Truth is the forgotten family value
George Monbiot
May 16, 2012

Cultural conservatives’ moral concerns about marriage are based on a view of history that is almost entirely false.

‘THROUGHOUT history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman.” So says the Coalition for Marriage, whose petition against same-sex unions in Britain has so far attracted 500,000 signatures. It’s a familiar claim, and it is wrong. Dozens of societies, across many centuries, have recognised same-sex marriage. In a few cases, before the 14th century, it was even celebrated in church.

This is an example of a widespread phenomenon: myth-making by cultural conservatives about past relationships. Scarcely challenged, family values campaigners have been able to construct a history that is almost entirely false.

The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel to behold. Its promoters are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother’s partner. Jesus insisted that ”if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters  ¢â‚¬ ¦ he cannot be my disciple”. He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.

This theme was aggressively pursued by the church for 1500 years. In his book A World of Their Own Making, Professor John Gillis points out that until the Reformation, the state of holiness was not matrimony but lifelong chastity. Godly families in this world were established not by men and women, united in bestial matrimony, but by the holy orders, whose members were brothers or brides of Christ. Like most monotheistic religions (which developed among nomadic peoples), Christianity placed little value on the home. A Christian’s true home was in another realm, and until he reached it, through death, he was considered an exile from the family of God.

The Reformation preachers created a new ideal of social organisation, the godly household. This bore little relationship to the nuclear family. By their mid-teens, often much earlier, Gillis tells us, ”virtually all young people lived and worked in another dwelling for shorter or longer periods”. Across much of Europe, most belonged (as servants, apprentices and labourers) to houses other than those of their biological parents. The poor, by and large, did not form households; they joined them.

The father of the house, who described and treated his charges as his children, typically was unrelated to most of them. Family, before the 19th century, meant everyone living in the house. What the Reformation sanctified was the proto-industrial labour force, working and sleeping under one roof.

The belief that sex outside marriage was rare in previous centuries is also unfounded. The majority, who were too poor to marry formally, Gillis writes, ”could love as they liked as long as they were discreet about it”. Before the 19th century, those intending to marry began to sleep together as soon as they declared their intentions. This was sanctioned on the grounds it allowed couples to discover if they were compatible. Premarital pregnancy was common and often uncontroversial, as long as provision was made for the children.

The nuclear family, as idealised today, was an invention of the Victorians, but it bore little relationship to the family life we are told to emulate. Its development was driven by economic rather than spiritual needs, as the Industrial Revolution made manufacturing in the household unviable. Much as the Victorians might extol their families, ”it was assumed that men would have their extramarital affairs and women would also find intimacy, even passion, outside marriage” (often with other women). Gillis links the 20th-century attempt to find intimacy and passion only within marriage, and the impossible expectations this raises, to the rise in the rate of divorce.

Children’s lives were characteristically wretched: farmed out to wet nurses, sometimes put to work in factories and mines, beaten, neglected, often abandoned as infants. In his book A History of Childhood, Colin Heywood reports that ”the scale of abandonment in certain towns was simply staggering”, reaching a third or a half of all the children born in some European cities.

Conservatives often hark back to the golden age of the 1950s. But in the 1950s, John Gillis shows, people of the same persuasion believed they had suffered a great moral decline since the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, people fetishised the family lives of the Victorians. The Victorians invented this nostalgia, looking back with longing to imagined family lives before the Industrial Revolution. Far from this being, as cultural conservatives assert, a period of unique moral depravity, family life and the raising of children is, for most people, now surely better in the West than at any time in the past 1000 years.

The conservatives’ supposedly moral concerns turn out to be nothing but an example of the age-old custom of first idealising and then sanctifying one’s own culture. The past they invoke is fabricated. It has nothing to offer us.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/truth-is-the-forgotten-family-value-20120515-1youb.html#ixzz1v9H12qdS

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And this:

Pelosi, Theologians, Lay Catholics Agree: Support Marriage Equality
May 16, 2012
The message that American Catholics support marriage equality is one that cannot be emphasized or repeated enough. Since the Catholic bishops oppose marriage equality so vocally and vociferously, it is important to keep reminding people that the hierarchy ¢â‚¬â„¢s position is not reflective of the Catholic population. Some recent news stories highlight this fact.

