Growing Pains

There’s a world of hurt and confusion in this story, as well as the de rigeur Tennessee connection:

Federal authorities last week arrested and charged a Tennessee pastor with aiding in the “international parental kidnapping” of a girl who has been missing since late 2009 and is at the center of a lengthy custody battle between her two mothers — a onetime lesbian couple who were in a civil union.

The two had a bitter falling-out after one became an evangelical Christian and denounced the other’s continued “homosexual lifestyle.”

[...]

Lisa Miller, the girl’s biological mother and a newly fervent Baptist, was championed by conservatives for her efforts to shield her daughter from homosexuality. A Vermont court had granted her primary custody of the daughter, Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins, after Ms. Miller split with her partner, Janet Jenkins, in 2003. But the court also declared Ms. Jenkins to be a legal parent with liberal visiting rights, and Ms. Miller, who had moved with the girl to Virginia, defied repeated orders to permit the visits.

The case took a turn in late 2009, as the Vermont family court, citing Ms. Miller’s noncompliance, shifted primary custody to Ms. Jenkins. Ms. Miller and Isabella, who is now 9, disappeared. A warrant was issued for Ms. Miller’s arrest, and they have not been heard from since.

I’ve always said that the reason we need to have legal gay marriage is so we can have legal gay divorce. Even under the best of circumstances, divorce is an ugly business but if you’re gay, breaking up really is hard to do. Gay divorce is truly a legal nightmare for lots of reasons related to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, differing state laws, and all sorts of complications.

The Miller-Jenkins case is a perfect example of this. As I read the story in Sunday’s paper, I thought about how this whole situation reflected the cultural shifts of the past few decades -- changes we’re still coming to terms with in society at large. The issues at play are those same cultural issues which surface every election and are a major factor in our politics.

Once upon a time in America a situation like this would never exist: there would be no doubt as to whether a court would award custody or visitation rights to an avowed lesbian, there would be no question as to who was right or wrong in this scenario. For that matter, it would be pretty much a given that a same-sex couple would be infertile. But the past 30-40 years have seen major cultural changes, not to mention medical advances. Not all of these changes have been embraced by the totality of our religious and legal institutions. We're still sifting through it all, and I'd say it will take about a generation for all of this stuff to finally settle out.

And I have no doubt which way it will go. The culture wars are over and the right has lost; they just don't know it yet. Throughout its history America has always expanded its table to invite ever more groups of people to democracy's banquet; we've never taken seats away. That doesn't mean it's been an easy or effortless thing, far from it. And I think a lot of the knee-jerk legislation we see in places like Arizona and Tennessee attacking GLBT citizens and immigrants and the poor are all just a response to this societal shift we're going through right now.

We live in a post-Christian, post-racial, post-Roe-v-Wade, post-internet, post-biomedical engineering, post climate change, post-you-name-it age, and that's a lot of change for one society to handle. It's inevitable that we've splintered as we have, it's a predictable response by a large group of people to a lot of change. But I have great expectations for the next 20 years.

We're just going through some growing pains, that's all.

What A Difference Same Sex Marriage Makes

Feb. 25, 2010::

Catholic Charities USA Calls for Affordable and Accessible Healthcare for All

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In accordance with its 100 year history of working to reduce poverty in America, Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) and its President, Rev. Larry Snyder, today called for Healthcare Summit attendees to put politics aside and unify behind the need to once and for all bring affordable and accessible health care to all Americans.

March 1, 2010:

Letter from Catholic Charities president and CEO to staff

[...]

Catholic Charities will continue to honor the health plan coverage that current employees have as of March 1, 2010. As of March 2, a new plan will be in effect that will cover new employees and requests for benefit changes by current employees. The new plan will provide the same level of coverage for employees and their dependents that you now have, with one exception: spouses not in the plan as of March 1 will not be eligible for coverage in the future. If your spouse currently has coverage in our Plan, he/she may continue to be covered by the health benefit plan, even if you later add a dependent or decide to change your option level (e.g., change from low option to high option).

We sincerely regret that we have to make this change, but it is necessary to allow Catholic Charities to continue to provide essential services to the clients we serve in partnership with the District of Columbia while remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith.

Summary: The District of Columbia’s new law recognizing same sex marriage has prompted Catholic Charities to drop insurance coverage for all spouses of employees not currently covered by their insurance plan.

Catholic Charities had already shut down its foster care and public adoption program.

To which I respond: assholes.

A Few Words On Marriage Equality

Just got an e-mail from a blog friend who has decided to wed his partner of 14 years this fall. They will travel to one of the handful of states to recognize gay marriages for the ceremony.

