Update on Tiwonge and Steven

I love Steven so much. If people or the world cannot give me the chance and freedom to continue living with him as my lover, then I am better off to die here in prison. Freedom without him is useless and meaningless.

– Tiwonge Chimbalanga,
as quoted in the CNN story
"Malawi Gay Couple Jailed for Indecency, Unnatural Acts"
May 20, 2010

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
A Prayer for International Day Against Homophobia
Liberated to Be Together
Sergius and Bacchus: Martyrs, Saints, Lovers


Recommended Off-site Links:
Gay Couple Sentenced to Maximum 14 Years in Malawi - Raphael Tenthani (Associated Press, May 20, 2010).
Malawi Gay Couple Get Maximum Sentence of 14 Years - BBC World News (May 20, 2010).
Malawi Court Convicts Gay Couple - BBC World News (May 18, 2010).

Revisiting Dirk Bogarde

I was going through some old computer files last night and came across an excerpt that I had found and saved from the highly informative and comprehensive website DirkBogarde.co.uk. I'll share that excerpt in a moment, but first a bit of background.

I wrote about the great British actor and author Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) in a three-part Wild Reed series in 2006. I was in Australia at the time, and reading John Coldstream's hefty biography of Bogarde. It's a very illuminating and entertaining book, and one that I definitely recommend - along with a more recent publication, Dirk Bogarde: Rank Outsider by Sheridan Morley.

Here's what Morley says about Bogarde's perspective on his own sexuality - a stance that intrigues me and, truth be told, saddens me.

[Dirk's] very first live BBC Television drama [was] a production of Rope. . . . He played a student who commits a murder for fun. It was based on the famous American case of Leopold and Loeb, two college boys involved in a homosexual affair.

From the very beginning of his career this raised questions about Dirk's own sexuality, as, later, did his work in such movies as Victim, The Servant, and Death in Venice. . . . At the time of Death in Venice (1971) one or two critics, notably American, felt that this had to be the triumph of a gay actor. While Dirk never sued, he carefully denied the suggestion whenever possible.

. . . [He once said:] "No one is ever allowed to come too close and the limit is always fixed by myself. So far and no further."

Years later he told the interviewer Russell Harty, "I'm still in the shell, and you're not going to crack it, ducky." All through his career he had chosen to be particularly circumspect about his private life. What today seems an extraordinary achievement, greater even than stardom over the next forty years, must surely be his absolute privacy in this area, all the more remarkable given that he has published seven volumes of autobiography. In those, he has written at length about at least three affairs with women; he has never once commented on the suggestion that his interest in homosexuality was anything other than artistic and compassionate, except to characterize his forty-year life with Tony Forwood as asexual, often adding the intriguing piece of information that Forwood was anti-homosexual.



Dirk has always said that their life together was a deep friendship and the house-sharing of two increasingly confirmed bachelors.

Mmm. I guess that given that homosexual acts were illegal during most of his career, and that he was no doubt unwilling to jeopardize his large female fan base, it would make sense for Bogarde to say these types of things about his relationship with Forwood. His younger brother Gareth Van den Bogaerde, however, confirmed in a 2004 interview that Bogarde was engaging in homosexual sex at a time when such acts were illegal, and that his long-term relationship with Tony Forwood was indeed more than simply that of a manager and friend. He also noted how Dirk "hated himself" and was jealous of his brother's heterosexuality.

Bogarde's friend Helena Bonham Carter believes that the actor and author could never come out as gay in later life because he was unwilling to face the fact that he had been forced to live a lie during his career. Of her time working with Bogarde in the late 1980s, Carter says: “He would always make out that he was a macho heterosexual. He was conscious of keeping the mystery, weaving webs. But he was really a hunk of self-denial”.



Can you see why I find this aspect of Dirk's life saddening? Thank God things aren't as difficult today for gay people. I realize that there are some parts of the world where homosexuality is still treated as a crime and something of which to be ashamed (see Monday's post), but I'd like to believe that, overall, society has and is progressing and becoming more enlightened and accepting of the diversity of human sexuality.

Anyway, the excerpt from DirkBogarde.co.uk that I share today deals, not with Bogarde's personal life – well, at least not directly, but rather his formidable acting abilities.

