Passing, a symptom of bigotry.

We have been here before, at the threshold of equality, waiting and hoping that tomorrow will see an end to discrimination. That tomorrow will bring the relief and hope of a sunburst after a terrible storm. For many of us, that storm began when we were children and discovered that we were “different.”


Learning how to “pass” as straight was a requisite for survival in grammar and High School. The cost of pretending to be something other than our self was self-hatred. It meant dating people for appearance sake. It meant lying to our parents and siblings, our cousins, our classmates, our teachers, to strangers. It meant laughing along at “fag” jokes told by all of the aforementioned people. Do they know? Do they suspect?


For many of us that psychological and emotional straight jacket, with which we were fitted as children, remained immovably in place as adults. Serving in the military, in religious organizations of our birth, in states without protections for LGBTQ workers, in “corporate cultures” that looked down on “them.”


I was at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama attending Chaplaincy School in 1992. President-Elect Clinton had promised to lift the ban on gay & lesbian service in the Armed Forces. About sixty Chaplains sat in a conference room listening to a lecture from a Major. “Let’s brainstorm,” he said, “the Commander-in-Chief has said he intends to lift the ban on gays in the Air Force. I would like all of you to share how this we can implement this change.”


In my peripheral vision, I saw a glass wall, behind which several Airmen were operating recording equipment. Directly in front of each Chaplain on our desk was a small microphone, about the size of a dime. Perhaps it was seven years of navigating my way through seminary, where comments made at dinner, or on the recreation field, or in class, would appear on reports and be inserted into files. Perhaps it was having gone through years of “peer evaluations” and being voted on by professors as to whether or not I was fit for ordination. Something inside of me sensed this was a trap.


“Sir, until the Uniform Code of Military Justice is amended, it is inappropriate for us to speculate on what laws, policies or procedures will change." My comment abruptly ended the exercise. Years later, I discovered that similar “exercises” took place on other bases and that those who spoke out in favor accommodating gays faced career repercussions.


These memories streamed into my mind as I read the following piece in the Baltimore Sun,


In Maryland, Del. Emmett C. Burns, himself a veteran of the civil rights movement and one of the state's most outspoken opponents of same-sex marriage, gave voice to the disconnect between the two issues. During the floor debate on the gay marriage bill, Delegate Burns, who is a minister, said the push for same-sex unions is not comparable to a civil rights movement in which blacks and their supporters were beaten or killed. "If same-sex marriage is to be equated with the civil rights movement that I know … show me your Birmingham, Alabama, where high-pressure water hoses were turned on us, so powerful they knocked the bark off trees."


Reverend Burns concluded: "I am a black man, an African-American. I cannot change my color, nor do I wish to do so. Those who are gay can disguise their propensity. Even in this legislature, 50 or 100 years ago gays and lesbians were here because they could disguise who they were. I was not here because I can never disguise who I am."


I would encourage Rev. Burns to read the story of black Americans who “passed as white,”



Thelma Marshall knows that routine.


During the 1950s and early '60s, she did what her mother before her had done. What her grandmother and aunts had done.


She passed for white.


"One time I told a woman I was black, colored in those days," Marshall recalled. "She said, 'You won't get the job unless you pass for white.' "


So that's what Marshall did.


"I passed for white on lots of jobs," she said. "I had to be white to get the jobs." It's what many fair-skinned blacks did during those times.


Marshall's remarks are without shame or remorse. She felt she did what she had to do. Still, it is a prickly subject, and the 76-year-old woman does not want to offend so she asked that her real name not be used.

Passing for white offered not only opportunities, but also the opportunities white people received. During slavery, it could mean freedom. There are many documented instances of fair-skinned slaves who posed as white to escape. In modern times, it meant being able to vote in the South. It meant a job in the office rather than a job cleaning the office. It meant schools with the latest equipment and books, instead of dilapidated buildings and out-of-date texts. It often meant better housing. It meant being treated with respect, not disdain.


