Safe Food Handling During Power Outages
http://web.extension.illinois.edu/disaster/facts/food.html
The safety of food may be a problem following any storm where electricity
has been interrupted for an extended period of time. The following information is intended to help you prepare ahead for an emergency and judge the safety of your food after a power outage.
Prepare Ahead for a Power Outage
Keep an appliance thermometer in your refrigerator and freezer. In case of a power outage, the thermometers will help you determine the safety of your food. Freezers should be held at 0 ˚F (Fahrenheit) or below and refrigerators at 40 ˚F or below.
* Plan ahead and know where ice and dry ice can be purchased.
* Have coolers on hand to keep refrigerated food cold if the power will be out for more than 4 hours.
* Purchase or make ice and store in the freezer for use in a cooler. Freeze gel packs ahead of time for use in coolers.
* To help food stay cold longer, group food together in the freezer.
Handling Food Safely During a Power Outage
As long as power is interrupted, keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible. If unopened, the refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about four hours. Food in most full freezers will be safe for about two days (48 hours) and half-full freezers about one day (24 hours). If your freezer is not full, group packages together so they form an "igloo" protecting each other.
If the power outage is for several days, it is safest to move food to a refrigerator or freezer that is operating at a safe temperature. To move food safely, wrap it in newspapers, blankets, or towels or place in coolers.
If you cannot relocate food, obtain ice or dry ice to assist in keeping food frozen. Fifty pounds of dry ice should hold an 18-cubic-foot freezer for two days. Covering the freezer with blankets or quilts will also aid in keeping cold air inside.
Determining Food Safety after a Power Outage
As soon as power is restored, check the temperature of the freezer and the refrigerator with an appliance thermometer or food thermometer. If the food still contains ice crystals or is at 40 ˚F or below, the food is safe.
If you do not have a thermometer, each food item will have to be separately evaluated to determine if it can be safely kept. Frozen raw meats and poultry can usually be refrozen without too much quality loss. Frozen prepared foods, vegetables and fruits can normally be refrozen, but there may be some quality loss. Fruits and fruit juices can be refrozen with minimal quality loss. Discard refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, soft cheeses, milk, eggs, leftovers, and deli items after four hours without power. For specific items, refer to the When to Save and Throw out Foods refrigerator and freezer charts.
Do not rely on the appearance or odor of a food to determine if it safe. Never taste food to determine if it is safe. When in doubt, it is usually best to throw it out.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Kirk fails to set the record straight BY CAROL MARIN
Kirk fails to set the record straight
BY CAROL MARIN
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
June 30, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/2449350,CST-EDT-carol30.article
There is a stagecraft to political campaigns. And Mark Kirk's return from 25 days of dodging the press required careful stagecraft on Tuesday.
As you know, the North Shore Republican congressman who once had his Democratic Senate opponent, Alexi Giannoulias, on the run has instead been on the run himself. Even dashing out the back door of a hotel kitchen last week with the press in hot pursuit. All because details of Kirk's Navy Reserve military record and short-lived teaching career (including awards, Iraq war service and proximity to combat) that he had proudly recounted over the years turned out to contain a series of fictions rather than facts.
So we in the media were all there at the Renaissance Hotel in Northbrook for a long-awaited 10:30 a.m. news conference.
I counted 16 reporters, seven television cameras, a handful of still photographers and representatives of three radio stations.
What do you, the candidate, do when that many press people are bearing down on you?
Rule No. 1: Pack the room
Military veterans, campaign interns, Kirk supporters and GOP officials -- about a hundred of them -- arrived to outnumber reporters and available chairs. Kirk arrived to a standing ovation and confidently walked to a podium flanked by four American flags.
Rule No. 2: Set the stage
That means having something clear, strong and constructive to say.
Kirk did. In a statesmanlike manner, he gave a 10-minute outline of the challenges that confront the United States. Economic crisis. Joblessness. Government debt. Two wars. Too much partisanship.
All of that was a prelude to talking about what he had to talk about before the questions came.
Rule No. 3: Humility, not hubris
The last few minutes of Kirk's remarks were to say, "I have made mistakes regarding my accomplishments. I pledge to correct those errors. I am not perfect, and will make sure it never happens again."
Overall, it was a solid performance that nonetheless did not address the fundamental question.
There are, by my count, approximately 10 misstatements or exaggerations of his military service. When, I asked, is a misstatement a mistake and when is it a willful untruth, a lie?
The congressman's response: "I, I would say that some are quite small when you reach back 30 years. And with regard to the military award, that was my error. And I owned it and apologized for it. And like I said in the speech, [this] is to correct the record, to apologize, to release your official Navy record and then stand on that."
Kirk's supporters in the audience voiced their disapproval with those of us who sought more candor, less carefully parsed responses.
That's OK.
They're partisans. We're the press. And this is politics.
Unless there are new revelations to come, it's time to move on.
One Kirk supporter told me the problem with these campaigns is that candidates have to be so careful about what they say and how they say it for fear someone like me will go over their claims with a fine-tooth comb.
That's right.