At play in Bogarde’s magnetism was his ability to ‘get to the gut and mind’ of his viewers and to tap into their emotions. (For the Time Being, 82-83) He understood the inherent sensuality in cinema, explaining to one interviewer: ‘This is a fantasy land ... The basic thing about the cinema is sensuality... eroticism... All great art is a stimulation of the senses, and if they are not the sexual senses, they are the senses that stimulate and excite and liberate.’ (Wiedenman, 56) He knew well the power of an actor to tap the ‘emotional receptivity and craving’ in audiences. Early on, he realized that he had sex appeal on screen and how audiences reacted to him: ‘People were turned on by me... there was an alchemy at work and so I used it... I was going to make every wing commander I played as mischievous, as flirty, as physically attractive as I could... You’ve got to work at your charm... your sex appeal.’ (Dirk Bogarde: By Myself) But he also knew that sex appeal alone would not hold an audience for long.

For Bogarde, a potent force in holding an audience’s attention was the magic that derived from the focused use of an actor’s ‘energy’, which was ‘both mental and physical’ and sprang ‘directly from the gut’. If an actor can tap it to transform himself ‘not through tricks of make-up or lighting’ but through a sudden release of that energy in a scene, it becomes ‘the life force behind a performance; without it a performance can be adequate, acceptable: but lacking in lustre.’ When an actor creates that magic on screen, ‘an audience will react instantly: the experience disturbs, excites, and involves them completely.’ (Backcloth, 209-210) No longer mere observers, the audience shares the experience. Bogarde had the rare ability to do this and to take his audiences to what he called a ‘higher plane of experience.’

Above: Dirk Bogarde in the 1958 film A Tale of Two Cities.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Dirk Bogarde (Part 1)
Dirk Bogarde (Part 2)
Dirk Bogarde (Part 3)

Recommended Off-site Links:
DirkBogarde.co.uk
The Private Dirk Bogarde (Part 1) - 1/6, 2/6, 3/6, 4/6, 5/6, 6/6
The Private Dirk Bogarde (Part 2) - 1/8, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8

Now We Know

. . . [C]elibacy cuts to the heart of what is wrong in the Catholic Church today. Despite denials from Rome, there will be no halting, much less recovering from, the mass destruction of the priest sex abuse scandal without reforms centered on the abandonment of celibacy as a near-universal prerequisite for ordination to the Latin-rite priesthood. (“Near universal’’ because married Episcopal priests who convert are exempt from the requirement. “Latin rite’’ because Catholic priests of the Eastern rites are allowed to marry.)

No, celibacy does not “cause’’ the sex abuse of minors, and yes, abusers of children come from many walks of life. Indeed, most abuse occurs within families or circles of close acquaintance. But the Catholic scandal has laid bare an essential pathology that is unique to the culture of clericalism, and mandatory celibacy is essential to it. Immaturity, narcissism, misogyny, incapacity for intimacy, illusions about sexual morality — such all-too-common characteristics of today’s Catholic clergy are directly tied to the inhuman asexuality that is put before them as an ideal.

A special problem arises when, on the one hand, homosexuality is demonized as a matter of doctrine, while, on the other, the banishment of women leaves the priest living in a homophilic world. In some men, both straight and gay, the stresses of such contradiction lead to irrepressible urges that can be indulged only by exploitation of the vulnerable and available, objects of desire who in many cases are boys, whether prepubescent or adolescent. Now we know.

– James Carroll
“Celibacy and the Catholic Church”
The Boston Globe
May 16, 2010

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Thoughts on Celibacy (Part I)
Thoughts on Celibacy (Part II)
Thoughts on Celibacy (Part III)
Celibacy and the Roman Catholic Priesthood
Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
Vatican Stance on Gay Priests Signals Urgent Need for Renewal and Reform
"Spiritual Paternity"
More on "Spiritual Paternity"
Homosexuality and the Priesthood
Let's Face It: The Catholic Church is a Gay Institution
Report: Homosexuality No Factor in Abusive Priests
Blaming the Gays
Donohue's "Blame the Gays" Tactic Refuted by John Jay Study Researcher
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 6: Father Brandon
The Journal of James Curtis - Part 8: A Swimmer's First Time

Recommended Off-site Link:
Should Celibacy Be Reconsidered? - The Boston Globe (2004).

