Any black church that climbs on the anti-gay bandwagon is guaranteed money. The rightwing is eager to bankroll these efforts, and the reason is obvious: these amendments are politically lethal. If they don’t actually win elections for the right, they at least provide plenty of cover for election theft, as when the right falsely claimed that “moral values” delivered Bush’s win in 2004.
The connection between gay marriage issues and GOP victories is so direct that it raises the question how any black preacher who is not motivated by money or malice could possibly devote his spiritual energies to the cause of gay marriage at this point in time. However great their disgust with a sexually “perverse” lifestyle, how can it outweigh the outrages of a regime that deliberately blocked poor people (predominately African-American) into a disaster area and “cleansed” the land of them? How can they climb in bed with these monsters?
Last example: the stupid. Once again the white evangelicals and their political allies are pushing a “war against Christmas.” I actually grew up in a fundamentalist church where the pastor preached a sermon every year about putting the Christ back into Christmas. He loathed the word “Xmas.” But that’s where the similarity ends. My pastor’s sermon was always about defending the true meaning of Christmas from the encroachments of commercialism and materialism.
This particular consumer campaign is a brilliant ploy designed to suppress the anti-materialist sentiments natural to the season by putting commercial interests front and center—and conflating them with religion. Bill O’Reilly puts it this way: “Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable; more than enough reason for businesses to be screaming Merry Christmas.” Yeah, we should all be screaming Merry Christmas.
It’s a small-minded, divisive, territorial war over who owns the season—and it ain’t Jews, liberals, secularists, or folks who celebrate Kwanzaa. Unfortunately, the bigotry is all the more easily insinuated for seeming so incredibly inconsequential. Meanwhile, the low-level friction and the chafing, metaphor-war belligerence keep the bleeding hearts in check. The last thing the rightwing wants right now is a whole month of fuzzy feelings of goodwill, peace, and unity.
Nevertheless, there are those who will not be deterred from acting out of personal conscience, like the four Christian activists who are being held hostage in Iraq. They are witnesses, people who deliberately and knowingly put their own lives on the line to draw attention to the ongoing obscenities being committed in our name on real human beings. Not even the wildest oxycontin trip could numb the contempt Rush Limbaugh feels for such an intention: “Well, here’s why I like it [their captivity]. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality.”
Limbaugh has probably never heard of Freda Berrigan, of Witness Against Torture, who, along with twenty-four other U.S. citizens, is marching 50 miles from Santiago de Cuba to Guantanamo right now. The group want to get into the concentration camp, if possible. They are standing up against the evil of torture, which has been described as a way of killing people without them dying.
And a 23-year-old divinity student, Jonathan Meiers, is holding a hunger strike and prayer vigil at the Ohio statehouse to bring attention to a pending Republican-backed bill that would, for all practical purposes, put an end to fair, transparent, and democratic elections in that state. One-party rule is becoming self-perpetuating and permanent in Ohio and Florida, with similar efforts rolling out to other states. Meiers says he’s acting out of his Christian faith, which requires that he strive for social justice, even at his own expense.
However under-reported and disrespected, these acts of personal conscience and defiance will not be denied. They sanctify the season.
Patricia Goldsmith is a member of Long Island Media Watch, a grassroots free media and democracy watchdog group. She can be reached at plgoldsmith@optonline.net.
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