Making My Consociate Commitment

“I, Michael Bayly, commit myself to live the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Consociates, St. Paul Province, moving always toward profound love of God and the dear neighbor without distinction. I pledge myself to live the vision and values of the community as a consociate within the context of my life and responsibilities.”

Yesterday I joined with six others in committing to being a consociate member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (CSJ). One young woman was also received into the novitiate of the CSJ community during yesterday’s ritual of welcome and commitment at the Presentation of Our Lady Chapel in the Carondelet Center in St. Paul.

In the photograph above I’m pictured with the two inspiring women who served as my companions during my two-year consociate candidancy - Rita McDonald, CSJ and Marguerite Corcoran, CSJ.

Following is the full text of my commitment statement.

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Friends, for as long as I can remember I’ve always been drawn to the idea and the actual experience of journeying. In my youth in Australia I’d love nothing more than to embark on a quest to scale some deserted rocky outcrop. And as a young adult, I made the journey from Australia to the U.S. so as to study theology at the College of St. Catherine. It was here that I was first introduced to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. And in one way or another, I’ve been journeying with them ever since.

Our Christian tradition is filled with journeying stories. One of my favorites is the story of the wandering magi, those three wise strangers from the East, who went in search of the Christ child. I’ve come to see this story as a powerful metaphor for the journey that each one of us is called to take so as to seek and embody a Christ-centered way of relating to our deepest selves, to others, and to God. It’s a way of relating that’s characterized by an openness to mystery; a willingness to search and question, to grapple with the complexities of human life. It’s also a way of relating that’s characterized by trust rather than fear.

I see and experience in the CSJ community the embodiment of this way of relating. CSJ sisters and consociates model it in their interactions with one another, with the “dear neighbor,” and with creation itself. Furthermore, as their inspiring history attests, the CSJs are not afraid to journey – geographically or spiritually – so as to embody this profoundly relational way of being present in and to the world.

As I mentioned, my journey with the CSJ community began in 1994 when I commenced my studies at the College of St. Catherine. In 1997, after an invitation from CSJ Sister Brigid McDonald, I became involved with the Twin Cities justice and peace community – in particular, the weekly vigil at the corporate headquarters of Alliant TechSystems, Minnesota’s largest military contractor. Through such justice and peace work I have come to forge lasting friendships with many CSJ sisters and consociates.

I’ve also built lasting friendships with a number of CSJs through my work with the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, the organization to which I serve as executive coordinator. The Sisters have, over the years, been very supportive of the ministry of CPCSM. Our dear friend and CPCSM co-founder Bill Kummer completed the consociate program in the last years of his life. I learned a lot about the CSJs as I observed their loving support of Bill as he prepared for his death.

In addition, and perhaps in part because of my convict heritage [an attempt at humor!], I’ve always been greatly inspired by the CSJ’s efforts to build and sustain a community of equals within the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church – no mean feat! I’m also inspired by the many ways the CSJ sisters and conscociates bring hope and build community within our wider society. I resonate with how Irene O’Neill, CSJ talks about community. She observes that: “Community is never static; it unfolds and changes. It is about real face-to-face settings in which people can learn how to relate to each other – with trust, shared values, responsibility, caring, and mutual obligation. We need community because it provides connections for [all who are] disconnected . . . forgotten . . . lonely . . . estranged.”

The CSJs embody this understanding of community in their ongoing development of numerous pastoral and spiritual ministries, their proactive response to a range of societal needs, and their challenging of unjust systems of power and economics. All such endeavors provide experiences of connection and belonging for which so many in our world hunger.

The prospect of journeying with the CSJ/consociate community, learning and growing from such a shared pilgrimage, and being able to share my gifts and talents along the way, is the main reason why I feel called to be a CSJ consociate. A personal goal is to be always growing in awareness and compassion, in that way of relating that I spoke of earlier and which our brother Jesus embodied - and continues to embody through communities like this one.

I greatly appreciate being welcomed as a fellow pilgrim within the CSJ community, and am honored to be able to walk with such wise and justice-making women and men. I therefore commit myself to live the mission of the Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet and Consociates, St. Paul Province, moving always toward profound love of God and the dear neighbor without distinction. I pledge myself to live the vision and values of the community as a consociate within the context of my life and responsibilities.

Thank you.


