Republicans Say Rape Can Be Classified as "Forcible" and "Legitimate." So does Father Groeschel, Catholic Friar from New York.

The Republican party recently made headlines by trying to define rape as only when it is "legitimate" and "forcible." This Catholic friar is doing the same thing, but he also explains what rape is when it is illegitimate and not coerced.

                                                                                    This picture taken from the Huffington Post website.

 

Here is a link to the Huffington Post article describing the Friar's comments.
From the Huffington Post: Father Benedict Groeschel, American Friar, Claims Teens Seduce Priests

This guy is wrong. Rape is rape. Pedophilia is rape. The people who think rape is sometimes justifiable are wrong.

This guy is a mainstream Catholic Friar from New York, just as Akin, Ryan and others are mainstream Republicans who are currently in office. Shocking. I am glad that we are hearing how these guys really think. But they need to be told their view of rape is the view of the perpetrator and perpetrators do not need to be in charge of the government, nor of the Catholic Church.

Far Right Blames Hurricane Isaac on Gays, Yet Says Nothing About Republican Convention

What on earth is going on?

Here's the story that goes with the photograph, taken from the Huffington Post website:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/hurricane-isaac-southern-decadence-gay-festival-new-orleans_n_1843636.html?ir=Gay%20Voices

Blaming Gays for the world's troubles simply doesn't cut it. Once again, if God is going around causing trouble--hurricanes and tornadoes, etc., then God needs to be charged either with criminal mischief (in this case) or with murder (in the earlier case of tornadoes--see previous post.)

What would have happened if the Republicans had to cancel their convention due to Hurricane Isaac? Would God have then been on the side of Democrats? Come on! This is bad theology and we all know it!!

God doesn't punish. Let's get the story straight. We are in hurricane season.

Far Right Wants to Expand Access to Semi-Automatic Weaponry While Controlling Access to Birth Control, Abortion and LGBT Marriage

WHAT IS GOING ON?

As the crow flies, I live about a mile from the Aurora theater shooter's apartment. I take my kids to Red Robin and Joe's Crab Shack (where two people who were shot worked) and my friend's daughter was sitting in the front right section of the theater when the shooter entered Friday morning. So, even though the shootings did not directly impact my life, I feel I have been personally touched. Because of this, I have been thinking a lot about the shooting--and I have been watching the public discussion surrounding gun control.

There seem to be two main groups of people--those who like guns and those who do not. These two groups are talking right past each other. Those who do not like guns argue that access to semi-automatic rifles must be limited and those who do like guns argue that access must be unrestricted. As for myself, I am strongly in the group that believes society has no need for semi-automatic rifles, but I have been closely watching what the other side is saying.

Facebook is one reason I have been watching the discussion so closely. One of my Facebook friends who is a frequent poster has been writing quite a lot about his love for semi-automatic rifles. From this person’s previous posts on Facebook I know that he gets "a hard-on" when he holds a cocked gun at someone's head. Aside from being a frequent poster on Facebook, this person is also a cop and if he is getting sexually stimulated by guns then I am willing to bet others are too. That this is an unexamined part of gun ownership means that our society should begin to look at why people own these types of guns.

I am a chaplain. My own stereotype of chaplains is that they are not a gun-toting bunch. But at one of my previous jobs I found that wasn't true. Listening to lunch time discussions I found that many chaplains regularly carry guns and that they do so as a part of their religious beliefs. In fact, I found out that some churches celebrate the fact that nearly all of their members are concealed permit holders. What this really means is that some churches celebrate the fact that Sunday morning services are filled with guns.

I can understand that shooting someone can be sexually stimulating. What I don’t understand is how religion fits into all of this. What about Christianity is conducive to blowing someone away with a powerful rifle? When I look at Fundamental Christians, I see people who are concerned with end times and with preserving past power structures. Fundamentalist Christians have been concerned with the apocalypse for almost two thousand years and it cannot go without comment that many people on the Far Right are very concerned that we have a Black president. Is there something that links the apocalypse with people's need to buy semi-automatic rifles?

In the press coverage after the shootings we heard from ammunition companies who said that buying large amounts of semi-automatic ammunition is not uncommon. These companies said that people regularly buy large amounts of ammunition because it is necessary for use on the gun range. But I don't think gun ranges are really why people are buying box after box of ammunition. People’s fear of the apocalypse has more to do with it. So does the fact that we have a black president. In other words, people who like semi-automatic rifles are buying large amounts of assault ammunition to protect themselves during end times. They don't need normal guns to protect themselves because these are not normal times.

People who want to control access to semi-automatic rifles need to shift the focus of this conversation. We do not need to speak of 2^nd Amendment rights anymore because controlling access to these weapons does nothing to diminish 2^nd Amendment rights. Rather, we need to speak about why large segments of our society have such a tremendous need to kill people—and make no mistake about it—if you are stock-piling semi-automatic ammunition you have a tremendous need to kill people.

