Freedom of Religion & Gay Marriage

Before reading, hopefully you already know what you're getting into by reading this post, just from the title. And that's your only warning...

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I think the problem with the gay marriage debate is that it is entirely missing the mark.

First of all, I feel it’s important to say:

I’m married. And my wife and I do not feel that allowing homosexuals to marry will somehow cheapen, belittle, or “ruin the sanctity” of marriage. The reason for this is remarkably simple: it is because our marriage is not based on other peoples’ beliefs, nor on other peoples’ marriages. In fact, our marriage is not even based on what governments and churches and religions and people consider “marriage” to be or to mean or to look like.

Instead, our marriage is based on what my wife and I think marriage should be.

And that’s it.

Other peoples’ marriages have no bearing on ours, because our marriage has nothing to do with them. If it did, this would be allowing a lot of people into our marriage that don’t belong there.

The sanctity of my wife and my marriage depends solely on the two of us. It is how we treat each other, how we speak to each other and about each other; it is how we handle each other when one of us is having a bad day; it is how we make it a point to always put the other first; it is how we are sure to not withhold love or joy from each other for any reason; it is the things we do and learn and experience together.

Our marriage is sanctified because we sanctify it. Governments and religion have nothing to do with this.

That said: Whoever else is married does not concern me.

Whoever else can get married, however, concerns me quite a bit.

It concerns me because who we allow to get married says something about our country, about the state of the government and the heart of the people.

And when people oppose gay marriage, it tells me that people are willing to violate the United States Constitution to support their own ideas of how the country should be.

To be clear, what I’m saying is: Any way you look at it, to oppose gay marriage is to oppose the United States Constitution.

That this is not being discussed more often is remarkable to me; this fact seems quite self-evident to me. But here we are.

Many people in favor of gay marriage argue that it’s a violation of homosexuals’ equal rights. That may or may not be the case, but that’s actually not the main violation against the Constitution that I see or that I’m interested in discussing right now.

Rather, what I’m more interested in is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Mostly, for our current purposes, I’m thinking of the first bit before the semi-colon: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Very often, people simply phrase this as “Freedom of religion.” So this is what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us, all the citizens of the United States: Freedom of religion.

And, of course, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

What this simply, literally means is that the government cannot make any law which is based on the teachings of any one religion, nor can it hold any persons accountable to the teachings of any specific religion. The government cannot favor one religion over another, nor can it favor religion over atheism or non-religion.

Again: simply, literally, this means that if a law is made based on a Christian belief, then everyone who is not a Christian loses a piece of their freedom of religion.

That said, my impression of Christians’ opposition to gay marriage stems from their beliefs, from what it is they understand their scriptures to mean, what it is that they believe their God wants and expects from them. This is fine; I’ve no interest in debating whether or not homosexuality or homosexual marriage is “sinful,” nor “what the Bible actually says about it,” at least not in this piece. 

What interests me, however, is that there is not a single argument against gay marriage that is not, ultimately, based on religion.

To reiterate: I’ve never once come across any meaningful, relevant, logical argument against gay marriage that does not, at its core, stem from religion.

If such an argument is out there, I haven’t heard it, and I have yet to imagine it on my own.

So it is that when people use their religion to argue against gay marriage—which, again, is the only basis for arguing against gay marriage—what is happening is that they are indicating that their beliefs should overrule the law. They are asking the political leaders to make and enact laws based on their religion. They are pushing the government to favor their religion over any other.

In short, they are asking the government to take away the freedom of religion from everyone else.

To say that your religion’s beliefs on gay marriage should dictate the laws of the land is to say that people outside of your religion do not qualify for freedom of religion—or at least, they do not qualify for it as much as the people inside of your religion.

Any way you look at it, this is a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Any. Way. You. Look. At. It.

If your religion says gay marriage is not okay, but my religion—or my lack of religion—says that it is okay, you cannot require or expect me to abide by your religion over mine. The United States Constitution does not allow for this sort of requirement or expectation or, especially, for this sort of law.

Again, whether or not homosexuality is “sinful,” “natural,” or even “okay” doesn’t concern me. What concerns me is that the United States Constitution is being violated, because:

Based on our Constitution, gay marriage should be a self-evident, freely-granted right, which neither religion, nor even one political party or another, has the ability or the right to take away from the people.

