Church of the Churchless

Two examples of religious dogmatism from here in Oregon

Today the Portland Oregonian, our state's largest newspaper, had two stories side-by-side about Republican lawmakers acting like the Christian dogmatists that they are.

It's amazing, speaking as an atheist, how religious believers can be so hateful and prejudiced toward people who aren't like them.

I'd never say that Christians shouldn't serve in an elected office. I'd also never say that an entire group -- in this case the LGBTQ community -- supported child abuse and pedophilia. But that's exactly what the Republican lawmakers said. 

That's shameful. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that enough of their conservative constituencies will like what they said, rather than viewing it as what it is: abhorrent. 

I've boldfaced the parts of the stories that outraged me the most.

A Republican Oregon lawmaker has suggested “you don’t want” Muslims, atheists and other non-Christians to serve in elected office.

Rep. E. Werner Reschke, of the small town of Malin near the California border, made the comments in a Jan. 17 appearance on “Save the Nation,” a talk show streamed on Facebook that is affiliated with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Monday. Reschke is a member of the association.

The show’s host, former Arkansas lawmaker Jason Rapert, for much of the episode asked Reschke about what he called the “sad reality of the lax treatment of drugs” in Oregon. Reschke said drug decriminalization “makes our state unlivable,” and argued that spirituality and church leaders are part of the solution.

Last week, Oregon Democratic lawmakers introduced a new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law, a recognition that public opinion has soured on it amid a fentanyl-fueled overdose crisis deadlier than any the U.S. has ever seen.

During the interview, Rapert also asked why Reschke feels it is important that Christians “be involved in government.”

“You go back in history, and you look at men and the struggles that they faced, and the faith that they had,” Reschke said. “Those are the types of people you want in government making tough decisions at tough times. You don’t want a materialist. You don’t want an atheist. You don’t want a Muslim. … You want somebody who understands what truth is, and understands the nature of man, the nature of government and the nature of God.”

The remarks prompted the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin nonprofit organization that advocates keeping religion out of governance, to call for Reschke to apologize to people in his legislative district or to resign. The group sent Reschke a letter last week saying his duty is to support the state and federal constitutions and not to promote his personal religious views.

Reschke told Oregon Public Broadcasting in an email that his comments had been “grossly taken out of context.” But when asked for more specifics about what he meant to say, Reschke did not respond.

Muslim state Sen. Kayse Jama, a Portland Democrat, told the public radio station that he was “disheartened to see one of my legislative colleagues express views contrary to American values, the U.S. Constitution, and our collective aspiration of building a more perfect union. Our ability to live and work with our fellow Oregonians who speak different languages, pray or vote different ways, celebrate different cultures is our strength.”

Here's the other story.

The newest member of the Oregon House of Representatives claimed supporting LGBTQ+ people was akin to supporting child abuse and accused drag queens of pedophilia in months-old posts on his campaign website.

Dwayne Yunker, a real estate broker and city councilor from Grants Pass, was appointed in December to finish the term of former Rep. Lily Morgan, who resigned to become the city manager of Gold Hill. Yunker was already planning to challenge Morgan in the Republican primary, arguing she wasn’t conservative enough for the southern Oregon district.

Yunker’s campaign website includes a post from last August titled “No to Gay Pride Month,” explaining his decision to skip the beginning of a Grants Pass City Council meeting to protest a proclamation about June as Pride Month. He was a member of the council at the time.

Yunker’s campaign post included claims that drag queens are pedophiles and events including family friendly drag shows or drag queen story hours are attempts to make pedophilia seem acceptable. He further declared that supporting Pride Month was akin to supporting child abuse. “It is shocking that any adult would endorse this child abuse,” he wrote.

Yunker expounded on his objections in a subsequent post, titled “Shouldn’t Christians avoid politics?” In it, Yunker wrote that he considered a statement in the resolution that LGBTQ+ people face persecution to be spurious. And he claimed LGBTQ+ people, who he referred to as “the ever-expanding alphabet movement,” discriminated against Christians.

“We cannot sit out afraid someone might call us right wing, homophonic (sic), or even Christian Nationalists,” he wrote.

Kyndall Mason, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, called Yunker’s promotion of false ideas dangerous.

“The uninformed, hateful and false ideas written in Rep. Yunker’s blog posts are deeply dangerous, and will direct more hate to these constituents and all trans and queer Oregonians,” Mason said.

