Open Hearts — Affirming Pages

An Open Letter to Harold Camping of “Family Radio” Regarding His Prediction of the "Rapture" on May 21, 2011

 

Dear Mr. Camping:

If I’m not around on May 22^nd, it won’t be because Jesus came to rapture me.  I fully expect to be alive and well, along with most of our planet’s occupants and the scattered, bewildered remnants of your followers.  I also expect to witness another of the many failed date settings for the Second Coming of Jesus.

But, I am a Christian, in fact, a clergyperson in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and I reject, totally, all efforts such as yours to set dates for any future plans God may have for us earthlings.

Mr. Camping, you have succeeded in deluding yourself and perhaps thousands of your followers into believing the world as we know it will end on May 21st.  Most onlookers merely laugh it off, as it is ripe for derision.  However, for many people, the effects of such failures are catastrophic.

Remember another failed attempt, the “Jesus is coming on October 28, 1989” effort?  Full page editorials ran in major newspapers, people all over the world on October 27^th sold their property, left their businesses and jobs, and searched the night skies for their Savior.  October 29^th brought hysteria, abortions, suicides and loss of faith.  The most regrettable part of this is how unnecessary it all was.  And now we are about to witness another misguided attempt at date setting that will surely bring havoc to many in its wake.

For all you onlookers who view these proceedings with contempt, I understand.  What you may not know is that there is a wholly different way, and in my view, a more responsible way of understanding God in our world.  There are Christians, such as me, who don’t take the Bible literally, although we do take it seriously.  Who don’t divide up the world into those whom God favors and everyone else.  Who are less concerned with an eternal hell in the afterlife than with people living in hell on Earth right now.  Who value the world’s religions as partners, not enemies.  Who learn from science and are open to new insights from all the academic disciplines.  Who see in Jesus, not a bringer of judgment and doom, but an exemplar of how to live authentically in our world; who, by showing us how God loves, we are to love as well.  Come seek us out.  

Mr. Camping, we are about to see just what kind of a Christian you are. What will you do on the 22^nd?

            Issue an apology?

            Resign your position as God’s spokesperson?

            Work to alleviate the harm you caused?

            Disavow your preposterous mode of biblical interpretation?

            Or retrench and recalculate (one more time)?

I know you believe what you teach. Please reconsider, in all humility, the ramifications of your failed pronouncement.  I fully expect you to put as much energy into healing the wounds of your flock as you have in setting them up for failure.  One way to do this is to urge your followers to go back to the churches you made them abandon.  Or, better, encourage them to seek out a more open and grace-filled Christianity. They, and you, will be welcomed. 

Reverend Steven F. Kindle

First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Fremont, California

Here's One Blog I Wish I Had Written: (Or maybe one mind I wish I had)

Conservative Christians “with a heart for the homosexual” still don’t get it

by Timothy Kincaid of the Box Turtle Bulletin http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/04/02/21575

Not so fast, Bishop Spong!

Although I applaud Bishop Spong’s statement, I hope that it is not interpreted to mean that ALL conversation regarding the Bible and homosexuality need cease.  Two sources of rich and meaningful conversation remain: with gays trapped in a false religious notion of what the Bible says, and the moveable middle who want to be accepting, but don’t have the information to make it possible.  If we no longer keep the effort up to combat false biblical interpretations, at least in these two areas, we will give the victory over to the haters. 

 

A retreat and workshop just concluded in Florida had its focus on the many thousands of LGBTs who are victimized by the unscientific and fictional belief promoted in substandard translations of the Bible and repudiated reparative therapists that they can be healed of their homosexuality and made straight.  Of the many ex-ex gays working to combat this stupidity, there are thousands who are still totally in the dark, needing to hear the truth.  I hope people don’t interpret the good bishop as saying there is no need to somehow get the message of the gospel’s inclusion to them.  No, the battle is not over, the victory is not won.  Would he not now raise his voice against a racist slur or sexist act?  I believe he would. 

 

After every seminar I do on the Bible and homosexuality, parents come to me with thankfulness that now they can intellectually do what their heart cried out for them to do, accept their LGBT child without reservation.  This is the moveable middle, well-meaning people who, armed with the right information will do the right thing.  Are we ready to abandon them?

 

There are still thousands of LGBTs and their loved ones who need to hear this and many more life-changing bits of information.  Let’s not mute up just yet.  Too many lives are still at stake.

 

Below is the complete statement of Bishop Spong.

 

A Manifesto on Debating Homosexuality

  by Bishop John Shelby Spong

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility.

I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.

I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired.

I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people.

I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant."

I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.

I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer.

The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves.

I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude.

I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it.

