Protests planned for PC(USA) General Assembly

A new round in the ongoing homosexuality debate

For a generation, the Presbyterian Church (USA), like many groups in society, has been locked in an increasingly bitter debate about homosexuality. Last week, Reformed Pastor blogger David Fischler reported the PCUSA group “That All May Freely Serve” (TAMFS) is done with lobbying and pleading. In his March 24 post “Funny, San Jose Doesn’t Look Like Chicago,” he reports they’re moving to more dramatic forms of protest.

And they don’t want to be alone. Fischler links to a TAMFS brochure inviting “allies” who are “Presbyterian or concerned about the future of the mainline Protestant church” to join them to “descend on the General Assembly in San Jose.”

As Fischler writes,

So presumably ACT-UP and the Human Rights Campaign and the Lambda Fund and all the rest of the gay-advocacy apparatus will be free to send traveling bands of atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Mormon, and maybe even Episcopalian gay-friendly shock troops to the PCUSA General Assembly to engage in “street theater, intentional conversation, parades, poster art,” and who knows what other kinds of mayhem.

Why bother? Why invest so much energy in changing the PC(USA)? People say the new generation is post-Christian, certainly post-denominational. The TAMFS publicity claims “the next generation has already decided for the full equality of all people.” If they’ve already made up their minds on their own, why do they need to bother with the PC(USA)? Why enforce conformity on what is so obviously a debatable issue? (This applies with equal force to the troubles in the Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion, or to any of the NCCC-related communions struggling with this.)

Perhaps it has to do with validation.

In the 70s, the activists fought with professional Psychologists, who had ruled homosexuality a mental disorder. They managed to change the diagnosis manual, and now they could say homosexuals were not sick. But that turned out to be insufficient.

In the 80s and 90s and into the new millennium, the activists fought court battles to give legal status to homosexual partnerships. For the most part, they have won those battles, but somehow just being “legal” is still insufficient.

Maybe it goes back to hearts being restless until they find their rest in God. They need the benediction that affirms them as a blessed part of the diversity of Creation. And nothing the doctors or lawyers have said really sounds like that benediction.

And so TAMFS will gather its allied, descent upon the Presbyterians in San Jose, and try to force the church to offer that benediction. And they may succeed. But will they find a benediction delivered under such duress truly satisfactory?

Reaction to Obama speech shows decline of political discourse

‘Best political speech’ praise shows how ‘grievances’ have replaced reality as the basis for discussion

“Barack Obama this week gave the best political speech since John Kennedy talked about his Catholicism in Houston in 1960,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in the March 20 New York Times. He praised the way it acknowledged “complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides.”

The nuance part is indeed commendable. The ability to disagree firmly with extreme views while maintaining a cordial – even affectionate – personal relationship with people who hold those views might help restore some civility to public discourse.

On the other hand, I wonder about Kristof’s “legitimate grievances” comment. For instance, he notes “it has been shocking to hear [Obama’s pastor] suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people.” He goes on to note “Many African-Americans even believe that the crack cocaine epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by the United States government to destroy black neighborhoods.”

Kristoff quotes a political scientist who says these are “real standard” beliefs, “pretty common beliefs.” They may be. But are these “legitimate grievances”? Are they the kinds of items that the political conversation needs to take seriously?

A generation ago, political opinions needed to be grounded in “reality” to be taken seriously. Some people once believed fluoridation was a Communist plot to pollute the water supply. No matter how widespread that belief was in certain segments of society, it was never seen as a “legitimate grievance” that deserved a place on the national agenda. People (rightly) saw it as a paranoid delusion that deserved neglect

Once, western society focused on truths that were validated by correspondence with reality. Now we seem to be willing to settle for various perspectives that are validated by how many people believe them and how intensely they hold them.

The Roman governor once asked, “What is truth?” Many today want to answer “truth is an oppressive construct; what’s more important is what people firmly believe.” It’s different, but it’s not an improvement.