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Catholics, evangelicals pledge to ignore LGBT and abortion rights laws

Have you heard about the Manhattan Declaration? The document drafted in October, signed by 125 religious leaders, and released on November 20, 2009, is the conservative religious community’s line in the sand when it comes to progressive social issues. Ther Minnesota Independent highlighted this section:

Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

The Independent article also highlights the HRC response:

This declaration simply perpetuates the fallacy that equality and religious liberty are incompatible and that every step toward fairness for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is another burden on religious people. In reality, non-discrimination laws are working all over this country, where religious freedom is existing side-by-side with equal opportunity.

From my perspective, there are three main points to be made about this action by these conservative religious leaders:

• As big and grandiose as it is written, it appears as if this group speaks for all religious leaders and practitioners of Christianity. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There are many people of faith and faith tradition leaders who believe religious liberty and social justice for all go hand in hand. For many, this struggle is not between the believers and social change, but rather, it is between some powerful institutions of “the Church” and the development of a fair and just society. In some regards, the Church hasn’t learned from any of its past social experiments and battles with knowledge. From the condemnation of Galileo, to the Inquisition, to witch burnings, and the Church’s role in the slave trade. The Church, in the most generic sense has sought to force some false ideas upon the masses, rather than explore how social justice, science, and understanding can work in concert with faith traditions and the meanings behind specific faith community’s doctrines.
• The HRC response, at least as reported in the Independent, is interesting, speaking only about non-discrimination and religious liberty. As much as the HRC is chided by many within the LGBT community as not doing enough, their ability to maintain the framing of the issue on the real topic at hand is meaningful and important. I have more to say about this, which may be later in this post or in a future blog post.
• The Independent describes this as a “pledge to ignore laws…,” an idea which is highly troubling as well as exciting. Troubling, in that it reflects a breakdown of our society. We have always been a society of laws. While the far right religious leaders suggest that people like gay rights activists are destroying the fabric of society, it is really they who are destroying our democracy and our society of laws by deciding they they can chose which laws to abide by and which to ignore. Nothing could be more troubling than this idea. Nothing. However, it is also exciting, in that in most every social justice movement in our country’s history, there has been the moment when the line was drawn in the sand, and justice prevailed. For instance the moment when the National Guard was called in to assure that a group of black school children were given access equal education despite the efforts of a governor and an angry mob. It is a mystery to me why bigotry must always push to a stand off battle. Justice and fairness to all will, as long as democracy survives, win out. but the bigots do it, over and over again.

I don’t use the word “bigot” glibly. By definition:

A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.The correct use of the term requires the elements of obstinacy, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing devotion. The origin of the word bigot and bigoterie in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of “religious hypocrite”.

Within a country of religious freedom and freedom from religion, this effort to force their narrow religious views on everyone fits the definition to the letter. The notion of hypocrite also applies, for these same people are not speaking out against those heterosexuals who marry as seniors for multiple values, but for whom reproduction is not an option. Yet their declaration states:

…but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation.

This blog post has already become long, so I will hold the rest of my thoughts and continue to blog about this  during the coming days.

This is the article that first brought this to my attention: Catholics, evangelicals pledge to ignore LGBT and abortion rights laws « Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media..

Other links about the Manhattan Declaration:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/11/manhattan-declaration58-a-call-of-christian-conscience

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09112004.html

http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/13534-the-manhattan-declaration