Religious rhetoric and gay marriage
A trip to a church provides some background to the campaign for Proposition 8.
Even in this hyperbolic election season, the rhetoric in the campaign for Proposition 8 seems overheated to me:
Support for the right of gays to marry is a move against Christians by the homosexual lobby, the devil's strategy to destroy the church, a confrontation between light and darkness.
That was the view from the pulpit at a "Protect Marriage" rally on Sunday night, hosted by Skyline Church near San Diego. It was beamed via satellite to 170 churches and thousands of voters across California.
I sat in at Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch, a growing mega-church with as diverse a congregation as you'll find in the San Fernando Valley. It's a church I've visited often in the past, and the Sunday night gathering looked like a typical worship crowd -- a mix of families, retirees, students, young couples -- praying, nodding and applauding.
The lesson -- "The ABCs of Protecting Marriage" -- was slick and thoughtful, aimed at arming Proposition 8 supporters to speak out.
The alphabet drill against gay marriage went like this: A is for activist judges. B for benefits. C for children. D for dads and moms. E for everywhere. F for freedom. G for God. H for homosexual lifestyle. I for Involvement.
It ended with J for Jesus.
If you're against Proposition 8 -- which would amend the state Constitution so that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" -- the measure probably looks like a misguided, mean-spirited assault on the civil rights of gays and lesbians.
But if you were in the pews on Sunday night, you heard gay marriage denounced as the work of Satan -- along with divorce and pornography -- and Proposition 8 as a mighty shield, protecting children, marriage and the rights of Christians who share a "Biblical worldview" that homosexuality is bad.
Gays need salvation, not marriage, the thinking goes. "We love them as people, but it is sin," one speaker told the crowd. "When same-sex marriage becomes legal, a lot of us become illegal," said another.
But it wasn't all about Bible-thumping. On stage sharing stories were lawyers with tales of Christian-owned businesses sued or fined for refusing to serve gay weddings, parents worried about what their children are learning in classes, an ex-lesbian grateful for being delivered "by love and the power of the heavenly father" from her sexual attraction to women.
