What we’re looking for, in my opinion, is validation.This morning while reading the October issue of Touchstone, I took note of David Tubbs' review of Prof. David M. Halperin's 2007 book What Do Gay Men Want? entitled "Sodom on Itself." Prof. Tubbs notes that the book isn't particularly about same-sex marriage, but it offers some insight into gay liberation. He writes,
We want the state to affirm that our relationships are equal to heterosexual unions, but we reject the state’s response as inadequate, because it is lacks the societal imprimatur of marriage.
In fact, what is lacking is the psychosocial approval inherent with the association of the religious bodies that have traditional overseen this realm.
I could have sworn that my coming out as a gay man, my inner self-affirmation, came about precisely as a result of the rejection of the principle whereby what I thought of myself was a function of what society or the church said was right and good.
Aren’t we barking up that same tree now? If we claim to know our relationships are equal to theirs and as sacred, why are we insisting on their benediction?
The book is an extended essay, and among its purposes is a defense of male homosexuals from the charge of dangerous, and potentially suicidal, conduct during the AIDS epidemic. Halperin is candid about the promiscuity of many gay men, even those in "committed" relationships, and he would seemingly (his arguments are sometimes maddeningly qualified) resist any attempt to "domesticate" them.Alas, the entire review is not (yet?) online, but you can find it in the October 2008 issue of Touchstone magazine.
He argues that the key variable is whether the sexual partners have the same "serostatus." Thus, two men who are HIV-positive (or HIV-negative) should not automatically be criticized for having sex without condoms, even if they are stranger to each other.
He also argues that heterosexual men and women deserve equal criticism for risky sexual behavior, pointing out that "gay sex" accounted for only one-third of the new cases of AIDS repported in the United States in 2005. (He knows that American homosexuals do not constitute anything like one-third of the population, so the problem with this argument will be evident to may readers.
Acknowledging the realities of the "gay" life, Halperin admits that some men may not know if they are HIV-positive. A homosexual man who is regularly tested for AIDS—say, once every three or four months—may also regularly have "unprotected" sex between tests and be coy about revealing his behavior to others, including his live-in partner.
Halperin is loath to criticize such men. He insists that sexual intimacy without a condom is more pleasureable, and that homosexual men are not "crazy" to accept the risks. Much depends on individual temperament, including a man's tolerance for risk and the motives for his behavior. Crucially, he rejects—as naïve and "antiquated"—an unfailing use of condoms as the best strategy to eliminate the spread of AIDS.
This matter takes us to the heart of the book. Halperin wants to promote some kind of comprehensive inquiry into the inner lives of male homosexual—their "subjectivity," or (less pretentiously) "what gay men want," with special reference to their propensity to engage in risky sexual behavior.
Psychology would seem to be well suited to answer such questions, but homosexual people widely distrust it. As an academic and therapeutic discipline, psychology long deemed a romantic attraction to persons of the seme sex as illegitimate or abnormal desire. For that reason, Halperin wants to go elsewhere.
The inquiry he favors should avoid the "judgmental" tendencies of psychology and not assume that gay men engage in risky behavior from low self-esteem, doubts about their sexual identity, or a dangerous impulsiveness. Instead, researchers should try to discern their motives for engaging in risky sex and affirm those motives.
Above all, researchers ought to recognize that these motives can be "transgressive" in roughly the same way that queer theorists say the entire "gay" life is trtansgressive. By this, Halperin means an unwillingness or refusal to be "proper and good." His views amount to a deep disdain for traditional sexual ethics and the moral norms needed to sustain marriages and families.
If public health officials recognize the legitimacy of transgressive motives and impulses, Halperin argues, they can devise kmore workable strategies against the spread of AIDS. The goal is not "safe sex," but "safer sex." The latter, naturally, is more permissive than the former.
Halperin's program to conquer AIDS through "safer sex" rests on his reading of other queer theorists and his review of much social research, but the weakness of the book's central argument should be plain. Put aside his high-brow references to Michel Foucault, psychoanalytic thought, and gay "subjectivity," and you will find a very egalitarian liberal.
When defending risky sexual practices, he sometimes writes as a rugged individualists, a man who accepts the consequences of his actions and has no need to curry favor with the public. Yet he cannot ignore the American public.
He cannot ignore it because it allegedly owes gay men substantial resources to stop the spread of AIDS, as well as approval and support for their way of life. It owes them, he declares, "support for a vibrant, sophisticated and safe gay sexual culture as well as . . . reliable, appropriate, and practical information about how to prevent HIV infection."
Is this reasonable? Since he promotes and applauds "transgressive" conduct meant to destroy real marriages and stable families, why should the body politic extend its hand to him and his peers? What does it owe them? Halperin would at one moment spit on that hand, and in the next moment grasp it for support.
