Pilgrimage to Chimayo

My truckbuddy Frank had a post on his blog the other day on this shrine I'd never heard about.  Some people call it the "Lourdes of America."  I'm neither Catholic nor athletic, and the idea of a 40-mile hike uphill is rather uninspiring, to say the least. However, I can appreciate the spiritual impetus, and I'm sure many people do get a blessing of some kind thereby.  The impious may jeer and laugh at such simplicities; but there are many worse ways to spend a weekend.

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Vatican Allows Same-Sex Blessings

 

An historic development in the Catholic Church - but it's only a small change in practice.  Reuters reports:

The Vatican said on Monday in a landmark ruling approved by Pope Francis that Roman Catholic priests can administer blessings to same-sex couples as long as they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies.

A document from the Vatican's doctrinal office, which effectively reversed a declaration the same body had issued in 2021, said such blessings would not legitimise irregular situations but be a sign that God welcomes all. . . .

The document, whose Latin title is Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), said the form of the blessing "should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage". . . .

The document said the blessing should not be linked to or timed with a civil marriage ceremony and be performed with none of the "clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding".

Places for such blessings, it said, might be "in other contexts, such as a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer recited in a group, or during a pilgrimage".

The ruling was signed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the head of the head of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by the pope in a private audience with Fernandez and another doctrinal office official on Monday.

Full text of the declaration from the Vatican press office here.

In-depth analysis by Catholic media project The Pillar here, which notes:

The text was not issued in forma specifica, a particular formula in which a curial document is effectively co-signed by the pope, giving it full papal weight.

In other news, the Church of England yesterday began offering rites of blessing to same-sex couples.

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Pope Francis Nixes Gay Unions

 

Last fall, as I reported on this blog, for a moment it seemed that Pope Francis was smiling on same-sex unions; but I was mistaken.  Today the Pope signed off on a Vatican declaration that even in a committed union, homosex is a SIN, and since "God cannot bless sin," neither can the Church.  Excerpt:

It is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex. . . . [Blessing such unions] would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”.

[This teaching] declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. In this case, in fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons to the protection and help of God, in the sense mentioned above, but to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God.

What pompous bullshit.  Since I'm an Episcopalian (lapsed), not a Catholic, this slanderous ruling has no direct relevance to me - but of course it reflects and encourages the same thinking in all other churches that hold to this antediluvian view of life and love.  When it comes to the gays, that is.  When it's about the straight boys and their spermatic proclivities, oh well, there's all kinds of loopholes, winks, and nudges, aren't there?

The truth is, there is nothing glorious, notorious, or ridiculous about homosexuality, which has occurred naturally and spontaneously throughout human and animal populations since the dawn of recorded history.  I have no desire to change anybody's church; I just want to be left alone, neither glorified nor vilified nor ridiculed.  And I insist upon the right to the equal protection of the laws, with the same human rights and dignity as anyone else.  

This is not too much to ask; nor will it cause the world or the universe to collapse, despite hysterical religious claims to the contrary.  You straight people have already done more than enough, collectively, down through the centuries to merit the wrath of God, if it comes to that, so quit trying to shift your guilt onto the gay scapegoats.

[A lot of boring pontification omitted here.]

As for Pope Francis, I still respect him as a kindly, magnanimous leader who is doing what good he can for the world in other ways - but I now unsay my remark in that earlier post about considering him a gay ally.  

The Supreme Court of the United States ruling on marriage equality, June 26, 2015

God bless America!

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Pope Comes Out for Civil Unions

Whoa.  In a breathtaking departure from Catholic teaching up till now, Pope Francis has unofficially stated his approval of civil unions for gay couples.  The Catholic News Agency reports:

In a documentary that premiered Wednesday in Rome, Pope Francis called for the passage of civil union laws for same-sex couples, departing from the position of the Vatican’s doctrinal office and the pope’s predecessors on the issue.

The remarks came amid a portion of the documentary that reflected on pastoral care for those who identify as LGBT. 

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” Pope Francis said in the film, of his approach to pastoral care.

After those remarks, and in comments likely to spark controversy among Catholics, Pope Francis weighed in directly on the issue of civil unions for same-sex couples.

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” the pope said. “I stood up for that.”

The remarks come in “Francesco,” a documentary on the life and ministry of Pope Francis which premiered Oct. 21 as part of the Rome Film Festival, and is set to make its North American premiere on Sunday.

Well, I'm stunned, and I'm not even Catholic.  However, it does seem in line with Pope Francis's kindly personality and humane approach to pastoral issues.  For us Americans, this change of tune comes a bit late; but then no doubt in some other, less-evolved societies, people may feel it comes too soon.  Be that as it may, we'll take it, and I for one will count Pope Francis as a "gay ally" from here on out.

