...And yet, in the rush to (rightly) condemn, conservative responses have often overlooked the fact that Savage was on to something. In the past year, commentators including Elizabeth Scalia, Melinda Selmys, and Mark Shea have written articles to present the gay community as something other than simply an enemy. Each made clear their adherence to orthodox sexual ethics, but each nonetheless received a venomous response from many of their Christian readers. ...

Thus, the first line of response conservative Christians offer to the pastoral problem of homosexuality is to try to get rid of the problem through ex-gay ministries or reparative therapy; thus, Christian protest to the Uganda bill was half-hearted at best; thus, the concern for Christians over gay bullying has been minimal, and some Christians have even organized opposition to the opposition of gay bullying. The guiding principle is not the distinction between sexual activity and orientation, but their conflation into lifestyle or identity, and so those who are targeted for being or seeming to be gay are given only the most abstract support for their profoundly concrete humiliation.

Last year, Biola professor Matt Jenson addressed students in chapel (like Savage’s address, also available on YouTube). After calling Christians to accountability for failing to make a real space for single people, he turns to the question of homosexuality. “The church is right to tell gay people the good news and call them to a life of discipleship, if and only if it is willing to live as their family.” If Christians have any interest in reaching out to the gay community, if we have any hope to speak a message which can touch their hearts as well, we absolutely must be willing to live as their family. Behind his blundering obscenity, behind his facile attempts to explain Scripture away, behind the blatant hypocrisy of his behavior toward those who disagree with him, what Dan Savage means to tell us is, “The church has far too often, and for the most wrong-headed reasons, failed to be family to gay people.”

And he’s right.

Labels: Catholic Church, Christianity, culture, Dan Savage, homosexuality, religion

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With the war in Afghanistan not yet over and the economy still reeling from the Great Recession, who would have predicted that 2012 would be the year of social issues? But so it is proving to be, between Rick Santorum’s surprisingly strong performance in the Republican primaries, the Obama administration’s mandate for employer-provided health insurance to cover contraception, and—in a series of battles in legislatures from New Jersey to Maryland—the ongoing struggle over same-sex marriage. Where the last is concerned, polls indicate that while more Americans still oppose gay marriage, the majority that does so is dwindling rapidly. ...

How has this happened? The gradual triumph of gay marriage is not merely due to a legal change that began 20 years ago or even to the sexual revolution of a half-century past; rather it is a consequence of a shift in the foundations of Western civilization that has been taking place over centuries—a shift from Christian to liberal foundations. So profound is this transformation that even the opponents of same-sex marriage are not exactly fighting to recover the old way of life.

To understand how marriage has changed, and not changed, over the course of Western history one can hardly do better than turn to Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman’s Family and Civilization as a primer. First published in 1947, it remains an invaluable, indeed prophetic, guide to the marriage debate and wider culture wars. While same-sex marriage may be an absolute novelty, there have been pitched battles over the definition of marriage before, as when the Catholic Church told the barbarians who had overtaken the Roman Empire that they could not continue their practices of cousin marriage—a tradition from time immemorial—if they wished to be Christians.

Indeed, as Zimmerman writes, “in the course of seven or eight centuries the family system of Europe had twice completely reversed its trend” thanks to the Church, which first reformed the socially atomistic conjugal practices of the late Romans before tackling the blood-bound “trustee” families of the invading tribes. “This struggle, one of the most interesting in the history of the Western family, is relatively unknown to us today,” though it was a matter of civilization-shaping importance at the beginning of European Christendom.

The balance between the social extremes of atomism and tribalism could only be maintained as long as the Church was the primary authority responsible for marriage—which it was for over a thousand years. “The barbarian family had to be broken away from clan influences and brought under that of the church,” writes Zimmerman, but “if temporal forces and strong states could take from the church its power, rule, and regulation of the family, then the atomistic type could reappear. Actually, this is what happened.”

Even Zimmerman could not have anticipated same-sex marriage, but he might not have been surprised by it. As Christianity has lost its power in public life, so too have the forms of marriage and family that it established given way to new configurations shaped by the institutions and ideologies that hold power today—specifically, liberalism and the modern state. But did liberalism, with its bedrock principle of legal equality for all individuals, have to lead to gay marriage?

