The Right Honourable Sandra Lubrano, MP, the Leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons addressed expatriate Americans who are dual nationals of the Dominion of Lambda. It is believed that national polls suggest that Tory PM Raymond Decelles-Smith will face serious challenges in the polls in mid-2010 if the Liberals continue to grow in popular support.Leader Lubrano's comments follow:
" In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human" - Senator Prescott Bush, Connecticut Republican and Episcopalian. Father of President George HW Bush and Grandfather of President George W. Bush. ....quoting President Eisenhower in the Congressional Record...February 18, 1955.
According to national polls, American citizens believe in the separation of church and state. These same polls state clearly that they consider this nation theistic and nevertheless, opposed to theocracy. This having been said, the Roman Catholic Church, the fundamentalist Christian Protestants, and the Mormons have been especially activist in repealing GLBT civil marriage equality and similar rights.
There are basically three different approaches to confronting these Right Wing Religionists. Each approach has both strategy and theological sincerity in both their implementation and outcomes.
The first approach is to admit that religions and faith systems have the right and responsibility to promote their own moral codes, and within legal and cultural constraints, attempt to influence their members to both live their lives according to their precepts, and to assure that their beliefs are not declared either unconstitutional or illegal in the secular domain. Within this approach lies the responsibility of heterodox believers and non-believers to engage these fellow citizens to assure that the theocratic concerns are addressed and avoided.
The second approach is to identify extreme reactionary theocrats who erroneously believe that they alone hold the moral high ground, and that full freedom, including marriage equality will not only earn perdition for the individual "sinner", but will simultaneously undermine the very nature of the Republic.This strategy confirms the fact that the world's major religions oppose marriage equality and other civil rights for GLBT citizens, and that only an exclusive secular and civil response will win the needed legislation enacted to end the separate and unequal "psychosexual apartheid" in the United States.
The religious leaders within the more liberal denominations advocate pleading with these homophobic theistic religions to cease and desist from engaging in secular warfare, and to acknowledge that many civil laws may and in the case of civil divorce, are "mortally sinful" for their communicants to engage in. Nevertheless, our GLBT activist clerics remind and admonish, their Church does not advocate against the American civil laws allowing divorce and remarriage. Neither do their civil servants and judges refuse to grant said divorces and remarriages based upon a theological opposition to those acts.
The third approach is the strategy that I both promote and advocate. Regardless of the fact that the hierarchy of the world's largest Christian denomination opposes my civil rights, I do not cede the moral high ground to them. Despite the fact that most of Eastern Orthodox Christianity agrees with them does not add credence to their contention. Never mind the fact that fundamentalist reactionary and theocratic Kristian Klan white supremacists feel that the United States should terminate their separation of church and state for the avoidance of national perdition, I do not cede the moral high ground to them.
There are liberal glbt and gay-affirming heterosexual Christians in this country, and elsewhere. These progressive and enlightened theological voices read the same scriptural authorities, and administer the same sacraments as those who engage in a "scorched earth" policy to bait and switch their paedophilic scandals. These individuals do not use the Bible as their weapon of choice. They are contextual in their interpretation, and not literal with hypocritical subjectivity.
The third approach says that we must admit that the "holy homophobes" are culturally if not actively the majority religion in the nation. These strange bedfellows are engaged in warfare for bodies. Catholics are leaving their Church for Protestantism in numbers not seen since the Reformation. Fear is the catalyst for the second Inquisition, and this time, theological purity is exacted not against Protestants and Jews, but this time, it is the GLBT person, regardless of belief, and in the civil context where theocracy is officially proscribed, but sadly, subtly expressed nonetheless.
GLBT and our allies know the difference between what the Bible "says" and what the Bible "reads". I am also reminded that neither Anglicanism nor Catholicism was established as the official theistic expression in this Republic. I am reminded that the founding fathers were nominal theists and professed Deists. They were clearly the children of eighteenth century Enlightenment. The fundamentalist revisionism is a new phenomena, probably simultaneously suggested to a nation woefully ignorant of its civic and political history. Ask Jay Leno. He has proven those glaring examples of ignorance for decades.
For years now, I have chronicled the same theological wars successfully fought in eight nations where civil marriage equality is legal and culturally accepted by the majority of its population. In many of these nations, the Roman Catholic Church holds the cultural and observant allegiance of a majority in these populations . Spain, once a Catholic theocracy under Franco, has both pluralism and marriage equality. Canada has a majority Catholic population, as does Belgium. Soon, Portugal will complete marriage equality on the Iberian Peninsula. The Netherlands have a split decision among Catholics and Calvinists. Norway and Sweden have established Lutheran confessions. A majority of South Africans are Anglicans. Yet, the Lutheran Scandanavian Churches embrace GLBT Marriage Equality. The ACC and the United Church of Canada embrace GLBT Marriage Equality.
The name of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes,OC and the Most Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu loom large over the decisions to legislate civil law over the malevolence of the Roman Catholic Church in those nations. Will the United States find such a person to emulate the witness of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Do I not remind my readers that the AA Civil Rights successes were not won under the secular but the spiritual umbrella? When has history ever informed us that a subjective secular political issue trumped a moral imperative, even if the "moralists" are disingenuous and derisive of Christian love and compassion?
Those are the choices. Those are the strategies. There are spiritual leaders whom I both love and admire who advocate differently than I do. There are those among them who allow GAY INC to write the script. They advocate gradualism, incrementalism, and compromise to the point of capitulation. This includes gay and lesbian men and women elected to Congress, and appointed to serve in the Obama Administration.
The Dominion of Lambda stands as a beacon of freedom and equality for all GLBT persons and the families, immediate and extended, who love them. We hope and sincerely pray that the United States of America soon join those civilised nations who provide equal justice under law for all its citizens, and resists the apartheid that the Union of South Africa rejected, and four years ago, provided its GLBT citizens with full justice and equality as well.
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