Note: The beautiful candle that each new consociate was given upon making their commitment was handcrafted by Gerrie Lane, CSJ.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Beginning the Process
Reflections on Associate/Consociate Programs by Joan Chittister

Frank Myers' Long Hard Look at Brokeback Mountain

In February, Frank D. Myers contacted me via e-mail and, in sharing his thoughts about my writings on The Wild Reed, generously said: “You’ve ordered my thoughts, stretched my mind, exercised my spirit, and given me many new things to think about. . . . You are a wise and eloquent man . . . Heck, for many I’ll bet you’ve been and continue to be answered prayer.”

It was while looking for “intelligent commentary” about the late Heath Ledger that Frank found my Wild Reed post on the young actor who died in January. In his e-mail, Frank shared his thoughts about Ledger and the film for which he is perhaps most well known, Brokeback Mountain (2005). Described as an “epic American love story,” Brokeback Mountain features Ledger as Wyoming ranch hand Ennis Del Mar, who, from 1963 to the early 1980s, has a clandestine relationship with an aspiring rodeo rider named Jack Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal).

Wrote Frank:

To my mind, Ledger’s performance was the transcendent aspect of “Brokeback Mountain,” and awe keeps me working to figure out how and why and with what assistance he did it. Another expression of grace, I sometimes think.

I’m just old enough to be your father – and that means my epiphany summer spent in and around Wyoming’s Big Horns, mostly on my great-uncle’s ranch and his allotments above it, with my “Jack,” paralleled fiction in time and place. So the film knocked me flat at first and when I’d gotten up the first time, it knocked me down again.

Frank shared with me how he wrote a piece for the Globe Gazette, entitled, “Brokeback Fever,” in which he told his story, “framing some of the best and happiest days” of his life with commentary on Brokeback Mountain.

He notes that many who read his commentary saw it as a “coming out” piece. “And that’s fine,” he says. “But if there is such a thing as an ‘official’ coming out,” he continues, then “that happened a good many years ago now, not long after that guy I called ‘my Jack’ walked out into a field in Golden, Colorado, stuck the barrel of a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger – not because he was gay, conflicted or guilt-ridden, but because he was dying of AIDS.”

The way Mervin Elmer Gibbany (Frank’s “Jack”) died in 1992 reflected, says Frank, the way he lived - “bravely and decisively.”

In November 2006, Frank made a presentation to the Mason City, Iowa, P-FLAG chapter, sharing with his audience “a little of what I’ve learned while taking a long hard look at a short story and a movie, both called Brokeback Mountain; trying to find lessons in fiction that we might apply to our non-fiction lives.”

Recently, Frank shared with me the text of this presentation, entitled “Brokeback Fever, Too,” and gave me permission to reprint excerpts from it on The Wild Reed. I’m honored to do so in a series of posts, starting with this first installment today.

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I want to get one thing straight at the beginning, so that there will be no misunderstanding. I believe as firmly as I believe anything in this life that sexual orientation is original equipment, that those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight are as we were created. And that the Creator does bot make mistakes. This means there is a purpose for each of us and that purpose cannot be separated from who we are.

The good Lord is not, however, a babysitter. So I also believe that it is up to each of us, with grace and a little help from our friends and families, to sort out the implications of who we are and to live everything – including what sometimes appear to be contradictions – bravely; to do what has to be done. That’s a fairly simple concept, but it took a good while for me, as it does for most of us, to grasp.

My friend and colleague, Deb Nicklay, enjoys bringing me back to earth sometimes, and she did just that that at the office one evening several months ago when I was going on and on about Brokeback Mountain and what it meant to those of us who are queer.

“Calm down, Frank,” I believe she said. “It’s just a love story.”

She was right, of course, and isn’t that remarkable in itself? Who would have thought that in my lifetime a big-budget Hollywood film produced by highly-acclaimed writers and starring mainstream actors would do its best to present our lives objectively, without stereotypes, smirks and smears; and that it would be shown in public theaters almost everywhere, including Mason City, Iowa?

And that an eminently sensible heterosexual reporter, United Methodist lay speaker, wife and mother from Osage would go see the movie, like it, and conclude that it was, more than anything else, a simple love story.

That all of this was possible may be the most obvious lesson from Brokeback: Times really have changed and the scales are tipping.

But if you are queer, or love someone who is, it doesn’t stop there. That film, to one degree or another, is our story. That makes it to us considerably more than a simple love story.

I was struck first of all by the scenery: Canada pretending to be rural Wyoming, a state whose landscape I used to know fairly well and still love. And then I was struck by who the principal characters were – blue collar boys, farm boys, rural boys – just like me – and poor. That is not the gay stereotype.