Image: Jon Krause.

A Prayer for International Day Against Homophobia

Since today is International Day Against Homophobia, I thought I'd share the following prayer - one that I'm dedicating to Steven Monjeza and his partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga (pictured above), who are facing up to fourteen years in prison with hard labor after becoming the first gay couple in the African nation of Malawi to declare their commitment in a public ceremony.

Liberating Christ
come into our locked rooms
and speak your word of peace.
Set us free to rejoice in our bodies,
the reality of our loving
the integrity of our passion.

Forgiving Christ
speak your word of peace
that sees and forgives
our silent lies and unspoken denials
of all that you have made us
and all that we have chosen to be.

Healing Christ
speak your word of judgment
that gives us voices to name the sins of others,
holding them accountable
for the rejection sparked by fear
and the distancing disguised as tolerance.

Breath into us
your spirit of forgiveness
so that
loved and loving,
forgiven and forgiving
we may be free to speak peace in your name.

– Jan Berry
Taken from Courage to Love,
edited by Geoffrey Duncan

______________________________________

Notes David Smith of the British newspaper The Guardian of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza’s plight:

. . . Peter Tatchell, the veteran British gay rights campaigner, has maintained contact with the pair at the maximum security Chichiri prison in Blantyre as they prepare to stand trial next week.

Tatchell told the Guardian he received a defiant message from Chimbalanga that said: "I love Steven so much. If people or the world cannot give me the chance and freedom to continue living with him as my lover, then I am better off to die here in prison. Freedom without him is useless and meaningless."

Tatchell, of the rights group Outrage!, also quoted Monjeza – who is described as thin and weak with jaundiced eyes – as saying: "We have come a long way and even if our family relatives are not happy, I will never stop loving Tiwonge."

Chimbalanga, 20, and Monjeza, 26, made history when they committed to marriage at a symbolic ceremony last December – the first same-sex couple to do so in the southern African state, where homosexual acts are illegal.

Two days later, the couple were arrested at their home. Facing taunts and jeers, Chimbalanga, wearing a woman’s blouse, and Monjeza appeared in court to answer three charges of unnatural practices between males and gross indecency. They were denied bail, supposedly for their own safety, and have been forced to endure dire conditions in jail.

The couple are due back in court on Tuesday, when magistrate Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa will deliver his verdict. Angry residents and relatives from Machinjiri township, on the outskirts of Blantyre, say they will not allow them to return home if they are set free.

. . . [Others] have now been emboldened to speak out. George Thindwa, head of the Association for Secular Humanism, said: "The gay movement is gaining ground. The country should simply accept gays."

A retired economist, Thindwa, who has not openly declared whether he is gay, added: "We are giving them moral support by bringing them food, money and clothes to prison." Thindwa’s group has joined the Centre for the Development of the People, which is financing the couple’s defence. The case could be seen as a test case for the struggle between gay rights movements and resistant conservative sentiment across the continent.

Gay sex is still illegal in 37 countries in Africa. A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre found that 98% of people in Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia disapprove of homosexuality. But encouraged by legal advances in South Africa, a new wave of activist movements are making a stand and pushing the boundaries in Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe and other countries in ways unthinkable a generation ago. Gay and lesbian lifestyles are also much more visible.

This assertiveness is apparently being met by a ferocious backlash from religious fundamentalists and politicians determined to preserve the status quo. It has been described as a proxy war between US liberals and Christian evangelicals, both of which pour in funding and support to further their cause.

Uganda has become a central battlefield after legislation was proposed last year advocating punishments for gay sex that range from life imprisonment to the death penalty. The country has come under intense pressure from activists both inside Uganda and overseas.