But it's not a problem in my view.
Part of the job of the press.
And part of the peril of anyone asking the public to put them in office.
There's a long campaign ahead.
And there will be time to put it all in some larger perspective.
BY CAROL MARIN
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
June 30, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/2449350,CST-EDT-carol30.article
There is a stagecraft to political campaigns. And Mark Kirk's return from 25 days of dodging the press required careful stagecraft on Tuesday.
As you know, the North Shore Republican congressman who once had his Democratic Senate opponent, Alexi Giannoulias, on the run has instead been on the run himself. Even dashing out the back door of a hotel kitchen last week with the press in hot pursuit. All because details of Kirk's Navy Reserve military record and short-lived teaching career (including awards, Iraq war service and proximity to combat) that he had proudly recounted over the years turned out to contain a series of fictions rather than facts.
So we in the media were all there at the Renaissance Hotel in Northbrook for a long-awaited 10:30 a.m. news conference.
I counted 16 reporters, seven television cameras, a handful of still photographers and representatives of three radio stations.
What do you, the candidate, do when that many press people are bearing down on you?
Rule No. 1: Pack the room
Military veterans, campaign interns, Kirk supporters and GOP officials -- about a hundred of them -- arrived to outnumber reporters and available chairs. Kirk arrived to a standing ovation and confidently walked to a podium flanked by four American flags.
Rule No. 2: Set the stage
That means having something clear, strong and constructive to say.
Kirk did. In a statesmanlike manner, he gave a 10-minute outline of the challenges that confront the United States. Economic crisis. Joblessness. Government debt. Two wars. Too much partisanship.
All of that was a prelude to talking about what he had to talk about before the questions came.
Rule No. 3: Humility, not hubris
The last few minutes of Kirk's remarks were to say, "I have made mistakes regarding my accomplishments. I pledge to correct those errors. I am not perfect, and will make sure it never happens again."
Overall, it was a solid performance that nonetheless did not address the fundamental question.
There are, by my count, approximately 10 misstatements or exaggerations of his military service. When, I asked, is a misstatement a mistake and when is it a willful untruth, a lie?
The congressman's response: "I, I would say that some are quite small when you reach back 30 years. And with regard to the military award, that was my error. And I owned it and apologized for it. And like I said in the speech, [this] is to correct the record, to apologize, to release your official Navy record and then stand on that."
Kirk's supporters in the audience voiced their disapproval with those of us who sought more candor, less carefully parsed responses.
That's OK.
They're partisans. We're the press. And this is politics.
Unless there are new revelations to come, it's time to move on.
One Kirk supporter told me the problem with these campaigns is that candidates have to be so careful about what they say and how they say it for fear someone like me will go over their claims with a fine-tooth comb.
That's right.
But it's not a problem in my view.
Part of the job of the press.
And part of the peril of anyone asking the public to put them in office.
There's a long campaign ahead.
And there will be time to put it all in some larger perspective.
Illinois adults getting fatter - State ranks 26th in U.S. for obesity
Illinois adults getting fatter - State ranks 26th in U.S. for obesity
By Monica Eng
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
9:00 a.m. CDT, June 29, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-100629illinois-obesity,0,5325810.story
Illinois' adult population keeps growing fatter, with the state's obesity rate rising to 26.6 percent in 2009, nearly a full percentage point higher than the previous year.
That figure places the state 26th in the nation for adult obesity, up from 27th, according to the latest annual report on obesity from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, released Tuesday.
Illinois' men, meanwhile, tip the scales over its women, with 27.8 percent of men in the state qualifying as obese vs. 25.5 percent of women.
In partnership with the Trust for America's Health, the foundation tracks the nation's weight each year by crunching numbers from the most recent surveys by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as data from the two previous years.
The heaviest state for adults remained Mississippi (33.8 percent adult obesity), while Colorado had the fewest obese adults at 19.1 percent.
The study breaks heaviness into two categories: obese (body mass index over 30) and overweight (body mass index between 25 and 29.9). Combined, these two categories described 63.6 percent of Illinois adults in 2009.
The fact that Illinois' adult obesity rate rose 0.8 percentage points in a single year alarmed Elissa Bassler, CEO of the Illinois Public Health Institute.
"We tend to think of obesity and chronic disease as something where the trends move pretty slowly, but this is fast and it underscores the real need to attend to this issue both for kids and adults," Bassler said.
Illinois' ranking on childhood obesity -- fourth in the nation -- remained unchanged because it is based on data from a survey (the National Survey of Children's Health) that is conducted every four years. The next results will come out in 2012.
Tribune reporter Monica Eng answers questions about the study and its findings on Trib Nation.
The public health institute has gathered several state organizations to develop the Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity. It plans to hold regional hearings on the topic throughout the summer and release an anti-obesity action plan in early December.
This year, the foundation's report on obesity broke down adult data by race and gender as well as socioeconomic, diet and health factors.
Significantly higher levels of obesity, being overweight, diabetes and hypertension were found among African-Americans and Latinos in relation to whites. Obesity rates among African-American adults topped 40 percent in nine states. Latino adult obesity rates were above 35 percent in two states. Obesity also correlated with living in Southern states, lower education levels and lower income levels.