Don't reject goodwill or friendship just because it doesn't arrive on your timetable.  Despite the incessant gay-hooray of American media, the fact remains that we are a tiny minority of the population both here and all around the world.  (You can look it up for yourself.)  And who knows what the legal and judicial atmosphere will be after this election.  

We need all the friends we can get, fellas.  And we don't have to be Catholic to realize that Francis has done a beautiful thing:  he has affirmed that we gays are human beings, after all, and children of God - just like everybody else.  Our essential humanity, our right to exist, does not, of course, depend on his say-so; but coming from the Pope, this will open some hearts that have been hitherto closed against us.  

Thank you, Your Holiness.

-----ooOoo-----

Update:  See my post from 3/13/21, Pope Francis Nixes Gay Unions.

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Pope Tells Gay Man: God Made You That Way

Embed from Getty Images

I'm sure my truckbuddies have already seen this story elsewhere, but I'm reprinting it for the record here in the BT. Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of sexual abuse by a Chilean priest, has reported that during a three-hour talk with Pope Francis last month, the Pope apologized to him in the name of the Church and told him:

Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.

This does not mean a change in official Catholic teaching, but coming from the head man's lips, it's pretty amazing.




Cruz, who lives and works in Philadelphia, spoke with CNN's Chris Cuomo this week:

Pope Says Lay Off the Gays, God Is in Everybody

Whoa, this is big news, and a big breath of fresh air. Pope Francis, in an interview he granted last month to an Italian Jesuit magazine, says the Catholic Church needs to find a new balance. The New York Times reports:

Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic Church had grown “obsessed” with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics.

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel” focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.

“It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.” . . .

The new pope’s words are likely to have repercussions in a church whose bishops and priests in many countries, including the United States, often appeared to make combating abortion, gay marriage and contraception their top public policy priorities. These teachings are “clear” to him as “a son of the church,” he said, but they have to be taught in a larger context. “The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.” . . .

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,” he told Father Spadaro. “I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.” . . .

"I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God."

You can read the full interview in English at America magazine, a weekly Catholic journal.

In another story reported by the Huffington Post, a 25-year-old gay man from Toulouse, France, claims that the Pope called him on August 29 after receiving a letter the man wrote, telling of his experiences with bullying and self-doubt. The Pope supposedly said to him:

"I received the letter you sent me," he said. Then we talked about the situation in my life. He told me: "Your homosexuality, it does not matter. You must remain brave, you must continue to believe, to pray, and be good. "

He encouraged me to continue the volunteer work I mentioned in my letter. He encouraged me, told me to be strong. He told me this: "One way or another, we are all children of God. This is why we must continue to be good. We all return to God, and only God knows if we are good. "

A Vatican official later denied that the Pope had called the man, who nevertheless maintains that it was indeed the Pope who called him. But still, in your Head Trucker's opinion the story does seem very much in keeping with Francis's public expressions so far.


Update, 9/20:  On the CBS This Morning program, New York's homophobic Cardinal Dolan, full of porcine pep and cheer, says it was no biggie - the Pope was just talking about doing a makeover on the Church's PR strategy, 'cause the old one ain't pulling in the demographics like it used to.  I wonder . . . .

Hitched in Taos, and Other Marriage News

Some video of the first same-sex weddings in Taos, New Mexico, last Wednesday the 28th. Dignity may be somewhat lacking in these impromptu ceremonies, but the emotions are all that they should be.




While we're on the topic of marriage, Chicago Cardinal Francis George, while ranting against how "irrational" gay marriage is, admits that "the Church did not invent marriage"; but "nature gives us marriage," so that's why we do it.  Say what?

It's also worth taking another look at this rather amazing chart of Biblical Marriage that I posted on the Blue Truck a year or two ago - at the link, you can download it yourself or share it on Facebook or Twitter.

And Mary Cheney, lesbian daughter of the former Vice-President who married her wife, Heather Poe, last year in D. C.,  today slammed her sister's announcement earlier this week that she is "not pro-gay marriage."  Mary said:

For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage. Freedom means freedom for everyone. That means that all families — regardless of how they look or how they are made — all families are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other. It’s not something to be decided by a show of hands.

Finally, in the atrium of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C., tonight Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will officiate at the wedding of her good friend and Kennedy Center Director Michael Kaiser and government economist John Roberts (no relation to Chief Justice John G. Roberts). On the guest list are stars of opera and Broadway, as well as the cream of Washington society. Ginsburg is already scheduled to celebrate another same-sex wedding next month.

My God, fellas - can you believe?? A GAY WEDDING presided over by a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE?!! Holy fuck, we're sure not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

And I have lived to see this day.