To read Smith’s article in its entirety, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
To Be Gay in Iraq
TheBlood-Soaked Thread
The Tragedy of Homophobia
Homophobia? It’s So Gay
Officially Homophobic, Intensely Homoerotic
The Vatican’s Actions at the UN: “Sickening, Depraved, and Shameless”
Oh, Give It a Rest, Papa!
A Humorous Look at Internalized Homophobia
Frank Rich on the “Zelig of Homophobia” and a “Heaven-Sent Rent Boy”
Coming Out in Africa and the Middle East
Homosexual Relations Decriminalized in India
Liberated to Be Together
Sergius and Bacchus: Martyrs, Saints, and Lovers

Sister Jeannine Gramick Asks: "Who Speaks for Catholics?"

The April 2010 issue of the Call to Action newsletter features a timely and helpful commentary by Jeannine Gramick, SL, co-founder with Robert Nugent, SDS, of New Ways Ministry.

Gramick’s commentary in CTA News is a rebuttal to Cardinal Francis George’s recent denouncement of New Ways Ministry as a pseudo Catholic organization. As the executive coordinator of CPCSM, a Twin Cities-based gay Catholic organization that has been similarly denounced by the local clerical leadership, I appreciate Gramick’s informed and measured response to Cardinal George. I also recommend her commentary for its overview of the latest statistics regarding the views of Catholics on “homosexual behavior” (or “activity”), gay marriage, and gay rights.

In addition, her response to those who incessantly declare that the church is not a democracy and that therefore opinion polls don’t matter, is well-grounded in both history and theology, and, as a result, welcomingly encouraging. Here’s what she says:

If the Church is not a democracy, this is because of human engineering, not divine design. The early Christian community democratically debated issues such as circumcision and the Jewish dietary laws. Historically, religious communities have elected their leaders, and by recommending that diocesan pastoral councils and parish councils be established, the Second Vatican Council was setting a more democratic agenda for the Church.

If we truly believe that God’s Spirit speaks through the Church, i.e., the community, then the whole community needs to hear what the Spirit is saying to individuals within the community.

Amen, Sister!

Following is Gramick’s commentary in its entirety (with thanks to my friend Frank for bringing it to my attention).

_____________________________________

Who Speaks for Catholics?

By Jeannine Gramick

CTA News
April 2010

On February 5, 2010, Cardinal Francis George, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, denounced New Ways Ministry, a national ministry of justice and reconciliation between lesbian/gay people and the Catholic Church, for its “lack of adherence to Church teaching on the morality of homosexual acts” and stated that new Ways Ministry “cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.

Cardinal George’s criticism highlights, I believe, two crucial points. Who speaks on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States? And, are homosexual acts moral?

All baptized Catholics make up the “Catholic faithful.” Cardinal George is right when he says that New Ways Ministry cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.” But neither can the US bishops speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful. And Catholic theologians cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful. Only the Catholic faithful can speak on behalf of themselves.

A recent poll of U.S. Catholics showed that 58% of Catholics believed that “homosexuality” should be accepted by society. On the specific issue of lesbian/gay marriage, 43% of Catholics responded favorably. When the survey question was narrowed to respondents between 18 to 29 years of age, 60% of Catholics supported marriage equality. When the question was broadened to ask about benefits and protections associated with marriage, such as hospital visitation, health insurance, and pension coverage, support among Catholics jumped to over two-thirds.

We often hear it said that “the church is not a democracy,” so “opinion polls don’t matter.” If the Church is not a democracy, this is because of human engineering, not divine design. The early Christian community democratically debated issues such as circumcision and the Jewish dietary laws. Historically, religious communities have elected their leaders, and by recommending that diocesan pastoral councils and parish councils be established, the Second Vatican Council was setting a more democratic agenda for the Church.

If we truly believe that God’s Spirit speaks through the Church, i.e., the community, then the whole community needs to hear what the Spirit is saying to individuals within the community.

Theologians need to take the community’s experiential data, reflect on it, explain the belief residing in it, and show how this belief is, or is not, a development of the Christian tradition. When a sufficient consensus emerges around a particular opinion, Church leaders need to teach or articulate this conviction as the faith of the People of God. For most issues, not just those regarding sexuality, this data gathering, reflection, elucidation, articulation and teaching of belief takes centuries.

