I had thought that the Republican leadership was opposed to same-sex unions and same-sex parenting, but now I see that the truth of the matter is much less clear and much more complicated.
New York Times
December 7, 2006
Cheney Pregnancy Stirs Debate on Gay Rights
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is expecting a baby with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, Mr. Cheney’s office said Wednesday.
Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, said the vice president and his wife, Lynne Cheney,
were “looking forward with eager anticipation” to the baby’s birth,
which is expected this spring and will bring to six the number of
grandchildren the Cheneys have.
Mr. Cheney’s office would not provide details about how Mary Cheney
became pregnant or by whom, and Ms. Cheney did not respond to messages
left at her office and with her book publisher, Simon & Schuster.
The announcement of the pregnancy, which was first reported
Wednesday by The Washington Post, and Ms. Cheney’s future status as a
same-sex parent, prompted new debate over the administration’s
opposition to gay marriage.
Family Pride, a gay rights group, noted that Ms. Cheney’s home
state, Virginia, does not recognize same-sex civil unions or marriages.
“The news of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy exemplifies, once again, how
the best interests of children are denied when lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender citizens are treated unfairly and accorded different
and unequal rights and responsibilities than other parents,” said the
group’s executive director, Jennifer Chrisler.
Focus on the Family, a Christian group that has provided crucial
political support to President Bush, released a statement that
criticized child rearing by same-sex couples.
“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for
children,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, the group’s director of issues
analysis. “Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of
the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean it’s the
best for the child.”
In 2004, Ms. Cheney worked on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign,
which won in part because of the so-called values voters who were drawn
to the polls by ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage.
Mr. Bush voiced strong approval that year for a constitutional
amendment banning same-sex marriage, as he did this year, too. While
gay rights groups called on Ms. Cheney to speak out against the
proposed ban in 2004, she remained silent.
But Ms. Cheney wrote in a book published this year that she had
considered resigning from the campaign after learning that Mr. Bush
would endorse the proposed amendment. She said that she decided to stay
because other important issues were at stake in the 2004 campaign.
As she promoted her book last spring, she said a federal ban on
same-sex marriage would “write discrimination into the Constitution.”
The vice president has hinted at disapproval of the proposed amendment.
Asked where he stood on the issue during a campaign stop in Iowa in
2004, Mr. Cheney said, “Freedom means freedom for everyone.”
Dana Perino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, said that Mr. Cheney had
recently told the president about the pregnancy and that “the president
said he was happy for him.” The Cheneys have five grandchildren by
their other daughter, Elizabeth.
Mary Cheney, 37, is a vice president at AOL; Ms. Poe, a former park ranger, is 45.
New York Times
December 7, 2006
Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions
The highest legal body in
Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted
yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of
same-sex commitment ceremonies.
The decision, which followed years of debate, was denounced by
traditionalists in the movement as an indication that Conservative
Judaism had abandoned its commitment to adhere to Jewish law, but
celebrated by others as a long-awaited move toward full equality for
gay people.
“We see this as a giant step forward,” said Sarah Freidson, a
rabbinical student and co-chairwoman of Keshet, a student group at the
Jewish Theological Seminary in New York that has been pushing for
change.
[To read the whole piece, click here.]
Thursday, December 7, 2006
I agree with Michael S. that sex is a fundamental component of the human person, and thus a fundamental component of Catholic legal theory. But I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that "[r]eflecting on the design of our bodies, our radical incompleteness, our intense desire (especially in males) to “use” another’s body to satisfy our own needs, and a whole host of related topics can offer insight into the origin and nature of community, the need for rules (and hence the need for promulgators of rules) to govern behaviour, the origins and nature of government and other governing structures (the corporation, etc.)."
Here's the tension, in my view: Our need for law derives in significant part from our fallen condition. We are selfish and we need rules to rein in our selfishness. But the ideal for sexuality (the lifelong coupling of a man and woman) is not in response to our selfishness, but to our incompleteness. Adam and Eve did not need the criminal law in the Garden of Eden, but they still needed each other. Corporate management does not need to face punishment for self-dealing because they are incomplete, but because they are selfish. An authentic view of sexuality allows us to transcend our selfishness; law accounts for our selfishness. I totally agree that our understanding of the human person must include an articulation of human sexuality. But I'm still not sure how far the articulation of human sexuality gets us toward a comprehensive theory of law.
[For an earlier post, click here.]
Sightings 12/7/06
Obama's Religious
Challenge
-- Jerome Eric Copulsky
[Jerome Eric Copulsky is Director and Assistant
Professor of Judaic Studies at Virginia Tech.]
Last Friday, Barack Obama, the
charismatic junior senator from Illinois and possible Democratic presidential
hopeful, made news by speaking at an AIDS conference at Rick Warren's Saddleback
Church, one of the flagships of contemporary evangelicalism. To an
audience of more than 2,000 evangelical leaders, the senator spoke movingly of
his experiences in Africa, and set forth his vision for AIDS prevention and care
in terms shaped decidedly by his Christian faith. Although Obama received
a standing ovation, his invitation to Saddleback was met with hostility by some
conservative Christians, who rebuked Warren for sharing his pulpit with a
supporter of abortion rights.
Senator Obama's appearance at one of the
most "mega" of American megachurches and his emphasis on his own religious
convictions is not surprising. Back in June, in a spirited address to
"Call to Renewal," a progressive faith-based movement, Obama testified to his
own conversion and faith. Complaining that for too long Democrats have
been uncomfortable with the conversation about religion, "fearful of offending
anyone" or "dismiss[ing] religion in the public square as inherently irrational
or intolerant," Obama called for progressives "to acknowledge the power of faith
in people's lives," and to "join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith
with our modern, pluralistic democracy."