You do not have to believe that gay marriage is “okay.” I am not asking you to believe or to think or to feel this way. You are absolutely entitled to your thoughts and beliefs on the subject—in fact, that’s the beauty and the importance of the First Amendment.

However, whether or not you agree that gay marriage is “okay,” this does not give you the right or the privilege to override or violate the United States Constitution—at least, not without undermining the core of our country’s very definition, intention, and spirit.

In Response to a Query on “Blessings”

A friend of mine recently asked (on Facebook), “Christians (though non-Christians are welcome to be friendly contributors): Do we have any hope while living in this world? That is, does God promise any good while we're here? I understand 'in this world you'll have trouble,' but can we expect God's tangible goodness in the present?”

By the time I got around to this post, he’d already received several responses from some of his friends.

In response to one of those replies, my friend further commented, in part, “I mean, we're here now--we aren't later yet. And God has a plan in the present. Does His present plan include understandable blessings, or are all of His blessings retrospective (i.e. we only recognize them as blessings later)?”

Here, then, is my answer (which, characteristically for me, is MUCH too long for a Facebook comment):

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If you're only looking for blessings in the past, you will find them. But that is all you will find: history. A nice story. Something you can read about and say "Isn't that nice" or “How special.”

Conversely, if you're looking for blessings in the future, you will never find them. This is because blessings aren't there. When you look to the future for blessings, you can't do this without having already decided what those blessings will be. "If I get a raise, that will be a blessing." "Wouldn't it be nice if I started dating a wonderful person." “All I need is that new car…”

Sure, a raise would be nice. And dating a wonderful person is a pretty great thing too. But these are blessings that you've pre-defined.

Isn't the point—at least, the point from a Christian perspective—to let God do the defining?

Since blessings, then, don’t have much to do with the past or with the future, they must be momentary. They must be here and now, now or never.

According to Luke’s writings, Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." He didn't say it was in us (past tense). He didn't say it will be in us someday (future tense). He used the present tense.

The kingdom of God is within us. Right now. As you read these words, the kingdom of God is within you.

Perhaps blessings are the same way. Perhaps all of the blessings of God are already within you right now.

What I mean is that, it seems to me, you choose what is a blessing and what is not.

Is having food on the table a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way.

Are having a loving family, a good job, or a roof over your head “blessings”? – They are if you look at them that way.

They say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I’m quite certain that blessings are precisely the same.

In a letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler, dated August 23, 1799, William Blake said, "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

Similarly, some people see a sunset and think about how lovely it is that God put it there for us.

Other people see a sunset and think about how marvelous it is that all of the elements of the universe have coincidentally come together just precisely so, leading up to this moment where a rational human being with a seeing eye is able to be sitting here at all, contemplating this beautiful, happy accident.

Still others can’t be bothered to look at the sunset at all.

Who amongst these is the most blessed?

Feel free to answer differently if you’d like, but my answer is both persons 1 and 2, equally. And it has nothing to do with if one, either, or neither of them is a Christian. It only has to do with that person’s perception.

To take this a step further though—and an important step at that:

I said we “choose what is a blessing and what is not.”

But then again, maybe things are blessings not only if we choose to see them that way, but also perhaps they are only blessings if we treat them like they are.

Is having a wonderful spouse a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way, and if you treat him/her that way.

I will give you an example:

I used to very often pick fights with people in my mind. It's no surprise, then, that sometimes I would have tense moments with those people in reality. Of course I did. That’s how it goes. This was true of all my ex-girlfriends as well. You will not be surprised to hear that I used to fight with them constantly (yes, in reality).

When it comes to my wife, however, I make it a very conscious point to NEVER pick fights with her in my head. Never. We have been married for six years, together a total of almost eight. And we've been in maybe five fights. Ever.

I've had girlfriends that I've literally fought with more times in one day, than I've fought with my wife in eight years of a relationship.

Unmistakably, my wife is a blessing. But she is a blessing because I look at her like a blessing, and because I treat her like a blessing.

Does it matter, then, where the blessing came from? Does it matter if God played matchmaker and intentionally put Emily and I in a room together so that our sparks would fly, so that we would fall in love and create our beautiful little family?

