Y’all, We Just Have to Do Better

I don’t say this to be unkind, to be condescending, or to be disrespectful of cherished values...I say this because our survival may depend on our waking up. If someone tells you the earth is 6k years old, that person is either a moron, a crazy person, a jokester, or a very sheltered and naive person who has been woefully misinformed. In any case, s/he is WRONG. Who cares? We all should, because if we ignore reliable science on matters like the earth’s age, then we’ll ignore science about climate change, gender identity, sexual orientation, childhood/adolescent/adult development, dementia, immune suppressing diseases...stuff that really matters. You get to have your god, your religion, your rituals, your myths, your values, and your dreams (I am very thankful for my own), but you must also be open to learning, to reason, to peer reviewed information, and to ideas that offer solutions other than “hate/fear those brown people or those queers or those non-Americans over there.”

Children are in cages. Families are torn apart. Refugees fleeing for their lives are being turned away (or turned back to the hells they escaped). The environment is under attack. Same gender loving people and gender non-conforming/non-binary/transgender/two spirit people are having their families, their lives, their very identities threatened. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to be smarter than we’ve been. And it is certainly time to participate fully in our democracy. Apathy is hurting us even more than the dedication of the unenlightened.

The earth isn’t flat and it isn’t young. Living, breathing, named, thinking, socially interactive children matter at least as much as fetuses. The earth isn’t invulnerable. And ignoring these facts has put our collective butts in a sling. Please, let’s do better.

We Must Not Be Silent

My dear friends,

 

By now you have undoubtedly heard about state legislatures once again dehumanizing and demonizing same-gender loving people and people who do not fit into false gender binary constructs. It is heartbreaking.

 

It was naïve to think that peddlers of bigotry would quietly accept the SCOTUS marriage equality ruling and it was myopic of LBGT organizations to not prepare us for such eventualities. Nevertheless, we cannot be silent as states continue to devalue their LGBTQQIA citizens.

 

To the councils and legislatures of municipalities and state halls of government, we must raise our voices with the prophet Amos to say, “Let justice roll on like many waters!”

 

To houses of worship and those who preach a pugnacious piety rather than a liberating gospel, we must raise our voices with a contributor to the Book of Isaiah to say, “Sacred space is to be a house of prayer for all people!”

 

To the holders and keepers of power and privilege who use every means at their disposal to enforce bigotry, division, and oppression, we must raise our voices with a legendary liberator to say, “Let my people go!”

 

To those who use religion, tradition, and sacred texts to demean and diminish the Queer children of God, we must raise our voices with an early church writer to say, “God is love and WHOEVER lives in love lives in God and God lives in them.”

 

Dozens of anti-LBGT laws and ordinances have been proposed in the last several months in multiple states and municipalities. These laws claim to protect religion (though people remain free to worship wherever and however they choose), privacy (while publicly demonizing LBGT people), and personal safety (portraying LBGT people as predatory, violent criminals lying in wait to harm innocent victims); but in truth, these laws are little more than attempts to legalize discrimination against people who have suffered throughout history for simply being different from the majority. These hateful laws do not advance liberty but deter it and people of conscience and character, courage and conviction must resist these attempts to oppress Queer people.

 

Of the many proposals to legalize and legitimate discrimination, North Carolina takes the lead in passing what is widely regarded as the most sweeping anti-LBGT legislation in the US. Justice workers are calling the new draconian law a “hostile takeover of civil rights.” Mississippi recently passed similar anti-LBGT legislation as did Georgia, but unlike North Carolina and Mississippi, Georgia’s governor vetoed the reprehensible bill.

 

We are currently in a climate where Muslims are routinely slandered, women are frequently insulted, immigrants regardless of documentation status are viewed with suspicion, transgender people are portrayed as a threat, and gays and lesbians are continually called “sinful” for their love and attractions. What is worse is that this despicable climate is encouraged by various political and religious leaders. It would be absolutely immoral for us to be silent in this growing climate of hatred.

 

Some political leaders, some religious leaders, some business leaders, and some community leaders are speaking out, and God bless them for it. It is now time that we all speak out. With our charitable giving, our spending, our speech, our votes, with every tool at the disposal of decent people, we must try to turn the tide of hatred and honor our national pledge that affirms “liberty and justice for ALL.”

