Universal Life Church

Here at the Universal Life Church Monastery blog, we have tried every so often to plumb in depth the same-sex marriage controversy in the United States, providing well-informed and thought-provoking reflections on current trends in this debate. However, we have also striven to avoid generic commentaries which can be found anywhere else and to offer unique perspectives on specific problems within the move towards marriage equality. One little-examined aspect of this issue is the relationship between church constitutions, the “unconstitutional” actions of clergy members, and the attitudes of church-members and colleagues, and whether church constitutions should be amended to reflect the changing values of both clergy and laity.

Like most forms of social change regarding sexuality, gender, the family, and reproduction, the move towards legalization of same-sex marriage has presented great challenges for the Christian tradition and, most recently, for the Presbyterian Church of the United States (PC (USA)) in particular, which heretofore has seen little need to confront the issue. The problem arose when Laurie A. McNeill, pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Montclair, New Jersey, informed her presbytery, her session (governing body of her church), a ministry committee, and her congregation that she had married another woman in Massachusetts. According to Leslie Scanlon of The Presbyterian Outlook, the PC (USA) Book of Order’s Directory of Worship defines marriage as a “civil contract” between a man and a woman; however, Paul Leggitt, a former member of the board of directors of the evangelical Presbyterian Coalition, argues that McNeill has taken “contradictory vows” as a consequence of her marriage to another woman. According to Leggitt, marrying a member of one’s own sex is “doing something that’s in direct violation of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which [McNeill] took a vow to uphold”. Ironically, however, most colleagues at the presbytery meeting “applauded” McNeill’s announcement, and her session “voted unanimously to support [her] decision and to affirm her ministry at Central Church”, although members of the congregation reportedly said the unofficial church policy was “don’t ask, don’t tell”. But to be fair, we must grant that Leggitt’s point about a contradiction between same-sex marriage and the PC (USA) constitution still ostensibly poses a problem for McNeill.

What is a minister such as McNeill to do when her church’s constitution prohibits marriages such as hers, yet her presbytery and session have expressed support for her marriage and her congregation, tolerance, despite their mild unease? Indeed, it is a precarious predicament to be in, and it forces ministers in such positions to choose between traditional ecclesiastical law and the changing attitudes of the colleagues and lay-members around her. In actuality, changing civil law in some states has posed a problem for the PC (USA) law defining civil marriage as between one man and one woman, since in these states civil marriage is between two people of either sex. Thus, the PC (USA) constitution now experiences pressure not only from changing attitudes, but also from the changing reality of civil law. Of course, civil same-sex marriage is not yet legal in New Jersey, but when or if it is, it will be a problem for Presbyterian law in that state as well.

Leggitt himself asks, “Is the constitution of the Presbyterian [C]hurch optional, or is it mandatory?” How convenient for him to pose that question for us to answer here. The problem with laws etched in stone, as it were, is that they are intended to be perennial rather than adaptable, as if they are eternally sound from the point of their conception until the end of time. Some ecclesiastical laws and doctrines—such as those prohibiting murder—certainly seem to deserve permanent status, while others which probably should be created—such as proscriptions against rape—have failed to be codified explicitly. Others yet—such as those allotting marital rights only to those who can mate with one another—probably should be either amended or abolished altogether, especially when both laity and clergy have begun to adapt to a new paradigm. Understandably, a church has the right to proscribe same-sex marriage in its community without interference from the state—but it is not pressure from the state which is challenging the more conservative elders of the PC (USA). It is the church itself.

Certain basic humanitarian principles stand supreme, of course, but this is precisely why ecumenical churches such as ULCM, which cling only to these sparest of tenets, should point out to churches the change from within their own walls and challenge the permanency of church laws which present increasingly constraining and absurdly narrow possibilities for what constitutes a happy and healthy marriage and family.