Yunker didn’t respond to a call or email from the Capital Chronicle on Tuesday.

House Minority Leader Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, defended Yunker’s right to express himself.

“While it may be hard for some leftists in Portland to understand this, many Oregonians — including members of the LGBTQ community — do not want children exposed to hyper-sexualized material that they are not developmentally able to understand,” Helfrich said in a statement. “Elected officials have every right to voice those concerns on behalf of the districts that they represent.”

Mason said in a statement that Yunker’s job requires him to serve all his constituents, including the LGBTQ+ Oregonians in his district.

The beauty of "We don't not care" rather than "We don't care"

Sometimes a television program can get a moral point across in a few minutes of entertainment that is more clear and convincing than a lengthy ethical treatise.

That happened to me last night when my wife and I were watching an episode of season 3 of Ted Lasso on AppleTV+.

Before I share a clip of that scene, a bit of background. 

Colin, one of the soccer (football, to most of the world) players on the professional team Lasso is coaching, inadvertently revealed that he was gay, homosexual, to the team captain, Isaac, when Isaac saw some photos on Colin's phone.

Isaac then gave Colin the cold shoulder, ignoring him and even acting nasty toward him during the first half of their soccer match. I thought Isaac was being homophobic. Not true. We later learn that Isaac was upset that Colin hadn't told him he was gay.

At halftime, after the team had played poorly, a fan yelled that they were all a bunch of faggots -- a derogatory term for a male homosexual. That set Isaac off. He charged into the seats, accosting the fan, which led to him getting a red card and being ejected from the game.

During the team's halftime meeting, Lasso asked why Isaac acted that way. Someone said that maybe it was because Isaac was gay. But Colin then revealed to the team for the first time that he was gay.

The reaction from team members: "We don't care." That spurred Ted Lasso to relate one of his folksy stories in order to convey a message to his team. 

What struck me about this little speech was how while "We don't care" was supposed to express support for Colin, that actually was a weak gesture for their gay teammate. 

Sure, we don't care that you're gay is much better than we dislike that you're gay, but it's way worse than we care about you and will support you. Which is why Lasso put it as "We don't not care." Because they actually do care about Colin.

The meaning I took away from this is that we shouldn't sit on the sidelines when someone or something we care about is being attacked or threatened or denigrated or ignored.

To give a churchless example, it isn't enough to say that we don't care if someone has a spiritual belief different from our own. That's a wishy-washy sentiment of neutrality, really. Rather, as the tagline on this blog says, we should wholeheartedly support and care about spiritual independence. 

This is why I started this blog about nineteen years ago: I was fed up with religious fundamentalism that believes in only one way, the fundamentalist way. I wanted to do something about dogmatism and blind faith, which I consider to be dangerous both for individuals and cultures.

But this doesn't mean accepting everything someone says about their chosen belief system, in the same way that even though Colin is supported by his teammates in his gayness, they can still criticize Colin for all kinds of other things, including how he plays in a soccer match.

On this blog, I care about truth. Even as I support commenters in choosing their personal spiritual or religious beliefs, I can critique those beliefs when they appear to be objectively untrue -- because truth is important to me.

And naturally they can critique my blog posts for not being true or making sense. 

When caring is present, rather than not caring, a lot can be forgiven. In the Ted Lasso episode, Isaac and Colin drift apart. Then they come together again after Isaac goes to Colin's house and apologizes for the way he acted.

This is tougher to do in cyberspace, since that lacks the physical intimacy of face-to-face communication. Still, caring, really caring, is equally important in our social media and internet encounters.

Yes, I often fail to keep this in mind when I feel strongly about something I care about, and someone else has another way of looking at it. However, deep down I know that they care as much as I do. We just care about different things in different ways.

If we can agree that we all care about caring, hey, that might be as good as it gets in this often crazy realm of cyberspace. The most important thing is to keep on caring, because apathy is much worse. 

Passionate disagreements can be bridged. Apathy, not caring, is a void that can't be bridged.

Salem Gay Pride speaker has a lesson for atheists

Last Friday my wife and I went to a Pride gathering in Salem's Riverfront Park. I wrote about it in "Scott Hosner speaks at 2021 Salem Gay Pride event." 

The seven-minute video I made of Hosner can be viewed below. It's worth watching for several reasons.

One is that Hosner's description of what it was like to grow up queer in the last part of the previous century shows how much progress has been made in LGBTQ rights since that time. That's really encouraging given the many social problems we face now.