For the reasons that Buckley gave, it is hard to know if Halperin speaks for a majority of American homosexuals. But "queer theory" is increasingly respectable, as evidenced by the publication of this book by a prominent state university press.
Despite the weakness of the book's main argument and its endorsement of sexual anarchy, Halperin and his allies may be winning the war to define marriage. This portends grave consequences for the rest of us—but perhaps for them as well.
Prop 8 – Did We Fight The Wrong Battle?No, Marc, it's not bizarre at all -- to anyone who is familiar with the discussion of marriage in GLBTQ circles from more than 3-4 years ago. Alas, as in so much that passes for debate on all sorts of issues in our culture, (political, religious, etc.) key, relevant history is forgotten or suppressed.
Monday, November 10, 2008 – Op-Ed By Marc Olmsted, West Hollywood
First of all, let me make it clear that I was against Prop 8.
I contributed money toward its defeat, volunteered in campaign offices in Silverlake, and attended a pre-election rally in West Hollywood Park where I watched two close friends tie the knot.
I believe that it is wrong and unfair that we are not granted marriage equality. I wanted us to win.
So it may seem utterly bizarre that I’m questioning the cause entirely. (To be fair, I’ve had these doubts all along but decided to put them aside for the sake of unity.)
I don’t think we’re looking for the protection of the law.
We have most of what we need with domestic partnership or civil unions, and with a fraction of the money spent on No on 8, we could certainly have pushed for any changes required to make sure we were according the same de facto rights under those agreements as under marriage, at least on the state level.
What we’re looking for, in my opinion, is validation.
We want the state to affirm that our relationships are equal to heterosexual unions, but we reject the state’s response as inadequate, because it is lacks the societal imprimatur of marriage.
In fact, what is lacking is the psychosocial approval inherent with the association of the religious bodies that have traditional overseen this realm.
I could have sworn that my coming out as a gay man, my inner self-affirmation, came about precisely as a result of the rejection of the principle whereby what I thought of myself was a function of what society or the church said was right and good.
Aren’t we barking up that same tree now? If we claim to know our relationships are equal to theirs and as sacred, why are we insisting on their benediction?
Other questions: Does any of us truly believe that of the 18,000 gay couples who have been married in California so far, the same proportion of them won’t be seeking divorce in 5 or 10 years as the straight couples wed at the same time?
Have you spent some time with someone going through a divorce lately? Is this what we want?
And what of our capacity, as the most gifted of tribes, to be on the cutting edge of developing entirely new paradigms for modern relationships?
Why are we seeking to imitate them instead of setting an example that they can imitate?
What I propose we pioneer is the contractual and renewable civil union, which would work like this. A couple would choose a time period with which they were comfortable—3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20 years, or life, for the absolutely certain.
For that period, they would have all of the benefits of marriage. At the end of the term, they would be required to renew their contract at City Hall—hardly a burden for any couple who wants to remain together, in fact, a great way to reaffirm and strengthen their bond.
If either or both chose not to continue in the relationship, the union would lapse. Any parental obligations would remain whatever the spousal status, but sparing the children and the partners from the burden and stigma of divorce.
Of course parents that break up will always be difficult emotionally for children, but parents lapsing into unpartnered status would certainly be more likely to encourage a transition into friendship than the present adversarial atmosphere of divorce, in which the rupture must be sought out.
I contend that there is a significant proportion of the heterosexual population that would find a renewable contract a highly preferable alternative to the one-size-fits-all option they are faced with now if they want the legal and social benefits of marriage.
Anyone who has lived through divorce, whether as a child or as a spouse, wants nothing more than to avoid it again.
I can easily see a state of affairs where the civil union alternative eventually becomes the norm, as society finally recognizes legally that two human beings well suited to a partnership for life are far more the exception than the rule.
The passage of Prop 8 is a disappointment, but for us, it is also an opportunity. Marriage as it is presently constituted is a pre-21 century institution that lacks the flexibility and realism required of the modern age.
I say we stop approaching the powers that be demanding a place at the table. It’s time to build our own table and let them come to us.
Episcopal Church split might turn into conflict over propertyWell, given TEC's recent history, particularly since the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop, such a hard line is not surprising.
By Deirdre Cox Baker | Monday, November 10, 2008 11:12 PM CST
Fallout from the weekend decision by the Diocese of Quincy, Ill., to leave the Episcopal Church of the United States may include litigation over millions of dollars’ worth of property and assets.
“We pray there will be no litigation,” the Rev. Ed den Blaauwen said Monday. Den Blaauwen, the rector of Christ Church in Moline, is also the newly appointed vicar general of the diocese that is now aligned with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.
Church resources would be better used for Christian activities than in the courts, he added.
The Episcopal Church will protect its history and heritage, said the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon to the presiding bishop of the national church in New York City. Church officials will not give away property to a foreign province, he said, adding, “This is our heritage and, more than that, the heritage of those who have not even come our way yet.”