Labels: Christianity, conservatism, culture, discrimination law, gay marriage, gay/straight differences, homosexuality, Lawrence v. Texas, liberalism, religious liberty

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As a Catholic, a mom and a lesbian, Ann Tesluk has a personal interest in how Catholic schools handle homophobia.

The mother of two children at St. Joseph’s Catholic Elementary School was delighted when the school board sent out a 20-page equity blueprint last month to help teachers tackle all kinds of discrimination, from race, religion to disability and sexual orientation.

Then she read the fine print.

It felt like “stepping back into the Dark Ages.”

In an otherwise upbeat chapter “Rainbow is for Sexual Orientation,” which urges teachers to treat homophobic language as harshly as racial slurs and encourages the use of gay guest speakers and the reading of gay-positive texts, sat an excerpt from the Catholic Church’s catechism #2358.

It explained that while discrimination is wrong, homosexuals are “objectively disordered,” an archaic way of saying they don’t follow the “natural order” of pursuing procreation.

Labels: Canada, Catholic Church, gay parenting, homosexuality, parenting, religion, schools

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All of a sudden, they are bigots and haters — they who stood tall against discrimination, who marched and sat in, who knew better than most the pain of being told they were less than others.

They are black men, successful ministers, leaders of their community. But with Maryland poised to become the eighth state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage, they hear people — politicians, activists, even members of their own congregations — telling them they are on the wrong side of history, and that’s not where they usually live. ...

Thomas, 61, says a couple of young women in his church told him that maybe it’s not so bad to allow two women to join together because, in many cases, men are not in the home.

His booming voice softens: “We do have a flat tire in our community when it comes to marriage and men in the household. But do we flatten the other three tires to move forward, or do we work on fixing the flat tire? Do we give up on the lack of strong black men leading our households and justify another change in our social structure?” ...

The battle over same-sex marriage, for Thomas and Carr, is not so much about homosexuality as about a growing belief that biblical principles should not be the basis for governing.

“Take the word ‘marriage’ out of this bill, and we’re pretty much in agreement,” Thomas says. “Everyone should have full legal rights and would have them with civil unions. You wouldn’t see me down there protesting against civil unions. The state is the state, and the church is the church. I understand that. But put the word ‘marriage’ in there, and now you’re redefining something that is in the Bible and in our principles as one man and one woman. Why do you need to use a biblical word in a civil situation? ...

Over and over, the ministers return to the image that some supporters of same-sex marriage have painted of the church as hater. “There is not one of us who doesn’t have persons in our family with that lifestyle,” Thomas says. “And I tell them, ‘You are still mine.’ ” His voice cracks; he halts for a moment. “You are flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. No, I will not discriminate against him. We are a people of mercy. But the state may not tell me that I must sanction his behavior, just as I may not sanction behavior of the adulterer or the liar.”

Labels: Christianity, culture, gay marriage, homosexuality, Marriage, Maryland, men, race, religion

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Labels: covenant marriage, culture, divorce, feminism, friendship, gay marriage, gender, heteronormativity, homosexuality, Marriage, men, women

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As bundled-up parishioners hurried in and out of Holy Name Cathedral on Sunday, gay rights advocates marched on the sidewalk, criticizing Cardinal Francis George and speaking optimistically about a same-sex marriage bill introduced last week at the Illinois Statehouse.

The sidewalk outside the downtown church is popular territory for protests, but some participants said they felt special hope because of victories in two other states and the introduction of the same-sex marriage bill in Springfield on Wednesday. Washington state lawmakers approved a gay marriage bill Wednesday, and appeals judges struck down California's same-sex marriage ban Tuesday.

"We've got momentum on our side," said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.

Referring to George's controversial suggestion that gay rights activists might become "like the Ku Klux Klan" toward Catholicism, Thayer said, "The shrill comments coming out of the Catholic leadership are indicative that they believe they're losing."

George apologized for the comments in early January, but protesters — numbering about 15 at the protest's peak — still carried signs calling George the "Arch Bigot" and urging parishioners to "give up hate for Lent." The church was the site of a similar protest last month.

