Questions and Answers

Do you have a question regarding your faith, spirituality or religion in regards to homosexuality?  Are you a parent, family or friend of the LGBTQ community and have questions, too?  Then I encourage you to ask your question or suggest a topic you would like discussed.  If your question or topic is chosen for the next blog I'll send you a $15 iTunes gift card.

All you have to do is email me your topic or question.  Visit the "About Me" section and click on "Email."  If your topic or question is chosen I'll mail or email you your gift card code. 

Peace and all good.
Brother Sun and Sister Moon

Personal Reflection:
What have you always wanted to ask or have discussed regarding your faith or your sexuality?  Feel free to share your questions or topic suggestions in the comment spaces below or email them to me in the "About Me" Section.

Honor and Shame

In the world in which Jesus lived, the possession of honor and the avoidance of shame were essential core values that drove private and public interaction.  To possess honor was of the highest value.  Without honor, a person had no dignity. 

Mediterranean cultures developed strategies to preserve the insider as honorable and outsider as shamed.  One shaming strategy was to ask an opponent a question he could not answer. This explains why the Scribes and Pharisees were always trying to ask Jesus questions he couldn't easily answer.  If they could take away his honor, they would also take away his popularity.  However, they actually allowed Jesus to gain more honor, since he often answered their questions with clever replies--something that increased a person's honor in other people's eyes.

The Catholic hierarchy still engages in similar strategies to preserve the insider as honorable (Hierarchy) and the outsider (LGBT) as shamed.  Instead of asking questions, they make statements and allow no room for dialogue.   If you dare to questions their beliefs you are called a heretic or immoral.  If you work or volunteer with the Church you are removed from your ministry.

In the current struggle for marriage equality Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Chair of the subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) argues that allowing gay marriage will harm society; especially our children.  

People of faith and goodwill are no longer willing to remain silent on this issues.  Like Jesus they are answering their questioners.   The nation’s largest pediatricians’ group recently came out in support of gay marriage, noting that, to a child, the parents’ sexual orientation is not as important as other elements related to family well-being.

"The AAP supports marriage equality for all capable and consenting adults, including those who are of the same gender, as a means of guaranteeing all federal and state rights and benefits and long-term security for their children."  

"If a child has two loving and capable parents who want to marry, it is in the best interests of the child that legal and social institutions allow and support the parents to do so, irrespective of their sexual orientation."

The academy also added,

"Adoption placements and foster parenting also should be conducted without regard to sexual orientation of the parents."

The AAP policy was developed by its committee on psychosocial aspects of child and family health, led by Dr. Benjamin S. Siegel, a pediatrics professor at Boston University School of Medicine.  “On the basis of a review of extensive scientific literature,” AAP affirms that “children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics is not the only one speaking out, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association with the nations other major mental and medical organizations have filed a amici curiae brief in the DOMA Suit in contrast to the US Bishop's statements.  In their brief they stated:

The claim that legal recognition of marriage for same–sex couples undermines the institution of marriage and harms their children is inconsistent with the scientific evidence. That evidence supports the conclusion that homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality that is not chosen; that gay and lesbian people form stable, committed relationships that are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential respects; and that same-sex couples are no less fit than heterosexual parents to raise children and their children are no less psychologically healthy and well-adjusted than children of opposite sex parents.

No longer are people willing to remain silent for fear of being labeled unfaithful or immoral by the Church's hierarchy.  People of faith and goodwill are speaking out through evidence based research and a lived experience of the gay community and like Jesus gaining honor in answering the Pharisees questions. 

The Church's hierarchy continues to lose creditability in their fight against marriage equality  They have turned a deaf ear to the gay community and their children.  Instead of strengthening families, they have weakened it through their beliefs about the gay community.  Beliefs based on fear, stereotypes, and prejudice instead of evidence based research. 

Peace and all good,
Brother Sun and Sister Moon

Download the amici curiae brief supporting Karen Golinski's discrimination case against the government, Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management for more information on evidence based research on marriage equality.

Personal Reflection:
Have you ever been afraid to speak out on behalf of yourself or your gay child, sibling or friend?  How did you feel?  Feel free to share your story in the comment spaces below.

Marriage Equality

The Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 are currently being reviewed by the United States Supreme Court and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's have wade in on both issues filing a friend of the court brief.  The USCCB said in the DOMA case there is "no fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex. ...Specifically, civil recognition of same-sex relationships is not deeply rooted in the nation's history or tradition..."  So let's take the next few minutes to reflect on the nature of marriage and the Church's struggle to defend it.

The Prophets used the symbol of the marriage union as an allegory for God's relationship with humanity (Isa 54:5; Hos 2:20).  Jesus offered the wedding feast as a model for the Kingdom of Heaven, as a family affair (Mt 22:1-14).  A New Testament allegory described Jesus as the wedding groom, heaven as the wedding banquet, and the Church as the bride of the Lamb (Eph 5:25-27; Rev 19:7-9).  The mythic story of Creation also provides us with the image of God's gift of marriage.  God created the woman Eve and the man Adam as partners for the journey of life (Gen 2:18-24).  Without each other, they would have been lonely and unfulfilled. 

Now take a moment and reflect on the above statements.   Did you notice a common theme?  Did you notice the word "allegory?"  An allegory is a symbolic work:  a work in which the characters and events are to be understood as representing other things and symbolically expressing a deeper, often spiritual, moral, or a political meaning.  Marriage is an allegory or symbol of God's relationship towards humanity. 

The struggle for gay marriage isn't just about the right to marry, but our understanding of God.  To change the image of marriage, calls into question the Church's understanding of God.  A struggle that has been going on since the time of the Old Testament.

Marriage is and has always been evolving.  For example, in most biblical cultures, the wife was considered the property of her husband and subject to his will.  At the time of the patriarchs and kings, a man of a large clan was legally free to have several wives, as well as concubines.  A woman was permitted only one husband.  The husband could divorce his wife, but she could not divorce him (Deut 22: 13-21; Mt 19:3-9).  Marriage is evolving and with it our understanding of God.

The LGBT struggle for marriage equality is calling the Church into a deeper understanding of God and into a new set of questions.  Questions that need to be reflected on, not only by the Church, but by the LGBT community.  What new image, new understanding of God is being called forth through the LGBT struggle for marriage equality?  What does marriage equality for the LGBT community reveal about the nature of God's relationship towards humanity? 

In the Bible, a wedding feast was the celebration that honored the binding together of two families, or houses.  Jesus also offers the image of the wedding feast as a metaphor to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven.  In heaven, two houses will come together and celebrate one another and God.  I can't help but think that the Spirit is at work in our struggle for marriage equality. Reminding us we are all Children of God and called to celebrate the goodness of each other, as in the wedding feast of heaven and earth.

Peace and all good,
Brother Sun and Sister Moon

Subscribed to the YouTube Channel: American Foundation for Equal Rights to follow the latest information on Marriage Equality in the United States of America.

Personal Reflection:
What new image, new understanding of God is being called forth through the LGBT struggle for marriage equality?  What does marriage equality for the LGBT community reveal about the nature of God's relationship towards humanity?  Feel free to share your reflections in the comment spaces below.