The Episcopalian [sic] Church still exists in the Quincy Diocese, Robertson stressed. “Our first concern for followers is that they know that our church continues,” he added.Well, those are the flash points that reveal a deeper division over the place of the Scriptures and Christian doctrine in the Church's contemporary witness. But what do you expect when describing a debate over fundamental Christian truth in only one or two sentences?
New alignments
Lines are being drawn in the church between liberal or moderate factions and traditional or conservative ones. Arguments center on the national church’s decisions to allow women in the clergy, which occurred in the 1970s, and to promote an openly gay minister to a bishop’s post in 2003.
The schism widened when the national church appointed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to the job. The Quincy Diocese, which numbers 24 churches (including those in Moline, Rock Island, Silvis, Geneseo and Kewanee) and 1,800 members, has never allowed women or gays to be part of the clergy.Yes, that fits with some reports I heard. Things are going to get, uh, interesting here in Peoria.
“We are working to assist in the reorganization of diocesan affairs,” Schori said. It now appears that four churches, including St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Peoria, Ill., the largest in the diocese, will continue to align with the Episcopal Church....
...A new alignment called the Common Cause partnership is working to establish an Anglican province in the United States, according to the Rev. John Spencer, the press officer for the Quincy Diocese. That would include the alignments with the Southern Cone and other U.S. churches that have aligned with an organization including Anglican churches in the African nations of Nigeria and Rwanda.Read it all here. A prayers that cooler heads might be found and prevail.
The timeline for the new organizational structure would involve some kind of provisional recognition in late December or early January, he said. Formal approval of the new North American Anglican Province may come by early February, after the worldwide Anglican council meets in Egypt.
PRESS RELEASEPastor Zip missed the discussion and votes, but from conversations I had with friends after my arrival both pro and con moving from TEC to the Southern Cone, the report on Episcopal Life Online seems accurate:
The Diocese of Quincy, Peoria, IL
November 8, 2008
Contact information:
Fr. John Spencer, Media Officer
The Diocese of Quincy
Email: qunews@mtco.com
Cell: 309-264-7489
For Immediate release
November 8, 2008
Diocese of Quincy Realigns With South American Province
The Annual Synod of the Diocese of Quincy’s meeting November 7-8 in Quincy, Illinois, has voted by strong margins to realign itself with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, breaking its ties with The Episcopal Church in the US. On two key votes more than ¾ of the clergy and lay deputies voted in favor of the realignment.
The move came after several years of prayer and discernment about the diocese's relationship with The Episcopal Church. Many in the Quincy Diocese, both clergy and lay people, have been at odds with the national leadership and other dioceses over the authority of the Bible, church order and discipline, and the church's moral standards and teaching on Christian marriage.
On the vote to disaffiliate from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 75% of the clergy and 82% of the lay deputies voted in favor. On the subsequent vote to realign the diocese with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone the vote in favor was 92% in the clergy order and 87% in the lay order.
"This decision was not made lightly," said Fr. John Spencer, press officer for the diocese. "We have talked and prayed about this for a very long time. But we take our relationship to the Anglican Communion very seriously. Since 2003, over half the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been in a state of broken Communion with The Episcopal Church. By realigning with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, we are now back in full communion with the majority of over 75 million Anglicans around the world."
Canon Ed den Blaauwen, incoming President of the Standing Committee, said the focus of the diocese will remain on mission. "Our churches and our diocese will continue in mission and ministry locally and around the world. We feel much at home under the oversight of Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, who has warmly welcomed us into affiliation with that Province," den Blaauwen said. "We are once again back in full fellowship with our brother and sister Anglicans."
Shortly after the votes were taken, Canon den Blaauwen, who acted as chairman for the Synod, read a letter from Archbishop Venables welcoming Quincy as a member of the Province of the Southern Cone.
Bishop Keith Ackerman who retired from leadership of the diocese on November 1, spoke to the gathering Friday afternoon just before the synod convened. Quoting the Epistle of Jude, he encouraged them to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ and the historic faith of the Christian Church as they considered the momentous decisions before them.
"While the votes show there was very strong support for this decision," Fr. Spencer said, "we realize this was not a unanimous decision." By a separate action, the synod made provision for a nine months grace period during which a congregation or member of the clergy might consider withdrawing from the diocese in order to stay in the Episcopal Church. "It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination," Spencer said.- 30 -
During the 45-minute debate on the resolution to leave the Episcopal Church, some speakers suggested that they could have a greater witness by "working from within," but the majority of speakers expressed disgust at the Episcopal Church, saying that what they were leaving did not represent the church they had been born into or once joined.The sermons preached at the Synod -- at Evensong by Bishop Peter Beckwith of the neighboring Diocese of Springfield shortly after the vote and at the Eucharist the next morning by Quincy Bishop-retired Donald Parsons -- wrestled with what the Synod had done, both pointedly lifting up that faithful Anglicans in the US, while deeply opposed to the leadership and direction of TEC, remain divided over staying in vs. leaving the Episcopal Church, at least as long as it remains the province of the Anglican Communion in the United States. Hopes are that a new, more orthodox province will be established fairly soon for North America.
