Here's the headline from the email blast making the rounds rallying the conservative base to block the long overdue update of the Hate Crimes Bill to include sexual orientation and gender identity by defeating H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007:
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Pro-Homosexual/Drag Queen Bill
On Fast Track In House Of Representatives!
You can read their whole "spin" of the issue here ... but the energy and the venom being unleashed by the conservative fringe on this legislative initiative designed to live out what many of us claim as a traditional value -- responding to Our Lord's call to tend to the needs of "the least of these" among us by protecting the oppressed and marginalized from hate crime violence -- only makes the case for why such legislation is so necessary.
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Here's the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) link to their action on Capitol Hill next week lobbying for the passage of H.R. 1592 -- I'll be there along with about 250 other clergy from all 50 states ... keep us in your prayers ... and do call or write your U.S Representative and urge their support for this important legislation!
7 comments:
Thanks for posting this, Susan. The Religious Right's spin is scary. Why do I have the song 'attack of the killer tomatoes' in my head?!
Wow. Those traditional values folks have an interesting slant on the news.
I’ve often wondered what my grandfather, Rev. Einar Rudolph Anderson, St. Olaf College, Class of 1908, would have thought about the “traditional values” crowd – and All Saints Church.
By any standards, he would have been called conservative. He voted Republican. My mother and her four siblings were not allowed to smoke, drink, swear or dance. They could play cards, but only “Hearts” or “Old Maid,” and then only if the curtains were closed. What would people think if the pastor’s kids were seen playing cards (perhaps poker) through the window?
Conservative, yes. But he preached the Gospel in North Dakota (Fargo) and Wisconsin (Mt. Horeb, Barneveld and Blue Mounds, three services in three neighboring towns each Sunday, in Norwegian and English) for more than half a century. If there was too much snow on the ground to drive on Sundays, he used cross country skis to travel along the railroad tracks. During World War II, when American industry was devoted to the war effort and new cars were impossible to come by, his ancient Model T Ford gave up the ghost. He wrote a letter to Henry Ford explaining the importance of a car to a pastor in taking care of his community. Ford shipped him a new Ford on a railroad flatcar. Sometimes, when he performed a wedding, his payment was in the form of live chickens. The family prayed for good weather on Christmas and Easter because on those days they were allowed to keep the entire contents of the collection plate.
My grandfather ministered to the sick. He visited those in prison every month. He kept index cards on which he recorded his annual visits to very family in the congregation. Depression era hobo signs on the telephone pole in front of the parsonage indicated that free food was available for the asking at the Anderson home. He performed funeral services for the indigent at which there would be no mourners, but there would be music. My mother, as a teenager, sang solos at many of these services because my grandfather believed that no child of God should leave this world with music. His “staff” consisted of a part time janitor and an organist, who was also the high school band director. On Mondays, he went fishing.
Apart from his two week annual vacations, during which the family visited all of the then 48 states by automobile, he missed one Sunday in fifty years - Easter Sunday, 1944, after my mother’s sister Eleanor died unexpectedly on Good Friday, when one of his colleagues from another town filled in.
How would he have felt about the current tensions in the Episcopal church and the “culture wars?” I can’t say for sure but I know that he would recognize the Jesus we follow at All Saints Church. I know that he recognized hatred when he saw it. And I know that he would not consider spewing venom at the marginalized a “traditional value.
I’ll be contacting my representatives today.
You must read the book, "First Comes Marriage," by Rev. John Morris of Vermont. He completely show the falsity of the word "traditional" connected to marriage.
Donna
Colorado
Too bad you can't download their Homosexual Agenda book. If it were free I'd want to just take a look. However, they want $15 plus S&H. I don't want to send them so much as a cent, even if they're not making any money off it.
In any case, I suspect the book covers many of the same points I covered here:
http://weiwentg.blogspot.com/2007/04/episcopal-church-tries-but-fails-to.html
It's an anti-hate crime bill.
A pro drag queen bill would violate Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution:
"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States"
As I thought about the phrase "pro drag queen bill" I had a vision of a friend rolling her eyes "We should be so lucky!"
I've lost gay friends raised in the evangelical "church" to suicide, was partnered to one who started playing the organ professionally at the age of 13 but at 49 still hasn't completely recovered from being told since childhood that God hates gays. My brother and his wife were in it for a long time and when my brother came out of it he told me that it was like the hymn we sang as children, "Praise him, praise him all ye little children God is Love," except their God is fear. Fear, hatred, judgement, legalism, sexism...it's ugly, and people flock to it because it's got a disco beat and prosperity theology. Jesus said He is the way and that the way is narrow with few on it. He was right.
Susan, prayers to you and all the other clergy, pastors, priests, rabbi's and human beings of the cloth. All of you who are doing what Jesus would want will definitly be in my prayers April 16 & 17. Human Rights are Gods given rights to all of us. So go with God and peace be with all of you. Blessings and love!!!!
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