In Illinois the rate of adult obesity was 35.5 percent for African-Americans, 30.6 for Latinos and 25.3 for whites.
Among health categories for adults, Illinois ranked 21st in diabetes prevalence with 8.4 percent; 19th in physical inactivity with 24.9 percent and 23rd in hypertension with 27.5 percent. The states with the 10 highest levels of diabetes and hypertension are all located in the South.
Another new finding in the report, based on a recent survey, found that 84 percent of parents believe their children are at a healthy weight, although nearly a third of all American children and teens are obese or overweight. The Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children found similar misperceptions among parents when it studied Chicago neighborhoods, said executive director Adam Becker.
"I think that parents tend to underestimate how at risk their kids are for weight issues," he said. "Parents seem to be able to recognize when their kids are extremely obese, but when they are not at the extreme ends, parents think their kids are at a healthy weight when they are not. This leads them to pay less attention to messages about nutrition, physical activity and generally maintaining a healthy weight."
meng@tribune.com
By Monica Eng
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
9:00 a.m. CDT, June 29, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-100629illinois-obesity,0,5325810.story
Illinois' adult population keeps growing fatter, with the state's obesity rate rising to 26.6 percent in 2009, nearly a full percentage point higher than the previous year.
That figure places the state 26th in the nation for adult obesity, up from 27th, according to the latest annual report on obesity from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, released Tuesday.
Illinois' men, meanwhile, tip the scales over its women, with 27.8 percent of men in the state qualifying as obese vs. 25.5 percent of women.
In partnership with the Trust for America's Health, the foundation tracks the nation's weight each year by crunching numbers from the most recent surveys by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as data from the two previous years.
The heaviest state for adults remained Mississippi (33.8 percent adult obesity), while Colorado had the fewest obese adults at 19.1 percent.
The study breaks heaviness into two categories: obese (body mass index over 30) and overweight (body mass index between 25 and 29.9). Combined, these two categories described 63.6 percent of Illinois adults in 2009.
The fact that Illinois' adult obesity rate rose 0.8 percentage points in a single year alarmed Elissa Bassler, CEO of the Illinois Public Health Institute.
"We tend to think of obesity and chronic disease as something where the trends move pretty slowly, but this is fast and it underscores the real need to attend to this issue both for kids and adults," Bassler said.
Illinois' ranking on childhood obesity -- fourth in the nation -- remained unchanged because it is based on data from a survey (the National Survey of Children's Health) that is conducted every four years. The next results will come out in 2012.
Tribune reporter Monica Eng answers questions about the study and its findings on Trib Nation.
The public health institute has gathered several state organizations to develop the Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity. It plans to hold regional hearings on the topic throughout the summer and release an anti-obesity action plan in early December.
This year, the foundation's report on obesity broke down adult data by race and gender as well as socioeconomic, diet and health factors.
Significantly higher levels of obesity, being overweight, diabetes and hypertension were found among African-Americans and Latinos in relation to whites. Obesity rates among African-American adults topped 40 percent in nine states. Latino adult obesity rates were above 35 percent in two states. Obesity also correlated with living in Southern states, lower education levels and lower income levels.
In Illinois the rate of adult obesity was 35.5 percent for African-Americans, 30.6 for Latinos and 25.3 for whites.
Among health categories for adults, Illinois ranked 21st in diabetes prevalence with 8.4 percent; 19th in physical inactivity with 24.9 percent and 23rd in hypertension with 27.5 percent. The states with the 10 highest levels of diabetes and hypertension are all located in the South.
Another new finding in the report, based on a recent survey, found that 84 percent of parents believe their children are at a healthy weight, although nearly a third of all American children and teens are obese or overweight. The Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children found similar misperceptions among parents when it studied Chicago neighborhoods, said executive director Adam Becker.
"I think that parents tend to underestimate how at risk their kids are for weight issues," he said. "Parents seem to be able to recognize when their kids are extremely obese, but when they are not at the extreme ends, parents think their kids are at a healthy weight when they are not. This leads them to pay less attention to messages about nutrition, physical activity and generally maintaining a healthy weight."
meng@tribune.com
Gay students win Supreme Court case
Gay students win Supreme Court case
by Lisa Keen
© 2010 by Keen News Service
2010-06-30
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=27099
For the second time in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that delivered a small, indirect, and perhaps unfinished victory to policies that have benefited the LGBT community. In doing so, it also gave the community an important symbolic nod: that religious beliefs may not always trump non-discrimination policies. And, it did so with a hostile 5 to 4 split among the justices.
The nod came in a June 28 opinion penned by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a majority that included Justice Anthony Kennedy, the obvious swing vote between two increasingly polar segments of the court.
The case this week was Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, from the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Just last week, the high court upheld another 9th Circuit decision—in Doe v. Reed—which said a Washington State law requiring public availability of records indicating the names and addresses of people who sign petitions putting issues on the ballot.