The Washington Post ¢â‚¬â„¢s blog  ¢â‚¬Å“Under God ¢â‚¬  recently ran a quote from Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives minority leader who is Catholic, that she made at a press conference in response to a question about religion and marriage equality. Pelosi responded:

 ¢â‚¬Å“My religion compels me ¢â‚¬“and I love it for it ¢â‚¬“to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider [the ban on gay marriage] a form of discrimination. I think it ¢â‚¬â„¢s unconstitutional on top of that. So I think that yesterday was a great day for America because the president in a very personal, as well as presidential way, made history, and hopefully this will bring people together on the issue. ¢â‚¬ 

She joins other prominent Catholic politicians ¢â‚¬“Washington State ¢â‚¬â„¢s Governor Christine Gregoire, Maryland ¢â‚¬â„¢s Governor Martin O ¢â‚¬â„¢Malley, Vice President Joe Biden ¢â‚¬“who this past year have publicly voiced support for marriage equality.

Politicians are not the only prominent Catholics who are speaking out for marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. A DailyBeast.com headline recently asked,  ¢â‚¬Å“Do Most Catholic Theologians Support Same-Sex Marriage?, ¢â‚¬  and the article answers a resounding  ¢â‚¬Å“Yes! ¢â‚¬ 

One of the scholars cited is Paul Lakeland, professor of religion and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, who, in reference to the bishops ¢â‚¬â„¢ position on marriage equality, states:

 ¢â‚¬Å“That ¢â‚¬â„¢s not really an argument that has a theological justification. . . .It ¢â‚¬â„¢s an argument that ¢â‚¬â„¢s based more on fear or repugnance. ¢â‚¬ 

Also quoted is Daniel Maguire, professor of theology at Marquette University:

 ¢â‚¬Å“Archbishop Dolan and the United States Catholic Conference are misrepresenting  ¢â‚¬ËœCatholic teaching, ¢â‚¬â„¢ and are trying to present their idiosyncratic minority view as the  ¢â‚¬ËœCatholic position, ¢â‚¬â„¢ and it is not. . . .The bishops will stand with Dolan and the U.S. Catholic Conference, but on this issue, they are in moral schism since most in the Church have moved on [to] a more humane view on the rights of those whom God has made gay.

 ¢â‚¬Å“Most Catholic theologians approve of same-sex marriage and Catholics generally do not differ much from the overall population on this issue. ¢â‚¬ 

Frederick Parrella, professor of theology at Santa Clara University, notes that there is  ¢â‚¬Å“nothing in the Gospels ¢â‚¬  to support opposition to marriage equality.

A new Gallup poll which shows that about 50% of Americans support marriage equality, 51% of Catholics express the same support, compared to 47% of Catholics who oppose such measures.

In his latest post, Michael O ¢â‚¬â„¢Loughlin at America magazine ¢â‚¬â„¢s  ¢â‚¬Å“In All Things ¢â‚¬  blog offers some analysis of why Catholics are so supportive of marriage equality:

 ¢â‚¬Å“As with the public as a whole, the more visible gay and lesbian people are in families, schools, and the workplace, the more likely Catholics are to support laws that they see as extending civil rights to a group of historically marginalized people. But is there something about Catholicism in particular that would lead to acceptance of same-sex marriage, even as some church leaders rail against it? I think the sacramental nature of our faith, the belief that the world is good and infused with God ¢â‚¬â„¢s grace, and the understanding of family and community as pivotal to living out the Gospel might compel Catholics to reject the call to take up a fight against same-sex marriage. Perhaps some of the laity have taken to heart the church ¢â‚¬â„¢s emphasis on social justice, its call to protect the marginalized, and its preached message of inclusivity for all, and are now applying these themes to a specific, modern situation. Some bishops may lament this break between shepherd and flock, but in some ways perhaps it is not so troubling? If Catholics are following what they believe to be well-formed consciences and standing up for those they see as victimized and marginalized, the Gospel message lives. ¢â‚¬ 

From all quarters of the church, except the hierarchy, Catholics support marriage equality.