Source: The Presbyterian Outlook

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New wedding trends are constantly popping up these days, it seems, showing the continuing evolution of the wedding ceremony as young couples hunt out more and more novel ways of tying the knot. This metamorphosis of the traditional wedding took another creative turn recently when it was announced that a movie set would become a permanent wedding chapel in Tybee Island, just southeast of Savannah on the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia.

Originally, the Tybee Island Historical Society planned to move the structure, a donation from the Walt Disney Company, and bring it up to code, but high costs made this effort prohibitive. Now, as Jennifer Beale of The Coastal Source reports, the Society may have accrued enough funds to finish giving the church building a permanent site by next year. The Society does not have any mundane plans in mind for the structure, however, but intends to exploit its unique origin to boost the local tourist industry. As Beale reports, “[the chapel] could help the island become a wedding destination”. While wedding tourism is probably not a new concept, as the less-than-reverent Las Vegas tradition of drive-through weddings shows, the use of movie sets to conduct weddings may very well become a unique and lucrative attraction for the small Tybee Island community.

With the Society’s carefree attitude about the corporate nature of the donor and their sizing up of the structure for potential profits, the Tybee Island wedding chapel appears to be a cutting edge, unconventional innovation in the solemnization of wedding vows. If we look deeper, however, we must ask ourselves exactly how gutsy and progressive the Society’s efforts to exploit Disney’s donation are. Indeed, with its proposed renovations, which will include a separate “bride’s room” and “groom’s room”, the site proves to be in many ways a continuation of the traditional wedding and its melodramatic irony, in which the sexes are separated and starkly contrasted with one another—the groom in his sober black suit and the bride in her flamboyant white gown—only to become suddenly joined at the altar by a highly “credentialed” minister who officiates over the proceedings in and old-time, vaguely Protestant setting.

The Society’s new endeavor is certainly economically innovative: with its Disney movie set-turned-wedding chapel, the Society has shown little idealism regarding the high-minded loftiness of the traditional wedding ceremony and has instead incorporated it into the local tourist industry to produce profit. Despite this earthly pragmatism, the segregated set-up of the proposed renovation merely reinforces the mysterious, almost esoteric hiddenness of the opposite sex, while the idyllic Christian symbolism and architecture merely create a traditional, old-time American Protestant ambience. But, as the Society probably already knows, this seems to be what brings in the money, especially if one’s customers hail from large swathes of the surrounding rural south.

If the Tybee Island Historical Society only partially bucks the trend in conventional wedding ceremonies, which organizations out there accomplish this task in its entirety? Dode Church proprietor Doug Chapman (discussed in a previous post below) may qualify, having integrated secular civil wedding ceremonies into a religious context and thus challenged ideas about what constitutes holy matrimony. However, as long as these supposed “wedding innovators” cling to symbols and traditions that ritually segregate the sexes, only to unite them, they merely reaffirm marriage as a miraculous compact between two eternally separate, dualistic, and opposing natures.

Assuming one of the missions of the universal church, such as ULC Monastery, is to challenge beliefs, perhaps we can begin this task by pressing wedding organizers to keep pushing the envelope and continue to re-invent the concept of marriage in order to reflect the more diverse reality of the larger population.

Source: The Coastal Source

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What is the place of drug use in spiritual exploration? And what role has the government played in this practice? Many have shown signs of increasing suspicion over the relationship between the pursuit of drug-induced mystical experience and government efforts to control our consciousness and the extent of our knowledge. Indeed, such a relationship exists, and the legal status of a drug often depends on its potentially liberating hallucinatory properties.