How could that possibly be relevant?

For whatever reason—God or not—we were in that room together. For whatever reason—God or not—we started talking. For whatever reason—God or not—we started dating. Then we got married. Then we had our son Emerson.

And now, today—right here, right now—I am blessed.

So it is that no matter how these circumstances came about in the first place, I am blessed.

But remember that we choose what we see as a blessing. And remember that things are only blessings if we treat them that way.

And so, inevitably, the most important thing that’s left to say is this: no matter what is a “blessing” and what isn’t, no matter where—if anywhere—“blessings” come from, it is our job to keep the blessing going.

Cry

Maybe no one told you there is strength in your tears.
(Kelly Clarkson, If No One Will Listen)

 

I once heard a Christian pastor explaining how it is that all people have sinned, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans. Anticipating his practitioners’ questions, he also explained that even babies sin. “Have you ever heard a baby cry when it’s hungry?” he asked. He then went on to explain that, when a baby cries in this circumstance, it’s actually a lie, because…

…actually, it’s hard to say exactly why he thinks it’s a lie—maybe because the baby doesn’t actually need anything, I think was his point(?)

At the time, this struck me as odd. I didn’t necessarily have an opinion on it one way or the other, but it sounded peculiar. Could it really be a “sin” to cry?

Now that I have a son, I have a more solid opinion on this pastor’s idea.

And I think it’s bananas.

Never have I thought Emerson was trying to lie to me when he was crying. When he cries, it’s because there’s something he needs or wants, and he doesn’t have the words to communicate it in a more appropriate, agreeable, effective, concrete way.

Crying is a form of communication. In fact, it’s our first form of communication. Before we have words—before we even have smiles*—we have tears.

Tears, then, must be important.

It was then that I realized that forever is in your eyes
– the moment I saw you cry.
(Mandy Moore, Cry)

Not only is crying a form of communication for babies; it is for you and me as well. It was true then and it’s true now.

We cry when words fail, because crying is more primal. It is more intimate, and it expresses what words simply can’t.

All this to say:

Why do we tell people to stop crying when we’re trying to comfort them? Maybe they have something they need to express, and there isn’t any other way.

Why is crying considered a sign of weakness, or of being overly-sensitive? Crying is more real and more raw than language. What is “weak” about this?

Don’t apologize for all the tears you’ve cried
– you’ve been way too strong now for all your life.
(Mat Kearney, Closer to Love)

Maybe, conversely, we would do well to cry more often. Not that we need to look for opportunities to cry, of course, but…maybe we shouldn’t be so judgmental or annoyed or put-out when the people around us cry. And maybe, just as importantly, we shouldn’t be so adamant about fighting back our own tears.

Maybe crying is just a way of asking for empathy.

I saw my tears are in your eyes.
(Michael W. Smith, Everybody Free)

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*This is true—maybe I was naïve, but I didn’t realize that babies don’t know how to smile when they’re first born. I didn’t learn this until Emerson was born, and I had to ask why he wasn’t smiling.

Through the Tunnel

I finally figured it out.

I could never quite decide if am truly a “city person” or not. Certainly I’m not a “country person”—I’ve never been especially into outdoor activities—but…do you really have to be just one or the other? I enjoy my occasional trips to the mountains, and sometimes it’s nice to get away from town for awhile. Can you be somewhere in between? Could I be somewhere in between?

Perhaps this is what the suburbs are for—you’re constantly on the fence, at the edge of both worlds, without having to fully commit to one or the other.

But for myself, I finally figured it out.

Yes, in fact—I am a city person.

It’s the lights.

They glow. And when they glow, they do something to you. If you let them do something to you, that is.

I’ve been to Phoenix several times now, for various lengths of stay. This time around, Emily, Emerson, and I were in town for three nights.

Somewhere along the I-10 in Eastern Phoenix—a bit near Mesa, to be more precise—you drive through a tunnel. And that’s when I knew: It’s the lights. It’s the way they color the skin on your hand, one split-second at a time, as you’re driving through the tunnel and holding your left hand out the window, being transfixed by the persistent coming and going of this small aura.

That’s when I realized that I’m a city person.