The second question, “Are homosexual acts moral?” does not admit of a simple “yes” or “no” answer. The Christian community has been engaged in an intense debate on this question for the last half century, with divergent views among the Catholic faithful, the theologians, and the bishops. In August 2009, the Pew Research Center reported that only 39% of Catholics said that homosexual behavior was morally wrong. That compares with 61% who responded that homosexual behavior was “not a moral issue,” “Morally acceptable,” or “OK.” Most Catholic moral theologians now hold that, in the context of a loving, committed relationship, homosexual activity can be morally good. While the views of the Catholic faithful and theologians have shifted over time, the Catholic hierarchy continues to maintain that homosexual activity is always morally wrong because it is not open to procreation.

Somebody needs to tell Cardinal George that he is obviously not speaking for the Catholic faithful or Catholic moral theologians. Perhaps he knows this and, like other bishops, imagines that constant repetition compels belief. I, for one, prefer the more honest approach of New Ways Ministry, which continues to educate the public about homosexuality. I am pleased that Francis DeBernardo, the Executive Director of New Ways Ministry, responded t Cardinal George’s censure by saying, “For almost 33 years New Ways Ministry has been sustained spiritually by the prayers of millions of Catholics, and we owe it to these supporters to continue the work to which God has called us.”

Sister Jeannine Gramick, SL, along with Fr. Robert Nugent, co-founded New Ways Ministry in 1977.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Here Comes Everyone - Robert McClory on a democratic Catholic Church.
Robert McClory’s Prophetic Work - Two reviews of Robert McClory’s book, As It Was In the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church.
The Holarchical Church: Not a Pyramid But a Web of Relationships
Beyond Papalism
Many Voices, One Church
How Times Have Changed

Frank Rich on the "Zelig of Homophobia" and a "Heaven-Sent Rent Boy"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Quote of the Day

[W]hat strikes me [most about Pope Benedict's recent statements about gay marriage being an "insidious threat" to the common good] is how clearly these remarks exemplify Mark Jordan’s demonstration of the weakness of the Vatican’s rhetoric against homoerotic relationships, because that is all it is – rhetoric. There is no rational argument, there is no evidence, no recognition of the Church’s own deeply homoerotic culture – and there is no history. This apparently implacable opposition is of recent origin, and can in principle vanish as quickly as it came.

- Terence Weldon
"Benedict, Gay Marriage, and the Real 'Insidious Threat'"
Queering the Church
May 14, 2010

Recommended Off-site Links:
Benedict and Gay Marriage: What Did He Say? - Terence Weldon (Queering the Church, May 14, 2010).
Gay Marriage: An Insidious Threat to the Common Good, Or a Real Threat to the Celibate Priesthood? - Colleen Kochivar-Baker (Enlightened Catholicism, May 14, 2010).
Pope Benedict XVI: Gay Marriage is "Insidious and Dangerous" - Geoff Farrow (Father Geoff Farrow, May 13, 2010).
Pope Benedict XVI on Gay Marriage - John McNeill (Spiritual Transformation, May 14, 2010).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Officially Homophobic, Intensely Homoerotic
Let's Face It: The Catholic Church is a Gay Institution
A Fact That Should Be Neither Surprising Nor Derogatory
Oh, Give It a Rest, Papa!
Ascertaining the Common Good
The Pope's "Scandalous" Stance on Homosexuality
Homosexuality and the Priesthood
Gay People and the Spiritual Life
Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology
The Many Manifestations of God's Loving Embrace
What Is It That Ails You?

Dream Song

I dreamt last night that I was singing the following song in an open field – for all the world to hear! Weird or what?

I'm not sure why this particular song - a longtime favorite of mine – should visit me in my dreams, though I can definitely relate to some of its lyrics. Mind you, I'm not experiencing a doomed affair with a Russian chess player - or anyone else for that matter. Oh, and neither was I sporting big hair and '80s attire in my dream!

. . . No one in your life is with you constantly.
No one is completely on your side.
And though I move my world to be with him,
still the gap between us is too wide.

Looking back I could
have played it differently.
Learned about the man
before I fell.

But I was ever so much
younger then.
Now at least
I know I know him well.

Wasn't it good? (Oh, so good)
Wasn't he fine? (Oh, so fine)
Isn't it madness
he can't be mine?