Old queers like me know that gay men have been playing with that cowboy/farm-boy/blue-collar image forever – sometime nice, sometimes naughty. But I’m not sure we’ve taken it seriously. Somehow we fell into a trap many years ago of believing with a majority of our straight brethren that every queer who could, should and had moved to San Francisco, Minneapolis, Des Moines, or another city; and that only a few shadowy unfortunates remained out here in the boondocks. That’s misled a lot of folks – our neighbors who assume we’re not here; ourselves, if we somehow feel inadequate because we still are here.

The fact that Brokeback began and was played entirely within rural and small-town settings by characters exclusively rural and small-town contains a lesson about who we are and where we are and why we’re here.

There are queer folks on farms or ranches, in small towns and working-class neighborhoods of larger towns everywhere in this country. And for the most part, I think we’re here because we want to be.

Take me, for example. I consider Mason City dangerously large and really don’t like living inside it; never have – although it’s much more convenient to walk a block to work than drive 80 miles round-trip every day, as I did for a good many years. I’m far more comfortable three hours south in Chariton; which I can walk out of in five minutes or less, if I get the urge, and be in the country. Add to that the fact I think southern Iowa is heaven on earth and you’ll begin to understand why I’d rather be there.

But wherever we are in this great country, we should never feel apologetic or inadequate because we are gay and rural. We should celebrate it.

Coming soon: In the next installment of this series, Frank Myers talks about three aspects of gay American life that Brokeback Mountain either passed over quickly or bypassed entirely: Vietnam, AIDS, and religion.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Christian Draz’s Critique of Brokeback Mountain
Heath Ledger (1979-2008)
The “Real Gay Cowboy” Remembers His Friend, Heath Ledger

Image 1: Theatrical release poster for Brokeback Mountain.
Image 2: Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain.

Good News from the Golden State

Civil marriage for same-gender couples has been legalized in California - at least for now - with the historic decision by the California Supreme Court to overturn a voter-approved ban on gay marriage.

The court’s decision paves the way for California to become the second state in the U.S. where gay and lesbian residents can marry. The justices released the 4-3 decision this morning, saying that domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

In response to the court’s decision that same-sex couples have equal protection under the law as it pertains to marriage, OutFront Minnesota Staff Attorney Phil Duran declared that a “victory” had been secured for “everyone who cherishes fairness and opportunity.”

“Two people in a committed, trusting and loving relationship deserve the dignity and support that come with marriage,” Duran said in a media release.

Following is an Associated Press article on this latest development in the same-sex marriage debate in the U.S., followed by some thoughts of my own (and others) on the issue of gay marriage and so-called activist judges.

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California’s Top Court Legalizes Gay Marriage
By Lisa Leff
Associated Press
May 15, 2008

California’s Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation’s biggest state can marry — a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

Same-sex couples could tie the knot in as little as a month. But the window could close soon after — religious and social conservatives are pressing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would undo the Supreme Court ruling and ban gay marriage.

“Essentially, this boils down to love. We love each other. We now have equal rights under the law,” declared a jubilant Robin Tyler, a plaintiff in the case along with her partner. She added: “We’re going to get married. No Tupperware, please.”

Above: Lesbian couple Robin Tyler, left, and Diane Olson,

pose for a photo at the law office of their attorney Gloria Allred
on Thursday, May 15, 2008, during a news conference.
(AP Photo/Nick Ut)

A crowd of people raised their fists in triumph inside City Hall, and people wrapped themselves in the rainbow-colored gay-pride flag outside the courthouse. In the Castro, the historic center of the gay community in San Francisco, Tim Oviatt wept as he watched the news on TV.

“I've been waiting for this all my life. This is a life-affirming moment,” he said.

By the afternoon, gay and lesbian couples had already started lining up at San Francisco City Hall to make appointments to get marriage licenses.

In its 4-3 ruling, the Republican-dominated high court struck down state laws against same-sex marriage and said domestic partnerships that provide many of the rights and benefits of matrimony are not enough.

“In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the majority in ringing language that delighted gay rights activists.

Massachusetts is the only other state to legalize gay marriage, something it did in 2004. The California ruling is considered monumental by virtue of the state’s size — 38 million out of a U.S. population of 302 million — and its historic role in the vanguard of the many social and cultural changes that have swept the country since World War II.

California has an estimated 92,000 same-sex couples.