For all its pro’s and con’s, this is something that I sorely miss in Albuquerque. We have lights. And when you’re driving into town at night, coming in from the west on the I-40, those lights put on a wondrous display. They make Albuquerque look bigger than it is, and more lovely—this is true of all cities, I think; the lights at night can be awfully, beautifully deceptive about the size and grandeur of even the smallest towns. And those Albuquerque lights seem to say that there is something here, just above the city, hanging in the air like a low-lying cloud, ready to weave its spell in between the yellows and reds and greens. For better or worse, they certainly have their own enchantment.

But in Albuquerque, there are no tunnels. At least, not like the tunnels in Phoenix. Not like along the 101 Highway just a bit north of Santa Barbara. Not like in Chicago and Dublin and San Diego.

It’s the lights that I miss; it’s the lights that remind me why I really am a city person, through and through. They do something to you, if you let them.

So let them.

Godless

I saw a homeless person on my way to the hospital, and another on my way back.

On my way to the hospital, there was a man on the side of the road, in his mid-to-late twenties—my age, in other words, more or less—holding a tiny cardboard sign that was too small to read from the center lane. He was smiling, and almost had a slight spring in his step.

On my way from the hospital, there was a girl. She was in her early twenties at the oldest, and had much less positivity in her demeanor. It was about 8:30 at night; she was standing in the small halo cast by a streetlight. Her cardboard sign was larger, more legible. It read:

Young

mother

godless

This struck me as a very peculiar statement for a homeless person to make while asking for help. A hundred or more thoughts ran through my mind about her story, her situation, about what her motivation could be for deciding to write this bold, uncanny statement.

Was she saying that she had given up hope? That she didn't know what to believe in? That, if there is a god, surely he wouldn't have allowed her to come down so far?

Was she saying something about Christians? Has she been burned by Christians? Had they done this to her? Has her general experiences with Christians left her with the impression that she was more likely to receive help from people who do not identify themselves as Christians?

Or perhaps she wanted to distance herself from other homeless people, wanted everyone who passed by to know that she was different from the others. Maybe she simply wanted to be completely honest. Maybe she was trying to say, “You—whoever you are, whoever your god is—you could end up here too.”

It was not until I passed by, seeing her sign from a slightly different angle, that I noticed her hand had been covering the 'b'. In actuality, her sign read:

Young

mother

godbless

On the one hand, this clarified quite a bit. This was more standard. At least superficially, the one letter can make a world of difference; it gave her humble sign almost the opposite meaning. Most probably, none of those thoughts or questions would have crossed my mind if I had seen the 'b' from the beginning.

Then again, on the other hand, I wonder if this one letter still doesn't tell the whole story.

God or no god, was she giving up hope? What did she believe in? Had she ever imagined herself here?

God or no god, was she being honest? Did she sincerely wish God would bless everyone that passed her by, in all of the ways that she herself was not being blessed?

In the end, I'm not so certain how much the one letter mattered.

'B' or no 'b', she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

Incidentally, an experiment: in that last statement, replace the letter 'b' with the word 'god'.

'B' or no 'b', she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

God or no god, she was a young, homeless mother in desperate need of help.

The devil is in the details, they say. But then again, perhaps God is too.

Invisible Children

There is a war going on. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you haven’t.

And I don’t mean that in a clever way. I don’t mean a “war of words”; I don’t mean a disagreement between the left and the right, the old and the new. And I don’t mean the spiritual war that your pastor is always talking about, between the forces of good and evil, or the “powers that be.”

Actually, maybe I do mean a spiritual war. Because any way you look at it, something isn’t right here. Something that needs good people to stand up and do something about it.

But I also mean the kind of war that uses guns. Hate. Molotov Cocktails. Torture. Rape. Displaced children. Missing persons. Homes torn apart. Young boys forced to become soldiers in an army that is ironically, purposefully called the “Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).”

Young boys forced to slaughter their own families.

This is the war I’m talking about. This is the war that is happening in Africa right now, as you read this, as I write this.

If you haven’t heard of Invisible Children, you need to.