Last week, it upheld the 9th Circuit's decision upholding a public school's non-discrimination policy.
A Christian student group, Christian Legal Society ( CLS ) , had been denied official student group status at the University of California-San Francisco's Hastings College of Law.
CLS had argued that the public university violated its First Amendment rights when it refused it official recognition and the benefits and resources that go along with that status. The school argued that it treated CLS like every other group when it required CLS to comply with the school's policy against discrimination based on sexual orientation, religion, and other factors.
The majority agreed with the lower courts that UCSF's non-discrimination policy is "a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access" to student group privileges and resources.
In her opinion, Ginsburg said CLS was trying to circumvent the non-discrimination policy and that, she said, was seeking "not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption" from a legitimate policy.
"The First Amendment shields CLS against state prohibition of the organization's expressive activity, however exclusionary that activity may be," wrote Ginsburg. "But CLS enjoys no constitutional right to state subvention of its selectivity."
"We are thrilled that the Court rejected the dangerous argument that anti-gay groups have a First Amendment right to discriminate, even when they are accepting public funds," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented the gay student group at Hastings. The gay student group was an intervenor party to the litigation.
"This decision," said Minter, "should go a long way toward putting a stop to efforts by anti-gay groups to challenge basic non-discrimination policies and laws."
Minter said CLS has been bringing similar cases across the country in a "blatant effort to undermine anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people."
But Justice Sam Alito, writing for the dissent, saw a march being led by a different drummer's beat. He chided the majority as going so far as to use a "misleading portrayal" of the facts of the case in order to make a play for "political correctness." His dissent seethes against a majority he perceives to be leading a liberal march.
"Brushing aside inconvenient precedent," wrote Alito, parodying former Vice President Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth documentary against global warming. "The Court arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups…."
In his case, Alito is referring to Christian groups as unpopular.
Alito was joined by the court's reliably conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The case was considered particularly significant to the LGBT community because it tested the ability of some people to ignore laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Christian Legal would allow gay students and people who would not endorse the group's stated religious viewpoint to be members of the group. But it would not allow such people to vote or hold office.
That, said the university, was discrimination based on sexual orientation and religion.
The First Amendment right to religious beliefs has frequently trumped laws and policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation at the U.S. Supreme Court level. It did so most notoriously in 1995 in a case called Rosenberger v. University of Virginia—where the Supreme Court said a public university had to provide funding for a campus Christian group's newsletter even though the newsletter espoused beliefs that contradicted the university's non-discrimination policy.
During oral arguments in April, many of the justices complained about the uncertainty of important facts in the case. For instance, the facts of the case did not indicate clearly whether the school refused official status to the Christian Legal chapter because the group violated the school's written non-discrimination policy or because the group violated the school's stated interpretation of that policy—dubbed the "all-comers" policy—that all official student groups must allow full and equal participation by all students.
Christian Legal said it was willing to abide by the written policy, by allowing gays to attend its meetings; but it said the all-comers went too far and amounted to interference with the group members' First Amendment rights to free association and free exercise of religion.
The majority stuck to the all-comers policy, noting that CLS and the university had both agreed in the district court that this was the policy used to deny CLS its status as a recognized student group. But it remanded one of CLS's claims back to the 9th Circuit—whether the University had applied its all-comers policy exclusively against CLS, and not other groups.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights provided representation to the UC-Hastings gay group Outlaw, which was designated as a party to the lawsuit, as an intervenor, to help defend the policy.
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders ( GLAD ) , submitted a brief to the court in favor of the school, saying that public funds and student fees should not be used to support discrimination against any student.
by Lisa Keen
© 2010 by Keen News Service
2010-06-30
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=27099
For the second time in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that delivered a small, indirect, and perhaps unfinished victory to policies that have benefited the LGBT community. In doing so, it also gave the community an important symbolic nod: that religious beliefs may not always trump non-discrimination policies. And, it did so with a hostile 5 to 4 split among the justices.
The nod came in a June 28 opinion penned by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a majority that included Justice Anthony Kennedy, the obvious swing vote between two increasingly polar segments of the court.
The case this week was Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, from the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Just last week, the high court upheld another 9th Circuit decision—in Doe v. Reed—which said a Washington State law requiring public availability of records indicating the names and addresses of people who sign petitions putting issues on the ballot.
Last week, it upheld the 9th Circuit's decision upholding a public school's non-discrimination policy.
A Christian student group, Christian Legal Society ( CLS ) , had been denied official student group status at the University of California-San Francisco's Hastings College of Law.
CLS had argued that the public university violated its First Amendment rights when it refused it official recognition and the benefits and resources that go along with that status. The school argued that it treated CLS like every other group when it required CLS to comply with the school's policy against discrimination based on sexual orientation, religion, and other factors.
The majority agreed with the lower courts that UCSF's non-discrimination policy is "a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access" to student group privileges and resources.
In her opinion, Ginsburg said CLS was trying to circumvent the non-discrimination policy and that, she said, was seeking "not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption" from a legitimate policy.