The final speaker, a woman who was not fully identified, said "We need to make a choice. Is Jesus Christ our Savior or not?"
"I don’t feel like I’m leaving TEC, instead I feel like I am moving forward. I am convinced that by not leaving TEC, I will brand myself with the same heretical views of those who are running TEC now. This is the end. Right here. Today," she said.
The resolution said leaders of the Episcopal Church and actions of its General Convention "have failed to uphold the teaching and authority of Holy Scripture, have challenged or belittled core doctrines of the Christian faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican Communion, and have rejected the godly counsel of the leaders of the Communion."
Canoga Park shows dedication to late coach LugoRead it all here. Oh, and just to show how we can keep in "in the family," Gary Miereanu is Canoga Park High Class of 1978 (one year behind me) when he wrote for what was then the only weekly newspaper in the LA Unified School District, the Hunters' Call. And I've known Gary he and my sister started Kindergarten together when I was in Grade A-1.
By Gary Miereanu Special to the Daily News
Seventy years of Canoga Park alums poured into the school Friday night for a homecoming game filled with emotions that resonated far beyond the Hunters' final winning tally.
The crowd of approximately 4,000 - including SRO stands on the home side of the field - paid open tribute to Rudy Lugo, dedicating the field in the name of their late head football coach, and retiring his No. 80 from his mid-60s playing days - the first football number to be retired in Canoga Park High history.
"The first time I saw the 'Rudy Lugo Stadium' (sign), I was taken aback," said Christopher Lugo, the late coach's son who now serves as a Hunters assistant coach. "I've been running on this field ever since, well, since I could walk. I'm very honored to have this stadium named for him, and to work at the same place he did. I know he's with me, watching me, helping me, and that makes this dedication that much more special."
Alums from 1938 to 2008 attended the game, including members of Canoga's City Championship teams from 1969 and 1981. But in a clear sign of the times, there was no candlelight ceremony - rather, the Canoga's student body president asked for everyone to open their cell phones, raise them over their heads in order to create an illuminated honor.
In between the festivities, there was a football game. Junior tailback Tom Wilson rushed for 300 yards and two touchdowns to lead Canoga Park (5-4, 4-1) to a 30-14 victory over Grant (4-5, 3-2) in East Valley League play.
It was a wonderful life for Rudy LugoRead the entire column here.
Poor Rudy Lugo.
For nearly 40 years he coached on a football team that never sent a player to the NFL, never brought him a national honor, never even gave him a parking space.
For nearly 40 years he worked in an office with bars over the windows, lived in a home where kids trampled the lawn, hung out at a church where he prayed in darkness.
Poor Rudy Lugo.
As the head coach at perennially modest Canoga Park High in a cluttered corner of the San Fernando Valley, he lived a life as regionally invisible as the greasy garages and doughnut shops that surrounded him.
He was on television once. He made the headlines never. He earned a $3,500 stipend for teaching kids to play a sport that most of them would never play again, in a city that would never make any of them famous.
Poor Rudy Lugo.
He died of cancer two weeks ago, and Canoga Park will never be the same.
"It wasn't like the town lost just another person," former player Ricardo Hernandez said. "It was like we lost a member of our family."
At his funeral, mourners spilled out of Our Lady of the Valley Church and huddled on the front lawn watching monitors.
After the service, when the hearse drove Lugo around the Canoga Park High football field for the last time, dozens of players and fans rushed back to salute him.
At the school, students randomly hung signs on hallways and doorways, teenage writings filled with honor and angst.
"Rudy was much more than a coach," one read. "He was a man who dedicated his life to us kids."
In the downtown streets of this 70,000-person suburb, folks stepped out of thrift shops and bakeries to remember him.
"Best coach and teacher ever," said Felisha Ibarra, who works at a wireless store adjacent to a sidewalk plaque dedicated to Lugo. "It's like everybody around here has been affected by him in some way."
For the two weeks since his death, "Mr. Canoga's" booming voice has not been silenced, but replaced by those who speak in his honor.
Listen to the sobbing middle-aged construction worker who, while spending one football season in a juvenile detention center, received an inspirational letter from Lugo that he still holds today.
"We knew our father touched a lot of people," said his daughter Melissa. "But to actually see all this . . . we had no idea."
Pastor Zip and his Congressman-elect, Aaron Schock, shortly after his victory speech last night. Age 27, Aaron will be the youngest member of the 111th Congress of the United States. 
