Beyond red and blue
Dick and Lynne Cheney’s firstborn daughter impressed her grade school music teacher as bright and outstanding.
That teacher, my sister-in-law, lives in Casper, Wyo., the Cheneys’ hometown.
And her former student, Mary Cheney, now has access to one of the most powerful ears in the world: her dad’s.
Gays and lesbians no doubt have Mary Cheney to thank for her father’s statement this week revealing his stance on same-sex marriage. Unlike President Bush, he believes that states, not a federal constitutional amendment, should decide the issue.
“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” Cheney said during a campaign rally in Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday. “With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. … People ought to be free to enter any kind of relationship they want to.”
Like so many campaign issues, the gay marriage debate has been reduced to another black-and-white, superficial rant. Spokane clergy spoke out last week decrying the whole idea of gay marriage. And liberals merely shrug. “If two people love each other, what’s the big deal?” they ask nonchalantly.
But the issue has enough complexity to keep us all engaged, if we only dig a bit deeper.
Believe the Christian stance is firmly opposed to gay marriage?
I can find you plenty of Christians who can point out faith-based reasons they support it. (And for a list of scriptural reasons to doubt that God’s on the side of the religious right in general, visit www.takebackourfaith.org, a campaign sponsored by Sojourner’s magazine.)
Convinced the Republicans are joined in a dark right-wing empire determined to prevail against gay marriage?
Well, surprise, surprise. Dick Cheney, who knows his opponents paint him as “the evil genius in the corner,” might just side with you.
Certain all Christians line up on one side or the other?
Moderates may or may not favor gay marriage.
That’s my favorite part of politics these days: finding the glimmers of authenticity beneath the constant political spin.
Keith Wolter, a gay pastor who was removed from the clergy roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said last week the emotions at the heart of conservatives’ activism should be taken seriously.
“They touch on a very deep, primal fear,” he said.
He believes Christian conservatives suspect that homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular has the power to rip apart families, to lead to ostracism and to destroy careers.
“I can be angry, but I can’t hate the people who hate me. I understand their fear,” Wolter said. He is now director of the North Idaho AIDS Coalition. “Some of us have lost what they stand to lose.”
And so a man I expected to blithely dismiss the concerns of Spokane’s conservative clergy expressed respect instead.
Nothing is as simple as it seems, not here in a blue state likely to vote for John Kerry, nor in red state Wyoming where Republicans welcomed Dick and Lynne Cheney home to Casper this summer for their high school class reunion.
We visited Casper earlier this month to attend a family wedding. It was held at the downtown Episcopal church, where my niece attended Sunday school with Matthew Shepard, the altar-boy son of upper middle class Wyoming parents. The beautiful blond boy left to die on a fence post outside Laramie one cold October night came home to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to be buried.
The questions and answers in Wyoming and Washington aren’t simple. Red state, blue state. Gay or straight.
But a few simple facts do shed some light: Without legal marriage, gay partners often lack the legal rights to visit a partner in the hospital or make decisions on his behalf, to qualify for a leave of absence to care for a seriously ill partner or to inherit the home they’ve shared for many years.
Gays and lesbians often create new, extended families that love and support them when their blood relatives shun them. Spurred by the hatred they encounter, they may form wider and more loving networks than the traditional mom-dad, two-kid families down the block.
Like all Americans, they deserve to be protected, not only from hate crimes, but also by lasting emotional and legal commitments. It’s only fair that committed, monogamous gay couples receive the benefits society grants to husbands and wives.
States should find ways to grant gay marriages, but churches must remain free to decide individually which unions they’ll bless.
Wolter agrees: “We’re not talking about getting the church to love us,” he says. “A lot of churches are never going to love us.”
But those conservative churches can’t assume they have God on their side. Wolter, too, describes himself as a traditional, orthodox Christian.
“I don’t think God takes sides,” Wolter says.
As that campaign by Sojourners’ magazine points out, “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.”