"The First Amendment shields CLS against state prohibition of the organization's expressive activity, however exclusionary that activity may be," wrote Ginsburg. "But CLS enjoys no constitutional right to state subvention of its selectivity."
"We are thrilled that the Court rejected the dangerous argument that anti-gay groups have a First Amendment right to discriminate, even when they are accepting public funds," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented the gay student group at Hastings. The gay student group was an intervenor party to the litigation.
"This decision," said Minter, "should go a long way toward putting a stop to efforts by anti-gay groups to challenge basic non-discrimination policies and laws."
Minter said CLS has been bringing similar cases across the country in a "blatant effort to undermine anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people."
But Justice Sam Alito, writing for the dissent, saw a march being led by a different drummer's beat. He chided the majority as going so far as to use a "misleading portrayal" of the facts of the case in order to make a play for "political correctness." His dissent seethes against a majority he perceives to be leading a liberal march.
"Brushing aside inconvenient precedent," wrote Alito, parodying former Vice President Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth documentary against global warming. "The Court arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups…."
In his case, Alito is referring to Christian groups as unpopular.
Alito was joined by the court's reliably conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
The case was considered particularly significant to the LGBT community because it tested the ability of some people to ignore laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Christian Legal would allow gay students and people who would not endorse the group's stated religious viewpoint to be members of the group. But it would not allow such people to vote or hold office.
That, said the university, was discrimination based on sexual orientation and religion.
The First Amendment right to religious beliefs has frequently trumped laws and policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation at the U.S. Supreme Court level. It did so most notoriously in 1995 in a case called Rosenberger v. University of Virginia—where the Supreme Court said a public university had to provide funding for a campus Christian group's newsletter even though the newsletter espoused beliefs that contradicted the university's non-discrimination policy.
During oral arguments in April, many of the justices complained about the uncertainty of important facts in the case. For instance, the facts of the case did not indicate clearly whether the school refused official status to the Christian Legal chapter because the group violated the school's written non-discrimination policy or because the group violated the school's stated interpretation of that policy—dubbed the "all-comers" policy—that all official student groups must allow full and equal participation by all students.
Christian Legal said it was willing to abide by the written policy, by allowing gays to attend its meetings; but it said the all-comers went too far and amounted to interference with the group members' First Amendment rights to free association and free exercise of religion.
The majority stuck to the all-comers policy, noting that CLS and the university had both agreed in the district court that this was the policy used to deny CLS its status as a recognized student group. But it remanded one of CLS's claims back to the 9th Circuit—whether the University had applied its all-comers policy exclusively against CLS, and not other groups.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights provided representation to the UC-Hastings gay group Outlaw, which was designated as a party to the lawsuit, as an intervenor, to help defend the policy.
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders ( GLAD ) , submitted a brief to the court in favor of the school, saying that public funds and student fees should not be used to support discrimination against any student.
What the Bible Says - And Doesn't Say - About Homosexuality
What the Bible Says - And Doesn't Say - About Homosexuality
by Rev. Mel White
Copyright by Soulforce
http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
LIKE YOU, I TAKE THE BIBLE SERIOUSLY!
Many good people build their case against homosexuality almost entirely on the Bible. These folks value Scripture, and are serious about seeking its guidance in their lives. Unfortunately, many of them have never really studied what the Bible does and doesn't say about homosexuality.
We gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians take the Bible seriously, too. Personally, I've spent more than 50 years reading, studying, memorizing, preaching, and teaching from the sacred texts. I earned my master's and doctoral degrees at a conservative biblical seminary to better equip myself to "rightly divide the word of truth." I learned Hebrew and Greek to gain a better understanding of the original words of the biblical texts. I studied the lives and times of the biblical authors to help me know what they were saying in their day so I could better apply it to my own.
I'm convinced the Bible has a powerful message for gay and lesbian Christians -- as well as straight Christians. But it's not the message of condemnation we so often hear.
I'm not expecting you to take my word for it, though. I ask only that you'd consider what my research has taught me about the passages used by some people to condemn God's gay and lesbian children. Then decide for yourself...
MY FIRST PREMISE:
Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the biblical texts often used to condemn God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children.
As you may know, biblical ignorance is an epidemic in the United States. A recent study quoted by Dr. Peter Gomes in The Good Book found that 38 percent of Americans polled were certain the Old Testament was written a few years after Jesus' death. Ten percent believed Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. Many even thought the epistles were the wives of the apostles.
This same kind of biblical ignorance is all too present around the topic of homosexuality. Often people who love and trust God's Word have never given careful and prayerful attention to what the Bible does or doesn't say about homosexuality.
For example, many Christians don't know that:
Jesus says nothing about same-sex behavior.
The Jewish prophets are silent about homosexuality.
Only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way -- and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today.
Most people who are certain they know what the Bible says about homosexuality don't know where the verses that reference same-sex behavior can be found. They haven't read them, let alone studied them carefully. They don't know the original meaning of the words in Hebrew or Greek. And they haven't tried to understand the historical context in which those words were written. Yet the assumption that the Bible condemns homosexuality is passed down from generation to generation with very little personal study or research. The consequences of this misinformation are disastrous, not only for God's gay and lesbian children, but for the entire church.