On one hand, many local governments in North America have eased restrictions on the use of “softer” Schedule I drugs, such as marijuana, or even outright legalized them. While cannabis dispensaries were shut down in the United States under George W. Bush, reports The Economist, they have since re-opened under the Obama administration, although Obama’s drug tsar, Gil Kerlikowske, has sought to remove himself from suggestions of cannabis legalization. Moreover, according to the same article, fourteen U.S. states have decriminalized both medical and recreational marijuana, and others are showing signs of moving in the same direction: Seattle Mayor-elect Mike McGinn, who has previously disclosed his own marijuana use, has expressed support for its legalization in Washington State. However, while marijuana apparently alters mood and emotions as well as everyday perception of the environment, it is not certain that it alters perceptions to create the profound mystical experiences other Schedule I drugs, such as mescaline and psilocybin, seem to create. With respect to marijuana, at least, the subjective, personal exploration of consciousness and reality seems to be increasingly easier, even in the infamously drug-fearing United States.

On the other hand, this is not necessarily the case for those drugs which do seem to help induce mystical experience. The U.S. federal government, in its efforts to implement the nearly forty year-old Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, has all but outlawed “hallucinogens” such as mescaline and dimethyltriptamine (DMT, which is produced naturally in small amounts in the pineal gland) making an exception for use in religious ritual only—and only among traditional users of certain ethnic groups. As journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty notes while attending a Navajo peyote rite in Fingerprints of God: the Search for the Science of Spirituality, “[o]nly peyote and ayahuasca used in Native American religious ceremonies are permitted” (p. 105). It appears that by grandfathering in the very few traditional communities that had already been using these drugs, the federal government has ensured extremely strict impediments to the drug-induced pursuit of spiritual knowledge in the general population.

But why shouldn’t other religious and ethnic groups have access to this altered state of consciousness? Even more, why should drug-induced mystical experience be limited to organized religious ritual? For those who wish to avoid organized religion and follow a personal path, the federal government once again closes off any avenue to the experience. Such a stance forces these individuals to be absorbed into religions where their spiritual independence is crowded out by authoritative doctrine; of course, this is not as much of a problem in a universal church, where doctrine is minimal and egalitarian participation the norm. Still, even most of these organizations are barred from facilitating the experience.

As Barbara Ehrenreich argues in Chapter One of her book Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, ritual trance brought about an understanding of a greater force, even if just tribal unity, among tribe-members who faced threats from predators; such tribal cohesion broke apart, she argues in the second chapter, with the rise of military élites which depended on hierarchical stratification within the group. As she and Hagerty’s Navajo ceremonies show, substance-induced ecstasy may simply constitute another, primevally human form of communion—not unlike the wine-infused orgies in honor of Bacchus—a sacrament which confers some manner of blessing as well as unity with the divine, in which shaman becomes priest, and wine, hallucinogen.

Governments seem to understand which drugs contribute to profound, mind-altering experiences of the transcendent, and they seem to show a bias towards proscribing those that do. As long as we organize or commune in religious ritual, government restriction on the use of drugs to induce mystical experiences threatens to become an impingement on religious freedom, and as long as individuals seek personal experiences of the divine, it threatens their freedom to practice spirituality privately.

Sources:

The Econimist
Seattle PI
Dancing in the Streets
Fingerprints of God

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It sometimes seems that the debate over “happy holidays” and “merry Christmas” has grown inexorably stale and petty, considering the childish defensiveness of many on both sides of this quirky little social discussion. This is especially true for those of us who view it as killing the fun, who wish to enjoy the rituals and festivities themselves rather than debate theology, the church, or the religious foundation of a given holiday. But perhaps this conflict over phrasing represents a significant change in attitudes about the meaning and function of Christmas, as well as those holidays which occur during the same “season”.

Religious fundamentalism seems to be a leading—but certainly not the sole—exponent of preserving “merry/happy Christmas”. Columnist David Rosman gives an atheist’s perspective in The Missourian, relating it to the controversy over the election in Asheville, NC, of an atheist city councilor, Cecil Bothwell, which we have already discussed in a previous blog below. Rosman points out the efforts of former Asheville NAACP President H.K. Edgerton to unseat Bothwell because of his atheism, using a proscription in the North Carolina state constitution against atheists in office. (This stipulation, Rosman notes, is trumped by the U.S. Constitution, which bars religious tests for obtaining office.) Should non-believers such as heathens, animists, Buddhists, etc., therefore hold no rights in North Carolina, he asks? Clearly, they do, he says, and by pointing out how these belief systems also celebrate rebirth during the winter season, he shows the validity of heathen beliefs and their similarities with monotheism.

