The Times They Are Whatever

In addition to likely being the day we'll finally get to know whether we'll be saying President-elect Obama or President-elect Clinton (I'm looking forward to that and hoping for the former), tomorrow the California Supreme Court will hear a case regarding marriage.

I have a "mark my words" position on the issue of what we call homosexuality and homosexual marriage as far as THE CHURCH is concerned. In the same way that contemporarily unconscionable positions were maintained by dominant Christianity in the US with the full support of scripture and tradition but overtime renounced, this finger-wagging, hand-wringing and brow-furrowing over homosexuality will change. Just as those who advocated the abolition of slavery or opposed the nonsense of anti-miscegenation were on the fringe of Christianity at one time, those who are mining scripture and tradition right now for the possibility of a new world regarding homosexuality, in the future, will be at the fore. Whereas today's dominant, or just louder, voices opposing the life of people conveniently missing from our communities will be suppressed or seen as an unfortunate mis-step in the history of THE CHURCH. That is, the Dobsons and Robertsons will go the way of the Wilsons and Graysons

"Who?"

Exactly

Few remember the pro-slavery and white supremacist theology of Princeton and still extant mainline seminaries throughout the US. Instead we craft a history that remembers abolitionists were Christians. We remember that Christianity is responsible for ending American slavery and forget that "All Christians believe that the affairs of the world are directed by Providence for wise and good purposes. The coming of the negro to North America makes no exception to the rule. His transportation was a rude mode of emigration; the only practicable one in his case; not attended with ore wretchedness than the emigrant ship often exhibits even now, notwithstanding the passenger law. What the purpose of his coming is, we may not presume to judge. But we can see much good already resulting from it--good to the negro, in his improved condition; to the country whose rich fields he has cleared of the forest and made productive in climates unfit for the labour of the white man; to the Continent of Africa in furnishing, as it may ultimately, the only means for civilizing its people." We remember that Christianity is responsible for advancing human rights and forget that "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

After tomorrow, a ruling will be due in 90 days. It's unlikely, though possible, that the majority Republican appointees will equally apply the law and say a person can enter into marriage with the person they want. The California Supreme Court did that in 1948 despite majority opposition; it may do it again.

Oh I know, I know, natural order, foundations of civilization, and all that. The natural separation of the races and the continuation of White civilization are threatened by- oh wait, you meant, the natural difference between male and female is threatened- I thought you meant something else. Well, those conceptions will change and we will rationalize our positions in relation to them. We'll advance certain ideas and suppress others. Christians are good guys and whatever is the good in the future will be where we stand, whatever else may have happened up to then.

Or not. I don't mean it won't happen. I mean not all people will say it's the good, and so not all Christians will say, "This is where we ought to be." After all in 2000, Alabama had to vote on their already decreed unconstitutional anti-miscegenation laws and 40% of those voters thought "the races" ought not mix in marriage. For many, maintaining that adversarial position will be "the good." It will be a mark of purity and virtue to be a hold out. But we'll know that that is a hold out position against what is accepted, and so, some Christians will know themselves as Christians precisely because they never gave in. Whatever, the California Supreme Court may not decide in favor of equal protection in this case, but that time will come.

But as far as "or not" goes, I also mean that the above may not be the necessary position of something called Christian. Up to this point I haven't suggested a judgment and I am not advocating a wait and see approach. It's just what I think will happen- enough to say "Mark my words..." enough to wager a cop moustache.

sp!? What- that's how you spell moustache, isn't it? ... Oh mustache. Moustache is a European variant- or is mustache the American variant? See how much things change?

In any case, it's a comin' and that set of relations will be there. I don't think it is necessarily the role of something called the church to be the cheerleader for the broadening reach of Modernity or the long arc of moral justice... or something like that. I do think, in something called the church there is the possibility, and responsibility, to question assumptions and ideologies of gender and live as a people who are learning to worship God in relation to even something as basic seeming as gender.

Face it, what you think it means to be a man or woman, depends on what we think it means to be a man or woman (duh), but if what you think it means to be a man or woman has a thorough, self and other-dominating claim on you then what place does that leave for anything else- especially a not a thing else like God?