The apostle Paul says, "Test all things and hold fast to that which is good." By reading this little pamphlet, you are taking Paul seriously.
MY SECOND PREMISE:
Historically, people's misinterpretation of the Bible has left a trail of suffering, bloodshed, and death.
Over the centuries people who misunderstood or misinterpreted the Bible have done terrible things. The Bible has been misused to defend bloody crusades and tragic inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support Hitler's Third Reich and the Holocaust; to oppose medical science; to condemn interracial marriage; to execute women as witches; and to support the Ku Klux Klan. Shakespeare said it this way: "Even the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
We'd like to believe that no person of good will would misuse the Bible to support his or her prejudice. But time and time again it has happened with tragic results.
In the 16th century, John Selden pointed at two Latin words carved into a marble wall in an ancient church in Rome: "Scrutamini Scripturas," which means search the Scriptures. "These two words," Seldon said, "have undone the world."
In one way, John Selden was right. Misusing the Bible has drenched the planet in blood and tears.
But in another way, he was wrong. Most people who misuse the Bible DON'T search the Scriptures. They simply find a text that seems to support their prejudice and then spend the rest of their lives quoting (or misquoting) that text.
The way certain Bible verses are used to condemn homosexuality and homosexuals is a perfect example of this.
On September 22, 2000, a 55-year-old man named Ronald E. Gay, angry for being teased about his last name, entered the Back Street Café in Roanoke, Virginia, a gathering place for lesbians and gays just a few miles from Lynchburg. Confident that God's Word supported his tragic plan of action, Mr. Gay shouted, "I am a Christian soldier, working for my Lord." Claiming that "Jesus does not want these people in his heaven," he shot seven innocent gay and lesbian people. One man, Danny Overstreet, died instantly. Others still suffer from their physical and psychological wounds.
Matson and Mowder
In July 1999, Matthew Williams and his brother, Tyler, murdered a gay couple, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, in their home near Sacramento, California. Speaking to his mother from the Shasta County jail, Matthew explained his actions in this way: "I had to obey God's law rather than man's law," he said. "I didn't want to do this. I felt I was supposed to. I have followed a higher law... I just plan to defend myself from the Scriptures."
After Matthew Shepard was killed in 1998, a pastor in North Carolina published an open letter regarding the trial of Aaron McKinney that read: "Gays are under the death penalty. His blood is guilty before God (Lev. 20:13). If a person kills a gay, the gay's blood is upon the gay and not upon the hands of the person doing the killing. The acts of gays are so abominable to God. His Word is there and we can't change it."
Most of the people I know who say "the Bible condemns homosexuality" would never condone these acts. Most Christians have no idea that the people killing gay and lesbian persons go around quoting those few verses of Scripture as justification.
But it's important to hear these stories, because I'm not writing this little pamphlet as a scholarly exercise. It's a matter of life and death. I'm pleading for the lives of my lesbian sisters and gay brothers who are rejected by their friends and families, fired by their employers, denied their civil rights, refused full membership in their churches, and kill themselves or are killed by others -- all on the basis of these six or seven verses.
MY THIRD PREMISE:
We must be open to new truth from Scripture.
Even heroes of the Christian faith have changed their minds about the meaning of various biblical texts.
It took a blinding light and a voice from heaven to help the apostle Paul change his mind about certain Hebrew texts. A sheet lowered from the sky filled with all kinds of animals helped the apostle Peter gain new insights into Jewish law.
Jerry Falwell believed the Bible supported segregation in the church until a black shoeshine man asked him, "When will someone like me be allowed to become a member of your congregation?" Through those simple words, the Holy Spirit spoke new truth about the ancient biblical texts to the Rev. Falwell, and in obedience he ended segregation at Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Even when we believe the Scriptures are "infallible" or "without error," it's terribly dangerous to think that our understanding of every biblical text is also without error. We are human. We are fallible. And we can misunderstand and misinterpret these ancient words -- with tragic results.
Almost 1,000 people believed Jim Jones was a faithful interpreter of God's Word. They died with him in the jungles of Guyana. I studied Jones and leaders of other cults while writing the book and documentary film, Deceived. I found that the only people who were able to break free of the dangerous influence of such Bible-quoting cultic gurus were the ones who took the Bible seriously enough to study the texts themselves and make their own decisions about their meaning. The others "leave their bones in the desert."
What if someone asked you, "Is there a chance you could be wrong about the way you've interpreted the biblical texts sometimes used to condemn homosexual orientation?" How would you respond? What does it say about you if you answer, "No, I could NOT be wrong"? I am asking you to re-examine these texts -- carefully and prayerfully. Lives hang in the balance.
Anna
There are far too many tragic stories of what happens when we fail to study these texts. Mark B. was a young man who accepted his sexual orientation "until he became a Christian" and was told on the basis of these texts that he couldn't be both a Christian and a gay man. Mark committed suicide and wrote this suicide note to God: "I just don't know how else to fix this." Mary Lou Wallner, one of our most faithful Soulforce volunteers, was led by these texts to condemn her lesbian daughter, Anna, who hanged herself. Mary Lou now says, "If I can steer just one person away from the pain and anguish I've been living, then maybe Anna's death will have meaning."