 

I can promise you that the leadership of Sunshine Cathedral will not be silent while LBGT people and others are constantly vilified and attacked. We will with as much fervor as ever affirm the sacred value of ALL people, and we will declare boldly and consistently that religion used to promote discrimination is misused. We will not passively allow religion to be the weapon used to oppress LBGT people or anyone else. 

In the name of all prophets, preachers, and poets of Justice, we will not be silent. Your continued, faithful, prayerful support of Sunshine Cathedral will help our collective voices be heard. Our work is not yet done...

 

Your fellow laborer in the vineyard of justice,

 

 

 

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister

Sunshine Cathedral 

"Religious Freedom" Discrimation Bills are Oppressive, Plain and Simple

I'm glad there is such an outcry against Indiana's law allowing discrimination based on religion (discrimination is discrimination whether or not you blame it on a deity), and I hope that the other 18 states with similar laws will experience a similar backlash (including ARKANSAS). These laws are fueled by homophobia, but once in place, anyone could refuse service to anyone else for any reason as long as they claimed it was for religious purposes...Muslims, women, divorcees, people who work at women's clinics, Jews, Catholics, Atheists, smokers, drinkers, women who wear makeup, biracial families, Wiccans...no one is safe. All anyone would need to claim is "my religion says YOU are bad". Hatred of gays allowed these laws to pass, but it would be naive to believe they will be limited to gays (and even if they were, discrimination against one group is problematic enough). From women's suffrage to anti-Semitism to Jim Crow to sodomy laws...this battle has been fought over and over. When will this nation grow past the need to marginalize, control, belittle, or exclude groups of people (and how many times can we cling to such hatefulness in the name of a deity???). These laws make religion seem irrelevant (if not dangerous) and government seem ineffective (if not tyrannical). Write letters. Share Tweets. Vote in ALL elections (not just national). And limit spending in the places that are presenting bigotry as "religious freedom."

Various Thoughts & Prayers Re: Possible Strikes on Syria

"Jesus’ call to be peacemakers takes us in a different direction than missile strikes. I believe the just cause being laid out against Assad is indeed a moral case, and I trust both President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry’s intentions around that cause. But I believe that the military strikes now being proposed are not the best moral response to this moral crisis — and they could ultimately undermine both our moral case and the moral intentions." Jim Wallis

Even some of the most conservative religious voices oppose military intervention at this point: "Geoff Tunnicliffe, CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance, pointed out the negative effect military strikes would have on Christians in the Middle East. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in a letter to Obama that strikes would be 'counterproductive' and 'exacerbate an already deadly situation.' And the Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore echoed the concerns, saying, there are just-cause principles missing 'both to justify action morally and to justify it prudentially.'"

“War brings on war! Violence brings on violence."
Pope Francis, who supports a negotiated settlement of the Syrian civil war, calling upon people of faith around the world to pray and fast for peace this Saturday, Sept. 7.

Prayer for Peace in the world:

"Great God...save us from ourselves, save us from the vengeance in our hearts and the acid in our souls.  Save us from our desire to hurt as we have been hurt, to punish as we have been punished, to terrorize as we have been terrorized.  Give us the strength it takes to...trust rather than to fear, to try again and again to make peace even when peace eludes us.
We ask,... O God, for the grace to be our best selves. We ask for the vision to be builders of the human community rather than its destroyers. We ask for the humility as a people to understand the fears and hopes of other peoples. We ask for the love it takes to bequeath to the children of the world to come more than the failures of our own making. We ask for the heart it takes to care for all the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, of Palestine and Israel [and of Syria] as well as for ourselves...
[M]ay we be merciful and patient and gracious and trusting with these others whom you also love.
This we ask through Jesus, the one without vengeance in his heart. This we ask forever and ever. Amen" - Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

 

"Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee; all things are passing, God never changeth! Patient endurance attaineth to all things; who God possesseth in nothing is wanting; alone God sufficeth." Northumbria Community blessing

 

Prayer for Peace (adapted): 

"Eternal Hope, in whose perfect kin-dom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Light, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of...Peace, as members of one global family. Amen."