Rosman’s argument forces us to consider a broader, more syncretic definition of the winter season recalling common-shared rites surrounding the shortest day of the year—winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer—which signifies death and regeneration through the survival of light (fire) and life (the evergreen) into Spring. It seems common sense that these inspiring motifs of an ancient European paganism rooted in natural cycles and rhythms informs the much newer mass commemorating the birth of an avatar who was allegedly crucified to atone for the sins of unworthy humans, who will suffer eternal torment if they do not believe in this event. Indeed, even Candlemas was founded on the pagan Celtic festival of Imbolc, which, at the start of February, marks the halfway point to Spring by the invocation of light and its life-giving power; even more, compare the invocation of light and greenery with the similar Christian ritual of the Eucharist—both are a form of imitative magic, which seeks to realize a circumstance by mimicking it. All of us share the preoccupation with surviving the death of winter until the return of the growing season, which requires at least basic knowledge of astronomical occurrences—even atheists rely on the return of the growing season—so this basic human experience seems to justify a more general expression of goodwill.

What of the true “happy holidays” pedants, though—those who, like their “merry Christmas” counterparts, could never articulate a solid argument for the use of this “newfangled euphemism”? Certainly, if they fail to produce sufficient grounds for the use of such a generic greeting, chances are they hold a rather disingenuous and patronizing attitude towards the religious specificity of holidays like Christmas. One could argue that “happy holidays” dilutes the unique character of a date which is intended to commemorate a specific event, and that ignoring the importance of its uniqueness leads to purposelessness—after all, why commemorate a noteworthy event if it is no different from another? We all may as well have one single, nebulous holiday. Such an attitude is certainly annoying for those who are astute enough to detect the disingenuousness. It is probably a good and reverent thing too, then, to be specific when we are present at a particular religious service and it is safe to assume that those around us share particular beliefs about exactly what the day represents. Most likely, you will not incur a frown from your listener if you greet them “merry Christmas” inside a Christian church.

But all of these considerations are ultimately beside the point—to dwell on them is to grudge the season its joyous spontaneity. Peace on earth and goodwill to all living things are worthy principles for any universal church to uphold. Whatever you wish to call this time of year (I still say “merry Christmas” and subsequently provide a disclaimer if the listener looks nonplussed), perhaps we can all agree that it marks an event or period which is in some sense “magical”—even if this simply carries the scientific connotation of recognizing the amazing and mysterious workings of the universe and how it affects all of us and our planet. And hopefully we can all agree that the most important part of it is to transcend religious and ethnic differences and commune with our fellow human being in solemn ritual and warm, festive revelry.

Source: Columbia Missourian

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Many of us take it for granted that the southern United States remains a bastion of religious fundamentalism, where right-wing “personalities”—especially in the Baptist church and other evangelical Protestant denominations—hold sway over local politics and social life, and where change equals degradation of the social fabric. But how stereotypical is this assumption? If it is indeed a stereotype, Asheville, North Carolina, is one southern town which has shown small signs of changing attitudes about the relationship between theology and politics—namely, atheists in political office. Conversely, the idea of atheists in office seems to have sparked more controversy in U.S. cities outside the American south, as well as among civil rights leaders, suggesting how unexpected and widespread the apprehension towards atheism is in American politics.