“It's about human dignity. It’s about human rights. It’s about time in California,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom,* pumping his fist in the air, told a roaring crowd at City Hall. “As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It’s inevitable. This door’s wide open now. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”

Above: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom reacts to the news

that the California Supreme Court has overturned a ban
on gay marriages, in his office in San Francisco,
Thursday, May 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Unlike Massachusetts, California has no residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license, meaning gays from around the country are likely to flock to the state to be wed, said Jennifer Pizer, a gay-rights attorney who worked on the case. The ultimate reach of the ruling could be limited, however, since most states do not recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. Nor does the federal government.

The conservative Alliance Defense Fund said it would ask the justices for a stay of the decision until after the fall election in hopes of adding California to the list of 26 states that have approved constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.

“We’re obviously very disappointed in the decision. The remedy is a constitutional amendment. The constitution defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman,” said Glen Lavy, senior counsel for the organization.

Opponents of gay marriage could also ask the high court to reconsider. If the court rejects such a request, same-sex couples could start getting married in 30 days, the time it typically takes for the justices’ opinions to become final.

Above: Same-sex couple Shelly Bailes and Ellen Pontac kiss
in response to a California Supreme Court decision to overturn
the ban on same-sex marriage at the California Supreme Court
in San Francisco, California. (AFP/Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

The justices said they would direct state officials “to take all actions necessary to effectuate our ruling,” including requiring county marriage clerks to carry out their duties “in a manner consistent with the decision of this court.”

The case was set in motion in 2004 when the mayor of San Francisco — the unofficial capital of gay America — threw City Hall open to gay couples to get married in a calculated challenge to California law. Four thousand gay couples wed before the Supreme Court put a halt to the practice after a month. Two dozen gay couples then sued, along with the city and gay rights organizations.

Thursday’s ruling could alter the dynamics of the presidential race and state and congressional contests in California and beyond by causing a backlash among conservatives and drawing them to the polls in large numbers.

A spokesman for Republican John McCain, who opposes gay marriage, said the Arizona senator “doesn't believe judges should be making these decisions.” The campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton said they believe that the issue of marriage should be left to the states.

Ten states now offer some form of legal recognition to same-sex couples — in most cases, domestic partnerships or civil unions. In the past few years, the courts in New York, New Jersey and Washington state have refused to allow gay marriage.

Outside the San Francisco courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as news spread of the decision. Jeanie Rizzo, one of the plaintiffs, called Pali Cooper, her partner of 19 years, via cell phone and asked, “Pali, will you marry me?”

Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights said same-sex marriage advocates could not have hoped for a more favorable ruling by the Republican-dominated court. “It’s a total victory,” Minter said.

Above: From left, gay couple, Phillip DeBlieck and Rev. Troy Perry,

their attorney Gloria Allred, and lesbian couple Robin Tyler and
Diane Olson, hold a sign during a news conference at Allred's office
on Thursday, May 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

California already offers same-sex couples who register as domestic partners many of the legal rights and responsibilities afforded to married couples, including the right to divorce and to sue for child support.

Citing a 1948 California Supreme Court decision that overturned a ban on interracial marriages, the justices struck down the state’s 1977 one-man, one-woman marriage law, as well as a similar, voter-approved law that passed with 61 percent in 2000.

The chief justice was joined by Justices Joyce Kennard and Kathryn Werdegar, all three of whom were appointed by Republican governors, and Justice Carlos Moreno, the only member of the court appointed by a Democrat.

In a dissent, Justice Marvin Baxter agreed with many arguments of the majority but said that the court overstepped its authority and that changes to marriage laws should be decided by the voters. Justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan also dissented.

California’s secretary of state is expected to rule by the end of June whether the sponsors gathered enough signatures to put the gay-marriage amendment on the ballot.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has twice vetoed legislation that would have granted marriage to same-sex couples, said in a statement that he respected the court’s decision and “will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling.”

Associated Press writers Terence Chea, Jason Dearen, Juliana Barbassa and Evelyn Nieves in San Francisco and Liz Sidoti in Washington contributed to this report.

________________________________________

In the wake of the California Supreme Court decision you can be sure that we’ll be hearing a lot of hollering from gay marriage opponents about “activist judges.” According to such folks, liberal activist judges make law, as opposed to interpreting it; they ignore the plain meaning of texts to invent new rights; and they superimpose their moral views onto their legal reasoning, thus brazenly advancing the cause of the fringe liberal elites in the culture wars. Sound familiar?

I appreciate what Kung Fu Monkey has to say about so-called activist judges. He writes:

The phrase ‘activist judge’ will pop up in [the] gay marriage discussion. People will insist that this judge is circumventing the will of the people, the will represented by the legislature in passing certain laws, or backing certain legal definitions over others.