(My daughter graduated from South Salem high school in 1990, which could be about the time Hosner was a student there.)

Another reason is that Hosner calls on members of other minorities to "come out" as he is urging queer people to do. This is needed to show that those who are part of a minority group are regular people like everybody else.

And if enough minorities band together, they can form a majority.

Atheists like me are a decided minority. It appears that we comprise somewhere around 3% to 10% of the United States population. 

A monthly discussion group that I'm a part of is almost entirely made up of atheists. Last night we talked about the pros and cons of being open about our atheism.

A woman who lives in a fairly conservative nearby town said that she's reluctant to let people know she doesn't believe in God, since religious believers can be nasty to atheists. 

That's true, but I think there are strong reasons for doing what Hosner recommends: be proud of who you are and what you believe, and don't be shy about opening yourself up to others. 

Here's the video.

Salem City Council says "NO" to LGBTQ rights

Last Monday night I learned that it isn't only religious fundamentalists who don't care about the rights of LGBTQ people.

(Since this blog is read by people all around the world, some of whom may not be familiar with that term, it's an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning.)

I was deeply irritated when the Salem City Council voted 6-1 to approve a lease with the Salem Alliance Church for use of a church-owned building as a temporary public library while renovations are being made to the library at the Civic Center.

This has been a fascinating issue for me to be involved with, since it intersects issues that I'm interested in: the role of religion in society, politics, and human rights. 

I started a "Stand Up for LGBTQ Rights in Salem!" petition that currently has 287 supporters. Feel free to sign it, if you like.

A key reason I decided to support the Salem Human Rights Commission, which opposes using the church-owned building as a public library, given the opposition of the Salem Alliance Church to same-sex marriage and same-sex sex, is that I don't see any difference between bigotry in the name of religion and bigotry in the name of anything else.

Bigotry is bigotry. If you don't support basic human rights for everybody, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, or whatever, you're a bigot.

I've had people on Facebook say to me in a comment, "What don't you understand about same-sex sex being a sin? It says so in the Bible." Hard to believe religious people can be so ignorant. The Old Testament was written by human beings in pre-scientific times. 

So using the Bible as a guide to morality is absurd. As is using any other holy book as a guide to morality.

But even Christians should recognize that the Bible can be interpreted in various ways when it comes to same sex attraction. Today a gay man, Cary Renfro, left this comment on a post I wrote about the City Council's bad decision. 

Brian, thanks for doing this blog.

First, the Salem Alliance minister either doesn't know his Bible very well or (more likely) is reading from faulty English translations. There are gay and lesbian people all over the place.

Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1:16-18), (Ruth 4:14-15)
David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1-4; 1 Samuel 20:16-17 (their marriage); 1 Samuel 20:41; 2 Samuel 1:26)
Psalm 133, which is very short and begins "How good it is and how pleasant for men to dwell together in union!"

First gentile conversion was the gay treasurer of Ethiopia: Acts 8:26-39.
Gays can go to heaven: Isaiah 56:3-7

The story of Nehemiah, the eunuch (aka gay) handservant of King Artaxerxes who became the rebuilder of Jerusalem and the temple starts in Nehemiah chapter 2.

King Zedekiah’s gay (court official) Ebed-Melech, who rescued the prophet Jeremiah when Prince Malchiah and others threw Jeremiah into a cistern and he sank into the mud. (Jeremiah 38 - 39) The story ends with the LORD telling Jeremiah to go to Ebed-Melech and say: “Thus says the LORD of hosts…I will surely deliver you…because you have put your trust in me, says the LORD.”

Jesus, praying that men who love one another may be united with Him and God: John 17:18-26.

Jesus healing the Centurion's boyfriend: Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10; John 4:46-53.

SO much for all that. Look it up yourself, and do the translations yourself, and for goodness' sake use a decent English translatiion.

Now, this decision of the city council is quite upsetting to me.

If the property were owned by the KKK would the city be leasing it? No or yes? If you take that pastor's remarks and replace the word "homosexual" with any racial term or religious term such as Black person, or Irish person, or Jewish person - would there not be an outcry? and would not the city refrain from contracting with the organization?

(I put in Irish because at one time there were signs all over the country saying "no Irish need apply".)

How can the city justify this?