What is really going on here? We can see from the public discussion that access to semi-automatic weapons and semi-automatic ammunition is a big deal. But we are so busy arguing about our right to protect ourselves that we are missing the bigger issue. Mixing sexual gratification with religion means that we are trying to expand men’s right to sexual gratification while at the same time trying to limit women’s ability to control their sexuality. All we have to do is take one look at the Far Right’s struggle against access to birth control and abortion to know that. Once we know what is really happening we will have the ability to take action. Society must take action to limit the public’s access to semi-automatic weaponry. To do otherwise is to bring back the Middle Ages.

Access to Birth Control, Abortion and LGBT Marriage are All First Amendment Rights

Here is a letter I wrote to Anthea Butler, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Butler has a lot to say about religion's role in the public sector. I wrote this letter to Dr. Butler because I'd like to see SOMEBODY talking about the issues of SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, ACCESS TO BIRTH CONTROL and ACCESS TO ABORTION as a FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT. Before I wrote to Dr. Butler I wrote to Marty Rouse of the Human Rights Campaign. Neither person ever wrote back. We need to change the conversation surrounding these issues. They are all First Amendment issues, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Let the conversation begin!

Dear Dr. Butler,

I am a Jewish chaplain working at a hospice in Denver. I am also
Lesbian. I have been watching the debate on the legality of homosexual
marriage but I want to do more than just watch. I want to change the
national conversation we are having. I also want to unite the effort
to maintain access to birth control (and abortion) to the effort to
legalize same sex marriage. Here's why:

Every argument I have seen against these issues is religiously based.
Homosexuality is a sin, marriage is between one man and one woman and
life begins at conception. These are all arguments which the Far Right
says come from the Bible. The First Amendment of the US Constitution
says that government can make no rules which respect one religion over
another. I am having trouble understanding why no one is saying that
religiously based laws have no place in our constitutional system. As
I watch the public debate I am beginning to realize that no one is
seeing what is going on because we are talking about Religion—and yet
when we talk about Religion, we do not talk about how religion has
changed—and I see two religious systems at play: I see the pre-modern
concept and I see the post-modern concept of religion.

We on the religious left are not making any headway with the religious
right because we are talking past them. In essence we are having two
religious conversations. We must understand how religion has changed
over the last years in order to frame this conversation correctly. The
religious right sees themselves as being philosophically pre-modern.
Anything that smacks of post modernism is thus shunned and ignored. We
must bring this out into the open--begin talking about how we cannot
base our society on the Bible in the way we used to base our society
on the Bible--without even thinking about it.

We on the religious left are spending our time talking about how
religion and the Bible DON’T discriminate against gays and women—and
yet the Bible is chalk full of these examples. The Bible hasn’t
changed.  Rather it is we who have changed. We no longer base our
Truth on Bronze Age ideas—ideas which were extant BEFORE the concept
of “zero” even took hold.  As liberal clergy, we must begin to frame
the conversation—embracing the modern concept of religion—because for
the first time in history, religion now has the possibility of being
about a relationship with the Divine, when before religion was about
control.

Access to Birth Control, Abortion and LGBT Marriage are All First Amendment Issues

First Amendment

There is much discussion currently in the public arena about homosexuality, access to birth control and access to abortion. I see the issue of LGBT Human Rights (specifically the right for LGBT individuals to be married legally and to receive all of the governmental thereof) as a First Amendment Right. (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”)

I also see the issue of access to birth control and abortion as a First Amendment Right.

I have not heard one person say anything about First Amendment Rights in connection with homosexuality or access to birth control. I am confused about this, but I also know that religion has so permeated our culture that it almost makes up the very air we breathe. Most of us have no idea the extent to which religion plays a role in our lives.

The key issue in this argument is that religion has historically tried to define and control gender roles. The aim of having proper sexual roles has been to protect masculinity. A woman’s virginity is valuable because it protects and maintains a man’s masculinity. At all times women must act in a way that protects masculinity while men must never be associated with a feminine role. Men and women who transgress these laws have historically paid the ultimate price by being put to death. Since biblical times, history is full of examples of men and women being brutally put to death for acting in a way not in accordance with the biblical stance on masculinity. In the following section, I give a few of the more grievous biblical verses which regulate gender roles in order to protect masculinity.

• Leviticus 20:13 is the famous verse which states that, “If a man lies with a man, as with a woman,” he shall be put to death.

• Deuteronomy 22:13-21 deals with a man who accuses his new wife of not being a virgin. When a man accuses his new wife, her family is to provide evidence (a bloody bed garment) of her virginity; otherwise the woman will be put to death.

• Deuteronomy 22:22-29 deals with what should be done to a virgin who has been raped. If she was raped in the city, she is to be put to death because she could have screamed and didn't. If the woman was raped in the field, she is to be left alone (because there was no one to hear her screams.) The man is also put to death in these circumstances, but it is because he took another man’s woman. And if the woman who was raped was not betrothed, the rapist is to pay her father and marry her.