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, gay marriage, homosexuality, Illinois, religion

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In 2009, Julea Ward, a teacher and an evangelical Christian, was studying for a master’s degree in counseling at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. As part of her training, she was required to treat clients, and she expressed her reluctance to work with any who were in same-sex relationships. A professor, heeding Ms. Ward’s wishes, referred a gay client to another counselor.

That seemingly simple request became a problem for Ms. Ward when the university expelled her for having made it. Ms. Ward sued, and her case raises the question of whether a counselor’s religious convictions can disqualify her from the profession. ...

The Sixth Circuit decision turns on how common it is to refer patients to other counselors. Ms. Ward argues that one’s religious beliefs are a reasonable reason to refer a client, while the university argues that it has to train students to work with all kinds of clients. The American Counseling Association filed a brief asserting that to habitually refer gay clients would violate its ethical canon.

Ms. Ward referred questions to her lawyer, Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy organization. Mr. Tedesco said that “if referrals are acceptable, including for many nonreligious-based reasons, they can’t deny someone who has a religion-based need to refer.” He said that Ms. Ward was not singling out gay men and lesbians, and that she would also refuse to affirm heterosexuals who sought counseling about their adultery.

“Does it require a Jewish counselor to affirm the religious beliefs of a Muslim client?” Mr. Tedesco asked. He noted that the American Counseling Association allows its members to choose not to work with terminally ill patients considering end-of-life options. That proves, he said, that counselors are sometimes allowed to refuse to treat clients because of a fraught ethical question — so why not when the question is sexuality, and the counselor is Christian?

What many of the briefs fail to investigate is the role of the counselor or therapist. Is it to “affirm” the client’s beliefs, or to offer support and guidance, even to clients whose practices one may find distasteful or morally wrong?

Labels: culture, discrimination law, homosexuality, mental health, relationships, religion, religious liberty

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Middle school is hard. Children leave the structure and relative safety of elementary school, and armed with a brand new set of hormones and "feelings,"get thrust into a school where the hall talk has moved from Pokémon to bra sizes and sex. Yes, sex. I get that. I thought I was prepared for it.

Then the middle school took my daughter and threw her in a world of sadness and despair, and I had to act fast. ...

On the first day of school, my daughter went willingly, happy for a new environment and I held my breath. I did not have to hold it for long. I got a call within an hour telling me that the principal wanted to talk to me. Here it comes, I thought. I was right; Cheyenne had made sure to tell everyone she was pagan and gay. And then something remarkable happened. They supported me and Cheyenne. Yes, they asked that she not announce to everyone (literally, because she does that) but they were not going to kick her out and would do everything to protect her from other students. The principal and teachers have become her greatest source of strength and inspiration.

It has not all been smooth sailing. She is once again on the outside of the class, since most of the children come from conservative backgrounds. Other girls will even tell her it is wrong to be gay. I do not know for sure, but I suspect the principal must have gotten one or two phone calls from other parents insisting that they expel my child. After all, many of them send their kids to Catholic school to get them away from the very influences espoused in my daughter. She is still a mediocre student, and is a constant thorn in her religious teacher’s side as she challenges every tenant of faith.

But Cheyenne has persevered and thrived.

Labels: adolescence, Catholic Church, culture, homosexuality, schools

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Many religious and social conservatives believe that homosexuality is a mental illness caused exclusively by psychological or spiritual factors and that all homosexual persons could change their orientation if they simply tried hard enough. This view is widely pilloried (and rightly so) as both wrong on the facts and harmful in effect. But few who attack it are willing to acknowledge that today a wholly different, far more influential, and no less harmful set of falsehoods—each attributed to the findings of “science”—dominates the research literature and political discourse.

We are told that homosexual persons are just as psychologically healthy as heterosexuals, that sexual orientation is biologically determined at birth, that sexual orientation cannot be changed and that the attempt to change it is necessarily harmful, that homosexual relationships are equivalent to heterosexual ones in all important characteristics, and that personal identity is properly and legitimately constituted around sexual orientation. These claims are as misguided as the ridiculed beliefs of some social conservatives, as they spring from distorted or incomplete representations of the best findings from the science of same-sex attraction.