For those of us who can't use the temporary facility for whatever reason, please come to Chemeketa Community College library. Lots of parking, on the bus line, handicap accessible, linked to the full CCRLS catalog, and your Salem library card works just fine there. Open Monday thru Friday and even a lot of Saturdays.

I invite you to look at these four short videos I made of the people who testified in person at last Monday's Salem City Council meeting. I was the first to sign up, getting to the meeting early, so led off the three-minute public comments. The other three testifiers made some great points in heartfelt ways.

 

 

 

Great that Christians are accepting homosexuality as normal

We've come a long way toward accepting LGBTQ people here in the United States. But there's a lot that still remains to be done, largely because of archaic Christian religious attitudes based on pre-scientific notions thousands of years old, now hugely outdated.

An email I got recently gives me hope, though. Read on...

Hey Brian, I saw the post about the Salem library wanting to use the church property as a temporary place while renovations take place.  Hmmm…

It’s interesting to look back and see how much my values and opinions have changed. Growing up in the heart of the Bible belt, I was surrounded by God fearing Republicans who prayed to God in Jesus’ name at sporting events and had Christmas programs in the schools. 

So, I was raised with those same ideals. Part of all that, of course, was to believe that homosexuality was wrong and sinful.  I can’t say that my family had any kind of open hatred for homosexuals, but it was thought of as wrong, according to the Bible.

Also, we would have looked at a situation like the library renting the church as a great thing. 

Lots of changes took place in my thinking in the last 10 years or so. Fast forward to today and I now I do not see homosexuality as being any different than heterosexuality. It’s just a preference. Everyone is different and that’s normal.

And my political views have shifted drastically as well. Also, I definitely have issues with the blatant non-separation of church and state that goes on here in the south, all the time. The library thing is definitely in a gray area. 

One cool thing is that my parents and sister have changed a lot as well. None of them are atheists, but they are all Democrats (gasp!) and they also no longer have issues with the homosexual community. And we all changed without knowing that each of us had changed. My parents were raised in really strict evangelical Christian traditions. So it gives me hope that people can change if they are just open to it.

I have no doubt that a catalyst for change for most people is education and exposure. In the churches I went to, we were often encouraged NOT to learn a lot of different things and don’t be exposed to “the world” because it could “contaminate” our faith.  Well shit!  Of course it will! 

When people start educating themselves and learning to think for themselves, chances are they will start to see through the religious bull shit. In my experience, the religious folks that I know who are the most staunch, unmoving believers are often the ones who have done very little study into what they believe and why. 

On the flip side, the people that I know (myself included) who have really researched the history of their religion and their holy book and some science about how the brain works and how societies have formed, and such… these people often have become less dogmatic, more open to the world around them and those that believe differently, and even have become agnostics and atheists. 

My children are a good example of this. They both were in church at a young age, but we quit going to church around 2010 or 2011. Since then, my daughter has graduated from college and my son from high school. We stopped actively indoctrinating them before we quit attending church. 

So they have had several years to think and observe and become their own people. I don’t know where they are spiritually, but I think they still believe in God in some form or fashion, but aren’t religious. They both have several gay friends and they don’t look at them any differently than their straight friends. 

Awesome. Even my wife, who is still in church and full on Christian, has loosened up on her view of the LGBTQ community, and a few other sacred cows. So that’s kind of cool.

Queen's Live Aid performance shows power of Freddy Mercury being himself

Last night my wife and I finished watching Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie. It ends with a re-creation of Queen's famous performance at the 1985 Live Aid event at Wembley Stadium in London.

A New York Times story about the performance says, "Freddie Mercury’s set in July 1985 is often called one of the greatest live performances of all time." For sure.

You can view it via the video below, which has gotten over 211 million views. Mercury performs for about 21 minutes. I found watching him to be both highly entertaining and deeply inspiring.

Mercury was a gay man at a time when homosexuals mostly were expected to stay in the closet. Watching Mercury's struggles with his sexuality in the movie made me appreciative of how far society has evolved in its acceptance of LBGT people, who are, of course, almost certainly born that way.

The New York Times story speaks about how Mercury sent a message to the audience, estimated at 1.9 billion people in 150 countries.

Mercury’s pinnacle bow at “Live Aid” was charged by a poignant sense of subversion. Here was a gay man stuck in a pop culture moment that continued to insist his identity remain shielded in code. But what glorious code he chose! Through his balletic gait and florid presentation, Mercury rubbed the nose of Live Aid’s global audience in a powerful brand of effeminacy, seducing them into adoring something they might otherwise view with contempt.