I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

– John Shelby Spong

 

Guest Editorial on the Ethics that Matter

By: Richard V. Pierard  (With his permission)

Posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 5:54 am

 

 

Southern Baptists expel one church for gay members and another for hiring a woman as senior pastor. When an SBC official prays for the president's death, the SBC is mum. 

 

 When I read on EthicsDaily.com a few days ago that the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina had "defunded" the Baptist Center for Ethics, I was reminded once again of how little Southern Baptists really understand ethics.

 

When a Southern Baptist pastor like Wiley Drake in California openly called for God to bring about President Obama's death, we heard not a peep from the Southern Baptist Convention leadership or the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. To be sure, Drake has slightly eased off – President Obama should be kept alive until he can be tried for treason and then he would be executed, Drake now says – but he was never censured for what he had said.

 

 Yet the very same SBC expelled a historic church in Fort Worth, Texas, because it had some gay members. The Georgia Baptist Convention did likewise with a church in suburban Atlanta that had the audacity to have a woman as its senior pastor. Someone will have to explain to me how the latter can be seen as ethical actions by the denomination, but it is not a matter of ethical concern that one of its prominent pastors called for the death of the president of the United States. Remember, Drake is no marginal creature; he was a second vice president of the SBC and a candidate for even higher office this past year.

 

 Now we have prominent Southern Baptist figures falling all over themselves to get their names attached to the signatory list of the "Manhattan Declaration," released this past Friday. The original list includes nearly everybody who is anybody on the Christian right, as well as people who ought to know better, such as Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action and the presidents of Gordon-Conwell and Asbury Theological Seminaries and Wheaton College.

 

Goodness knows how many more are among the 30,000 people who have signed it since then. As one reads through this seven-page, single-spaced smokescreen document (as I did), one finds out that the great social issues of the day are abortion, homosexual marriage and a truncated definition of religious liberty that allows the Christian Right to do whatever it wishes in the name of freedom.

 

 Not mentioned in this "call of Christian conscience" is anything about climate change and global warming; adequate health care for all Americans; just immigration policies; combating poverty and hunger here and abroad; equal rights for women and racial minorities; or the ongoing specter of war.

 

 And now we see bumper stickers sprouting up all over the country with the phrase "Psalm 109:8." What is meant by this reference to a wicked ruler is, of course, President Obama. The key words in the passage, "May his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow," are ominous, to say the least. We have Christians imploring God to bring about the death of our president because they don't like his political beliefs, his race, his policies or what have you, and yet we hear not a word of rebuke from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

 

 Friends, we are living in a dangerous age. Ethics have been discarded for the sake of political ideology and we are much the worse for this. As a Baptist layperson, I plead for the recovery of the kind of Christian ethics that address the real problems facing our nation. Those who do not want change are trying to divert people's attention to other matters of lesser significance, and some are even calling for the violent removal of President Obama from office.

 

 I have never seen such a dangerous situation in my lifetime, and the tragedy is that so many Christians are oblivious to what is going on. We must stand up and say a resounding "no" to the politics of hate and division. If Christians do not take the lead in solving our national problems but simply remain an integral part of the problem, then God have mercy on us.

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Richard V. Pierard is professor of history emeritus at Indiana State University. He lives in Hendersonville, N.C.

 

 

Homosexuality and Slavery in the Bible

-- Martin E. Marty wrote this for his "Sightings" column, today.  (References below)

Annually I write the report on "Protestantism" for World Book and other yearbooks.  For a dozen or score of years now, the lead story always has to be about churches tearing themselves apart in lose-lose battles over the blessing of gay marriages and ordination of homosexuals, et cetera.  One could wish it were otherwise, so that more churches could get back or ahead to more gospel and more mission.  There are, or may be, good reasons other than biblical ones to support or oppose issues on this subject.  But citing the Bible in church conventions trumps other approaches -- we are, after all, talking about Protestants! -- and such citing leads to stalemates.  On this subject, the five inches of type in my desk Bible (I measured them) get used to oppose any movement on this front.  It’s "the Bible says" versus "the Levitical laws, the other 600-plus of which no one pays any attention to, speak to a different culture, with different understandings."

Is it possible to bring newer understandings forward without a) disdaining, b) relativizing, c) picking-and-choosing texts to one’s taste, or d) ignoring the Scriptures?  Has not the church, almost universally, changed its teaching ("grown in understanding") on subjects?  It certainly changed and "grew" when its various bodies for the first time supported religious liberty in civil orders two and three centuries ago.  But many believe the best case is on slavery.  The South's preachers and theologians, virtually unanimously, gave biblically-based arguments for the enslavement of humans by humans, and often opposed their release.