Labels: culture, gay/straight differences, homosexuality, mental health, monogamy, professional associations, religion

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We believe in sexual freedom. We take it for granted that consenting men and women have the right to do what they like with their bodies. Sex is everywhere in our culture. We love to think and talk about it; we devour news about celebrities' affairs; we produce and consume pornography on an unprecedented scale. We think it wrong that in other cultures its discussion is censured, people suffer for their sexual orientation, women are treated as second-class citizens, or adulterers are put to death.

Yet a few centuries ago, our own society was like this too. In the 1600s people were still being executed for adultery in England, Scotland and north America, and across Europe. Everywhere in the west, sex outside marriage was illegal, and the church, the state and ordinary people devoted huge efforts to hunting it down and punishing it. This was a central feature of Christian society, one that had grown steadily in importance since late antiquity. So how and when did our culture change so strikingly? Where does our current outlook come from? The answers lie in one of the great untold stories about the creation of our modern condition. ...

Indeed, the first sexual revolution was characterised by an extraordinary reversal in assumptions about female sexuality. Ever since the dawn of western civilisation it had been presumed that women were the more lustful sex. As they were mentally, morally and physically weaker than males, it followed that they were less able to control their passions and thus (like Eve) more likely to tempt others into sin. Yet, by 1800, exactly the opposite idea had become entrenched. Now it was believed that men were much more naturally libidinous and liable to seduce women. Women had come to be seen as comparatively delicate and sexually defensive, needing to be constantly on their guard against male rapacity. The notion of women's relative sexual passivity became fundamental to sexual dynamics across the western world. Its effects were ubiquitous – they still are.

A crucial reason was the rise of women as public writers, which introduced into the cultural mainstream powerful new female perspectives on courtship and lust.

Labels: adultery, class, culture, Europe, gender, homosexuality, men, premarital sex, race, religion, sex, women

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If you met Hanne Blank and her partner on the street, you might have a lot of trouble classifying them. While Blank looks like a feminine woman, her partner is extremely androgynous, with little to no facial hair and a fine smooth complexion. Hanne’s partner is neither fully male, nor fully female; he was born with an unconventional set of chromosomes, XXY, that provide him with both male genitalia and feminine characteristics. As a result, Blank’s partner has been mistaken for a gay woman, a straight man, a transman — and their relationship has been classified as gay, straight and everything in between.

Blank mentions her personal story at the beginning of her provocative new history of heterosexuality, “Straight,” as a way of illustrating just how artificial our notions of “straightness” really are. In her book, Blank, a writer and historian who has written extensively about sexuality and culture, looks at the ways in which social trends and the rise of psychiatry conspired to create this new category in the late 19th and early 20th century. Along the way, she examines the changing definition of marriage, which evolved from a businesslike agreement into a romantic union centered around love, and how social Darwinist ideas shaped the divisions between gay and straight. With her eye-opening book, Blank tactfully deconstructs a facet of modern sexuality that most of us take for granted.

Salon spoke to Blank over the phone about the origins of heterosexuality, the evolution of marriage and why the rise of the “bromance” is a very good thing.

Men and woman have been having sex for as long as there have been humans. So how can we talk about there being a “history” of heterosexuality?

We can talk about there being a history of heterosexuality in the same way that we can talk about there being a history of religions. People have been praying to God for a really long time too, and yet the ways people relate to the divine have specific histories. They come from particular places, they take particular trajectories, there are particular texts, and individuals that are important in them. There are events, names, places, dates. It’s really very similar.

So where does the term “heterosexual” come from?

“Heterosexual” was actually coined in a letter at the same time as the word “homosexual,” [in the mid-19thcentury], by an Austro-Hungarian journalist named Károly Mária Kertbeny. He created these words as part of his response to a piece of Prussian legislation that made same-sex erotic behavior illegal, even in cases where the identical act performed by a man and a woman would be considered legal. And he was one of a couple of people who did a lot of writing and campaigning and pamphleteering to try to change legal opinion on that matter. He coined the words “heterosexual” and “homosexual” in a really very clever bid to try to equalize same-sex and different-sex. His intent was to suggest that there are these two categories in which human beings could be sexual, that they were not part of a hierarchy, that they were just two different flavors of the same thing. ...

