The first "senior moment:"

AKA "How the dinosaurs became extinct"

President takes on birthers & Uganda anti-gay law @ Nat'l Prayer Breakfast

The Huffington Post has the entire text of the President's remarks this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

Here's a quote:

"We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on earth," Obama said. "We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance, to lift our neighbors out of poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, whether it is here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda."

Here's another one:

Speaking Thursday morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, a conciliatory President Barack Obama urged attendees to bypass grievances in their efforts to push forward morally and socially responsible policy.

But at the same time, he made it clear that there are some positions that lie outside that realm of civil discourse, such as birther conspiracies and the targeting of gays and lesbians.

"Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable," Obama declared before a standing-room-only crowd. "[C]ivility is not a sign of weakness. Now I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. But surely, you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter, my citizenship."

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Imagine if we could find a way to apply those same standards to our discourse in the church -- or in the communion.

Oh well -- a girl can dream.
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Colin Powell Steps Up on DADT

As reported today in the NYTimes:

“In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed,” General Powell said in a statement issued by his office. He added: “I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen.”

Joint Chiefs chair says gays and lesbians should serve military openly

As reported in today's L.A. Times:
Reporting from Washington - The nation's top military officer said Tuesday that he supported allowing gays to openly serve -- adding a powerful voice to the deeply controversial issue as the Pentagon announced steps to prepare for possibly ending its 17-year ban on homosexuality.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military would follow the 1993 law known as "don't ask, don't tell." Nonetheless, he said, his personal views were firm.

"Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do," Mullen said.

His views are particularly important in the debate. It was one of his predecessors, Gen. Colin L. Powell, who played a major role in derailing then- President Clinton's failed bid to allow gays to serve openly in the military. In 1993, Powell called the policy a "healthy compromise." But in December 2008, he said the ban should be reviewed.

If your criterion for being included is that someone ELSE is excluded ...

... well, then, it sucks to be you!

I'm sure I could find kinder, gentler, more pastorally theological language to make that point this morning but there is it.

A point that has been made over and over and OVER -- on this blog and elsewhere -- is that there is a critical, ontological difference between FEELING excluded because you're disagreed with and BEING excluded.

It's a point I don't think we can overstate if we're going to follow the One who called all us to walk in love as he loved us and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Even the neighbors we don't like. The ones who don't vote like us, pray like us or make choices like us. The ones who annoy us to the core of our deeply held convinctions. Even the ones who think we aren't entitled to be included because we don't vote like them, pray like them or make choices like them.

So why this particular rant this particular morning?

Partly because my 10:30 appointment got postponed til 11:15 and I have a few unexpected minutes. But mostly because a colleague forwarded a copy of this article from The Living Church with the subject line: "See -- it IS all about us!"

The piece is about Mouneer Anis's resignation from the AC Standing Committee ... and this is the part that got me going:

Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.

“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this.”

And so it all came down to "If I can't keep Katharine from coming then I quit."

So let me repeat: If your criterion for being included is that someone else is excluded well, then ... it sucks to be you.

And this morning I'm being given just a tiny shred of hope that the era of being blackmailed-into-bigotry is coming to an end for our Big Fat Anglican Family. The Episcopal Church took a giant step forward in Anaheim ... and maybe -- just maybe -- the SCAC & ACC are going to go and do likewise.

Or not.

But it'll be their choice. Meanwhile, we're making ours. Choosing to include everyone who chooses to be included. And refusing to buy into the "spin" that those who remove themselves from the table because they don't like who else in on the guest list are somehow now the "marginalized."

Choosing not to come because you don't like the guest list and then looking for sympathy because you've been "excluded" is like killing your parents and then looking for sympathy because you're an orphan.

And that dog just won't hunt. Even if you ARE an Archbishop.
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Because ... If your criterion for being included is that someone else is excluded well, then ... it sucks to be you.

Finding "no desire" to vote TEC off the Anglican Island, +Anis Throws in Tribal Council Torch

In his letter dated January 30, Archbishop Mouneer Anis resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, saying:

I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by the other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart. Moreover, the SCAC, formerly known as the join Standing Committee (JSC), has continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference.

You can read the whole letter (on the PDF linked above) but the Clif Notes version is "We're not having any luck voting the Episcopal Church off the Anglican Island so I'm quitting the Tribal Council."

.May the good bishop go in peace to love and serve the Lord ... and leave the rest of us to get on with the work and witness we've been given to do.

.(PS - Remember this when the well-meaning-but-misinformed-among-us try to use "the Anglican Communion will split" as a reason not to consent to the election of a certain bishop suffragan-elect from the Diocese of Los Angeles. "Survivor: The Anglican Communion" is off the air. TBTG!)

"You Can't Turn the Lights Off Now" (AKA "The truth will set you free." John 8:32)

HitRECord's animated short about the Prop 8 trial, transparency, media, freedom and the future. Made collaboratively during the Sundance Film Festival.

Written and directed by the Teafaerie. (Get ready to sing along! :)