Past and Present

A couple of clips of longtime gay couples that your Head Trucker stumbled across this week:

1. I remember reading in Life magazine way back when I was a scared, closeted high-schooler about this brave couple, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell, who actually dared to apply for a marriage license up in Minnesota in 1971, and then had the balls to take their case all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it "for want of a substantial federal question." And of course I've read about the case from time to time over the years since then - they are still living together happily and quietly up there in the North Star State - but never before have I seen a video of them. Here is an excerpt of their appearance on the David Susskind show in 1973:




Note for any of the children reading this post:  Mike, on the left, is sporting the totally cool, extremely fashionable shag haircut, which everybody who was hip at that moment in time had or wished they did - men and women, straight and gay.


2. The Economist this week republished a video about Gary Payne and Dick Dehn, who have been a committed couple for over 50 years, and as far as I can tell by googling around, are still going strong today in retirement in South Florida. The stories of couples who met in the 1950's and managed to survive all the homophobia and discrimination for decades are really touching:





And just to bring you boys up to date with our oh-so-modern world - or is it? - in today's news, Pope Francis has issued his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), which was largely completed by Pope Benedict before he resigned earlier this year. In no uncertain terms, the Popes once again declare that marriage is strictly for procreation by one man and one woman.

So much for any hope of a new attitude by this Pope. In the eyes of the Catholic church, we are still sinners and evildoers, and quite unworthy of full human dignity, the equal respect and protection of the laws. Our loves, even if faithful, committed, for-better-for-worse, in-sickness-and-in-health, lasting for more than half a century, are merely unnatural, disordered passions oriented towards what is objectively evil, according to the official pronouncements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Chastity, friendship, and "holiness" are all that us homos can expect to have in life, and all we should want, they say.

It is encouraging to note, however, that three out of five of American Catholics disagree with the hierarchy - why they keep putting up with it is more than your Head Trucker can understand.

Or if you think you agree with the Church's teaching, here is a rapping priest to guide you in the way of truth and holy living - from Courage, the official Catholic (anti-) gay outfit that Justice Scalia's priest son, Paul Scalia, works with:




On the other hand, if you think it's all a crock, you will be deeply moved by this video of the Washington State parents who spoke at the recent - and last ever - Exodus International conference, and the story of how they prayed so hard not to have a gay son, and got what they prayed for. If you haven't got time to watch the whole video, the essence of the story is here.

Newsbites, 4/9/13

• Both mourned and reviled by her compatriots even in death, Britain's Iron Lady, Baroness Thatcher, is dead at 87:

• America's Sweetheart and and favorite Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello, also died yesterday at age 70:

• Detroit's Catholic archbishop orders gay-marriage supporters among his flock to abstain from communion or risk further penalties for disrepecting the teachings of the Church - which, as he puts it, amounts to a kind of criminal perjury.

• Westboro Baptist announces they will picket the funeral of "fag enabler" Roger Ebert. Your Head Trucker thinks they should be barred from appearing at anybody's funeral, period, and given very hefty fines and jail terms if they don't mind their own fucking business. But you know, it's practically gotten to the point that now, you're nobody if Westboro doesn't picket your funeral.

• Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights brings us up to date on developments in marriage equality this week:

• Gay activist and Democratic political strategist Richard Socarides talks about coming out to his psychiatrist father, who founded the so-called reparative therapy movement to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals:

• The trailer for Behind the Candelabra, set to premiere on HBO in May, starring Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Dan Ackroyd, and Debbie Reynolds (as Mama Liberace) is here:

Your Head Trucker saw Liberace in concert back in the 80's and can attest that the man was indeed "Mr. Showmanship" - I took my mom, thinking it might be a bit of a bore, but to my amazement, he kept everyone on the edge of their seats the whole time with a dazzling display of sequined costumes and two hours of non-stop excitement. Quite a memory.

Sometime in the next decade, I happened to see in the paper that Scott Thorson, Liberace's ex-lover and adopted son, was going to be speaking about his life with Liberace at the biggest Baptist church in town - the kind built like an auditorium, with vast tiers of rocking, thickly-padded, movie-theater chairs instead of pews. And he stood up there, golden-haired and movie-star handsome, in the midst of all those tut-tutting Baptists and told a long, rambling tale of how he was "molested by my own father" - weeping on cue while doing so. Then after milking that angle for all it was worth, carried on with some sordid, convoluted story of being taken into FBI custody and hidden for months in a windowless skyscraper room for his own protection as a witness against some drug dealers or something like that. Not to mention all his personal failings with drugs, booze, sex, and you-name-it.  The Baptists, rocking contentedly and purring like old cats, ate up every word.

I thought there was something fishy about all this at the time - and I'm sure the rich Baptists paid him very nicely to come warn them of the wages of sin - but we didn't have the Internet back then to double-check with, so I just filed it away under Suspicious Stories in my mind. And wondered how many of those hatchet-faced old blue-haired ladies had flocked to hear the great entertainer - that awful sinner, you know - back when he had filled the civic center.

