The Sins of Scripture

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." MLK Jr.

The following is the opening of a New York Times article "Liberal Bible-Thumping by Nicholas D. Kristof, May 15, 2005.  Kristof reviews John Shelby Spong's 2005 published book, "The Sins of Scripture."  

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"Even aside from his arguments that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and that St. Paul was a self-hating gay, the new book by a former Episcopal bishop of Newark is explosive.

John Shelby Spong, the former bishop, tosses a hand grenade into the cultural wars with "The Sins of Scripture," which examines why the Bible –for all its message of love and charity -- has often been used through history to oppose democracy and women's rights, to justify slavery and even mass murder.

It's a provocative question, and Bishop Spong approaches it with gusto. His mission, he says, is "to force the Christian Church to face its own terrifying history that so often has been justified by quotations from 'the Scriptures."
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The following link presents the  full article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/opinion/liberal-biblethumping.html


An example of one of these sins of scripture can be found nearby in West Des Moines, Iowa at the Hope Lutheran Church. The church holds itself out as welcoming Gays in spite of the following wedding policy.
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Hope’s Same-Gender Wedding Policy

As a Bible-based church, we stand firmly against the oppression and bullying of LGBTQ people, too often carried out by self-righteous and legalistic Christians. Such behavior is outrageously unfaithful and a gross misrepresentation of Christ’s love. Jesus calls our love for God and others his greatest commandment (Mark 12:30-31). Without hesitation, Hope loves and welcomes all people — straight and gay — and we are blessed by the large number of LGBTQ people who proudly call Hope their church home, actively taking part in the life and mission of this congregation.

As a Bible-based church, we also turn to Scripture for direction on all matters of faith and daily life. From the beginning of human creation (Genesis 2:24), God established marriage as a holy union between a man and a woman. Affirmed by Jesus (Matthew 19:4-6), as well as the apostle Paul (Ephesians 5:31), God’s intent for marriage is clear. As a result, we are unable to host same-sex weddings at Hope.

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The first paragraph of the policy is piously patronizing; the second paragraph by denying gay couples the hospitality of a church wedding service is antithetical to the right the gay congregant has under the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in June of 2015. The Church, of course, has the right under the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution to deny a Church service, but by so doing they are showing an unloving response and instead are binding themselves to ancient, anachronistic, biblical passages that have no place in modern times.  

For a gay person to be himself / herself there is nothing more important than marrying someone towards whom they have marital desire. In another blog post I cited an Onetti character who said, "I saw the methodical, the jovial, the resolute, the resigned, the incredulous, I saw the sad; I saw all those who will die without knowing themselves(129)."  One of the ways a gay person knows himself / herself is through marriage.

An article telling of Matthew Shepard's murder in 1998. His gayness evoked the hatred of his murderers.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/13/us/gay-man-dies-from-attack-fanning-outrage-and-debate.html?module=inline


An article telling of Matthew Shepard's final resting place in the National Cathedral in 2018.  As MLK so eloquently stated "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/us/matthew-shepard-burial-national-cathedral.html

This is what Matthew's mother said at the time of the ceremony:


“We’ve given much thought to Matt’s final resting place, and we found the Washington National Cathedral is an ideal choice, as Matt loved the Episcopal church and felt welcomed by his church in Wyoming,” said Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother. “For the past 20 years, we have shared Matt’s story with the world. It’s reassuring to know he now will rest in a sacred spot where folks can come to reflect on creating a safer, kinder world.” 

The Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, was one of those presiding at the ceremony.  He was the first openly gay priest to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Just as Robinson was consecrated in the church so too was Matthew Sheperd consecrected by the ordeal he experienced and the lasting memory it etched in a society that may be on the threshold of redemptive inclusion. 

Alexis de Tocqueville-"Democracy in America."

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
                                                    Alexis de Tocqueville

America is a country where they have freedom of speech but everyone says the same thing.

                 Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, traveled to and visited in the United States in the 1830s, his observations about his experiences are contained in the book he wrote, "Democracy in America." The following Wikipedia article provides biographical material on him. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville

While we might want to romanticize the history of our Democracy, the words in the epigraphs above suggest otherwise. It suggests that the electorate was ill informed then and through individual observation it is abundantly clear that the electorate is ill informed now.

Today it is not uncommon for a Trump supporter to say, "He's the kind of guy who won't take shit from anybody and he'll just go in there and kick ass."de Tocqueville's words "so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion" describe what is lacking in such a motto.  People who ascribe to such an Attaboy motto are apparently in need of a cult leader, not a representative leader.  While the President in the execution of the constitutional duties should be forceful when it is called for and confrontational if necessary he /she should always be pursuing programs that further our national interests and doing so with the dignity attendant to the office of President of the United States. Belligerence for its own sake is not a desirable quality in anyone much less the President of the United States.

Anecdotally I am aware of a number of persons who voted for Barack Obama and then in 2016 voted for Donald Trump. This makes no sense. President Trump has spent the first two years of his Presidency trying to dismantle all the programs President Obama put in place.  If these voters viewed programs enacted or proposed instead of viewing the Presidents as personalities as such this outcome would be impossible. Here we are in America in the 21st century and "independence of mind" is still in short supply.

Originalism and Same Sex Marriage

In 1868 when the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified same-sex marriage would not have been a political issue. This is in spite of the fact that there were undoubtedly many gay persons at the time. What one literary theorist has called "compulsory heterosexuality" would have prevailed then. So this makes same-sex marriage a significant subject for considering the concept of originalism.  The seminal case considered is OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL., which was decided June 26, 2015.   JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. It was a 5-4 decision. Each of the four justices dissenting wrote dissenting opinions. The decision was a reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.   The decision applied the "Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The second item that follows is a paper that discusses same sex marriage from an Originalist perspective.  The authors consider the constitutionality of bans on same sex marriage from this perspective, and they conclude that State laws banning same sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment. 

