According to polls (H/T), Catholics are more supportive of gay rights than the general public:

• Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor either allowing gay and lesbian people to marry (43%) or
allowing them to form civil unions (31%). Only 22% of Catholics say there should be no legal
recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.
• Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Catholics favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people against
discrimination in the workplace; 63% of Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve
openly in the military; and 6-in-10 (60%) Catholics favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt
children.
• Less than 4-in-10 Catholics give their own church top marks (a grade of an A or a B) on its handing
of the issue of homosexuality; majorities of members of most other religious groups give their
churches high marks.
• A majority of Catholics (56%) believe that sexual relations between two adults of the same gender is
not a sin.

<Snark> Perhaps this data came about because Catholics are more likely than the general public to know a gay man: their local priest. </Snark>

In all seriousness, this is probably further confirmation that Catholics look to their own consciences rather than to the teaching of their church when deciding what’s right and wrong.  In other words, they’re effectively Protestant.

Hubbard posted this at 11:22 AM CDT on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 as Faith, Here and Queer

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This is a peculiar solution for gay men and lesbians who wish to be married and have children:

Rabbis from the religious Zionist community have launched an initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women – with some surprising successes.

So far, 11 marriages have been performed. Haaretz conducted an email interview with one such couple, Etti and Roni (not their real names ).

Etti and Roni, both religious, were married five years ago. Though they were honest with each other about their sexual orientations from their first meeting, to the outside world, they portray themselves as a normal heterosexual couple. Today, they have two children, and are thrilled with the results.

This might work for some gay people, but perhaps not most.  One of the unsurprising problems that arises:

“Most of the couples agree not to have relationships with members of their own sex, but if there are ‘lapses’ once every few years, they don’t see this as a betrayal,” he said. “Generally, it’s between them and their Creator.”

It seems to me that it would be easier just to marry someone you genuinely love—perhaps I’m too old fashioned.

Hubbard posted this at 12:28 PM CDT on Monday, March 14th, 2011 as Faith, Here and Queer

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Normally, David Frum is one of the more reasonable voices on the right.  But I cannot follow his logic here:

Think for a minute: Why do people oppose same-sex marriage in the first place?

They do so because they fear that otherwise America’s young people will end up like … Bristol and Levi: having sex and raising children without regard to marriage.

Karol’s response is my own:

For all the reasons I’ve heard that people oppose gay marriage, I have never, ever, heard that one. Because, see, having sex and raising children without marriage is what gay people are doing now. And, even without gay marriage, so are Bristol and Levi.

Hubbard posted this at 7:55 PM CDT on Monday, August 9th, 2010 as Here and Queer

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Memorandum

To: The Gay Rights Movement

From: Nick Machiavelli

Re: Fear, Love, and Hate

I note, with some approval, that some of you have read my little work about how leaders should behave, but caution that what works for a prince might be counterproductive for queens.

When I wrote The Prince, bear in mind that I never expected the masses to read my work.  Further, I advised that the masses should remain ignorant of a prince’s ulterior motives.  It’s one thing if people fear rather than love a prince (so long as they don’t hate him); it’s a very different thing when an entire group of people attempts to be feared rather than loved; they’ll surely be hated.  Besides, I might be a sixteenth century Florentine, but even I know that the queer community is perpetually in danger of being seen as mere comic relief.

Your real problem, of course, is that most straight people don’t make the same fine distinctions amongst you gays as they do among their fellow straights.  More bluntly, they think of you as a squalling interest group that should stay at the kids’ table, away from the grown ups.  No adult cares much what goes on at the kids’ table–indulge or discipline but don’t take ‘em seriously–and most straight folk feel much the same way about you.

You do need a strategy change if you seek equality, but remember that change can always be for the worse.  Consider the black civil rights movement for a moment.