Here's the part of his e-mail that touched me the most:

Marriage may be no big deal to a lot of people, but it's every -- every -- little thing to me. [We] have been through everything a couple could possibly go through, from the greatest joys down to homelessness and near-death sickness. We're not redefining marriage -- we have lived it. Having that piece of paper and a ring on my finger means everything in this world to me.

Compare that to some folks I know--even some celebrities--who treat marriage like some silly little excuse for a party, and I have to think those folks who claim gay marriages threaten "traditional" marriages just don't have a fucking clue.

Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella

I'm probably the last one to see this parody of the "Gathering Storm" advertisement, but in case you missed it, I think it is by far the funniest:

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Same As It Ever Was

We saw "Milk” this weekend. Good movie, but it depressed me.

It was 30 years ago that Dan White murdered Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. I was living in California at the time, and I remember it well. I remember Anita Bryant’s jihad against gays and the Briggs Initiative (although I was too young to vote). Seeing actual interview clips of Bryant in the film just reminded me how little has changed in 30 years. You can’t hear Bryant and John Briggs talk about “God’s law” and “homosexuals want to recruit our children” and not think of recent battles over marriage equality and gay couples adopting children.

Are we seriously having the same conversation after 30 fucking years? Let’s just stop it, already.

I love these people who insist we are a “Christian” nation. Really? Which flavor Christian are we? Catholic? Episcopal? “Non-denominational” (i.e., Southern Baptist? Come on, you aren’t fooling anyone with the linguistic whitewash.) I attend a pretty liberal Presbyterian church. We have a lot of GLBT families in our congregation; we welcome everyone. Are we my kind of Christian nation? Somehow I think the answer would be no.

And do you really want the government deciding which religious doctrines are valid and which are not?

Of course not.

So give it a rest already. Let gays get married. If you don’t agree with it, then don’t do it. No one will force a church to perform a ceremony they don’t agree with -- that’s what separation of church and state means, you nitwits. After you people have behaved so horribly towards GLBT folks, what makes you think they’d even want a church wedding, anyway?

The more things change, the more they don’t.

With that in mind, I leave you with this:

Pair launches campaign to encourage youths to pull up pants

Arguing that the sagging-pants fashion trend promotes an unhealthful lifestyle of gangs, crime and violence, they've launched the Pull Up Your Pants education campaign, designed to persuade young people to abandon the look -- especially pants often worn so low that their underwear, or more, is exposed.

They already have the support of one Louisville Metro Council member, who plans to introduce a resolution in support of their campaign next month.

Somewhere in the ruins of Pompeii archeologists have found a father’s lament that his daughter’s toga is too tight/revealing/low cut/whatever, which by yea Gods never happened back in his day, by Juno!

No, some things never change, but that doesn’t mean they should always stay the same, either.

The Sanctity Of Marriage

In Montana, you don’t even have to bother showing up at your own wedding to legally tie the knot:

“Ceremony No. 1,” says the judge, Heidi Ulbricht. That would be the marriage between two members of the Air Force far, far removed from this room in the Flathead County Courthouse. The real groom is 7,300 miles away, in Qatar, while the real bride is merely 1,700 miles away, in Kentucky.

“We are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses to join in holy matrimony this man and this woman, who have applied for and received a marriage license from the state,” the judge says.

Turning to Sarah Knapton, 22, college student and professional proxy bride, she asks: “Will you have this man by proxy to be your lawful wedded husband, and with him to live together in holy matrimony pursuant to the laws of God and this state?”

“I do,” answers Ms. Knapton, elbow on table, chin in hand.

“Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him both in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others keep you only unto him, so long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Ms. Knapton intones again.

The judge now asks these life-altering questions of Kyle Kirkland, 22, mason and professional proxy groom, who is signing various marriage documents. He says, “I do,” twice without looking up once.

By the virtue of the authority vested in her, Judge Ulbricht pronounces an absent military couple husband and wife, all in a Montana minute.

Wow, how strange. Apparently this law allowing a “double proxy” marriage has been on the books for decades; even stranger, only last year did the legislature pass the requirement that either bride or groom be a Montana resident, or else be on active duty in the military.

I guess it’s nice that there’s a state that will marry people who are unable to be together because of their military deployment. But I also think it sucks that there are thousands of people who would like to get married, and will happily show up at their own wedding, but they can’t because of some outdated views on marriage. Yet we’ve got a system in place to legally marry couples who don’t even occupy the same time zone.

Weird.