Barbara Douglass recalls the difference between going out with her white college friends vs. her black college friends.


"We went to a show, about six of us [black students]. The manager came and sat behind us. I asked him 'Why are you sitting behind us?' He said, 'I have to make sure you don't destroy anything.' "


Douglass said she told the manager that he had never sat behind her before.


His response was, "You never came with these people before."

Douglass, who the manager had assumed was white, encouraged her friends to leave the theater rather than be insulted.



So, Rev. Burns, what is worse? Being called an epithet, or having someone like you being called that epithet? No more than you had a voice in your skin color, did I have a voice in my orientation. As a child in the fourth grade when I discovered that I was a homosexual, and then discovered that this was “wrong.” I spent decades of my life trying to repress who I was and “passed” as straight, as Thelma Marshall and Barbara Douglass “passed” as whites.

You speak of being able to “disguise” who you are as some sort of a luxury, or personal indulgence. Shame on you Sir! Shame, for your lack of empathy and for the ignorance you have of your own people’s suffering. Shame for having come from a people who were subjected to discrimination and for now choosing to be an instrument of discrimination for another group of human beings.


If the Buddhist are correct, you will come back as a gay man in a culture you helped to create. If Catholics are correct, the same fate will be your purgatory. If Protestants are correct, it may well be your own personal hell. Sadly, for us all, you (like Archbishop Dolan of New York) help to make hell on earth by being an instrument of discrimination, by adding to the sufferings of others, by choosing to be a bigot.

Who decides what is legal in New York (& the USA)?

The New York Times reports,

Several Republican senators in New York are urging Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to consider changing his proposed same-sex marriage bill to better protect religious institutions, addressing a concern that has emerged as one of the bill’s chief obstacles as the legislative session comes to an end.



Conservative religious leaders and representatives of the New York State Catholic Conference made the rounds of the Capitol on Thursday seeking to press their case against the measure.

“We are relaying our very serious concerns to members of the Legislature regarding the religious liberty implications of Governor Cuomo’s bill,” said Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the conference. “It should be noted that we will continue to strongly oppose any redefinition of the historic understanding of marriage, regardless of the strength of the religious liberty protections. However, should the bill pass without adequate protection, it will have potentially far-reaching consequences for our ministries, both in terms of contracts to provide services and potentially to challenges to not-for-profit status.”



Dennis Poust, communications director for the New York State Catholic Conference, says it has a network of more than 60,000 people across the state emailing and making thousands of phone calls to senators' offices.
"We're trying to convince them, this is not right for the state," he said.





The bill does not compel any member of the clergy to conduct same-sex marriages, but some Republican lawmakers are concerned the legal protection is not strong enough.


New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan on Wednesday equated the actions of lawmakers to restrictive Communist regimes.

Actually, Dolan has far more in common with those dictatorial despots who use the power of the State to impose their vision of right and wrong involuntarily on powerless citizens. Make no mistake, this is not about "morality" it is about raw naked political and social power. It is about the power of individuals to live freely versus the power of institutions, like the Catholic hierarchy, to dictate how those individuals may live. Dolan's assertion is not merely absurd, it is an unsophisticated inversion of the truth meant to seduce and deceive the public and intimidate politicians. In his own words,


"Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America - not in China or North Korea," he wrote on his blog. "In those countries, government presumes daily to 'redefine' rights, relationships, values, and natural law."


So the question is: what's "natural" or "unnatural?" That, in turns, leads to a more overarching question: Is homosexuality a status or a choice?


Some thinkers, including several members of the Supreme Court, seem to reason that homosexuality is an inborn status.
Catholicism--and, indeed most religions--teach that while homosexuality exists, homosexual activity is a "disordered" choice against the laws of nature.
If homosexuality is indeed a status rooted in biology or genetics, then homosexuals, like left-handed people, act according to their nature. But if homosexuality is a choice rooted in behavior, then homosexuals act against nature.