• Deuteronomy 25:11-12 deals with putting a woman to death if she intervened in her husband's fight with another man and during that fight she grabbed his “secrets.” The punishment is to cut off the woman’s hands. This is typically not seen as a death sentence but a cursory Google search will show that death from such an injury is not only a possibility: it may be an inevitability—particularly without proper medical care.

• Romans 1:26-27 condemns homosexual behavior—men with men and women with women.

• Corinthians 16:9-10 condemns the sexual attraction and behavior that one man may have for another man.

• Timothy 11:9-10 calls homosexuals sinners by comparing them to murderers.

Many homosexual people (and others) are very passionate about religion and see it as a positive force in their lives. That religion has been used to control people is unthinkable to many. It would not surprise me if people within the LGBT population express outrage over what I am saying. (Dan Savage’s recent comments on the evils of religion for the LGBT population and Jay Michaelson’s impassioned response are examples of this type of outrage.) Both men used LGBT epithets to describe people they disagreed with. This shows the extent to which culture and religious influence permeates the very core of our beings. (Dan called the people who walked out of his talk “pansy-asses” and Jay called Dan “The Gay Santorum”.) For many people, religion is either bad or it is good. I am not saying either. I am saying that the anti-homosexual argument is religiously based, as is the argument for limiting access to birth control and abortion. I am also saying that government cannot make laws which are biblically based.

When I look at homosexuality it is easy for me to see that breaking traditional gender roles is at the heart of the issue—and male homosexuals have paid the price for that transgression with their blood. When I look at access to birth control and abortion I see that women are paying a very heavy price for having to guard masculinity. They are paying with their lives. Lesbians have been lumped together with other women and so have not been traditionally visible in the homosexual arena.

I see a couple of things happening here. Religion is confusing—and religion is changing. The fact that the role of religion has changed over the last 50 years is obvious—yet the ways that it has changed remain invisible to most people.

When I was in my residency to become a chaplain I shared a tiny office with a man who was ordained by Calvary Chapel, a large non-denominational church that began in southern California. You can imagine that both this gentleman and I were perturbed to be sharing such a small space together. Yet we were able to speak honestly and frankly about our two positions and grew to be quite fond of one another. I learned some crucial things about the far right side of the Christian Church from my year of sharing an office and I would like to share what I have learned.

These churches (and movements, denominations or whatever term they use to describe themselves) are biblically based. This term is confusing to other religious movements like the Methodists, Presbyterians and Conservative Jews (although as Jews they are Talmudically based and not biblically based) who are also quite fond of the Bible. However, when Calvary Chapel, Evangelical Frees and the Church of Christ say they are biblically based, they really mean that their definition of “the truth” is based on the Bible. When they base “truth” on the Bible they are not doing so rationally; rather they are describing themselves philosophically. These far right Christian movements see themselves in opposition to post-modernism. Anybody who they identify as post-modern is thus “against God.” This is the basis for their stance against homosexuals and their stance against post-modernism explains why the Catholic Church and the far-right Protestant movements came together to agree not to pay for birth control.

I believe we can thank the Catholic Church for bringing all of this to the forefront in such a graphic way. Instead of arguing with the Catholic Church, Calvary Chapel, Evangelical Frees and the Church of Christ (among many others) we can simply accept what they say. Yes, it is against “your”religion to provide access to birth control and abortion and it is against“your” religion to allow LGBT people to have the governmental benefit of legally sanctioned marriage. And BECAUSE of that, the government cannot place the laws of Christianity over the laws of the people. There can be no law (biblically based) passed by our government which limits access to birth control or abortion and there can be no law which limits a person’s right to marry. These are constitutional rights, laid out by the First Amendment of the United States. I as a woman and a lesbian do not have to live under the repressive regime of the Christian Church. I do not have to live under the repressive regime of the Jewish Religion and I do not have to live under the Law of Islam, end of story.

If Pat Robertson is Telling the Truth We Must Charge God With Murder

                                                                This picture came from the Huffington Post article, original photo from YouTube.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pat-robertson-tornadoes-prayer_n_1321686.html

If God really is responsible for the recent deaths during the rampaging tornadoes, then we need to take action. We cannot allow God to murder people as retribution for "not praying enough."

When Pat Robertson makes statements like this, what he is really saying is that God is a terrorist.

We all know that God is not a terrorist. And yet, we allow Pat Robertson to make statements like this without telling him what he is really saying. Pat Robertson is wrong.

Here's what I know to be true:

God is love.

God does not punish.

I want to participate in creating a society where we all care for one another. I want to participate in creating a society where we all can participate. This is what the religious clergy of this country should be talking about.

If clergy describe God as a murderer and a terrorist, people feel like they deserve the bad things that are happening to them. This simply isn't true.