If heroes of the Christian faith could change their minds about the meaning of certain biblical texts, shouldn't we be prepared to reconsider our own interpretations of these ancient words when the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to new truth? That's why we study the Bible prayerfully, seeking the Spirit of Truth, God's loving Spirit, to help us understand and apply these words to our lives.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus told his disciples he was going away from them for a while, but that the Father would send them a "Comforter," an "Advocate," the "Holy Spirit" who would "teach them all things."
I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit is still teaching us. When we reconsider the texts that are used by some people to condemn God's gay children, we must fervently seek the Holy Spirit's guidance, or we risk being misled by our own prejudices.
MY FOURTH PREMISE:
The Bible is a book about God -- not a book about human sexuality.
The Bible is the story of God's love for the world and the people of the world. It tells the history of God's love at work rescuing, renewing, and empowering humankind. It was never intended to be a book about human sexuality. Certainly, you will agree.
In fact, the Bible accepts sexual practices that we condemn and condemns sexual practices that we accept. Lots of them! Here are a few examples.
DEUTERONOMY 22:13-21
If it is discovered that a bride is not a virgin, the Bible demands that she be executed by stoning immediately.
DEUTERONOMY 22:22
If a married person has sex with someone else's husband or wife, the Bible commands that both adulterers be stoned to death.
MARK 10:1-12
Divorce is strictly forbidden in both Testaments, as is remarriage of anyone who has been divorced.
LEVITICUS 18:19
The Bible forbids a married couple from having sexual intercourse during a woman's period. If they disobey, both shall be executed.
MARK 12:18-27
If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir.
DEUTERONOMY 25:11-12
If a man gets into a fight with another man and his wife seeks to rescue her husband by grabbing the enemy's genitals, her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown her.
I'm certain you don't agree with these teachings from the Bible about sex. And you shouldn't. The list goes on: The Bible says clearly that sex with a prostitute is acceptable for the husband but not for the wife. Polygamy (more than one wife) is acceptable, as is a king's having many concubines. (Solomon, the wisest king of all, had 1,000 concubines.) Slavery and sex with slaves, marriage of girls aged 11-13, and treatment of women as property are all accepted practices in the Scriptures. On the other hand, there are strict prohibitions against interracial marriage, birth control, discussing or even naming a sexual organ, and seeing one's parents nude.
Over the centuries the Holy Spirit has taught us that certain Bible verses should not be understood as God's law for all time periods. Some verses are specific to the culture and time they were written, and are no longer viewed as appropriate, wise, or just.
Often, the Holy Spirit uses science to teach us why those ancient words no longer apply to our modern times. During the last three decades, for example, organizations representing 1.5 million U.S. health professionals (doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and educators) have stated definitively that homosexual orientation is as natural as heterosexual orientation, that sexual orientation is determined by a combination of yet unknown pre- and post-natal influences, and that it is dangerous and inappropriate to tell a homosexual that he or she could or should attempt to change his or her sexual orientation. (See Recommended Resources, p. 23-24.)
While there are some people now living in heterosexual marriages who once perceived themselves to be gay, there are millions of gay and lesbian persons who have accepted their sexual orientation as a gift from God and live productive and deeply spiritual lives. The evidence from science and from the personal experience of gay and lesbian Christians demands that we at least consider whether the passages cited to condemn homosexual behavior should be reconsidered, just as other Bible verses that speak of certain sexual practices are no longer understood as God's law for us in this day.
MY FIFTH PREMISE:
We miss what these passages say about God when we spend so much time debating what they say about sex.
If the Bible is the story of God's love for the world and not a handbook about sex, then that should shape how we read the Scriptures. So as we take a look at the six biblical texts that are used by some people to condemn homosexuality, let's ask two questions about each of them:
First, what does the text say about God that we need to hear but might be missing?
Second, what might the text be saying about homosexuality?
PASSAGE 1
GENESIS 2:21-25
THE CREATION STORY
Let's start "In the Beginning..." What does the creation story in Genesis 1-2 say about God?
I'm so tired of reading signs carried by protesters that say: "It's about Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." In fact, the creation story is as important to Adam and Steve as it is Adam and Eve. Gays and non-gays alike need to know and celebrate the truth at the center of this story.
This creation story is primarily about God, a story written to show the power of God who created the world and everything in it. It teaches us that ultimately God is our Creator, that God shaped us, and that God said, "It's good." Isn't this the heart of the text?
Now what does the creation story say about homosexuality? Because the text says it is "natural" that a man and a woman come together to create a new life, some people think this means gay or lesbian couples are "unnatural." They read this interpretation into the text, even though the text is silent about all kinds of relationships that don't lead to having children:
couples who are unable to have children
couples who are too old to have children
couples who choose not to have children
people who are single
Are these relationships (or lack of relationships) "unnatural"? There's nothing said here that condemns or approves the love that people of the same sex have for each other, including the love I have for my partner, Gary.