Francis, Are You Listening?

I couldn't have said it better myself:  Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times:

It was too much to hope that after the white smoke rose and the TV anchors began nervously filling time and the cameras lingered for what seemed an eternity on that balcony over St. Peter’s Square, the man who stepped onto it would be someone open to revisiting the most archaic, obsolete matters of Roman Catholic doctrine. The group electing him was assembled by the last two popes, both conservatives. Its choice was bound to be more carbon copy than new page.

But it’s not too much to hope that the man who did appear there — and who has lived a willfully humble material existence until now, and took the name of the poor’s patron saint — will change the church’s emphasis. That’s the great opportunity before Pope Francis, whose biography and style make him an ideal candidate to point the church toward a new conversation and a better focus for its spiritual energies. To have it dwell less in the bedroom, more in the soup kitchen.

It’s time for the church to stop talking so much about sex. It’s the perfect time, in fact.

It’s on matters of sexual morality that the church has lost much of its authority. And it’s on matters of sexual morality that it largely wastes its breath. By insisting on mandatory celibacy for a priesthood winnowed and sometimes warped by that, by opposing the use of contraceptives for birth control, by casting judgment on homosexuals and by decrying divorce while running something of an annulment mill, the church’s leaders have enraged and alienated Catholics whose common sense and whose experience of the real world tell them that none of that is wise, kind or necessary.

Newsbites, 2/11/13

A scattering of good news from around the world today.

Rome:  Pope Benedict Resigns.



Washington:  Panetta Extends Military Benefits to Gay Spouses.

Denver:  Colorado Senate Passes Civil Unions Bill.

Texas:  The Pork Boys Do Mardi Gras.

This past weekend, with soupe a l'oignon, Porkchops Jambalaya, fried biscuits, King Cake, and quite a few other delectable delights. Now that M.P. has had his computer overhauled and added several terrabites of memory, I hope he'll be able to send me a pic or two of the beautifully set Mardi Gras table he laid, and I'll post those along with a complete menu later in the week.

For those of you unlucky enough, alas, to have no Cajun friends who know how to party: How to make perfect Shrove Tuesday pancakes.

Cardinal Compares Gay Marriage to Slavery

From The Independent:

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the head of Catholics in Scotland, described gay marriage as a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right" and said the Government's plan to reform marriage laws was "madness".

In a stinging response to the Government's assurances that no church would be compelled to conduct gay marriages, he wrote: "No government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.

"Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'. Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right? Or would they simply amount to weasel words masking a great wrong?" The strength of the Cardinal's intervention caused outrage among gay-rights activists and supporters of same-sex marriages.

Ben Summerskill, from the gay-rights campaign group Stonewall, described the Cardinal's language as "insensitive beyond words".

"The increasingly shrill tone of what Cardinal Keith O'Brien is saying suggests that he believes he is losing the argument," he told The Independent. "I'm surprised that the Cardinal is now portraying himself as being in the vanguard of protecting children. There are hundreds of thousands of children who were abused by his church, a fact that was hidden for decades by institutional cover-up. And now he feels it necessary to rush to 'protect' the small number of children who might grow up with lesbian and gay parents in long-term, stable and loving relationships."

Contraception's Con Men

Garry Wills

Excerpt from a read-worthy essay by historian and Pulitzer-prize-winning author Garry Wills - a Catholic but also a longtime critic of Vatican policies - in the New York Review of Books:

By a revolting combination of con men and fanatics, the current primary race has become a demonstration that the Republican party does not deserve serious consideration for public office. Take the controversy over contraceptives. American bishops at first opposed having hospitals and schools connected with them pay employee health costs for contraceptives. But when the President backed off from that requirement, saying insurance companies can pay the costs, the bishops doubled down and said no one should have to pay for anything so evil as contraception. Some Republicans are using the bishops’ stupidity to hurt the supposed “moderate” candidate Mitt Romney, giving a temporary leg up to the faux naïf Rick Santorum; others are attacking Barack Obama as an “enemy of religion.”

Pusillanimous Catholics—Mark Shields and even, to a degree, the admirable E. J. Dionne—are saying that Catholics understandably resent an attack on “their” doctrine (even though they do not personally believe in it). Omnidirectional bad-faith arguments have clustered around what is falsely presented as a defense of “faith.” The layers of ignorance are equaled only by the willingness of people “of all faiths” to use them for their own purposes. Consider just some of the layers:

The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.

Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden. Catholic authorities themselves say it is a matter of “natural law,” over which natural reason is the arbiter—and natural reason, even for Catholics, has long rejected the idea that contraception is evil. More of that later; what matters here is that contraception is legal, ordinary, and accepted even by most Catholics. To say that others must accept what Catholics themselves do not is bad enough. To say that President Obama is “trying to destroy the Catholic Church” if he does not accept it is much, much worse.

To disagree with Catholic bishops is called “disrespectful,” an offense against religious freedom. That is why there is a kind of taboo against bringing up Romney’s Mormonism. But if Romney sincerely believed in polygamy on religious grounds, as his grandfather did, he would not even be considered for the presidency—any more than a sincere Christian Scientist, who rejects the use of medicine, would be voted for to handle public health care. Yet a man who believes that contraception is evil is an aberrant from the American norm, like the polygamist or the faith healer. . . .

Do go read the rest of this well-reasoned essay, and the comments section as well.

What I Say: The Republican Party, as currently constituted, is wholly unfit to govern. No further elaboration is necessary on this point, which is self-evident to any reasonable being.

And another thing: I don't care how many Bibles or bulls or birettas they pile up to support it, the Catholic teaching that contraception is evil is simply bizarre - as crazy as anything that, say, Scientology might teach, and is an evil lie. The Catholic Church, to speak in the most broad and general terms, has a much greater comprehension of history and human society than perhaps a small-town Baptist church out here on the prairie - but even so, as the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles state, "the Church of Rome hath erred . . ." and egregiously so in this matter so very necessary to the happiness of individuals and the wellbeing of society.

It's just damn wrong, and anyone who says otherwise is either a religious fanatic or a simpleton. It is nearly beyond belief that we are even having this debate now, in the 21st century - and yet, history offers ample proof that the wickedness and folly of the human race are inexhaustible.

See also: Andrew Sullivan's article, "The Politicization of Catholicism":

It's in this context that you have to understand the recent cruel withholding of communion to a lesbian daughter at her mother's funeral, or the abrupt firing of a gifted music teacher because he sought to marry the man he loves. As modern society shifts, and as its own flock shifts with it, the Church hierarchy has decided to double-down on its sexual absolutism. The cruelty comes with it.

Santorum Smears Kennedy's Speech

Yes, I know I'm a little behind time on this point, which all my truckbuddies have heard about by now, but I wanted to give you guys the facts so that you can be informed, and be able to respond intelligently to anyone who might bring up the subject.

First, here from Santorum's own mouth is what he actually said about Kennedy's great speech invoking the separation of church and state, and his wilful, slimy misquoting and twisting of Kennedy's words:



Andrew Sullivan, gay, married, and a devout Catholic, has this to say about it:

What's fascinating to me about Santorum's outburst yesterday was not its content, but its candor. In fact, one of Santorum's advantages in this race, especially against Romney, is that we can see exactly where he stands. There can be no absolute separation of church and state, let alone a desire to keep it so; and in their necessary interactions, the church must always prevail, or it is a violation of the First Amendment, and an attack on religious freedom. The church's teachings are also, according to theoconservatism, integral to the founding of the United States. Since constitutional rights are endowed from the Creator, and the Creator is the Judeo-Christian one, the notion of a neutral public square, embraced by liberals and those once called conservatives, is an attack on America. America is a special nation because of this unique founding on the Judeo-Christian God. It must therefore always be guided by God's will, and that will is self-evident to anyone, Catholic or Protestant, atheist or Mormon, Jew or Muslim, from natural law. . . .

For Santorum, as for Ratzinger, if your conscience says one thing, and the Pope says another, you obey the Pope, not your conscience. And for the Christianists, if your conscience or intelligence says one thing, and the Bible says another, you obey the Bible, not your conscience, and certainly not your intelligence. Because beneath Christianism is a deep fear of the human mind - as if they actually believe that reason is stronger than religion and therefore must be restrained. As if the human mind can will God out of existence.

This is Santorum's fear-laden vision. Which is why he is not a man of questioning, sincere faith and should not be flattered as such. He is a man of the kind of fear that leads to fundamentalist faith, a faith without doubt and in complete subservience to external authority. There is a reason he doesn't want many kids to go to college. I mean: when we already know the truth, why bother to keep seeking it? And if we already know the truth, why are we not enforcing it as a matter of law in a country founded on Christian principles? It is not religious oppression if it is "the way things are supposed to be", by natural law. In fact, a neutral public square, in his mind, is itself religious oppression.

We can also see here the collision of the Second Vatican Council and the current hierarchy. Kennedy was a Catholic of another era, unafraid of modernity, interested in other paths to God, publicly humble and cheerful, privately devout and deeply connected to others of all faiths and none. Santorum is of a different kind: authoritarian, deeply suspicious of freedom when it leads to disobedience of the Papacy's diktats, and publicly embracing a religious identity as his core political one.