Didn't I know
how it would go?
If I knew from the start,
why am I falling apart?

But in the end he needs a
little bit more than me –
more security.
He needs his
fantasy and freedom.

I know him so well.

The song is, of course, "I Know Him So Well," from the musical Chess. In the clip above, it's being sung by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson. It was a worldwide hit in 1985.

Notes Wikipedia about the song:

In this duet, two women – Svetlana, [a] Russian chess champion's estranged wife, and Florence, his mistress – express their bittersweet feelings for him and at seeing their relationships fall apart.

The duet was number one in the UK for four weeks in 1985 when released as a single by Elaine Paige (as Florence) and Barbara Dickson (as Svetlana), who laid down their vocals separately and never met during the recording of the song, only for the video and subsequent performances on Top of the Pops and the European tours. This recording remains in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest selling UK Chart single ever by a female duo. Paige also appeared in the original London stage production of Chess.

I've always liked "I Know Him So Well," and bought it as a single when it was first released in Australia in 1985. I was in my second year of college at the time. I heard it again recently as I've been playing an old compilation tape of '80s songs when I work out. Perhaps that's why it was a recent "dream song."

Anyway, following is a beautiful 2008 performance of the song by John Barrowman and Daniel Boys - two openly gay British singers.

Looking back,
I could have played things
some other way.

I was just a little
careless, maybe.

Now at least
I know him well.

Wasn't it good? (Oh, so good)
Wasn't he fine? (Oh, so fine)
Isn't it madness
he won't be mine?

Musical artists previously featured at The Wild Reed:
Jane Clifton, Enigma, Yvonne Elliman, Lenny Kravitz, Marty Rhone, Don Henley, Propeller Heads and Shirley Bassey, Stephen Gately, Nat King Cole, Enrique Iglesias, Helen Reddy, Australian Crawl, PJ and Duncan, Cass Elliot, The Church, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, Wall of Voodoo, Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, Pink Floyd, Kate Ceberano, Judith Durham, Wendy Matthews, Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1927, Mavis Staples, Maxwell, Joan Baez, Dave Stewart & Friends, Tee Set, Darren Hayes, Suede, Wet, Wet, Wet, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Cruel Sea, Shirley Bassey, Loretta Lynn & Jack White, Maria Callas, Foo Fighters, Rosanne Cash, Jenny Morris, Scissor Sisters, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, and Dusty Springfield.

Love, Equality and the Rumba

Although I don’t watch Dancing With the Stars, I did read in the latest issue of Equality, the magazine of the Human Rights Campaign, of how recently on the popular show, professional dancer and choreographer Louis van Amstel spoke out for marriage equality.

According to Equality, Amstel competes on Dancing With the Stars, “one of America’s most popular TV shows, drawing 23 million viewers weekly.” On a recent episode, after dancing a piece that told the story of an interracial couple in the ’50s, banned from marrying by US law, Amstel, who is gay, declared on air: “Everyone should be able to get married.”

Following is Equality’s brief interview Louis van Amstel.

_______________________

Equality: So you raised the topic of marriage equality on the show. Was there any response?

Louis van Amstel: Hundreds wrote in, including many straight, married Christian women with children, saying they totally think it should be a right. They said how heartbreaking it would be if they could not marry the person they love. . . . The biggest reaction was from a Christian woman in Florida who absolutely did not understand the word “gay” or the freedom to be gay. In a long e-mail, she wrote how she did not agree with it. But she said, “The way you portrayed that storyline – I got it. I believe you should have the right, even though I disagree.


Equality: Growing up, did you always know you would be a dancer? Did you know you were attracted to men?

Louis van Amstel: The first question, yes. I started dancing when I was 10 and by 11, I knew this would be my life. The second question, I was 15 and I was so occupied with dancing . . . My mom actually said, “If you ever feel different, you know you can talk to your mom, right?” I had no idea what she was talking about. Somehow, it opened my mind. . . . And at 17, I had a trip to Germany. And I feel in love with someone.


Equality: So which dance is the sexiest?

