You stick around long enough, you see many things come to pass.
As one who has begun more than one Sunday at Shepherd Church in Porter Ranch and finished it with a cocktail at The Abbey in West Hollywood with a stop along the way at Runyon Canyon, and not found any of it to be in contradiction, I’ve had a front row seat to the gathering storm. My personal creed: I will not renounce gay marriage, and I will not renounce Christ, may no longer be welcome in either house.
Digniquality is the mash-up argument one grasps for when trying to extract from the Constitution a Solomonic expression of popular will. Which is a fancy way of saying the Court would have wiser not to have taken the case and let the democratic process play out in the states for a few years. Healthier for the country. Easier for me.
Christians are a cheerful bunch. In my great Jesus Tour of the Valley, I’ve yet to walk into a church and failed to find a friendly face, nor hear good music, occasionally transcendent music.
Ironically, I can say the same for gay establishments.
Where does the judicial sanctification of same-sex marriage leave us? With a new class of Officially Despised Persons, formerly known as faithful Christians. The media will honor no distinction between standing for traditional marriage and George Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door. The Court has now mandated it in Law. There will no longer be private space in the public square. All will be put to the question. Half the country will be baptized Heroic, Noble, and Good; the other half will be hounded from polite society. Haters. Bigots. Worse.
Most gay people I know will be happy to call a win a win and leave it at that. There is, however, a media cadre much more interested in the arrival of SSM not as the freedom to kiss, officially, at the courthouse steps, but as a legal high ground for going after the tax-exempt status of churches.
The real world doesn’t always work the way judges would like it to. What was intended to be a capstone on a ten-year argument just blew the foundation out from under civil society. Trust me, I’m reporting direct from the pew. Churches know they are under siege, and they’re digging in.
Mr. UpintheValley would like to see his support for gay marriage not come to grief. The Constitution has been a sturdy truck, for over two centuries. There is freedom for disagreement within it, for irreconcilable world views to share space on the same block and the same workplace. Speak up for that disagreement.
Solzhenitsyn put it well when he wrote, ‘live not by lies’. Thank you for use of the hall.