The recent election of Cecil Bothwell to the Asheville City Council is one example of this “daring” “intrusion” of atheism, but unfortunately for Bothwell it was not the local civil rights organization who challenged the portrayal of his election as scandalous. As David Forbes of Mountain Express reports, “only one opponent, H.K. Edgerton, a former president of the Asheville NAACP best known locally for walking around town brandishing a Confederate flag”, invoked North Carolina’s state constitutional ban on atheists in public office in order to stop Bothwell’s election. Forbes notes, however, that such state bans “have been routinely trumped by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly prohibits any religious tests for public office”. Meanwhile, it seems that the majority of Asheville’s city council showed a laid-back acceptance of Bothwell, even giving “an enthusiastic round of applause”.

It is a rather ironic inversion of attitudes. For those of us devoted to fairness and tolerance, the counter-intuitive stance of nominally progressive leaders like Edgerton shows how arbitrary and unreliable social reform organizations in America can be, as well as the isolation and obscurity of potential voices of support.
Where, then, can anti-discrimination activists find a home-base, as it were, to lobby for their interests, where moderation and professionalism prevail in the media? Not necessarily in the big northern city, the supposed centre of education and progress. Further illustrating America’s general, endemic phobia towards atheists in power, Forbes states that “the proverbial Internet flood gates have opened, with national blogs from across the political spectrum weighing in”, noting how even the Washington Post’s blog has sensationalized Bothwell’s election.
The media sensationalism surrounding the election of an open “atheist” to a city council seems absurd for those of us who believe that separation of church and state is codified in the U.S. constitution. Indeed, it seems even sillier when one notes that Bothwell does not even identify as atheist—a term which he claims has unpleasant “evangelical” connotations—but rather as a “post-theist”. His characterization as an atheist, in fact, comes from “a now-defunct MySpace page for his 2008 County Commissioner campaign”, according to Forbes. But not even the accommodating label of “post-atheist” has soothed and placated the national media, who often seem intent on caricaturing atheists and agnostics as weird, exotic, or insidious.

The response of social justice activists to this controversy has largely been splintered, marginalized, and unfocussed, while the blogs and newspapers have begun to resemble a carnival. However, acceptance of faith minorities in positions of power cannot remain the province of small-town southern councilors or anomalous islands of progressive politics, but must become the trend in the nation’s capital, major cities, and publishing houses, where the most effective modes of communication operate. It must, in the end, become the mainstream in American media.

Source: Mountain Xpress

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Many of us who seek out alternatives to mainstream religion will admire the steadfastness of Doug Chapman, a chartered surveyor who discovered the nine-hundred year-old Dode Church in the countryside of north Kent, England. Chapman, who fell in love with the decrepit structure, bought it in 1992, restored it, and began hosting civil wedding ceremonies there in 1999. His unconventional use of the building has not gone without note, however—officials of the Church of England, as well as a local MP, have spoken out against it. Chapman’s case illustrates the uneasiness of high-ranking religious and political authorities over the unorthodox use of sacred sites.

Exactly what is it about Chapman’s use of this historic structure—which saw its congregation wiped out by the bubonic plague of 1348-9— that ruffles the feathers of the English Church, an institution which itself is supposed to have been formed in reaction against staid and unbending authority? After all, he is carrying on the tradition of uniting man and woman in the ‘house of God’, and through the legal apparatus, moreover. Apparently, this is the very reason the English Church objects to the weddings at Dode: according to Michael Purton, of Newsquest Media Group, “The Church of England has called for Dode’s marriage license to be revoked, opposing civil ceremonies taking place in religious settings”. At first, it seems the English Church views itself as a natural authority over the performance of weddings on sacred sites, even when such sites sit on privately owned property, as in the case of Dode, which has also been owned in the past by an archaeologist as well as the Roman Catholic Church.