Mention that and you get a quick reply: "The Bible nowhere commands slavery, and it does forbid same-sex relations."  One has to stretch to support the "nowhere commands" argument, since its divinely-inspired authors did something worse:  They took slavery for granted and, without criticizing it, often appropriated its existence and norms for making other points.  A review by Jennifer Knust of two new books in the July Journal of Religion indicates how that was done.  Some quickly chosen excerpts: "Ancient Christian writings rarely challenge the abusive, exploitative, and gruesome mechanisms of first-century chattel slavery. ‘Slaves, obey your masters.’"  "The Christian Bible has played an important role in legitimating slave systems," including in North America.  Author J. Albert Harrill finds that Christian discourse participated in and promoted an ideology that belittled slaves and naturalized slaveholding.  He "highlights the ways in which contemporary moral debates both shape and inform biblical criticism." On this subject "the New Testament cannot be viewed as a book of morals."

Everyone, including presumably New Testament authors, knew that domestic slaves, according to author Jennifer A. Glancy, had "the obligation to tend to the master’s physical body and sexual needs."  Even Jesus’ "parabolic slaves are beaten, flogged, cut to pieces, seized, imprisoned, handed over to torturers, and assigned to eternal death in order to teach theological lessons."  All taken for granted.  The parables "reinforced the violent power relations that sustained ancient slavery."  Arguments based on analogy, including this one, do not "prove" much of anything.  They can, however, be instructive when the history of cultures, from the biblical settings to our own, is neglected, or when simply saying "the Bible says" shows unmindfulness of creative possibilities -- and can harm individuals, lead to schisms, and hamper future witness.

References: 

Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford, 2002).

Harrill, J. Albert. Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Fortress, 2005).

Jennifer Knust's review of these two books appears in The Journal of Religion, 89: 406-409, July 2009. 

 

 

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.  

 

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In July’s Religion and Culture Web Forum, “Flowers in the Dark: African American Consciousness, Laughter, and Resistance in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” ethicist Jacqueline Bussie of Capital University pursues the question of why, in so many accounts, people in oppressive situations of suffering respond with laughter.  Focusing on the example of Toni Morrison’s slavery-era novel, Bussie, in an excerpt from her Trinity Prize-winning book The Laughter of the Oppressed, explores the complexities of the human condition and points toward a more nuanced understanding of ethics.  Invited responses will be posted later in the month from Joseph Winters, Cooper Harriss, John Howell, and Zhange Ni.

 

http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/

 

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Here's another great take on "traditional marriage" values

Wayne Besen Gives Us Pause and Much to Consider

 

Truth Wins Out | P. O. Box 25491 | Brooklyn | NY | 11202

 

Friendly Fire In The Culture War  

by Wayne Besen

Like flowers in spring, the culture war is in full bloom. The most explosive flashpoint this past week was President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. She is under fire for saying, "I would hope a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Her comments caused the de facto leaders of the Republican Party, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, to become apoplectic and accuse her of reverse racism. The battle over her nomination seems like a flashback to the old battles in the 1970s and 80's over identity politics.

In Kansas, George Tiller, a brave and fearless abortion provider, was gunned down in his church. Of course, the anti-abortion fanatics deny any wrongdoing. But, this movement knows full well that when they single out and accuse individuals of killing babies, they are inviting extremists to take vigilante action.

"Who me?" they ask, as they disingenuously feign innocence.

Strangely, the one place a national consensus is building (albeit in its budding stages) is marriage equality. A landmark federal lawsuit by conservative lawyer Ted Olsen and his liberal counterpart David Boies has crystallized this phenomenon. They are charging that denying marriage licenses to gay couples is a violation equal protection and due process under the United States Constitution.

"This is not a liberal or conservative issue," said Olsen on CNN's Larry King Live. "This has to do with human decency, human rights, and equality under the law." On the same show, Boies deftly dispatched the argument that civil unions are acceptable, because they are marriage by another name.

"You're from Japan," Boies said on the show. "You can vote. You can do all the things that other individuals can do who are citizens. But, we are not going to allow you to use the word 'citizen' because you are from another country. That would be discrimination on an unacceptable basis. That is what we have here."

Gay and lesbian legal organizations are incensed by the lawsuit and say it could lead to a huge setback, if it results in a Supreme Court loss. A memorandum sponsored by every major gay rights group titled, "Make Change, Not Lawsuits," essentially tells the interlopers to get lost.

"The history is pretty clear:  the U.S. Supreme Court typically does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states," says the memo.  "The fastest way to win the freedom to marry throughout America is by getting marriage through state courts (to show that fairness requires it) and state legislatures (to show that people support it)."

The conservative columnist George Will echoed their position on ABC's This Week when he warned, "The consensus is moving toward gay marriage if they just let it alone and just let democracy work." He said that if the Supreme Court now ruled in favor of the freedom to marry, it would cause ongoing cultural division, much as the Roe v. Wade decision did with the abortion issue.

