NEWS STORY: Pro-Gay Religious Leaders Oppose California Measure

c. 2000 Religion News Service IRVINE, Calif. _ Gathering in conservative Orange County, nearly 400 opponents of a California measure aiming to define marriage as strictly heterosexual met to marshal forces against the March 7 ballot initiative. The pro-gay National Religious Leadership Roundtable sponsored the Monday (Jan. 31) meeting to counter the notion that all […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

IRVINE, Calif. _ Gathering in conservative Orange County, nearly 400 opponents of a California measure aiming to define marriage as strictly heterosexual met to marshal forces against the March 7 ballot initiative.

The pro-gay National Religious Leadership Roundtable sponsored the Monday (Jan. 31) meeting to counter the notion that all people of faith support the measure, the proposed “Limit on Marriage” act known as Proposition 22.


“Prop 22 is bad law,” said forum speaker Robert Goss, professor of religion at Webster University in St. Louis. “A law that harms is not good law.”

The event, “A Call to Action: People of Faith Say No on California Proposition 22,” featured a blend of worship and activism at the Irvine United Church of Christ. The audience listened to inspirational music and cheered speeches from representatives of a variety of denominations.

Known as the Knight Initiative because of its promoter, Republican state Sen. Pete Knight, Proposition 22 would add 14 words to the California Family Code: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Speakers opposing the measure at the roundtable’s forum ranged from Metropolitan Community Church representatives to United Methodist members, including the Rev. James Lawson, a civil rights veteran and former pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.

Lawson brought the forum to a spiritual and emotional crescendo as he inserted the fight against Proposition 22 into the broader struggle for social justice.

A companion of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1957 until King’s assassination in 1968, Lawson resurrected the civil rights leader’s concept of the “beloved community,” the notion that all people are inherently good and equally deserving of justice and peace.

“There can be no such thing as rights for gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender people, if there are not rights for every child, every boy, every girl,” he said. “I call upon you to become a part of that larger movement.”


In Lawson’s interpretation of “beloved community,” people would be free to create different kinds of families.

Lawson decried what he perceived as the harmful influence of Christian right causes.

“We are confused about ourselves in part because of the assault by the religious and political right upon the sensibilities of this nation,” Lawson charged. “The religious right’s agenda has become the agenda in the media.”

During the meeting, representatives of Presbyterian Church (USA), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ congregations were among those who rose to state their opposition to the proposal.

A member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also voiced solidarity with those opposing Proposition 22. The larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from which the reorganized one split more than a century ago, supports the measure.

Proponents of the ballot measure, which include such organizations as Focus on the Family, the Traditional Values Coalition and the Christian Coalition, believe the addition is necessary to keep California from being forced to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

But the roundtable and other foes counter that the initiative would restrict such basic rights as hospital visitation, stir anti-gay sentiment and threaten any non-traditional families, including blended and extended families.


Rabbi Denise Eger, founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, called it “fourteen simple _ deceptively simple _ words that will create havoc in our state.”

AMB END PARKS

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