However, the English Church may have an even more covert motive for their objection to the civil wedding ceremonies hosted at Dode by Chapman, who has sought to work with local residents and find out “what concerns they have”. According to him, the building was “always meant to be a spiritual place”, yet it is also “a church without religion because many people feel religion judges them, and I don’t want people to feel judged here”; furthermore, according to Purton, “the church has no congregation and has not been affiliated to any religion” since Chapman bought it. Perhaps what the English Church really objects to is the consecration of marriage in a non-denominational, universal church, within a spiritual context but without the scrutiny of an organized hierarchy or congregation. It may be the uprooting of the traditional wedding from its fixture in a central Church which makes Chapman’s actions so offensive to English Church officials.

It seems as if such clergy-members view the spiritual independence of the government-sanctioned weddings at Dode as a sign of disrespect for—even the profaning or desecration of—a site which ought to fall under the providence of a central religious institution. Supporters of Dode, however, might well argue that the English Church is not the final voice on the consecration of marriage in spiritual contexts, and that non-religious entities have as much right as the Church to conduct wedding ceremonies on holy sites. Perhaps the most important point to take away from all of this is the distinction between spirituality and religion, and the freedom of spiritual practice from central authority. Why, after all, shouldn’t an independent citizen have the right to perform sacred rites which also happen to be legally recognized, and on his or her own private property, which also happens to be “sacred ground”?

Source: News Shopper

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In the ongoing debate over religion’s role in global human suffering, faith groups have often defended religion’s track record in feeding the hungry, giving to the poor, and caring for the ill, while the secular have often criticised religion’s emphasis on traditional, abstract moral principles over practical solutions to disease-prevention among the poor and under-privileged. This debate has become especially heated in the struggle to stem the growing worldwide HIV epidemic. While some members of the Catholic and Islamic clergy have disparaged or disregarded the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, touting instead the virtues of abstinence, health-care workers, human rights activists, and non-profit organisations have accused them of contributing to the crisis through their stigmatisation of condom use. Efforts to persuade clergy to re-think the virtues of condom use have proved very gradual, but there is some evidence of changing attitudes.

Catholicism has traditionally extolled the virtue of uncompromising chastity, presenting perhaps the greatest barrier to promoting condoms as a practical disease prevention technique. The religion-based stigma against safe sex is still widespread in the Philippines, a bastion of Catholicism. According to IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reports, “[a]bout 80 per cent of [Filipinos] are Catholic, giving the church a key role in shaping public opinion and influencing government policy”; indeed, the same source reports that the church has balked attempts to pass the country’s Reproductive Health Bill, “which would standardize access to sexual health services and information”, because church officials believe that “the legislation would promote abortion and promiscuity”. Obviously, it is the fact that condom use presupposes sexual activity that ruffles the sensibilities of religious conservatives; all too often, perhaps, such leaders forego rational problem-solving for the predictability of abstract laws.

The ethical question for the pious laity therefore becomes, “Which is the bigger sin? To have safe yet unchaste sex, or to deny sexual health information to those who will go ahead and have sex anyway, and possibly spread further disease?” This is the critical point where the faithful must decide whether reliance on age-old doctrine or utilitarian reasoning is the superior moral compass. After all, the religions of the world emphasise the plight of the ill as well as the virtue of chastity. What is the motivation for chastity, moreover? We might speculate that in ancient societies, in addition to population control and lineage concerns, chastity signified ‘purity’—that is, physical as well as mental or spiritual wholeness—serving as a very practical means of preventing disease in a time when modern-day prophylactics were unavailable. If so, this function of chastity has become redundant with the introduction of such disease-prevention measures, and the vestigial anxieties over the health-risks of promiscuity seem largely unfounded.