In short, they are the ones who are actively, restlessly, passionately working to undo this wounding, scratching, screaming, tear- and blood-soaked war. They are the ones who are calling the soldiers to lay down their guns and come home—telling these soldiers that the open arms of family and community are still here, that an education is possible, that peace can actually happen in this world, in their world.

And, if it helps, here are 85 reasons that Invisible Children does precisely what they do:

·         On August 4 of this year, a 16-year old boy defected from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), ultimately arriving in safety in Nzako, Central African Republic (CAR).

·         On August 9, 13 women and children were released from the LRA.

·         The next day, 33 more women and children were released in Digba, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

·         On August 27, 12 men, women, and children escaped from the LRA in the Bili-Ango-Digba Triangle, DRC, during a reported clash between the LRA and Congolese security forces.

·         On September 2, 26 women and children were released from the LRA near Kiliwa, DRC.

This comes to an unprecedented 85 escapees/returnees from the LRA, in a matter of only 28 days. 

In 28 days, 85 men, women, and children got their lives back.

In 28 days, 85 men, women, and children got another chance at happiness and normality.

In 28 days, 85 men, women, and children got to take their hands and use them for peace instead of for destruction.

In 28 days, with our help—that is, with yours and mine and your friends’ and my friends’ and even the people we don’t know or like—imagine how many more reasons Invisible Children will have to keep up the fight, to undo the hurt, to show the wounded that they still have a home.

What have you accomplished in the last 28 days? More importantly, what can you accomplish in the next 28 days?

Invisible Children is—quite literally—changing the course of the world.

Invisible Children is—quite literally—introducing hope where there is none.

Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

Tibet

A few nights ago, Michelle came over for awhile. We started talking about a book I had just recently started reading (The Open Road by Pico Iyer), which is a sort of biography of the Dalai Lama. Michelle started asking me about the Dalai Lama—who he is, what he does, how the role of “Dalai Lama” becomes assigned to him, etc.

Emily was in the next room putting Emerson down for the night. When she came back, the conversation naturally--obviously--drifted into a discussion about the "Tibet Question" (you know: all those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers you see, what they mean, why it matters).

Michelle and Emily continued to ask questions, and I answered them the best I could. I’ve researched quite a bit about the Tibet Question and certainly have an opinion about it; I was able to answer most of the questions with at least moderate confidence.

But of course there are always other truths out there, other stories I haven’t heard, other perspectives that I haven’t considered.

About a year and a half ago, I became deeply interested in Tibet. Certainly it’s become my "dream trip" to go there.

But I’ve become a bit worried about taking that trip. Not because it’s particularly unsafe—Tibet has a very good reputation with handling foreign tourists. Rather, it’s because I’m worried Tibet won’t be what my mind has painted it up to be.

When I first started learning about Tibet, it was this land of old ways, of mysticism, of a deep reverence for the universe. The more I read about it, however, the more I come to understand that those things are slowly disappearing, that the old ways, the mysticism, the reverence are all fading, nearing the end of their millennia-old lives.

I’m not really interested in taking a political stance on the Tibet question. (Actually, I am rather interested in that—but not here, now, in this context.)

What I am interested in, however, is that the Tibetan past is losing its place in history. We can blame this on the Chinese, or on the Tibetans, or on any number of other people or things or forces. But no matter who is doing it, or how, or why, the fact is: to erase the past is to erase pieces of the present. Isn’t it?

If this moment is the total sum of every single other moment before it, then you cannot remove pieces of the past without removing pieces of the present as well.

Yes, I still very much want to visit Tibet. And in my imagination, Tibet is still in sync with its history. But in the books I read, Tibet is losing touch with its past. In my imagination, visiting Tibet is possible. In the books I read, this is not possible—at least, it is not possible to visit that Tibet.

Or perhaps I should say: time is running out. Because once that Tibet loses its place in history, there is no recovering it.

There is a difference between progress—which is the stated goal of the Chinese—and reverence—which is the goal of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhists. Which is better? Which is more important?

Each has their pro’s and con’s; there is no doubt of that. To deny progress is to move backwards. As Joseph Campbell said, “By going backwards, you throw yourself out of sync with history.” But then again, to deny—or to erase, or to belittle—history is to deconstruct the present.

Either way, it is clear that the Tibet that interests me, that I fell in love with from a distance, is slipping away.