Such is the power of authenticity, being who you really are.

Freddy Mercury had an amazing amount of talent. But he wouldn't have been able to captivate the 70,000 people in Wembley Stadium, and almost two billion watching on TV, if he hadn't possessed the courage to show the world who he was -- albeit in code, as the NYT story observes, given the backwardness of society in 1985 as regards homosexuality.

Queen's performance was a secular "miracle." Likely few people who saw it live will ever forget the experience. There's so many ways other than religion to be uplifted, transformed, touched by a higher power, feeling one with the world.

Here's one of them.

 

Churches shouldn't be able to discriminate against gays

On one of my other blogs, Salem Political Snark, I wrote a post this afternoon that already is getting a lot of online attention here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon -- the state capital that often is referred to (especially by me) as the centerpoint of places in Oregon that people really want to go to: the coast, the Cascade mountains, Portland, and Eugene.

Check out "Two reports of how Broadway Coffee House/Commons discriminates against LGBT people." Excerpts:

Someone contacted me about a year ago about how the Broadway Coffee House here in Salem refuses to allow gay people to be employees, because the business is controlled by the Salem Alliance Church.

As you can read below, the pastor of the church believes this gives them a religious license to discriminate, sort of like how Agent 007 had a license to kill, even though under normal circumstances this is illegal. 

According to the Oregon State Bar, it is legal for religiously affiliated businesses to engage in discrimination against LGBT people. But this doesn't make it right.

Here's what the person who contacted me, who wanted to remain anonymous, said. I recall that this message came through Facebook after I'd written a blog post about how Hobby Lobby mixes religion with its business practices. 

I saw your post about hobby lobby, so I think I feel comfortable sharing more ...the "business" I am referring to is Broadway Coffee house. Turns out it is not an actual business and all proceeds go to pay church staff and support the church ministries of Salem Alliance Church .

Seems like something the public should be aware of, especially since I was told gay people would not be able to work there

Yes. I met with the head pastor a year ago to confirm that it was true . The pastor told me that the baristas are church staff and have to be employees of the church and follow church rules to work there . He also said that they do not need to follow non discrimination laws because they are an outreach ministry...not a licensed business. I think the general public should know this.

It feels very underhanded to keep that info from consumers. Myself and about 40 others who live around the coffee shop have been boycotting Broadway for over a year now . We just want them to put up a sign that says the coffee shop supports the ministry of the church and is not an equal opportunity employer. If they do that, we will end the boycott.

 

...I've never understood why our country tolerates discrimination in the name of religion when the same behavior is illegal for non-religious people to engage in.

What's next, allowing religious people to drive drunk if this is part of their belief system? Allowing anyone with a hateful belief system to discriminate? Why should a collective discriminatory belief system be treated differently than an individual discriminatory belief system?

The City of Salem has held a number of meetings at the Broadway Commons.

But recently public meeting for the Downtown Streetscape and Our Salem projects have been held elsewhere. It'd be good to know if this was because of the Broadway Commons' discrimination policy against LGBTQ members of the Salem community.

If so, great. Kudos to the City of Salem.

If not, then the City of Salem and other government agencies should make it a policy to never hold meetings at the Broadway Commons until the Salem Alliance Church starts acting in the name of love, not discrimination, like religious organizations are supposed to do.

        Broadway Commons

India legalizes gay rights. Only took 150 years.

Way to go, India. Your Supreme Court has given gays in India the same rights as anyone else. Here's a screenshot of a video on the New York Times story about this that shows people in India celebrating.


The New York Times points out, in "India's Gay Sex Ban, a Colonial Vesige, Is Struck Down," that the archaic rule against consensual gay sex was a holdover from the puritanical days of British rule.

In a groundbreaking victory for gay rights, India’s Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down one of the world’s oldest bans on consensual gay sex, putting to rest a legal battle that stretched for years and burying one of the most glaring vestiges of India’s colonial past.

After weeks of deliberation in the Supreme Court and decades of struggles by gay Indians, India’s chief justice, Dipak Misra, said that the colonial-era law known as Section 377 was “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

“We have to bid adieu to prejudices and empower all citizens,” he told a packed courtroom.

The court said that gay people were now entitled to all constitutional protections under Indian law and that any discrimination based on sexuality would be illegal.