Perhaps, then, there exists no real conflict between safe sex and religion; perhaps the faithful have little to be concerned about. In this case, what progress is being made in convincing clergy of the possible morality of condom use? The British Muslim community has been confronted with the ethical questions surrounding safe sex, showing small signs of a shift towards the promotion of sexual health information. Quoting Ismael, an HIV+ Sudanese man, the BBC’s Religious Affairs Correspondent Roger Pigott reports, “The imams don’t talk too much about it, but they start off by saying ‘this is a taboo, this is a sin, a punishment from Allah’ “, so imams like Mohamed Bashir have fought to convince their peers to confront HIV as a Muslim health issue. Still, he says, “It won’t be considered responsible to say ‘when you’re making a mistake make sure you use a condom’, because that could be misunderstood as condoning that particular activity’ “. Thus, the ancient roots of the cult of chastity—particularly anxiety over disease-spreading promiscuity—holds fast even in modern-day Muslim communities, perpetuating silence and shame while, ironically, allowing the disease to target its prey.

The current snail’s-pace shift in attitudes towards safe sex in religious communities is a start, but it remains insufficient to turn the tide against the HIV epidemic. As their persistent attitudes about chastity show, Catholic and Muslim clergy have yet to set the right moral priorities, and in the meantime their laity suffer the consequences. This accusation may seem bewildering to the religious conservative, but one thing is certain: if preserving the health of the community is a core moral principle of the world’s religions, it is the responsibility of religious leaders to shed outmoded doctrine and employ practical measures to prevent the spread of disease.

Sources:
BBC News
IRIN Article 1
IRIN Article 2

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Perhaps one of the most prominent issues concerning free speech in recent months has been the appropriate expression of religious faith, especially where the religious and public realms intersect. While many in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom take for granted the right to don religious symbols and garb in public observance of their beliefs, the political argument in other countries is that such behaviour itself constitutes an impingement—on freedom from religion. Indeed, even in the most Westernized countries it is often unclear where the line rests between freedom of and from religion. Keeping in mind both arguments, is it possible to arrive at a compromise? What should be the stance of clergy and ministers in ecumenical organisations such as Universal Life Church Monastery? The answer may lie in making a distinction between two key concepts—expression and imposition.

Probably the first, most infamous secularist state that springs to mind is France, which has largely banned religious paraphernalia from public classrooms, or at least challenged its presence there. Swiss voters, however, went a step further on 29 November and passed a referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques (but not church steeples, notably) within Switzerland. According to Daily Mail Foreign Service, the Swiss government did “[urge] voters to reject an anti-minaret campaign by right-wing populists the Swiss People’s Party”, while France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said the results of the vote were negative. However, according to the same source, French legislators are considering banning Islamic veils over the face. Finally, Jeff Israely of Time reports that an immigrant Finnish mother in Italy, who sought a secular learning experience for her children, complained about the compulsory presence of crucifixes in every Italian classroom. In support, the European Court of Human Rights, headquartered in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, has ruled the display of crucifixes in Italian classrooms a violation of religious and educational freedom.

While some of us might approve of this act, others wonder at its irony and ask what happened (especially in America) to their freedom of religion, assembly, petition, etc., even when a similarly stringent movement has yet to happen on their own soil. (To be clear, as an exception, classroom crucifixes would violate church-state separation in the U.S.) To the recent Pakistani immigrant to America, who might have as much knowledge of U.S. constitutional law as the average American, it could signify a looming spectre of racism in an already race-conscious, skin-obsessed society which also happens to offer relative economic opportunity. But do the Europeans have grounds for erecting such stringent barriers between the religious and secular domains? It might not be so strange an attitude in America as popularly thought, with the recent controversy surrounding Heather Lawrence, a Florida high-school student who, according to Raul DeSouza of All Voices, lied that a fellow Muslim student refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance, harassing her afterward for wearing a veil.

The key question is whether expression of religious faith in the public sphere—especially public schools—constitutes religious freedom or imposition. Moreover, it is one thing when a student wears religious paraphernalia and another thing when the state (as in Italy) mandates such symbolism in the classroom. An important thing to keep in mind, however, is the right-wing endorsement of the Swiss minaret ban, and the possible racism it entails. The controversies in Switzerland and France extend even beyond the classroom into other public spaces, such as architecture and street-wear, begging us to decide where to tolerate religious self-expression and where to demand neutrality. Will it be the street, the classroom, the church, or the home? At least in many Western democracies, increasing pressure exists on traditional religions to relegate religious freedom to the last of these, and, though it may seem paradoxical, members of ecumenical churches must determine to what extent they will accommodate traditions which are not always so accommodating themselves. Perhaps a special domain—the open church—provides a space for such dissenting belief, as well as a forum to question it.