Louis van Amstel: It depends. . . . If I personally dance with Karina [Smirnoff], who is also on the show, I would say the rumba.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Same Premise
The Response of One Gay Black Man to the Charge that King's Dream Has Been "Hijacked" by the Gay Movement


Recommended Off-site Link:
Dancing with Louis - Louis van Amstel’s Official Website.

Good First Steps

To sighs of relief, Pope Benedict is distancing himself from members of the Curia who are blaming a vast secular conspiracy for the European chapter of the sex abuse crisis. On a plane to Portugal and speaking off the cuff with reporters, B16 said, “The greatest persecution of the church does not come from the enemies outside, but is born from sin inside the church.” If you know anything about this pope’s ecclesiology, which tends to lean toward “spotless bride of Christ,” that’s quite a thing for him to say, and a terrific first step in overcoming the denial that possesses certain members of the Roman Curia.

Better still is Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schornborn’s calling out of Cardinal Angelo Sodano’s dismissal of sex abuse allegations as “petty gossip.” Sodano’s obstruction of investigations against the former archbishop of Vienna, Hans Hermann Groer, and against Legionaries founder Marcial Maciel deserve further attention.

These are good first steps . . .

– Bryan Cones
“Is the Pope Finally Getting It?”
U.S. Catholic
May 11, 2010

Related Off-site Links:
Pope’s Clearest Message Yet in Abuse - Stacy Meichtry (Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2010).
Pope Issues His Most Direct Words to Date on Abuse Crisis - Rachel Donadio (New York Times, May 12, 2010).
Some Really, Really Interesting Words from Benedict. Really - Colleen Kochivar-Baker (Enlightened Catholicism, May 11, 2010).

Dale Carpenter on the "Win-Win" Reality of Gay Marriage

Even though I find myself in disagreement with him, I’m glad Archbishop Niestedt shared his thoughts on gay marriage in a recent Star Tribune op-ed. This is because in response to it, a number of well-reasoned and insightful counter-opinions have been written and published. Many people have been given the opportunity to be enlightened by the perspectives contained in these commentaries - something that would not have happened if the archbishop's piece had not first been published. Initially, there was my friend Ed Flahavan’s April 30 letter to the editor, followed by commentaries by Kevin Winge, Andy Birkey, and Eileen Scallen.

We can now add to this impressive list the May 9 Star Tribune op-ed by Dale Carpenter, professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.

It’s an excellent op-ed – one that offers sound reasons for why we should question and oppose the archbishop’s efforts to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. I sincerely hope that Archbishop Nienstedt takes to time to reflect upon and, in some way, respond to Carpenter’s arguments – the central one being that marriage is “good for married people, good for kids and good for society” and that therefore the rights and protections of civil marriage should be afforded to same-sex couples and families. It’s a stance that reminds me of what was shared in the previous Wild Reed post, An Ironic Truth.

Like many others, Carpenter recognizes and critiques the illogic of the archbishop’s op-ed. He notes, for instance, that:

Nienstedt has identified longstanding problems in heterosexual families that were not caused by gay families and has proposed to alleviate them at the expense of gay families.

Carpenter, it should be noted, is a conservative gay man – a Republican, actually. I was first introduced to him via his writings at the Independent Gay Forum. I highlighted his response to British gay rights pioneer Peter Tatchell in The Wild Reed’s Summer Round-Up of 2009. Part of Carpenter’s response to Tatchell reads as follows:

And, yes, we want marriage. Marriage is not a “patriarchal prison” for our partners and children. It is freedom from a queer prison of perpetual grievance and mythologized otherness. It is getting off the tiger’s back of adolescence and accepting responsibilities for families and communities.

In February and March of this year I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Dale when I attended hearings at the Minnesota State Capitol on a number of marriage equality bills currently before both the Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Senate. Dale was one of those who testified at both hearings in support of the bills. At one point in his testimony he observed that:

Because I’m a conservative, I support the recognition of same-sex marriage in Minnesota. It’s good for stable relationships, good for families, and good for kids.

Later in March, Dale attended the Oscar Night Party I hosted at my home in St. Paul. I appreciated the chance to converse with him in an informal social setting, and learn more about his background and his perspective on various issues.