In his book “Gay New York,” George Chauncey writes about the flip side of this, how previous to the invention of “homosexuality,” men’s sexualities were much more fluid. Do you think that’s the case?

Oh, absolutely. When you start operating on the principle that you indeed can divide people into sheep and goats, then there’s also the idea that you must divide people into sheep and goats and there are certain boundaries that cannot be crossed without reclassifying.

Labels: culture, gay/straight differences, heteronormativity, homosexuality, Marriage, men, sex, transgender issues

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Australia's greatest women's tennis player Margaret Court says she will not be deterred by gay activists planning to target the Australian Open over her views on homosexuality.

Court, who is now a pastor at a church in Perth, is staunchly opposed to gay marriage and a peaceful protest is planned at the first Grand Slam of the season next week at Melbourne Park, where a court is named after her.

The Facebook group, Rainbow Flags Over Margaret Court Arena, began in response to Court's anti-gay marriage stance and they are urging people to display gay pride colours at the tournament.

Court vowed the protest would not stop her from attending.

"Are they not wanting me to come to the Australian Open? Is that what they are trying to do? I don't run from anything," Court, who won all four Grand Slams in the same year in 1970, told The Australian newspaper Thursday. ...

Tennis Australia said it did not share Court's views.

Labels: Australia, gay marriage, homosexuality, professional associations, religion

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THIS summer, soon after gay marriage became legal in New York, my sons held a wedding for my former husband and his partner of over 30 years. The grandchildren were flower girl and ring bearers. The wedding thrust me back to the time when we faced a terrible choice and decided to stay married for the children. That’s what motivated my then husband and me to carry on our incomplete marriage for its last nine years, and that’s how we explained our actions after the divorce. It was a convenient truth, and also a self-serving one. ...

Of course we both wanted to protect our sons, who were 10 and 14. Divorce was not uncommon then, but the circumstances surrounding our relationship were controversial and would have created a scandal in our small university town, so staying married for the children helped us both feel better about ourselves and our lies. We thought they didn’t notice any change, and we were mistaken. Secrets have a way of seeping into the atmosphere. Kids are natural observers. They watch parents like hawks, and they know when something is wrong, even if they don’t know what. I desperately wanted the charade to work at home — we were doing this for the children. So covering for my husband on his two nights a week out, and his two vacations a year became second nature — he was a busy man with many meetings.

I paid a price for my silence with my closest friends, because a secret of this magnitude builds barriers. I just couldn’t bear to show them the spot I was in. And I was leery of advice. When I felt so alone, I could always remind myself what a good person I was being, sacrificing for the children. ...

If I had faced the other reasons to stay in the marriage, the burden of our lies would probably have been harder to bear. But the burden on our sons might also have been lightened. It’s not so great for kids to be told they are the cause of their parents’ behavior, especially when that’s only part of the story.

Labels: children, culture, divorce, gay marriage, homosexuality, Marriage, parenting

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Ours is an unusual friendship. One of us is a gay man who has written a book in favor of gay marriage. The other is a straight man who has written a book opposing gay marriage.

One of us argues that the advent of gay marriage could help to strengthen marriage as a social institution. The other warns that accepting gay marriage is likely to weaken the institution for everyone. Not much to agree about.

But here’s an interesting thing: Both of us are married, and both of us live or work in political jurisdictions -- New York state and Washington, D.C. -- that define marriage as the union of two persons. So we recently asked ourselves a question: What does it mean for us to disagree about gay marriage, now that gay marriage is the law where we make our homes and pursue our livelihoods?

For David, the opponent of gay marriage, what seems most important as the shouting stops is conciliation. His side must confront and reject anti-gay bigotry. Is opposition to gay marriage by itself proof of bigotry? No. But is far too much of the opposition largely fueled by prejudice? Yes. Looking to the future, is it important for all of us to understand and affirm the equal dignity of homosexual people and of homosexual love? Yes.

For Jonathan, the proponent of gay marriage, what seems most important as the shouting stops is getting marriage right, for all people. Winning the legal right is important for same- sex couples, but it’s hardly the end. Over the long run, will same-sex marriage shore up marriage’s privileged social status, or diminish it? Gay Americans and their communities all have an interest in establishing that their right to marry can support and perhaps even strengthen American commitment to the institution that is now open to them.