I’m sorry – I’m really sorry – but if you use the term ‘activist judge’, then frankly you know absolutely nothing about how the U.S. works. . . . I’m going to say this slowly. Judges. Are. Supposed. To. Overturn. Laws. Not all of them. But, yeah, some of them. Then there are appeals, or new laws are passed, and the process starts all over again. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

You can disagree with a judge overturning a law you like, fine, that’s democracy. But implying the judge has no right to overturn a law because said law represents the will of the majority, and therefore that judge is an ‘activist’ judge, well, sadly, that reveals a depth of ignorance about the Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers which automatically disqualifies you from the discussion.

No, seriously. If you say you disagree with gay marriage, fine – I disagree with you, but you’re entitled to whatever opinion you have in your skull. But as soon as you use the phrase ‘activist judge’, you take yourself out of the game. Not according to me. I like you. No, you’re an idiot according to Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Ben Franklin, et al. So, go read the Federalist Papers, and preferably leaf through Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom, and come back when you have a basic understanding of civics.

Also worth pondering is the perspective of Mariah Wojdacz who, in her online commentary, “Activist Judges: What’s In a Name?”, notes:

We all evidently believe that you’re either for the liberal activist judges or against them. Folks on the left say they protect minorities from majority tyranny, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did last year in the gay marriage decision. Folks on the right say they act as unelected superlegislators. Folks on the left say they are interpreting a living Constitution. Folks on the right say they are unmoored from any fixed point, save, perhaps, the Harvard Law School.

Yet, says Lithwick, what about inventing “a new term . . . for judges or judicial nominees on the right, who claim to be merely ‘interpreting’ the Constitution, even when they are refusing to impose settled law; law they deem unsettled because it was invented by ‘liberal activist judges.’”

Writes Lithwick:

Re-activist judges are able to present themselves as ‘strict constructionists’ or ‘originalists’ by arguing, as does Justice Clarence Thomas, that any case decided wrongly (i.e., not in accordance with the framers of the Constitution) should simply be erased, as though erasure is somehow a passive act. And while there is an urgent normative debate underlying this issue – over whether the Constitution should evolve or stay static – no one ought to be allowed to claim that the act of clubbing a live Constitution to death isn’t activism. So, judicial re-activism. It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, I know. But let’s put it out there anyhow, and attempt to level the rhetorical playing field.

I’m all for that!

Then there’s this quote by judicial analyst and former superior court judge Andrew Napolitano that’s definitely worth thinking about:

There is no such thing as an activist judge. An activist judge is one whose ruling you disagree with. And if you agree with what the judge has done, you call them heroic and honest. . . . To conservatives, activist judges are those who permit or compel activity in which the opinion of conservatives can only be done in the legislative branch. To liberals, activist judges are judges who prevent the government from doing the things the Legislature wants to do.

(These quotes by Napolitano can be found in Mariah Wojdacz’s LegalZoom.com commentary, “Activist Judges: Why Are They Creating Such a Stir?”)


Of course, there are also those who maintain that gay marriage will undermine the common good of society. In the February 16, 2004 edition of Christianity Today, for instance, Drs. Robert Benne and Gerald McDermott of Roanoke College published an editorial entitled “Speaking Out: Why Gay Marriage Would Be Harmful”. One of their arguments against gay marriage is as follows:

We believe that gay marriage can only be imposed by activist judges, not by the democratic will of the people. The vast majority of people define marriage as the life-long union of a man and a woman. They will strongly resist definition.

I appreciate Jim Burroway’s response to this particular line of argument. In his online article, “Refuting Benne and McDermott”, Burroway notes:

Many surveys certainly do show that varying margins of a majority (slim to wide, depending on how the polls were worded) oppose gay marriage. Some thirty years ago, nearly two-thirds of all Americans opposed interracial marriage. But times change, and so do attitudes. Those today who disapprove of racially-mixed marriages are in the distinct minority. But those numbers didn’t start to decline until the “activist judges” on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws restricting such marriages when legislatures failed to act. If we had waited until legislatures got around to changing the laws in many of these states, justice for many interracial couples would have been delayed for at least another generation. This generation of gay men and women is no longer willing to wait.

I also like to recall how if the broader issue of racial segregation had been put “on the ballot” for “the people” to decide, it would not have been abolished when it was in the U.S. – especially in a number of Southern states. And I’m sure those who oppose gay marriage are not against the various court decisions that helped abolish segregation and other forms of racial discrimination. Yet, clearly, protecting and granting civil rights to gay people is a different story for them.

