path: root/faith/culture-wars-why.rst

Culture wars? Why?
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:date: 2011-01-11T01:22:00
:tags: culture, desertStream, homosexuality, sociology
:category: faith

We were living as strangers (both me and my wife were born and now live
again in Prague, Czechia) in the United States for couple of years, so
I’ve managed to do couple of faux-pas during my time in Boston. One day,
in very friendly party, among our very nice and lovely neighbors, I’ve
heard one of my neighbors (very nice guy, a budding artist hoping to
finally make it in the arts world) to say: “I just cannot stand all
those fundamentalists around, I think we should be straight and call
them who they are—anti–choice, dictating women what they should do with
their body!” He said it with such passion and hatred in his voice, that
I cannot hold myself (no, I haven’t had in that moment enough courage to
admit that I consider abortion a murder of unborn baby) and replied to
something in the sense, that the name calling is not nice, and how he
would like to be called “anti-life”. I have never in my life heard such
deep silence. All those nice, tolerant, diversity loving Bostonians were
looking at me like at a calf with two heads. I had no time to say, that
I think my point of view was more nuanced … I don't think I would
support reintroduction of the legal ban of abortion (although I believe
that purely from the jurisprudential and legal technology point of view
Roe v. Wade and related decisions are examples of very bad ones), I
think there are many better ways how to decrease number of abortions
than by banning them, etc. I have not got though an opportunity to say
it, because once I was labeled as one of **them** nobody was interested
in hearing my opinions. And it seemed to me nobody was really interested
in the discussion about (dis-)advantages of the anti-abortion law.

I was just starting my PhD program in Law & Society at the
Northeastern University and part of the program were courses in
the political science. I have found that there is a big volume of
study about cultural wars, the biggest one about the history of
the alcohol prohibition movement (if anybody is interested the
classical book on the subject, read Joseph R. Gusfield. Symbolic
Crusade: Status Politics and The American Temperance Movement.
ISBN 0-252-01312-3). The main conclusion of these studies (and
this one particularly) is that the focus of the struggle in the
prohibition politics wasn’t that much the question of alcohol
itself, but struggle for preservation of status of the
established Anglo-Saxon society threatened by the ongoing
immigration wave of Irish, Italians, and Germans. And best
dividing factor between **us** and **them** was then the attitude
towards alcohol, because there are apparently much more casual
non-addicted drinkers of alcohol among these new nations (where
for example a glass of wine or beer is standard part of dinner)
then in the Anglo-Saxon culture, where much bigger share of
population tend to be on extremes in relation to alcohol.

Generalization from the prohibition movement to current cultural
wars was then obvious: these are much more status struggles than
struggles for the issue itself. Should the America be governed
and run by pro-life, marriage defending, gun holding (to mention
just few most obvious examples) Bible belt Christians, or by
pro-choice, gay marrying, anti-gun “Godless” population of
coasts? Of course, the question is how does this rather obvious
conclusion (when you think about it) relates to the topic of this
blog. What is the proper Stage four relation to the cultural
wars? It seems to me that if we accept these four stages as
describing something about the groups in the society (and I have
hard time to do it, but for lack of other models, I do accept
it), then the fourth stage believers are back in their
uncomfortably lonely position: on one side there are stage two
conservatives fighting for the “Ol’ time religion” against the
slaughter of stage three liberals from the coasts. And our 4th
stage believer is somewhere between them trying to question firm
conclusions and strongholds of both sides.

One more piece of history: I was in Boston when the Massachusetts
Supreme Court allowed gay marriages in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and the parliament was discussing possibility of
adopting some kind of “defense of marriage” amendment which would
overrule the court’s decision. Suddenly whole pro-/anti-gay
cultural war was very strictly localized, and the Boston Commons
around Beacon Hill (seat of the government in Massachusetts)
changed into one big battleground of this cultural war. Majority
of participants were local supporters of gay marriage, but there
were substantial groups of opponents mostly coming from the
outside of Massachusetts. I remember watching the posters of both
sides (something about extending human rights from
African-Americans to gays, and on the other side I remember
slogan “God hates fags” with some Biblical quotations by Westboro
Baptist Church of Topeka, owners of the website `God Hates
Fags`_). I was thoroughly confused by both sides, which seemed to
present these two positions as the only ones possible, and yet
I knew very strongly that I would like to be as far as possible
from both of them. A friend, apparently battling the same
thoughts, said suddenly “This is as close to the Hell as I’ve
ever got.”

To be specific and considering the gay marriage issue as an
example, let me show what I would think could be a reasonable
thinking of a stage four Christian (and of course, I don’t think
it is the only one, I guess many of you won’t agree with many of
my premises and conclusions; it’s more about a way of thinking
than about particular issues). So, first of all I have to declare
that I believe homosexuality is a sin (in the sense “missing the
best God prepared for us”, not that I would believe homosexuals
are bad people). Although I have never struggled with
homosexuality myself, I have been actively participating in the
Desert Stream Ministries (the inner healing ministry founded and
mostly still led by former homosexuals) and I count some former
homosexuals as my friends. However, I am also persuaded that
beating sinners with a big poster “You are a sinner” usually
doesn’t bring healing, and my role is not to persuade gays to
give up on their lifestyle, but to be present and willing to help
them in the moment they decide they would like to find a way back
to the fullness of life God has prepared for them (be it a single
life or eventually even marriage).

Given these two premises, I am in the wide arena of possible
conclusions with not very certain opinion on possible legislative
dealing (or non-dealing) with the matter. If I accept as given,
that there are many people who are still living in the homosexual
relationship (or in other words, who haven't accepted God’s plan
for their life yet), then it would be probably humane to make for
them living conditions acceptable. That includes certainly some
kind of official acknowledgment of their relationship allowing
them wide variety of legal advantages otherwise provided by law
for husband and wife (e.g., right to visit each other in
hospital, getting sick-leave when caring for a sick partner,
inheritance, let’s abstain for sake of brevity from discussion on
the issue of adoption by gay partners). I wouldn’t call this
legal arrangement “marriage”, because that really signifies
approval of what I believe is not a healthy lifestyle, but
otherwise I would go long way towards making supportive
environment for the life of gay couples.

One observation from this side of the Pond. It is interesting
that the “Godless Europe” has in this issue much less problems
than people in America. Given the long history of atheism (and
tendency towards socialism) most European countries have an
institute of some kind of non-marriage official relationship
(originally for heterosexuals who didn't want to have anything to
do with Church in times when marriages were still closely linked
to religious ceremony). They are usually not very popular (I
believe every European country has now as an option secular
marriages in the town hall), I think many Europeans don't even
know such institute exists, but their mere existence made it very
easy for most European countries to adopt some kind of registered
partnership for homosexuals as an option and (with some
exceptions) I don't know about much struggle to open classical
marriages to gay couples. Again, I don’t think this is the only
possible solution and I am not willing to defend it with putting
on the line my honor, my property, and my life, but I would love
to participate in the discussion about these questions with other
people interested more in discussion than in cultural wars.

However, even more importantly, I would hope that Christians
would be able to distinguish when they are fighting for The Right
Thing™ and when for promotion of their status in the society. And
I am afraid, many times with many Christian organizations and
politicians, I am not persuaded they see it.

.. _God Hates Fags: http://www.godhatesfags.com