Supporting the Gift

What has always mattered most, to David, regarding marriage law is what he calls the gift: the possibility that a child will be raised in love by both biological parents -- the two people, the man and the woman, whose sexual union brought the child into the world. In states where gay marriage is the law, can he continue to advocate and work for that gift? Might Jonathan support him? The answer to both questions is yes.

Labels: adoption, culture, David Blankenhorn, domestic partnership, donor conception, gay marriage, homosexuality, Jonathan Rauch, Marriage, religious liberty, single parenting, unmarried parents

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American Catholics have by and large remained loyal to the core teachings and sacraments of their faith, but increasingly tune out the hierarchy on issues of sexual morality, according to a new study released Monday (Oct. 24)

The sweeping survey shows that over the last quarter-century, U.S. Catholics have become increasingly likely to say that individuals, not church leaders, have the final say on abortion, homosexuality, and divorce and remarriage.

That trend holds true across generational and ideological divides, and even applies to weekly Mass attenders, according to the survey, which has been conducted every six years since 1987. ...

The report identified two-thirds of U.S. Catholics as “moderately committed,” a group that inched up in size as the share of “highly committed” has shrunk from 27 percent in 1987 to 19 percent this year. ...

The issue of homosexuality showed one of the largest gaps between the pulpit and the pews. The portion of Catholics who say church leaders have “the final say” on homosexuality has plunged by half, from 32 percent to 16 percent, over the past 25 years, while those who say individuals make the final call has shot up from 39 percent to 57 percent.

Dillon noted that other issues have remained relatively stable, which leads her to conclude that Catholics are taking their cues from the larger culture, much like they did on birth control. ...

The loosening ties to the authority of the hierarchy may also parallel a diminishing commitment to the poor and to parish life.

In the 2011 survey, 60 percent of Catholics said you could be a good Catholic without donating time or money to help the poor, up from 44 percent in 2005. Similarly, three-quarters (74 percent) said you could be a good Catholic without donating time or money to a parish, up from 58 percent six years earlier. ...

The online survey of 1,400 adult Catholics (with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points) was conducted by D’Antonio, Gautier and Dillon in cooperation with the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newsweekly.

Labels: Catholic Church, contraception, culture, economics, homosexuality, religion

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...Jenell Paris, a cultural anthropologist teaching at Messiah College, has posed these questions and provided her own answer in her recent book, The End of Sexual Identity. Her book makes the historical argument that the very concept of a homosexual versus heterosexual identity is a relatively modern invention. ...


Was it also the 19th century when these labels gained currency in the broader culture?

Those didn't really influence the general public until the 1930s, when those words became a more common part of American discourse. So in thinking about even my own family, just to take an example, we could say that my grandfather who came of age in the 1910s probably didn't have a sexual identity. He was a fundamentalist minister, but he was a man, he was a Christian, and his sexuality got wrapped around those concepts, not his identity understood in terms of his sexuality.

My parents remember getting a sexual identity in the 1960s. So these ideas came a little late for them but they both can talk about realizing, "Oh, I am heterosexual; there is such a thing and I am going to claim one of those labels for myself." I, growing up in the ‘80s, always had a sexual identity. So we can see across the 20th century there has been a deeper and deeper entrenchment of that concept in American self-understandings.

And these changes correspond to how different generations have understood the role and meaning of sex in human life?

Right. If anything, sex was considered a more communal element of life. It had to do with reproduction, with family, with extended family, and with church and community. Sexual identity categories radically individualized the meaning of sex in the human experience. So the meaning of sex is now located primarily within the individual and her private, innermost feelings.

As an anthropologist, why do you think these changes occurred?

I think there are many different social factors around increasing individualism, even urbanization and other factors that don't seem directly related to sex. Urbanization made it possible for people to move far away from their families and have relationships or sexual experiences that their kin would never even know about. So people were gaining more freedom to cultivate sexual experiences that were more individualized, and I think this influenced the scientific community to categorize sexuality in ways that were more individual and less religious and less communal.