Of course, the GLBT organizations are correct in concluding that Olsen and Boies are engaging in a risky strategy that could easily backfire. The one wildcard, in my view, is Chief Justice John Roberts. He is a product of the Federalist Society, the conservative movement's powerful legal association. Olsen's involvement in the Federalist Society may help persuade Roberts to support equality. Or, at least, give him the cover he needs to vote his conscience without accusations of betrayal by conservative colleagues.

The legal issues aside, this case is a boon in the realm of public relations. We now have two of the brightest legal minds winning over the jury of public opinion in the media each day. Dick Cheney and Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager, are two more conservatives who reinforce marriage equality as a nonpartisan issue.  

Even as I write this column, the drumbeat of small victories keep mounting. The Nevada Legislature overrode the governor's veto by approving a domestic partnership registry by a two-thirds majority. This week, President Barack Obama signed a gay Pride Month proclamation. The organization Faith in America persuaded a key Southern Baptist writer, David P. Gushee, to call on Christians to offer an apology for the way they have treated LGBT people.

This steroidal push for equality has been supercharged by a group of democratic gay leaders who recently met in Texas to draft, "The Dallas Principles." Much like the Olsen/Boies lawsuit, their goal is to put gay rights on the fast track by pressuring Congress and the Obama administration to take immediate action. Their mantra seems right for this electric moment: "Now is the time for full civil rights for the LGBT Community. No delay. No excuses."

There is still no shortage of culture war vultures like the National Organization for Marriage's dour Maggie Gallagher. But, as more fellow conservatives defect, these zealots are finding their biggest threat is "friendly" fire.

VOX POPULI: What America Might Look Like If....

Prop 8 Decision: The Minority Report

Justice Carlos Moreno put the decision in a foreboding context: 

“The rule the majority crafts today not only allows same-sex couples to be stripped of the right to marry that this court recognized in the Marriage Cases, it places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities. It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority.”

It just became possible for 50.1% of California's voters to lop off the heads of any whom they disfavor.  Rachael continues to weep for her children.

Were I not hopeful that marriage rights for same-sex couples is inevitable, I would be quite morose today.  However, Californians will soon see this injustice and ultimately will recitfy it. 

This is not to say that its inevitablility is to be taken for granted.  We learned necessary lessons from the Prop 8 campaign and need to redouble our efforts.  This has already begun.  It must not stop until justice is restored to California.

Kerry Chaplin of California Faith for Equality Says It Best

Even in the Absence of Justice 26 May 2009

 

The verdict is in: this morning, the California Supreme Court ruled that the 18,000 marriages are upheld, but so is Proposition 8.  Our hearts are full for those 18,000 couples who are still married in the eyes of the law, but our hearts are breaking because even in our own country we are not free. Some of us will seek comfort and community in our congregations, some of us in private meditation, and some in the crowds gathering in the streets. As a Jew, I am reminded of the words spoken by Jacob when he awoke from his sleep: "Surely God is in this place and I, I did not know" (Genesis 28:16). Having dreamt of God, Jacob realized that even in the vast desert, with only a rock for a pillow, he was not alone. Even in the absence of justice, the Divine is with us. Though today our comfort might feel insufficient like a stone, know that more than ever, as our allies pour into the streets, we are not alone. As our congregations become more welcoming, we are not alone. As state after state recognizes the legal and moral necessity for marriage for same-sex couples, we are not alone. The presence of the Divine is with us - everywhere.

In Anticipation of California's Supreme Court Prop 8 Decision Tomorrow

If the court takes only the constitution into consideration, it will decide that Prop 8 is unconstitutional.  Under the 14th Amendment, equality under the law was established for everyone.  This was the basis for declaring anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.  In the famous case, Loving Vs. Virginia, the court declared that depriving marriage between people of different races violated the equal protection clause.

The parallels between this and same-sex marriage are obvious if you've been paying attention.  Listen to what Mildred Loving, the wife in the case, has to say about the gay marriage issue:

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God's plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation's fears and prejudices have given way, and today's young people realize that if someone loves someone, they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the 'wrong kind of person' for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about. (Mildred and Richard Loving, Wikipedia)

Here's another voice that may sound familiar. The trial judge in the Loving case, Leon Bazile, proclaimed that

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Those who oppose same-sex marriage also believe that God is on their side and claim that since God made natural procreation impossible with people of the same sex, and that the "plumbing" isn't made for it, it's obvious that it is wrong.  This is why I began by saying that "if" the constitution decides the case, Prop 8 will fall.  But the justices are human beings who are subject to a variety of influences and may let other, extraneous, yet powerful voices influence their decision.  Such influences were demonstrably present in Loving V. Virginia, yet dismissed.  My prayer is that our justices will have the same integrity and stick solely to their constitutional duties.