The third item that follows is an article from the New York Times in which in which the inconsistent application of Originalism by the Conservative justices is identified and exposed.

1) United States Supreme Court (Same Sex Marriage)- OBERGEFELL ET AL. v. HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

2) Originalism and Same-Sex Marriage- Steven G. Calabresi, Hannah M. Begley (University of Miami Law Review-5-1-2016)

https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4466&context=umlr

3) New York Times September 10, 2018, Does Originalism Matter Anymore? By Eric J. Segall

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/opinion/kavanaugh-originalism-supreme-court.html

The U.S. Constitution . . . Dead? or Alive?

The concept “Originalism” is a concept that the conservative judges on the United States Supreme Court apply to justify the decisions they make that deny the inherent social progress of our society. Originalism is the theory that the US Constitution should be interpreted based on the intent of its authors, as determined by examining evidence of their understanding of the meaning of its wording at the time.  The following Wikipedia article defines and discusses the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism

The late Justice Scalia was a proponent of Originalism.  The following is a debate between Justice Scalia and Justice Breyer on this subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4n8gOUzZ8I

No matter how you say it Denotation-connotation, signifier-signified, or text-context language usage will inevitably reflect the changes that take place in society. For the Supreme Court to dissemble through the application of an obtuse concept is irresponsible. Justice Scalia had the temerity to argue, “The only good Constitution is a dead Constitution.” Specious as the concept of Originalism is it will be used often to attempt to dignify decisions that have no inherent dignity. Get ready as our country may be headed backwards for a generation or more.

I am a Liberal

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.” 

                                                              Paul Krugman

The subject of the following Op-Ed piece is the loss that occurred when Liberals capitulated to Conservatives and relinquished calling themselves "Liberals."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/moynihan-liberals-progressives-lost.html

Our Founding Fathers were Enlightment Liberals who based the principles contained in the United States Constitution on John Locke's ideas many of which can be found in his work the, "Second Treatise of Government." Sadly Locke was not egalitarian and neither were our Founding Fathers, so women and persons of color were left out. Our constitution in Article V provides for its amendment so as our culture has become more egalitarian this to some extent has been reflected in the constitution through the amendment process. Amidst a dogmatically Christian culture the framers of the consitution had the wisdom to write the constitution as an exclusively secular document.  Try explaining that to an Evangelical Christian.

The genealogy of "Enlightenment" is not John Winthrop's "Shining City Upon A Hill" but the "Age of Enlightment" with reason enshrined as its guiding principle. This, we Liberals should cherish and protect. 

Our lives through storytelling

Antoine Roquentin, the protagonist of “Nausea" by Jean Paul Sartre is talking about the subject of “adventure” when he says, "For the most banal to even become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story."

Joan Didion states, "We live entirely . . . , by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience." The "narrative line" is the plot of a story.  A story links events and actions of characters, plot adds the dimension of cause and effect. So Didion is saying that we must not only tell the story of our lives we must also impose a plot so we can explain the cause of our actions and the effect those actions have.  Our story and its plot is the way we make sense of our lives.

Sartre and Didion are both arguing that we see everything that happens to us through the stories we tell and that for these stories to explain things fully they must contain a plot. Most people tell stories without calling them stories. Observe yourself and others and see if you think this is true.


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Twenty-eight years ago today, Friday, November 2, 1990, during the Gulf War. I was a hostage in Iraq on a military site, the al-Amiriyah Complex where I was being held as a Human Shield. Today, Friday, November 2, 2018 I reflect on that day.  In a moment I will tell about my being interviewed by the Associated Press, Reuters and the French News Agency, but the following Los Angeles Times article "U.S. Families of Hostages Torn by Iraq's Offer" (November 3,
1990) makes clear how opaque things were at this time. Saddam Hussein  offered to let families come to Iraq to visit their family members who were being held as hostages at Christmas.  Although this offer was real it was such that it evoked the cynical in those to whom the offer was extended. The offer exploited the suffering the families were experiencing.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-03/news/mn-3194_1_hostage-families

Things began to change, albeit, what the changes signified were unclear and at the times seemed motivated more by propaganda than by goodwill. A number of envoys from several countries traveled to Baghdad to negotiate for release of of their citizens.  One of these was the former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone. He was successful and one of the 74 hostages who returned with him was a fellow hostage Saisho. Saisho was an executive with Japan Airlines. I came to know him as a gentle soul who was very easy to be with.

Muhammad Ali was another envoy who flew to Baghdad on November 23, 1990 and after a wait successfully negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of 15 hostages. The Muhammad Ali flight returned to the United States on December 2, 1990.

the Iraqis came to me and wanted me to be on TV.  I thought it was a terrible program, propaganda laden, called "Guest News".  I agreed to be on the program if they would send a video cassette of it to my family.  This was the basis of a fight with Brian as he thought I was a terrible traitor to agree to be on the program.  I was not allowed to go for exercise at 11 o'clock on Friday, 2 November as they expected the interview would be done then.  That afternoon while we were all watching TV the interviewers arrived.  To our surprise they were from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.  This was more than a Guest Interview.  Later I pieced together that Bush had been critical of the way hostages were being treated and Iraq wanted to show the United States and the world that we were being treated well.  The Associated Press interview of me describing the conditions on our site evidently aired all over the world.  I was picked because I am American.  Why I was picked to the exclusion of other Americans I have no idea.

The Washington Post, November 3, 1990
"The food is decent. I eat well and I'm treated well," said Charles Keegan, 56, an American investment strategist who worked for the Kuwaiti Investment Company.