Labels: Christianity, culture, gay/straight differences, heterosexual couples, homosexuality, religion, sex

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The culture war over gay rights has entered the impersonal world of e-commerce.

A handful of advocates, armed with nothing more than their keyboards, have put many of the country’s largest retailers, including Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart, on the spot over their indirect and, until recently, unnoticed roles in funneling money to Christian groups that are vocal in opposing homosexuality.

The advocates are demanding that the retailers end their association with an Internet marketer that gets a commission from the retailers for each online customer it gives them. It is a routine arrangement on hundreds of e-commerce sites, but with a twist here: a share of the commission that retailers pay is donated to a Christian charity of the buyer’s choice, from a list that includes prominent conservative evangelical groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

The marketer and the Christian groups are fighting back, saying that the hundred or so companies that have dropped the marketer were misled and that the charities are being slandered for their religious beliefs.

The national battle was ignited in July by Stuart Wilber, a 73-year-old gay man in Seattle. He was astonished, he said, when he learned that people who bought Microsoft products through a Christian-oriented Internet marketer known as Charity Giveback Group, or CGBG, could channel a donation to evangelical organizations that call homosexual behavior a threat to the moral and social fabric.

Labels: Christianity, culture, homosexuality, religion

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FOR a few years now, I have watched the Emmy Awards with a mixture of amazement and envy. Did that actor really kiss the guy next to him when his name was announced? Did that composer really say I love you to his male partner in his acceptance speech? Looking forward to tonight’s Primetime Emmy awards, hosted by the openly gay actress Jane Lynch, I can’t help but think how far we’ve come since my own encounter with the awards show in 1976.

I was painting in my studio in downtown Los Angeles when the phone rang. Not surprisingly, it was my “friend” Alan Shayne (we used the word friend in those days, even though we had lived together for 18 years). He sounded terribly excited. At that time, Alan was the president of television at Warner Brothers. Before becoming president, he had persuaded me to create collages for four holiday specials he had produced for CBS. Now he told me that he had secretly put up my name for an Emmy in graphics for the 1976 Valentine special “Addie and the King of Hearts,” and I had been nominated. I couldn’t believe it.

That night we talked about the show and the two tickets I would receive. We had been told of Warner Brothers’ hesitation in making Alan president because of our relationship, and had been advised by helpful friends not to rub it in people’s faces. So Alan always attended business parties with women, never with me. But this was the Emmys, and I was nominated for Alan’s show. Shouldn’t we be together?

We went back and forth but finally decided it would be better if I went with a woman, and that was the end of it. In any case, I didn’t think Alan would miss much.

Labels: culture, homosexuality

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...And blogger Alyssa Rosenberg summed up the biggest objection. “I think it’s actively unhelpful,” she wrote, “to gay and straight men alike to perpetuate the idea that all same-sex roommates, be they puppet or human, must necessarily be a gay couple . . . Such assumptions narrow the aperture of what we understand as heterosexual masculinity in a really strange way.”

Strange indeed. It teaches the ridiculous and deeply destructive idea that same-sex friendships are necessarily sexual. And that’s the last thing we want to teach our children, because it will spell the end of friendship, particularly friendships between young men.

Yet that is precisely the message that’s communicated over and over. It’s the reason gay apologists want to eroticize Bert and Ernie, David and Jonathan, Jesus and the apostle John, and Achilles and Patroclus from Homer’s Iliad.

Some in our culture are apparently incapable of understanding close friendship without sex. And that flies right in the face of a Christian understanding of friendship.

Labels: culture, friendship, gender, homosexuality, men, sex

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A private college outside of Chicago has begun asking potential students about their sexual orientation in a move the school says is aimed at increasing campus diversity.

Here’s the question on the application for those students hoping to attend Elmhurst College in the fall of 2012: “Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community?” The three multiple-choice answers: “Yes,” “No” and “Prefer Not to Answer.”

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the addition of the question to the school's application makes the college the first in the U.S. to ask potential students directly about their sexual orientation or gender identity.

School officials say that, like questions about race or religion, the question is completely optional and will have no impact on an applicants' chances of admission. Still, those who answer “yes” may be eligible for a scholarship worth up to one-third of the cost of tuition, according to the paper.

Labels: culture, homosexuality, universities

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