For the record, here is the film, in two parts, of Kennedy's 1960 speech to a convention of Baptist ministers in Houston. At the time, there was great anxiety among some Protestants that a Catholic president would be taking orders from the Vatican, so that the Pope would effectively rule the USA. There was even what we now call an urban legend going around - which your Head Trucker remembers hearing as a kid - that Catholics were filling their basements with guns and ammunition, ready to rise up and overthrow the government when the order came from Rome. I'm not making this up - people seriously believed that here in the Deep South.

But in a magnificent way, and faithful to the oldest traditions of the Republic, Kennedy allayed those fears with this speech, a fine summary of the secular principles of our government, and one which I earnestly urge my truckbuddies to read or listen to.

Part I:



Part II:




A transcript of the entire speech is on the NPR website. If you don't have time, here's an excerpt of the crucial points he made - and it's worth noting that no one accused Kennedy of being a disloyal Catholic, much less of making "war on religion," a canard being slung at our current President:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.

I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the Alamo.

Yet Santorum and his ilk would gladly make a religious test for just about everything in this country; and in an historical irony, his supporters include many fanatical Protestants for whom the Catholic boogeyman has lost all dread.  Andrew Sullivan again:

American religion is splitting into two factions - most mainstream Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jews vs Theocon Catholics, Christianist evangelicals and Mormons. It's telling to me that this split is really about politics, not religion. The theological divisions are far less important to these groups than political rallying cries.

In other words, as I see it, it's not really about religion anymore, as was the case when Kennedy spoke: it's about control, control, control - and fear, not of the Vatican devil, but of everything that proceeds from the Enlightenment, fear of reason and science and equality and - though they will never admit it - of freedom.

Both the right and the left in this country love to mouth about freedom, freedom, freedom, from morning till night. Alas, what far too many people on both sides really mean when they say the word freedom is - obey me, bitch.

Or else.

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

--Thomas Jefferson

Lesbian Denied Communion at Mother's Funeral

From a friend of the family at Addicting Info, presumbly a straight woman:

My friend Barbara, the daughter of the deceased woman, was denied communion at her mother’s funeral. She was the first in line and Fr. Guarnizo covered the bowl containing the host and said to her, “I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman and that is a sin according to the church.” To add insult to injury, Fr. Guarnizo left the altar when she delivered her eulogy to her mother. When the funeral was finished he informed the funeral director that he could not go to the gravesite to deliver the final blessing because he was sick. . . .

I am not about to paint all Christians with a broad brush. There are those out there who understand that the teachings of Jesus boil down to one thing. And that thing is Love. For if you love, you do not deny a person the solace of communion with the Creator, if that is their belief. You judge not, lest ye be judged. Only God knows the true heart of any person and in the end, if there is to be judgment, it will not come from some misguided, prejudiced priest who needs to go back to the seminary and learn the basics. And if he can’t find them there, then he needs to get down on his knees and pray to his Jesus to forgive him the terrible trespass he visited upon a grieving woman on the occasion of the death of her mother.

This is but one small story but it is indicative of the battle raging in America today. It is an ugly battle and one I never thought I would see. But it is here and we must deal with it. We must keep politics out of religion and religion out of politics. Perhaps if we can get back to a place where the separation of church and state are once again accepted as one of the founding principles of this country, stop trying to out-Christian each other, stop vilifying other religions and other people based on purely human and not godly concepts, we will begin to mend the fractures that are tearing us apart today. To do that, the Father Guarnizos and the Rick Santorums of the world will have to undergo a radical change of heart and I don’t think they have it in them. So it is up to the rest of us.

What I say:  Your Head Trucker is going to repeat:  It boils down to one thing - Love.

And love is not what you say.  It's what you do.

"But I Had Mom and Dad"

Dan Savage is not without his flaws, but he is an articulate spokesman and brilliant performer when speaking on heartfelt topics like the need to reach gay youth through the It Gets Better Project. Earlier this year, Dan spoke at the Kessler Theater in Dallas on parents, religion, bullying, and LGBT kids (some parts NSFW):





He also spoke at Rhodes College in Memphis:

Continued after the jump . . .

Dan Savage on Sex, Religion, and Bullying

An interview with Dan by a Chicago TV station at year's end:

God Still Hates You, Faggot

From an October 20 interview with Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke, telling Catholics they are obliged to vote in accordance with the teachings of their faith - and against all those intrinsically evil homos like you and me, bud:



And via David Mixner, from the I'm From Driftwood blog, here's the result of this kind of oh-so-holy teaching - decide for yourself who's being truly evil:





Also, listen to Dan Savage's description of the horrific beating his first boyfriend got as a young teen when he came out to his ultra-religious father, beginning at the 2:50 mark:



My late husband's first partner was likewise thrown out of his parents' house at age 16 and walked or hitchhiked all the way from northern Oklahoma to the home of a kindly aunt in New Orleans, with no money and his few belongings in a plastic garbage bag.

