Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy | Newsweek Culture | Newsweek.com

If the bible doesn’t give abundant examples of traditional marriage, then what are the gay-marriage opponents really exercised about? Well, homosexuality, of course—specifically sex between men. Sex between women has never, even in biblical times, raised as much ire. In its entry on “Homosexual Practices,” the Anchor Bible Dictionary notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women, “possibly because it did not result in true physical ‘union’ (by male entry).” The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as “an abomination” (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

Maybe I am cynical, but if these military folks get their way and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is abolished in favor of allowing lesbian and gay soldiers and sailors being able to serve openly in the US military the way they already do in the UK, Israel, and other nations could be a huge boon for all gays and lesbians.

It is one thing to deny marriage rights to, say, a gay couple made up of a chef and an investment banker, but its a completely different thing to deny basic human rights to veterans who have put their lives on the line to serve the United States.

Retired Admiral Charles Larson, former Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, tops a list of 104 retired Generals and Admirals calling for an end to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing gay troops, the Associated Press reported today.

Admiral Larson, who was commissioned in 1958, was in charge of U.S. and Allied submarines in the Mediterranean as a two-star admiral, and became head of the entire U.S. military command in the Pacific as a four-star admiral before retiring in 1998.

President-elect Barack Obama has said that he will work with Pentagon brass to repeal the policy. Last month, however, Obama adviser and retired Air Force General Merrill McPeak, said that “don’t ask, don’t tell” should be retained. In this context, the statement may help the incoming administration clarify how it will respond to gay issues.

In 1993, Admiral Larson supported “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He thought it was a mistake for Bill Clinton, who was a close acquaintance, to try to lift the ban immediately, and wished he would have worked more closely with the military if he wanted to make the change. “You can’t change the military culture overnight,” he recalled thinking. At the time he thought that banning open gays and lesbians, which was then viewed as temporary, was the best solution if properly administered.

Admiral Larson changed his view after he learned that “there were a lot of witch hunts and a lot of people were turned out on that basis.” He found that the policy was not being implemented as he had hoped, and the military was losing valuable talent. He was also influenced by having a number of people work for him who were gay, and by having a gay daughter with whom he spoke at length about gays in the military.

He now believes the ban should end. “I think the time has come to find a way to let talented, young, patriotic Americans who want to serve their country serve,” he said, “and let’s enforce high standards of personal and human behavior for everyone.

The statement that Admiral Larson signed is reproduced here:

We – the undersigned — respectfully call for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Those of us endorsing this letter have dedicated our lives to defending the rights of our citizens to believe whatever they wish. Scholarly data shows there are approximately one million gay and lesbian veterans in the United States today as well as 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serving in our armed forces. They have served our nation honorably. We support the recent comments of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General John Shalikashvili, who has concluded that repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would not harm and would indeed help our armed forces. As is the case with Great Britain, Israel, and other nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Such collaboration reflects the strength and the best traditions of our democracy.

Signers after the cut.

