons — it’s not a matter of religion at all, but about the separation of church and state and protecting and extending the rights of minorities, not restricting them.
For those clinging to that notion in order to hide their own homophobia it has become challenging to defend their decision to vote for the Amendment. Not for those who see no separation of church and state, mind you, but those who are fuzzy on what they choose to believe in the Bible when it suits their needs.
But we won’t forget the support and love from many on the ground here and in digital space around the country.
The majority of North Carolinians voting today don’t believe that my civil marriage (legal depending on what state we travel to), should be recognized. While perhaps some subset probably didn’t know they were banning civil unions and domestic partnerships (at this point, one has to believe these folks are pretty dense), the most vocal proponents of Amendment One not only wanted to “protect marriage,” they wanted to punish lesbian and gay couples. Apparently even at the expense of economic development and jobs or collateral harms to unmarried opposite couples and children, or what will now be legal chaos over all of these harms and the possible impact on private contracts as well.
It’s hard to view anyone who believes that is moral in any sense of the definition.
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