 

Under the heading of there is nothing new under the sun:

"[In 1914] Paul Jones was ... made Bishop of the Missionary District of Utah. He was an outspoken pacifist, and when World War I began in 1914, he spoke against it. As the war progressed, and when the United States entered the war in 1917, many Americans were vehement in holding that pursuing the war was a moral duty, and opposition to the war was immoral.In the spring of 1918... Bishop Jones resigned as Bishop of Utah. He continued to speak out within the Church as an advocate of peace and the Christian renunciation of war, until his death on 4 September 1941." James Kiefer

 

"If all our options are bad, why pick the one that involves missiles?" Rachel Maddow

 

Q&A with Dr Durrell Watkins

Question: As Christians, should we support attacking Syria?

Answer: The answer to questions of military intervention are always complex and defy simple answers. I can tell you that early Christians were pacifists and I can remind you of the angelic prayer from the Nativity story, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward all people.”

 

There is also an ancient Jewish tale of God reprimanding the people of Israel when they were celebrating the drowning of Egyptian forces. God, according to the tale, reminded them that the Egyptians were children of God also and God was very sad that they had perished.

And, of course, we know that peaceful revolutionaries such as Gandhi and Dr King changed the world with non-violent resistance.

From political or national security perspectives, there are probably arguments for and against military action. Ethicists might weigh in with their own understandings. From a theological viewpoint, or at least from my theological viewpoint, I always prefer peaceful solutions, or at least attempts at peaceful solutions to major conflicts. I always hope military action will be a last resort.

If a dictator has committed genocide against his own people, then it would be obscene to remain silent in the face of such atrocity. However, there may be ways of showing disapproval of such action and of standing in solidarity with the oppressed short of drone strikes that will also cost human lives. I also wonder why we find one act of atrocity to be worthy of military action and another to not require such action. We seem oddly selective about our moral outrage in these situations.

My opinion, or yours for that matter, will unlikely change the course of events. But I hope as a faith community we never are comfortable with rushing to violence. And, come what may, we should continue praying as we do every Sunday, “May peace prevail on earth.”

(from Sept. 8th, 2013 edition of The Sun Burst, Sunshine Cathedral's weekly newsletter)

 

"As humanitarians confronting the horror of the Syrian civil war, we must consider how we can best protect civilians, end the violence, and uphold the international prohibition on using chemical weapons. But we shouldn't make matters worse on the ground just to answer war crimes with a limited and largely symbolic show of force." Credo Action

 

11 Reasons Why We Shoud Not Attack Syria

http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/eleven-reasons-why-we-should-not-attack-syria#.UiSfQHAP2tE.facebook

 

 

 

 

 

Letter Re: Homophobic Association (sent July 10)

Dear Friends,

In an effort to influence local residents on a zoning issue, WPBT helped pay for and distribute a flier that carries their logo, as well as that of Impact Miami, a church led by homophobic preacher Jack Hakimian.

YouTube videos show Pastor Hakimian equating same-gender loving relationships to pedophilia (which is outrageous - mutual adult relationships have nothing to do with the abuse of power that takes place when an adult enters a relationship with a non-adult), claiming that the bible says gays can become non-gay (which is false - it says no such thing anywhere), and comparing same-sex love and attraction to drug abuse and witchcraft (which is too ridiculous to warrant a rebuttal).

On Facebook, Mr. Hakimian has posted, "I want to make clear that I disagree based on the scriptures that you can actively be gay and still call yourself a Christian."

He is certainly free to disagree, but he has neither the moral nor the institutional authority to determine who may call themselves anything. A Christian is one who is either culturally or historically part of a larger community that identifies as Christian, or one who actively participates in a worshiping congregation that has Jesus of Nazareth somehow as its central figure. Sexual identity does not make one a Christian nor does it exclude one from being a Christian.

Of course, Pastor Jack is entitled to his opinions and is free to share them with his congregation. Homophobia and heterosexism are not new and many have tried to disguise their prejudices as religious values. In a free country, one can express any opinion however hateful, hurtful, or exclusionary it may be.

But it seems problematic that WPBT would partner with such a divisive figure; it is at very least cause for concern for their LBGT viewers.

Of course, WPBT may deny that working with Impact Miami on one issue equals support of their oppressive rhetoric, but I'm not sure that argument is persuasive. The appearance is that a WPBT shares the values of Impact Miami, and if that is the case, the viewers have a right to know.

And so, I have written to the CEO of WPBT and the WPBT board members for whom I had email addresses. If you would like to express concern to the television station, contact CEO Rick Schneider (rickschneider@wpbt.org).

