The effects of Proposition 8 on Community
What is sanctity anyway?

In the past week I've been told that I'm a misogynist, a heretic and that it's too bad I'm no longer a Christian. These three affirmations about my personhood were made by people who had directly, or indirectly, encountered my rantings, ravings and sharings about my view of Proposition 8 as a Christian and as a Pastor, and regarding my vehement support of Obama for President with those same viewpoints. What's interesting is that there was no invitation to dialogue in the (re)definitions that were shared with me of who and how I live by faith. Maybe I thought I'd invited folks to discuss and had merely lauched a mono-logal diatribe. Yet my point was always to enter a discussion, to recognize and affirm (even with my dark humor) that we are community, that we are called to live in community, that such life requires and demands mutual-respect, self-respect, a refusal to embrace verbal violence and degradation, and a commitment to relationship.

I've seen and experienced this online, in the communities in which I live, even in my own family. There are consequences for every action that we take. We can say that something isn't personal, or that we weren't meaning for it to be personal in terms of hurting someone else. But everything is personal to someone.

Yesterday while the worship gathering was finishing at the church I serve the Mormon Temple of Oakland, which is about 10 blocks away, was being besieged by No On 8 Protestors who had gone to put a face on the consequences of the proposition, to forces those that were at the Temple that day to have to encounter those that are no longer legally married, or can't be married, because of Prop 8, which had been in large part (at least in the beginning stages) funded by the Mormon Community. I'm not against Mormons, or do I hold anything against them. Merely it's a story of my context. Here's a news video of the protest, and here's an online article about it.

I heard someone this week advocate stoning (not with joints, but with rocks) all gays and lesbians. Because that's what the Bible (in some parts) says we should do. This person was invoking the sanctity of marraige, while denying or forgetting about what I'd have to call the sanctity of life. My own nuclear family is torn among gay family members who are legally married and those that voted to overturn their marriage in the name of sanctity. That word has been thrown around so much lately, that I'm not sure what we do, or claim, to hold sacred and saintly? We forget that everything and every-issue has a face, a personal narrative, and consequences. I'm not advocating nihilism. Rather it seems that we in our culture completely disconnect. We place blame when we don't want to be connected. Just look at Governor Palin who today blamed George Bush for McCain's defeat, and Yes on 8 forces that blamed Obama (and his large people-of-color turn-out-the-vote apparatus) for the passage of 8. At the root of it all it seems that we - out of fear or something - don't want to recognize the other as subject, and not just object - in our society, in our communities, even in our families.

I got this sarcastic (and what I consider cleverly funny) Funny-or-Die video from someone today talking about Prop 8 and pushing it to the extreme. It seems over the top. Yet is it really that different than what we tend to do on most issues when we neglect the dominant grey reality of life, place blame elsewhere, or judge others in order to make oursevles feel better. Watch it. Then share a comment if any of this has struck you.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die