His May 9 Star Tribune op-ed is reprinted in its entirety below.

___________________________________________

Yes, Protect Marriage. Let Gays Wed

The archbishop's fears about damage
to families and children are misdirected.


By Dale Carpenter
Star Tribune
May 9, 2010

Marriage is good for married people, good for kids and good for society. Public policy should support and reinforce it. On these important points, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt is surely correct (“Let’s Protect the Meaning of Marriage," April 28). To help sustain families and to protect marriage, however, we should do the opposite of what he suggests. We should let gay couples wed.

There are about 150,000 gay or lesbian Minnesotans. The 2000 census revealed that there are about 9,000 same-sex unmarried-partner households in the state. Whether by adoption or biology, thousands of children here are being raised by gay parents. Minnesota is also one of about half the states where it is possible for a same-sex partner to share full legal responsibility with the biological parent.

The state encourages the formation of gay families. Yet when it comes to protecting these families in the law, Minnesota treats them as worthless. It makes no provision for them.

Marriage offers families irreplaceable legal, care-giving and social support. Law confers rights and imposes obligations on married people in ways often designed to sustain them in times of crisis. It also encourages spouses to commit to each other. It makes them think twice about splitting up. Children are more secure in households where their parents are married.

The welfare of gay persons and their children is a material and moral concern for every humane and civilized citizen. What is Nienstedt’s proposal for dealing with them? So far, he has just one: Retrieve from the dust bin a failed constitutional amendment excluding them from marriage.

Nienstedt worries about fathers’ avoiding parental responsibility, about the unfairness and poverty of single parenthood, and about high divorce rates. Highlighting these problems would make sense if one were proposing, say, to abolish divorce, which affirms that some values are more important than keeping people married at all costs. Banning gay marriage addresses none of them.

If Nienstedt is concerned about single parenthood, he should support same-sex marriage. Prohibiting it guarantees single-parent homes for thousands of children.

Nienstedt is also distressed, more abstractly, that gay marriage would signal that “we have officially abandoned the ideal that children need both a mom and a dad.” But why should anyone believe that their own family is unimportant because the law recognizes someone else’s?

This concern might make sense if one were proposing to eliminate adoption or remarriage, both of which separate biological parenthood from marriage. Gay marriage will not take a single child away from biological parents who want to raise their child and are fit to do so.

In other words, Nienstedt has identified longstanding problems in heterosexual families that were not caused by gay families and has proposed to alleviate them at the expense of gay families.

Banning gay marriage carries its own risks to marriage, including the creation of alternatives designed to replace it. Another danger is the lamentable but growing perception, especially among younger people, that marriage is just one more example of unjustified discrimination against their gay friends.

We should always be cautious about changes to important institutions. No-fault divorce really did transform marriage, because it altered the rules by which 100 percent of married couples lived. Gay marriage, by contrast, will add perhaps 3 percent to the total number of marriages. While it is important for same-sex couples, it will change no rules for entering, conducting or exiting marriage by the other 97 percent.

Minnesota should follow the lead of the 15 states covering about a fourth of the U.S. population, along with more than two dozen countries, that have already recognized same-sex relationships. Five states and seven countries now have full gay marriage. None of the ill effects hypothesized by Nienstedt has come true. And this change is increasingly coming through legislatures, not courts.

Gay marriage is one of those rare reforms in which every affected person is a winner and none is a loser. It’s win-win.

Dale Carpenter is the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School.


Related Off-site Link:
Minnesota Couples Sue for the Right to Marry - TheColu.mn (May 11, 2010).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Archbishop Nienstedt Calls (Again) for a Marriage Amendment to Minnesota’s Constitution
Archbishop Nienstedt’s Unconvincing Argument
Archbishop Nienstedt Has It Wrong
Distinguishing Between Roman Catholic Theology and Civil Law in the Struggle for Marriage Equality
At UST, a Rousing and Very Catholic Show of Support for Same-Sex Marriage
Minnesotans Rally for Equality and Love at the State Capitol
A Catholic Voice for Marriage Equality at the State Capitol
Two Attorneys Discuss Same-Sex Marriage
A Christian Case for Same-Sex Marriage