Below is the letter I sent to Rick Schneider and various board members. I invite you to share your thoughts and concerns with WPBT as well.

Yours in the work for justice,

Rev. Durrell Watkins, D.Min.

....................................................................

From: Durrell Watkins
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 3:25 PM
To: 'rickschneider@wpbt.org'
Cc: 'emma@carrascocomm.com'; 'wsartory@alslaw.com'; 'jack.lowell@flaglerdev.com'
Subject: wpbt2

"WPBT2 is a vibrant force in the South Florida community that entertains, enlightens, and educates. Our content changes lives, inspires trust, and makes a difference. We reflect the diversity of the region in which we live and work." - WPBT2 Mission Statement

The stated mission above is laudable. However, it was clearly not in the mind of decision makers when the station's logo was put on a flier next to the logo for an area church that promotes homophobia and intolerance.

The pastor of Impact Miami has a right to preach hatred and intolerance, and his church and your station have a right to oppose zoning changes, but to put your logos side by side without explanation gives the appearance of an ideological partnership that isn't enlightening, educational, life changing, or trust inspiring.

As a community resource, you might wish to cover what his church stands for as you might wish to cover what various churches, synagogues, civic organizations, spiritual and political groups stand for, but when lobbying for a specific political outcome to simply without equivocation place your logos side by side sends a disturbing message.

The rights of same-gender loving people are constantly under attack and religion is the excuse most often used for trying to deny them their civil liberties and social equality. Is it really appropriate to seem to align yourselves with an oppressive voice of intolerance simply because on one issue you share a common goal?

As a progressive minister committed to working for social justice and the healing of harm done by oppressive and abusive ideologies such as those proclaimed by the pastor of Impact Miami, I felt compelled to share with you how disappointing I find your choice to team with his church on your recent flier. I find that choice to be ill advised and certainly less than enlightened; I do not find that trust has been inspired in this case.

Thank you for allowing me to share my concerns.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Senior Pastor
Sunshine Cathedral

Action Alert from MCC

A C T I O N A L E R T
from Metropolitan Community Churches

URGENT! TIME VALUE!
LGBT Jamaicans Need Your Help Today!

An Important Messagefrom Rev. Pat BumgardnerChair, MCC Global Justice TeamFebruary 28, 2007

Your help today -- just a few minutes of your time -- can help protect the lives of LGBT across Jamaica.Time Magazine has designated Jamaica "the most homophobic country in the Western hemisphere." Over several years, MCC has documented an alarming pattern of overt hostility, violent attacks, and murder of LGBT people in Jamaica. These incidents have received little coverage by the Jamaican media and have often been ignored by the civil authorities.In the latest incident, three gay men in St. Andrew's parish were attacked by a mob on Valentines Day 2007. While being rescued by police, one of the gay men was gun-butted by an officer. Another was hit by a rock thrown from the mob. All of the men were taunted with anti-gay slurs by police officers.Now is the time for all people of goodwill to take a stand for justice and against intolerance. No person of conscience should remain silent in the face of the continuing horrific attacks on gays in Jamaica.By taking action today -- in less than five minutes -- you can help make a difference in the lives of our LGBT brothers and sisters in Jamaica.Won't you take two simple steps right now?

First, write a brief e-mail directly to Jamaica's Prime Minister... The Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller at HPM@opm.gov.jm. Keep your message brief and write from your heart. Ask her to speak out publicly against the violence, to establish a tone of respect and tolerance for all life, and to guarantee the human rights and safety of Jamaica's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens. (And to help us track responses, please send a copy of your e-mail to MCC's Communications Department at info@MCCchurch.net.)

Second, forward this Action Alert... to your friends, distribute it to your e-mail lists, and post it on listserves to which you subscribe. Reprint it in your newsletters, post it on your website, and send it to publications and media outlets in your area. Help get the word out.Your actions -- today! -- will focus international attention on the horrific pattern of anti-gay violence in Jamaica and can help bring about legal protections for LGBT Jamaicans.

/signed/

Rev. Pat BumgardnerChairMCC Global Justice Team


(END)



For Additional Information, ContactMCC Communications DepartmentE-Mail: info@MCCchurch.netWeb: http://www.mccchurch.org/