And these religious motherfuckers have the gall to say WE are intrincially evil?  What's wrong with this picture, I ask you.

It's not that religion is necessarily a bad thing - it's the monstrous, ignorant, self-righteous misuse of religion as a weapon of control that is evil.  Which human beings are awfully good at.


FYI, there was just as much discussion over the "naturalness" of homosex back among the ancient Greeks and Romans as there is today - the difference being, nobody back then had a Bible to beat people over the head with, so most folks just shrugged and minded their own business.

Until the Christians came to power.  One of these days, I'm going to write a nice big post about all that, but in the meantime I highly recommend Louis Crompton's monumental historical survey Homosexuality and Civilization, among others.

Sex, Lies, and Catholicism

Excerpt from a Sunday essay on the Pope's sexuality by the devoutly Catholic Andrew Sullivan, under the ironic title "The Pope Is Not Gay":

The choice between this kind of affirmation of spirituality and love and a politics of control and fear was what the church faced under John Paul II, as modernity pressed. . . . The pursuit of control is really a fear of scrutiny and transparency which, when added to the unspeakable crimes of the past, ineluctably led to the current meltdown in the West. The homosexual question is not in any way marginal to this; in fact, you could see it as a central challenge for a church caught between truth and power. . . .

It seems pretty obvious to me - as it does to Angelo Quattrochi, whose book is reviewed by Toibin - that the current Pope is a gay man (just as it was blindingly clear that John Paul II was straight). I am not claiming that Benedict is someone who has explored his sexuality, or has violated his own strictures on the matter. There is absolutely no evidence of that, or of hypocrisy of any sort. But that does not mean that he isn't gay. In fact, Ratzinger's command that gay priests should actively lie about their orientation makes any public statement about this on its face lacking in credibility. But when you look at the Pope's mental architecture (I've read a great deal of his writing over the last two decades) you do see that strong internal repression does make sense of his life and beliefs. At times, it seems to me, his gayness is almost wince-inducing. The prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice, the fixation on liturgy and ritual, and the over-the-top clothing accessories are one thing. But what resonates with me the most is a theology that seems crafted from solitary introspection into a perfect, abstract unity of belief. It is so perfect it reflects a life of withdrawal from the world of human relationship, rather than an interaction with it. Of course, this kind of work is not inherently homosexual; but I have known so many repressed gay men who can only live without severe pain in the world if they create a perfect abstraction of what it is, and what their role is in it. Toibin brilliantly explains this syndrome, why the church of old was so often such a siren call for gay men who could not handle their own nature. In Benedict, one sees a near-apotheosis of this type, what Quattrocchi describes as "simply the most repressed, imploded gay in the world." . . .

I would like to return to the world where this kind of speculation was disgraceful, unnecessary and blasphemous. But when this Pope has already enabled the rape of children, has covered up the crimes of many priests, when he has responded by blaming gay men for the moral failings of his own church, when he has publicly demanded that gay Catholics remain in the closet, i.e. lie about themselves as a sacred duty ... then such deference becomes much more difficult.

What I Say:  As a gay man, and an Episcopalian-on-hold, I understand the point Sullivan is making about being attracted to a spirituality supported by liturgy, ritual, and finery; in fact, as I've blogged in the past, I do think that the love of beauty - creating, revealing, sharing it in any of a myriad possible ways - is a defining element of the gay personality, which of course also comes in many shapes and sizes from silly twink to gruff leatherman.  But when you get past whatever the exterior may be, I think you find the same motive animating all of us at heart.

In contrast to our straight brothers, some of whom are very creative indeed and might take great delight in crafting pastries or growing roses - as did one very butch and very straight retired Marine captain I once knew.  Yet my hunch is that for them the beauty motive is a sideline, not the animating principle; seems to me that the heart of an unambiguously straight man is driven to build a metaphorical fort, not a house or a garden, as well as finding the means to knock down the other guy's fort.  In other words, aggression and domination, or to put it differently, the defender and the warrior, two sides of the same coin:  that's what makes them tick and sets their life agenda.

Continued after the jump . . .

Thoughts on Marriage

I.  Ted Olson eloquently sums up the whole case for marriage equality in this short interview.  Andrew Sullivan says, "I've been making these points for many many years. I cannot express how affirming it is to hear such a distinguished conservative jurist defend the civil rights of gay citizens - especially such a fundamental, core right as civil marriage."