 ¢â‚¬“Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

Posted by newwaysministryblog

What Catholics Can Learn from Barack Obama ¢â‚¬â„¢s  ¢â‚¬Å“Coming Out ¢â‚¬  Story

In a Newsweek analysis article, gay Catholic commentator Andrew Sullivan has declared Barack Obama to be America ¢â‚¬â„¢s  ¢â‚¬Å“first gay president. ¢â‚¬  The addition of a rainbow halo on the cover of the  magazine (below) adds a religious flavor to

this title. The article traces Mr. Obama ¢â‚¬â„¢s notorious  ¢â‚¬Å“evolution ¢â‚¬  on marriage equality, but the title of  ¢â‚¬Å“first gay president ¢â‚¬  is given for a much more personal connection between the president and LGBT people. In a long passage towards the end of the article, Sullivan poignantly points out:

 ¢â‚¬Å“. . .[T]here is something on this subject [marriage equality] with Obama that goes deeper in my view than cold, calculating politics and a commitment to civil rights. The core gay experience throughout history has been displacement, a sense of belonging and yet not belonging. Gays are born mostly into heterosexual families and discover as they grow up that, for some reason, they will never be able to have a marriage like their parents ¢â‚¬â„¢ or their siblings ¢â‚¬â„¢. They know this before they can tell anyone else, even their parents. This sense of subtle alienation ¢â‚¬”of loving your own family while feeling excluded from it ¢â‚¬”is something all gay children learn. They sense something inchoate, a separateness from their peers, a subtle estrangement from their families, the first sharp pangs of shame. And then, at some point, they find out what it all means. In the past, they often would retreat and withdraw, holding a secret they couldn ¢â‚¬â„¢t even share with their parents ¢â‚¬”living as an insider outsider.

 ¢â‚¬Å“And this, in a different way, is Obama ¢â‚¬â„¢s life story as well. He was a black kid brought up by white grandparents and a white single mother in Hawaii and Indonesia, where his color really made no difference. He discovered his otherness when reading an old issue of Life magazine, which had a feature on African-Americans who had undergone an irreversible bleaching treatment to make them look white ¢â‚¬”because they believed being white was the only way to be happy. . . .

 ¢â‚¬Å“Barack Obama had to come out of a different closet. He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family. . . .

 ¢â‚¬Å“This is the gay experience: the discovery in adulthood of a community not like your own home and the struggle to belong in both places, without displacement, without alienation. It is easier today than ever. But it is never truly without emotional scar tissue. Obama learned to be black the way gays learn to be gay. . . .

 ¢â‚¬Å“I have always sensed that he intuitively understands gays and our predicament ¢â‚¬”because it so mirrors his own. And he knows how the love and sacrifice of marriage can heal, integrate, and rebuild a soul. The point of the gay-rights movement, after all, is not about helping people be gay. It is about creating the space for people to be themselves. This has been Obama ¢â‚¬â„¢s life ¢â‚¬â„¢s work. And he just enlarged the space in this world for so many others, trapped in different cages of identity, yearning to be released and returned to the families they love and the dignity they deserve. ¢â‚¬ 

I find this passage not only insightful about Barack Obama ¢â‚¬â„¢s experience but that it also is applicable to the experience of LGBT Catholics.
Among the thousands of questions I ¢â‚¬â„¢ve been asked over the past 20 years, the most common one, by far, is why LGBT Catholics remain in the church. Sullivan ¢â‚¬â„¢s point that the gay experience is  ¢â‚¬Å“the discovery in adulthood of a community not like your own home and the struggle to belong in both places, without displacement, without alienation ¢â‚¬  is an excellent answer to that question.

The LGBT Catholic experience is the experience of feeling different from one ¢â‚¬â„¢s home community, but still knowing that it is home. The challenge of such an experience is not the challenge of resolving all the tensions that such difference manifests, but in the discovery of a new community where one can also feel at home and which gives a person the strength and courage to live  ¢â‚¬Å“without displacement, without alienation ¢â‚¬  in both settings.

Every single LGBT Catholic that I know who has remained a Catholic has done so because they have been able to find such a community. Indeed, without such community, life would be unbearable and there would be no way to survive. Community provides the example and support that one needs to navigate through the many demands of identity made on one ¢â‚¬â„¢s life. Community is the place where we learn that we can be ourselves and be part of something larger. Community is the place where we learn to incorporate the many different aspects of our identity into an integral whole. Community is the place where we learn to be  ¢â‚¬Å“at home ¢â‚¬  wherever we are and whoever we are.

Living out these tensions and negotiating these many demands upon the self are part of the gifts that LGBT people offer to the rest of the church. Other Catholics stand to learn valuable lessons about identity and community if they open themselves up to the life and faith experiences of LGBT people. As Sullivan pointed out,  ¢â‚¬Å“The point of the gay-rights movement, after all, is not about helping people be gay. It is about creating the space for people to be themselves. ¢â‚¬  That is a lesson that all people, gay and straight alike, can reap benefits and blessings.

 ¢â‚¬“Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

http://newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/what-catholics-can-learn-from-barack-obamas-coming-out-story/