Former Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander
Admiral Charles Larson, USN (ret.)
Lieutenant General Quinn Becker, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Henry Emerson, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Robert Flowers, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Robert Gard, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Jerry Hilmes, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Ira Owens, USA (ret.)
Lieutenant General Thomas Rienzi, USA (ret.)
Vice Admiral Harold Koenig, USN (ret.)
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, USN (ret.)
Vice Admiral James Zimble, USN (ret.)
Major General Anders Aadland, USA (ret.)
Major General Floyd Baker, USA (ret.)
Major General Harry Brooks Jr., USA (ret.)
Major General Leslie Burger, USA (ret.)
Major General Alexander Burgin, USANG (ret.)
Major General Rosetta Burke, AUS (ret.)*
Major General William Burke, USA (ret.)
Major General Michael Conrad, USA (ret.)
Major General Eugene Cromartie, USA (ret.)
Major General James Delk, AUS (ret.)
Major General Oliver Dillard, USA (ret.)
Major General John Faith, USA (ret.)
Major General Jack Farris, USAF (ret.)
Major General Fred Forster, USANG (ret.)
Major General Robert Gamrath, AUS (ret.)
Major General Albert Genetti Jr., USA (ret.)
Major General Luis Gonzales-Vales, AUS (ret.)
Major General David Hale, USA (ret.)
Major General Randy Jayne, USANG (ret.)
Major General Lawrence Johnson, AUS (ret.)
Major General Dennis Laich, USA (ret.)
Major General Frederick Lawson, AUS (ret.)
Major General Thomas Lynch, USA (ret.)
Major General Dennis Malcor, USA (ret.)
Major General John Roth, AUS (ret.)
Major General Henry Rasmussen, USA (ret.)
Major General Alan Salisbury, USA (ret.)
Major General Michael Scotti Jr., USA (ret.)**
Major General Harry Sieben, USANG (ret.)
Major General Paul Smith, USA (ret.)
Major General Robert B. Smith, USA (ret.)
Major General Charles Starr Jr., USA (ret.)
Major General Story Stevens, USA (ret.)
Major General Joseph E. Turner, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General John C. Adams, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Hugh Aitken, USMC (ret.)
Brigadier General John “Joe” Allen, USAF (ret.)
Brigadier General Patricia Anderson, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Dale Barber, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General George Baxter, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Baxter, USAF (ret.)
Brigadier General George Blysak, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Harold Bowman, USANG (ret.)
Brigadier General Douglas Bradley, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Jack Capps, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Richard Carter, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Steve Chapplis, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General BG David Cole, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General William Colvin, USANG (ret.)
Brigadier General Joseph Cutrona, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Tom Daniels, USAF (ret.)
Brigadier General Von DeLoatch, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Dilworth, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General George Eggers Jr., USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Evelyn Foote, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Giffen, USAF (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Hardy Jr., USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Carlos Hayden, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Edwin Heffelfinger, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General James Hunt, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General John H. Johns, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General J.D Johnson, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Keith H. Kerr, CSMR (ret.)
Brigadier General Douglas Kinnard, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Dean Mann, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General James Martin, USAF (ret.)
Brigadier General William Meehan II, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Harold Miller, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Kenneth Newbold, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General I.R. Obenchain Jr., USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Phil Peay, USANG (ret.)
Brigadier General Dorothy Pocklington, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Poirot, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Philip Pushkin, USANG (ret.)
Brigadier General Virgil Richard, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General William Richter, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Kenneth Rieth, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Ernst Roberts, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Murray Sagsveen, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General Norman Salisbury, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Donald Schenk, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Bettye Simmons, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Theodore Vander Els, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Daniel Wardrop, USA (ret.)
Brigadier General Robert Watling, AUS (ret.)
Brigadier General John Weinzettle, USA (ret.)
Rear Admiral James Barnett, USN (ret.)
Rear Admiral Robert Krasner, USN (ret.)
Rear Admiral Charles Rauch, USN (ret.)
Rear Admiral Alan Steinman, USPHS (ret.)

TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 26 /USNewswire/ — Reverend Phillip Miller- Evans of the American Baptist Church of the Beatitudes, St. Petersburg joined Tampa Bay interfaith clergy and elected officials today at a rally in Lowry Park to voice opposition to Amendment 2.

Rev. Miller-Evans represents Florida Clergy for Fairness, an ad-hoc coalition of clergy members from a wide spectrum of religious traditions who have mounted a state-wide campaign calling on all like-minded faith leaders to speak out against the amendment. More than two hundred clergy members and other religious leaders, representing a broad coalition of religious voices, have already signed onto Florida Clergy for Fairness’ public statement urging voters to oppose Amendment 2 since its inception less than 3 weeks ago.

Florida Clergy for Fairness members believe that people of faith and goodwill can and do disagree about what constitutes marriage, but that this amendment would endorse one religious view over all others and impose it on all Floridians by constitutional fiat.

Rev. Miller Evans offered the following statement:

“Amendment 2 clearly is a response to the fear by some that America, as they see it, looks different to them and may change from where they are comfortable. It is an attempt to homogenize us into a single world view. The suggestion of supporters of Amendment 2 that this amendment will strengthen traditional family values does not recognize the reality that our religious communities have no unified agreement about what defines traditional family values.

“America is at its best when we embrace the diversity of our cultural backgrounds, racial complexity, and multiplicity of values. Central to our historic standing has been to remain strong in the separation of church and state. I oppose Amendment 2 which would take away the conversation of strong marriage and healthy relationships from the religious communities and would narrowly restrict our view through legislative action.”

The site at Florida Clergy for Fairness offers this well written and nicely argued statement in support of their position.

A Statement of Opposition to Amendment 2

As clergy members from a broad spectrum of religious traditions we hold diverse views regarding marriage. However, we are united in our opposition to amending the Florida Constitution to define marriage.

We share a serious concern that proposed Amendment 2, which will appear on the November 4 ballot would infringe on religious liberty. We believe that marriage decisions should be left to couples, their clergy, and their religious beliefs — not the State of Florida.

Thoughtful people of faith can and do disagree on the issue of marriage. Florida’s many religious traditions reflect this diversity of opinion, as do we who sign this letter. But we respect the right of each religious group to decide, based on its own religious teachings, whether or not to sanction marriage of same-sex couples. It is surely not the government’s role to prefer one religious definition of marriage over another, much less to codify such a preference in the Florida Constitution. To the contrary: the great contribution of our Constitution is to ensure religious liberty for all.