Sullivan also writes a longer post today on this topic.  Excerpt:

The church - even in its current High Ratzinger phase - opts for inclusion over exclusion. It allows the infertile to marry. It does not remove the Sacrament of Matrimony from those who do not produce kids. It even annuls countless marriages, many of which have been consummated, in enormously large numbers. It marries those past child-bearing age. It treasures adopted kids, even though they violate Ross's parent-procreating "microcosm of civilization" ideal. And that's only the Catholic church. The Protestant churches freely allow divorce and contraception - breaking both the monogamy and the procreative elements of Ross's ideal (which is to say all of it). So in the religious sphere, the Church breaks its own ideal with regularity, and the other churches have long since given almost all of it up. And yet the Catholic church still insists that its ideal be enforced as an act of civil exclusion in the secular sphere, even on people who are atheists.

On what conceivable grounds, if you pardon the expression? Look at how diverse current civil marriages are in the US. The range and diversity runs from Amish families with dozens of kids to yuppie bi-coastal childless couples on career paths; there are open marriages and arranged marriages; there is Rick Santorum and Britney Spears - between all of whom the civil law makes no distinction. The experience of gay couples therefore falls easily within the actual living definition of civil marriage as it is today, and as it has been now for decades. To exclude gays and gays alone is therefore not the upholding of an ideal (Britney Spears and Larry King are fine - but a lesbian couple who have lived together for decades are verboten) so much as making a lone exception to inclusion on the grounds of sexual orientation. It is in effect to assert not the ideal of Catholic Matrimony, but the ideal of heterosexual superiority. It creates one class of people, regardless of their actions, and renders them superior to another.

II.  David Boies wipes the floor with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, co-founded by the infamous George Rekers of rentboy fame:



Have to say, it's gratifying but really surrealistic to this old shitkicker to see these straight men defending gay rights so passionately - something that simply Does.Not.Happen down here in Jesusland.


III.  On a completely different line of thought, Andrew Brown writes in the Guardian about wedding-day extravagance and pretentiousness:

The modern wedding, with its stupendous cost (£20,000 on average) and duration, is really a celebration of the participants. They really are unique and precious snowflakes, just as they have suspected all along. In fact, they are each and both of them just the unique and precious people they would like to be. Everyone pretends that for the day the couple really are starring in their own film: following the conventions of modern films, that means nothing really bad can happen to them.

Feeling unique and treasured and valued for yourself is exactly the point of being in love, and it's very nice. But it's not realistic. In particular, it's a disastrous attitude to bring to a wedding. There will be times when you appear – and are – not in the least bit treasured or valued, and when you'll be unlucky to be thought unique: everyone going through a divorce is convinced for a while they were married to the absolutely worst spouse in history.

The great point about completely impersonal ceremonies, whose form is the same for everyone, whether these are religious or entirely civil, is that they remind us that the problems and difficulties of marriage are universal. They come from being human. They can't be dodged just by being our wonderful selves, even all dusted with unicorn sparkle.

Of course, it's your privilege to do as you like on your "special day," whether that involves gold lamé or faded denim.  But your Head Trucker has never thought much of expensive spectacle at a moment when a sober, solemn vow is the central idea - which partakes of the sacred in some sense, even if exchanged by two atheists in front of a county clerk.

Nor do I favor the hippie practice of writing your own vows - for one thing, the vast majority of folks who are not trained writers have a tin ear for language, and produce something sickly-sweet that grates on the nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.  For another thing, it's embarassing to witness the uncensored little-girl fantasies on display in such vows, full of totally unrealistic notions drawn from fairy tales, pop songs, and romantic movies.  As everyone who has been married - or at least as nearly so as is possible without benefit of law - knows, there is a very good reason why the Dunmow flitch has rarely ever been claimed.

Which is why your Head Trucker, if the occasion ever arose, would much prefer to use the simple, ordinary words of the traditional marriage service - which to my mind, creates a connection, a spiritual union, between the couple and all the countless other couples who have come before to this sacred moment - all pledging the same troth, or truth.  To me, a lovely, sterling idea, more precious than anything money can buy.

In the Name of God, I, N., take you, N., to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

But as all that is getting to be an entirely moot point at this late age, your Head Trucker will just shut up now and go back to tending his own garden.


IV.  Male sexuality is really and truly different from female sexuality, whether we're talking heteros or homos.  It has taken many years for this to really dawn on your Head Trucker, and it leads me to some interesting conclusions about what fidelity really means in practice and in the heart.  But more about that another time. 

For now, I'll just say that looking back, there were times when I went nuclear over things - very human things - that in retrospect were not worth the subsequent anguish on both sides.  I was following a script learnt by heart from old movies and Victorian novels - both of which genres were quite consciously crafted so as not to offend the sensibilities of little old blue-haired church ladies who, when duty demanded, gritted their teeth and thought of England or whatever; but that was a false model for me in many ways. 

With age comes, if not wisdom, then at least clarity, you know?