Any aggrieved minority can produce an explosive character like Malcolm X.  (For sake of this memo, I speak of the black supremacist X, rather than as he was at the end of his life, when he renounced racism and left the Nation of Islam.)  Had the civil rights movment produced nothing but Xs, Jim Crow laws would probably still be on the books, and may well have spread outside the states of the old confederacy.  Malcolm X was feared and hated.  Militancy in minorities is a quick route to provoking a harsh reaction from a threatened majority.

The civil rights movement succeeded because their dominant figure was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.  They were peaceful and patient, but they spoke with firm moral authority.  They marched in their Sunday best rather than feather boas.

Serious dress and thoughtful argument are outward and visible signs of inner grace–which is precisely what the straight majority thinks your community lacks.  Until you can demonstrate such grace, you are doomed to remain at the kids’ table.

Hubbard posted this at 10:21 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 as Here and Queer, Humor, Politics

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Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn have co-written an op-ed on gay marriage.  It’s somewhat like seeing Nancy Pelosi and Rick Santorum co-write on abortion.  If there’s a conservative way to integrate gay families into the law, this is it:

We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have had heated debates on the subject. Nonetheless, we agree that the time is ripe for a deal that could give each side what it most needs in the short run, while moving the debate onto a healthier, calmer track in the years ahead.

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

Read it all.  (H/T)

Hubbard posted this at 10:32 AM CDT on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 as Here and Queer, Kulturkampf

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Karol—

I always believed you were born gay, even before that became the only acceptable opinion on homosexuality.

I now know FOUR gay people who have “gone straight” and married women.

I also know one straight guy who, after a bad break-up with a woman, decided to only date men.

What’s up with that?

Sexual orientation is complicated.  My own theory is that it’s shaped both by genes and the environment.  One ex-boyfriend of mine has since married a woman; I’ve lost touch with him and have no idea if they’re still together.  (No comments from the peanut gallery about how I turned him straight, please.  First, I’ve probably heard it already; second, this man had quite a few other issues.)  I also dated a transman for a time; when a friend asked me if this made me gay or straight, I suggested that either way I was queer.

I don’t think that “born gay” is the only acceptable opinion on homosexuality, but activists on both sides are intent on framing the issue as either involuntary or voluntary.  That something can be complicated is too advanced an idea for the gay and anti-gay rights activist alike.

Hubbard posted this at 1:11 PM CDT on Monday, December 29th, 2008 as Here and Queer

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Conor has thrown out a question: will same-sex marriage undermine religious liberty?  My answer: Very possibly.

Catholic charities in Massachusetts once handled many adoptions, and they refused to place children in the homes of same-sex couples, which got them sued.  When they lost the lawsuit and the court said they could not “discriminate” against same-sex couples, the Catholic charities shut down rather than be forced to go against their faith.

Hypothetical question: could a same-sex couple get married in a Catholic church?  The church would argue that since they don’t recognize same-sex unions, they could not.  Quite a few gay Catholics would love to pick a fight over this.  As surely as George W. Bush will mangle the English language, someone is going to file a lawsuit about this. 

Elizabeth Scalia (aka the Anchoress) foresaw this question and proposed a thoughtful and humane way to deal with it:

[T]he churches should reconsider their roles in authenticating marriage. Governments issue birth certificates; churches issue baptismal certificates. Governments issue death certificates; churches pray the funerals. Governments issue divorces; Churches annul. Both work within their separate and necessary spheres, serving the corporeal and the spiritual. It is only in the issue of marriage that church and state have commingled authority. That should perhaps change, and soon. Let the government certify and the churches sanctify according to their rites and sacraments.

Given that expensive litigation is as American as arrested development, we probably won’t do it her way.  Let the ugly begin.

Hubbard posted this at 10:03 AM CDT on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 as Faith, Here and Queer

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Some years ago, Camille Paglia rightly ripped gay activists: Read the rest of this entry »

Hubbard posted this at 11:30 AM CDT on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 as Here and Queer

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