But what about this idea that allowing same-sex marriage will lead to society’s downfall? Is it worth worrying about? I for one don’t believe it is, and my reasons for thinking this way can, in large part, be found in the following excerpts from an article entitled “EU Countries Divided on Same-Sex Marriage” in the March/April 2007 issue of The Gay and Lesbian Review. I think this particular article provides both insight and hope in our deliberations on the issue of same-sex marriage in the US. It may also help explain why some are so rabidly opposed to any legal recognition of same-sex marriage taking hold here.

Another striking pattern to emerge [from the survey] is the extent to which public opinion reflects the actual legal situation in these countries. Acceptance of same-sex marriage is highest in countries where marriage or its legal equivalent is currently on the books, which is the case in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Most of the other countries of Western Europe – France, Germany, Ireland, the Czech Republic, among others – also recognize same-sex couples as eligible for many benefits of marriage. Presumably the legal situation reflects public opinion in these countries to a large extent; but it may also be the case that the existence of same-sex marriage as a legal reality has a liberalizing effect on public opinion. [Basically, people come to realize that same-sex marriage doesn’t herald the end of the world!]

One thing is clear: countries that have had an active gay rights movement for the longest are the ones most likely to have both legal protections and favorable public opinion on these issues. From a baseline of nearly universal rejection in the mid-20th century, an atmosphere of tolerance has evolved only slowly and painstakingly as a GLBT rights movement has taken hold in Europe and the reality of gay people has been acknowledged and embraced.

Above: John Lewis (right) and his partner of 21 years, Stuart Gaffney, hold hands while waiting for a decision by California’s Supreme Court in San Francisco, California, May 15, 2008. The California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday the state cannot bar same-sex marriages, marking a major victory for gay rights advocates that may have national implications. (REUTERS/Kimberly White)

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

The Changing Face of “Traditional Marriage”
The Real Gay Agenda
Naming and Confronting Bigotry
Love is Love
On Civil Unions and Christian Tradition
Separate is Not Equal
Mainstream Voice of “Dear Abby” Supports Gay Marriage
New Studies: Gay Couples as Committed as Straight Couples
Grandma Knows Best
Truth Telling: The Greatest of Sins in a Dysfunctional Church
Just Love
The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace
Good News from Minnesota

Recommended Off-site Links:
California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage - Adam Liptak (New York Times, May 15, 2008).
Many Gay Couples Find Lasting Love - Heather Cassell (Bay Area Reporter, February 8, 2007).

Opening image: John Lewis, right, hugs his partner, Stuart Gaffney, left, outside of the California State Supreme Court building in San Francisco, Thursday, May 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

* Here’s an interesting aside: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (pictured at right with his fiancée Jennifer Siebel during a rally this morning inside City Hall in San Francisco) was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. He describes himself as an “Irish-Catholic rebel...in some respects, but one that still has tremendous admiration for the Church and very strong faith.” When asked about the current state of the Catholic Church in an interview, he said the church was in crisis. Newsom said he stays with the church because of his “strong connection to a greater purpose, and . . . higher being.” He attends church infrequently but said he has a “strong sense of faith that is perennial: day in and day out.”

Not Quite So Closed

I’d be the first to admit that I find most of the content on Gerald Augustinus’ blog, The Cafeteria is Closed, to be . . . well, not my cup of tea.

Yet recently it would seem that Gerald has had somewhat of a Damascus Road experience with regards to the issue of homosexuality. Not surprisingly, he’s been getting a lot of flak from, shall we say, more “traditionalist” Catholics, to the extent that he left a comment for me on this Wild Reed post, observing that: “I’m afraid I’ll be on the stake right next to you.”

Unperturbed, Gerald recently highlighted on his blog an astute observation by Fr. Joseph O’Leary on “sex and the authoritarian personality.” It reads as follows:

I have an idea today about what is wrong with the “puritans.” They lack the categories for the middle ground of ordinary human erotic sensibility. When sex is mentioned they think either of procreative marital sex or lustful congress. The ordinary currents of sexual feeling are repressed from consciousness, so that they sometimes speak in a far more erotic way than they imagine, and sometimes clamp down on something they may find “suggestive” with surprising violence. They suffer from a scotoma [i.e. a spot in the visual field in which vision is absent or deficient] that can be quite disorienting. In relation to gayness, wheth