Stay with me, because here the argument splits even further. Are we talking about civil rights or morality?


In terms of civil rights, individuals deserve and are afforded protections for both status (say, skin color) and choice (for example, religious affiliation).
In terms of morality, status is neutral, while choice has implications and consequences.


Catholicism argues that homosexuals deserve legal protections, but not because homosexuality is a status. Catholicism says homosexual activity is a choice. So while bishops support non-discrimination policies, they won't agree that homosexuals are protected because of their genetic makeup.


Catholic thinkers have grappled with this question for ages. Creighton University professors Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler are the latest voices on the Catholic circuit. Their 2008 book, "The Sexual Person," just earned a rebuke from the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee.


Salzman and Lawler's dense academic argument turns traditional Catholic teaching on natural law on its head. They redefine natural law, saying "nature" is personal and individual, and that sexual activity need not be directed at procreation (contrary to what the Catholic Church has always said).


Salzman and Lawler argue that what is "natural" for a heterosexual is not "natural" for a homosexual, and therefore homosexuals and heterosexuals must act in accord with their personal "natures".


In other words, if it's "natural" for a homosexual to perform homosexual acts, then--for that person--heterosexual acts would be "unnatural" and immoral. For the two professors, homosexual activity is only immoral for the heterosexual acting against his or her nature.


Bottom line: Salzman and Lawler are arguing that homosexuality is a status, not a choice. If that's the case, then everyone--including the Catholic Church--should line up in support of an entire rainbow of gay-related arguments and ideas.


Taken to their logical conclusion, Salzman and Lawler's arguments would mean that Catholic moral teaching must do a complete about-face and disconnect sex from marriage--even from procreation--altogether.




Brooklyn Diocese' Monsignor Kieran Harrington says every diocese is now aggressively getting the word out to Catholics across New York, which make up 38 percent of the state population, to encourage parishioners to contact senators.


“Every diocese is speaking out to congregations to realize how significant this is,” he said.


Harrington also accuses Gov. Andrew Cuomo and liberal lawmakers of misrepresenting not only the issue, but also those who would oppose it.
"They're trying to say people of faith are bigots, and we think that's offensive," he said. "If they are convinced we were bigots they wouldn't be giving a religious exemption. How can they be proposing an exemption for bigotry?...They can't have it both ways."



What the “good Monsignor,” (I am reminded of an old seminary saying regarding Monsignors, “You have to kiss purple to wear purple.”) conveniently omits is that the majority of “Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall.”



State Senate GOP Majority Leader Dean Skelos just said there is no decision to bring gay marriage out for a vote, our Glenn Blain told me. Skelos said they were still deliberating the religious exemption issue and working on changes to the bill. Staffs will continue to work on the issue during the weekend but since Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will be observing the Sabbath, not much official can be done until Sunday.

This is not a “cliffhanger” in the sense of loved ones waiting to hear from surgeons operating on a loved one. In that case, it is a question of skilled physicians and staff working feverishly to preserve life. In this case, it is a question of pope Benedict and archbishop Dolan working feverishly to preserve bigotry.

Bigotry is a term that is bandied about much by people on both sides of this issue. A danger in this practice is that we become desensitized to its meaning. Bigotry means, you don’t get the job, or you lose it because of whom you are. Bigotry means you are emotionally and physically abused EVERY day at school, year after year. Bigotry means that you are afraid to speak the truth about yourself to your parents and siblings. Bigotry means that you have to lie about yourself, simply to survive. Bigotry means that you turn to alcohol, drugs, comfort foods for some temporary relief and these themselves become new demons that you must wrestle. Bigotry means that one third of gay adolescents attempt suicide and many of them—tragically, succeed.

Let me say it here very clearly and unmistakably, archbishop Dolan and pope Benedict are actively promoting bigotry.

Sheldon’s comment about not working on the Sabbath recalls a question from a young Rabbi, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath—or evil? To preserve life--- or destroy it?” [Luke 6:9]