Some Democrats hailed Obama's
eloquent display of his faith. Others sharply criticized the senator for
giving credence to Republican allegations that the Democrats are allergic to
religion, or condemned him for pandering to the prejudices of the religious
right, or claimed he was undermining the Democrats' commitment to secular
governance.
Such praise and condemnation do not get to the heart of
the matter. The question is not whether religious motivations are
considered licit in the public sphere. The question is: How does one use
religious arguments in the to-and-fro of democratic deliberation and policy
formation? And it is here that the senator powerfully illuminates the
Democrats', and liberalism's, religion problem.
After recognizing
the "crucial role" that the separation of church and state has played in
defending American democracy and fostering the vitality of religious practice,
Obama remarked, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate
their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It
requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason
.... Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims
based on a common reality."
Obama rehearses a classic modern liberal
stratagem to grapple with the persistence of competing "comprehensive theories"
or conceptions of "the good": All preferences must be "translated" into a
universal, rational idiom if they are to compete in the public square. The
invitation to take part in political life is extended to "the religiously
motivated," so long as they are willing and able to explain their particular
views in terms accessible to those who don't share their revelation or
insight. They may not have to "leave their religion at the door," but they
will have to bring a translator along with them.
This sort of
translation, however, is no easy feat. If one maintains that his religion
is universal, he may not see how his values are to be regarded as merely
"religion-specific." How do you translate into secular terms religious
truths that are not accessible to unassisted or unreformed human reason?
If faith has the transformative effect that Obama and others claim that it does,
wouldn't some reasons be opaque to those whose hearts have not yet been
turned? Who determines the "common reality" that we all share?
Indeed, the very notion of a "religiously neutral" common reality is subject to
serious contention.
While Obama rightly stresses the political virtue
of compromise, appealing to a shared rationality and the necessity of
compromises may alleviate, but will not solve, the problems that religion raises
for politics. Indeed, Obama's speech exposes the fundamental tension
between certain kinds of religious faith and a serious commitment to the untidy
practice and inevitable compromises of political life, particularly in an
increasingly pluralistic, liberal democracy.
Yet, Obama helps us remember
that the distinction that we need to be aware of is not between religious and
secular Americans, but between those who believe that political life will
require certain concessions and those who have contempt for Enlightenment
principles such as religious liberty upon which this nation is founded, who see
democratic procedures as only the means by which to impress their vision of the
common good on the rest of the country. This is a distinction between
different kinds of religious attitudes, which does not conform to a simple
distinction between religious conservatives and religious
liberals.
Democrats don't need to get more religion; they need to
learn more about it. They can present their positions in moral terms,
without feeling compelled to cite chapter and verse or make appeals to what
Jesus would do. They should know that being more comfortable employing
religious language or making public confessions of faith will not persuade those
who are already otherwise convinced. And they should recognize that,
despite their best efforts, they will still have to contend with their less
scrupulous opponents denouncing them as "godless."
Obama, whose
appearance before the evangelicals received both applause and fierce
condemnations, already knows this.
References:
Senator Obama's
"Call to Renewal" keynote address can be found here:
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote_address/index.html.
His remarks at the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at the Saddleback
Church Campus can be found here:
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/061201-race_against_time_-_world_aids_day_speech/index.html.
----------
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
In the past, I've blogged about the situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan, mentioning the ongoing work of the Catholic Workers movement to draw attention to the genocide occurring there. About ten days ago, Susan Stabile posted a message from a Mirror of Justice reader wondering what we, as ordinary Americans, can do and expressing the frustration that many of us feel in seeking an effective response. The following message should provide some hope and a means of providing concrete assistance to those who are suffering and to restoration of security in the region.
Professor Ellen Kennedy of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul sent this message to faculty colleagues, with the heading: "Genocide Intervention Network - A Christmas Story":
Colleagues,
I want to tell you a Christmas story that will warm your hearts – and perhaps motivate you to make a difference in the world.
As you probably know, we have a campus chapter of the Genocide Intervention Network. GI-Net is an organization that has over 600 chapters throughout the country and an international presence; its mission is to educate about genocide, advocate with elected officials and other leaders for a non-violent resolution to conflict, and raise funds to protect those whose lives are at risk. At present the focus is the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan. Over 400,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and villages.
The Student Advisory Board of our chapter has launched a “Ten for Ten” campaign this holiday season. Instead of receiving gifts this year, they are all asking ten of their family and friends to donate $10 each to the national GI-Net office. The national office has raised over $250,000 to assist the limited African Union peacekeeping troops with non-weapons-based support in Darfur. And of those ten, our students also hope that at least one will ‘pay it forward’ to ask another ten to give their support.
These students have made a commitment to lend a hand, to raise their voices, and to take a stand for the people in Darfur who are dying at a rate of more than five hundred every single day. These students are ordinary Midwest kids – but they’ve realized that the words ‘never again,’ uttered after the Holocaust, have rung hollow. They are committed to making ‘never again’ mean ‘never.’
Will you join them in this effort? Your tax-deductible contribution to the Genocide Intervention Network (a registered 501-C3; tax ID number 20-2278405) will help African Union troops to protect women and children against gender-based violence in Darfur.
Please participate with our students in the spirit of giving with the most precious of gifts – the gift of safety. You can send your donation to the Genocide Intervention Network, 1333 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20005, and note that it’s part of the “Ten for Ten” campaign. If it’s more convenient, you can send it to me at Mail MCH 316 at UST and I’ll send it on to Washington.
With best wishes for the holidays,
Ellen
For more information about the national organization, please see
www.genocideintervention.net
