Why churches fear gay marriage
By Jeanne CarstensenFor author Richard Rodriguez, no one is talking about the real issues behind Proposition 8.
While conservative churches are busy trying to whip up another round of culture wars over same-sex marriage, Rodriquez says the real reason for their panic lies elsewhere: the breakdown of the traditional heterosexual family and the shifting role of women in society and the church itself. As the American family fractures and the majority of women choose to live without men, churches are losing their grip on power and scapegoating gays and lesbians for their failures.
Rodriguez, who is Mexican-American, gay and a practicing Catholic, refuses to let any single part of himself define the whole. Born in San Francisco in 1944 and raised by his Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrant parents to embrace mainstream American culture and the English language, he went on to study literature and religion at Stanford and Columbia. His first book, "The Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez," explores his journey from working-class immigrant to a fully assimilated intellectual -- angering many Latinos with his view that English fluency is essential. "Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father," which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1993, continued his investigation into how family, culture, religion, race, sexuality and other strands of his life all contribute to the whole, a complex "brownness" of contradictions and ironies. "Brown: The Last Discovery of America" completes the trilogy -- but not his insatiable intellectual curiosity, which he is now shining on monotheism. See Why churches fear gay marriage
posted by Tom Jackson @ Monday, November 24, 2008
1 Comments:
My Episcopal church in Tucson just had a consultant explain that to us a year ago.
Church attendance across all denominations had been in decline since 1960. It has nothing to do with gay bishops, women clergy, or any other nonsense the conservatives love to blame.
The reason: attendance surged in the 1950's as WWII era families bothered to go to church to raise their kids. When the kids were grown by 1960, the peak year, the kids stopped attending and then inevitably so did the parents.
The "prosperity gospel" churches (ie, megachurches) preach to new parents the same way, and when they get disallusioned, they go right out of the door too.
Our Bishop said it beautifully: churches that care about the community, thrive. Those that care about keeping the electric bill paid, don't.
It's not about keeping control in a male dominated world. It's about serving the poor and the needy. Service is never about oneself. It is always about others in need, others in hurt. When these boobs learn that, THEN they can stop the hemorrhage of their congregations, not until.
Blaming the gay community outside their church isn't going to help them one wit, as any scapegoating will. If they want to fix the problem, they need to look deeply into the mirror.
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