Some argue that a constitutional amendment is necessary to ensure that clergy and faith groups will never be forced to recognize marriages of same-sex couples against their will. This argument is unfounded. Such coercion is already expressly forbidden by Article I, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution, which requires church-state separation and enshrines the right to the free exercise of religion. This is all the protection of religious autonomy — and of religious marriage — our state needs.

Our nation’s founders adopted the First Amendment and our state’s founders adopted the same protections in our Constitution precisely because they understood the dangers of allowing government to have control over religious doctrine and decisions. It is this commitment to religious freedom that has allowed religious practice and pluralism to flourish. If this freedom is to be maintained, we must respect the rights of faith communities to apply their own religious teachings and values to the issue of marriage. It is surely not the business of the Florida Constitution to assert control over the doctrine and practice of our faith communities.

Amendment 2 would undermine religious liberty. Florida’s religious communities do not support this amendment. As leaders of these communities, we pledge to vote no on Amendment 2 and urge you to join us.

I think people of my generation, those of us who came of age in the early to mid 1980′s, are the luckiest generation of gay people in US history. We came of age well after Stonewall and late enough in the age of HIV/AIDS to be aware of the risks of unprotected sex and better able to protect ourselves than the generation before ours. We were also the first generation to have a biological/medical imperative driving us towards monogamy and stable committed relationships. The current move towards forcing the government to recognize gay marriages is a direct result of this situation.

That being said, we were also given a pass on most of the fighting that our predecessors had to do. Like surfers magically transported to the sweet spot on the wave crest, we didn’t have to do all the paddling to get ourselves into position. Change may not be happening as fast as we’d like, but life for us is pretty easy. In most of the mid-to-large sized population centers in the US, a gay or lesbian couple renting an apartment or applying for a mortgage together doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. In much of the country, adoption is dropping off the radar screen as far as being a controversial issue. I’m nearly forty years old now, and I fully expect legalizing gay marriage to be a no-brainer issue by the time I die, if we work for it.

The problem with growing up the way many people my age did is that while we may have gone to the marches in DC, and signed petitions, we didn’t do the organizing of the marches or start the petitions. There are many who have stepped into those shoes as the older generation steps back, but there are many others who are just living their lives. Ideally, that is the goal, to reach a point where we don;t have to march or sign petitions. The problem is that for many of us, our complacency is premature. This is especially true for gays and lesbians in metropolitan (in every sense of the word) cities who don’t truly know what it s like for folks left behind to live in small towns.

We need to keep working to achieve the goals laid out by the people who started the process. This means we need to engage with the politcal process. We need to keep writing letters to the editor. We must blog, talk in forums, participate in open dialogs whenever possible. If you don’t show up at town hall meetings to support or oppose legislation you do not have the right to complain. The fact that someone sees the need for a book like Wait! Don’t Move to Canada: A Stay-And-Fight Strategy to Win Back America says a lot about the apathy that permeates our society. It’s important to note that the apathy is not uniformly spread throughout our culture and society.

There is no shortage of letters to fill the editorial pages of our newspapers. Many places have to limit the length of citizens are allowed to spend addressing city councils. If you want your views to be heard you need to take action. It’s not enough to sit back and wait for the "political types" who share your views to do the heavy lifting.

Many people complain that the consolidation of the mass media and news industry has made it harder for people with different views to get their voices heard. That is certainly true when you consider CNN or Fox News to be the only place to get your voice heard. Instead of getting discouraged, we need to make our voices heard in places where there is still a place at the table. City newspapers will take risks in printing a letter that the big players will not. City council or zoning board meetings are generally open to the public. We need to remember that there is still room in this country for movements for change to grow from the ground up if we approach it properly.  You have one vote of your own, but if you can change the mind or influence the vote of one city council member or one state or federal respresentative, you have just multiplied the power of your vote by many thousand,

Society, and by extension, laws and policies put in place by the government are geared towards minimal change. The legislation that passes easiest is legislation geared towards tweaking an existing condition to make it "good enough". At the level of individuals, it is very easy grow complacent and comfortable with the status quo. These two elements of life in the united states make driving change difficult and time consuming. In 2004 there was a massive push aimed strictly at getting people who opposed Bush’s policies to get off their collective asses for long enough to vote. That did not work as well as it could have because the inclusion of so many state referendums on gay marriage on the ballot, the religious right had just as strong of desire to get out the vote.

The problem is that for a great many Americans, liberal and conservative alike, the act of voting represented their one big political gesture of the year. (Sorry folks, but bitching to people who share your views about how awful the Bush administration is does not count as political action: it’s mental masturbation at best.) If any portion of society, of any political stripe, wants to see real change they need to make it clear to their fellow travelers that voting is not the answer. Voting is the absolute bare minimum you can do to support your beliefs and your society. The fact that people now see the act voting as a political gesture is the problem, not the solution.