Sources:
All Voices
Time
Mail Online

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The piecemeal struggle for marriage equality in the United States experienced a setback as well as a victory this past week, when on Wednesday the New York Senate rejected a same-sex marriage bill, signed by Gov. David A. Paterson, 38 to 24, according to Jeremy W. Peters of the New York Times. On Tuesday, meanwhile, the DC Council voted 11 to 2 on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the first of three steps, the last of which the bill’s sponsors maintain is almost certain, reported Tim Craig of The Washington Post. The sponsors expect civil same-sex marriage to be taking place in the District by Spring.

The idea behind the bill in Washington is not a new consideration, however, but illustrates the long, arduous struggle for equality by its proponents. According to Tim Craig of The Washington Post, “Council members and gay rights activists hailed the vote as the end of a decades-long struggle that started in 1975, when then-council member Arrington Dixon (D) first proposed legalizing same-sex marriage in the District.” The fact that Dixon’s proposal has taken over three decades to realize only highlights the controversial nature of same-sex unions in America, and the pressure that elected officials experience to represent the interests of their constituents while paying heed to considerations of constitutional law.

While in both New York state and Washington, DC, a governing body presided over the proposal, legal recognition of such unions has also been petitioned, put to public vote, and repealed, as in Maine and California, or approved in the form of separate-but-equal status, as in the case of domestic partnerships in Washington state, where same-sex couples possess all the rights and responsibilities of married couples except for the word marriage. The trend of legislatures approving same-sex unions and their subsequent repeal by public vote reveals the endemic belief in America not only that established institutions should remain static in nature, but also that minority issues should be subject to the will of the majority.

This belief begs us to ask what the definition of democracy is. One common-held belief is that a democracy is a system of government in which the people govern themselves through either public vote or elected representatives, and in which the majority opinion rules over that of the minority. We might flesh out this definition to reveal a fundamental principle: the reason an individual has the right to have their own opinion represented with respect to a given legal issue is precisely that the issue directly involves or affects that individual; if it does not, there is no fair or rational basis for the individual to demand a voice in the matter.

It is up to each of us to decide whether this is a satisfactory definition, but for the moment let us use it for the sake of argument. To relate this definition of democracy to the recent spate of bills and propositions in the U.S. concerning same-sex marriage, consider a simple syllogism: A democracy is a system of government in which the majority rule, through public vote or elected representatives, on issues which directly affect the majority. Same-sex marriage does not directly affect the majority, but only the minority. Therefore, majority rule on same-sex marriage is undemocratic.

In 1982, in the presence of then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one of the chief objectives of which is “to protect minorities against parliamentary majorities”, or “tyranny of the majority” in Canadian parlance. The creators of the Charter believed that majority opinion had no place in the affairs of the minority, and that therefore it was the duty of a democratic government to protect the minority from impingement by the majority.

Civil same-sex marriage would not compel ministers to officiate weddings in religious contexts, and these ministers would retain the religious freedom to deny recognition of any union they chose; meanwhile, same-sex couples would enjoy the rights and responsibilities of a bond recognised by a state which distinguishes between majority and minority concerns. Moreover, elected representatives would be fulfilling their democratic duties by representing their constituents only on issues which affect them.

We must ask ourselves whether such a distinction is long overdue in the legal struggle for marriage equality in the United States.

Image: Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times
Senator Thomas K. Duane gave Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson a kiss after she said she would support same-sex marriage.

Sources:
Washington Post
New York Times
The Canadian Encyclopedia

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