So I believe the creation story says a lot about God's power and presence in the universe -- but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
PASSAGE 2
GENESIS 19:1-14
THE STORY OF SODOM
Now let's consider the second biblical text used by some people to condemn God's gay children. You remember the ancient story of Sodom. First, what does the story of Sodom in Genesis 19 say about God?
When Gary and I arrive at a college or university to speak, there are often protesters carrying signs that read, "Mel White, Sodomite." (Has a nice ring to it.) Actually, I'm not from Sodom. That city was buried beneath the Dead Sea centuries ago. I'm from California -- but perhaps that just confirms their suspicions!
Once again, this story is not primarily about sex. It is primarily about God. Some people say the city of Sodom was destroyed because it was overrun by sexually obsessed homosexuals. In fact, the city of Sodom had been doomed to destruction long before. So what is this passage really about?
Jesus and five Old Testament prophets all speak of the sins that led to the destruction of Sodom -- and not one of them mentions homosexuality. Even Billy Graham doesn't mention homosexuality when he preaches on Sodom.
Listen to what Ezekiel 16:48-49 tell us: "This is the sin of Sodom; she and her suburbs had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not help or encourage the poor and needy. They were arrogant and this was abominable in God's eyes."
Today, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike do well to remember that we break God's heart when we spend all we earn on ourselves, when we forget the poor and hungry, when we refuse to do justice or show mercy, when we leave strangers at the gate.
I admit, there are a lot of gay folk who are Sodomites (and a lot of straight folk as well). Sodomites are rich and don't share what they have with the poor. Sodomites have plenty and want more. While millions are hungry, homeless, and sick, Sodomites rush to build bigger homes, buy bigger cars, and own more property -- putting their trust in safer stock portfolios and more secure retirement accounts.
Whatever teaching about sexuality you might get out of this passage, be sure to hear this central, primary truth about God as well. God has called us do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our Creator. Sodom was destroyed because its people didn't take God seriously about caring for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, or the outcast.
But what does the story of Sodom say about homosexual orientation as we understand it today? Nothing.
It was common for soldiers, thieves, and bullies to rape a fallen enemy, asserting their victory by dehumanizing and demeaning the vanquished. This act of raping an enemy is about power and revenge, not about homosexuality or homosexual orientation. And it is still happening.
Louima
In August 1997, Abner Louima, a young black immigrant from Haiti, was assaulted by several police officers after he was arrested in Brooklyn. Officer Charles Schwarz held Louima down in a restroom at the precinct, while Officer Justin Volpe rammed a broken stick into Louima's rectum. These two men and the three other officers involved in this incident and its cover-up were not gay. This was not a homosexual act. It was about power.
The sexual act that occurs in the story of Sodom is a gang rape -- and homosexuals oppose gang rape as much as anyone. That's why I believe the story of Sodom says a lot about God's will for each of us, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
PASSAGE 3
LEVITICUS 18:22 AND 20:13
THE HOLINESS CODE
Let's move on. What do the two verses sometimes cited from Leviticus say about God?
Leviticus 18:6 reads: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." A similar verse occurs two chapters later, in Leviticus 20:13: "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed." On the surface, these words could leave you feeling rather uneasy, especially if you are gay. But just below the surface is the deeper truth about God -- and it has nothing to do with sex.
Leviticus is a holiness code written 3,000 years ago. This code includes many of the outdated sexual laws we mentioned earlier, and a lot more. It also includes prohibitions against round haircuts, tattoos, working on the Sabbath, wearing garments of mixed fabrics, eating pork or shellfish, getting your fortune told, and even playing with the skin of a pig. (There goes football!)
So what's a holiness code? It's a list of behaviors that people of faith find offensive in a certain place and time. In this case, the code was written for priests only, and its primary intent was to set the priests of Israel over and against priests of other cultures.
At the age of 10, I signed a holiness code written by the Women's Christian Temperance Union that said I would never taste beer, wine, or liquor. I thought signing it would please God and my grandmother. That's a holiness code. When I was in high school we evangelical Christians had an unwritten holiness code that went like this: "I don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do." Now I know what you're thinking. That last part about "girls who do" proved especially easy for me. But the point is that I obeyed this evangelical holiness code because my parents said that breaking these rules didn't please God, and I knew it didn't please them.
We had another evangelical holiness code while I was in high school that prohibited dancing. I was student body president, yet I refused to go to the prom because I had promised not to dance. I did this to please God and my mother -- whose mother had made her sign a holiness code that she wouldn't go to dances either.
What about this word abomination that comes up in both passages? In Hebrew, "abominations" (TO'EBAH) are behaviors that people in a certain time and place consider tasteless or offensive. To the Jews an abomination was not a law, not something evil like rape or murder forbidden by the Ten Commandments. It was a common behavior by non-Jews that Jews thought was displeasing to God.
Jesus and Paul both said the holiness code in Leviticus does not pertain to Christian believers. Nevertheless, there are still people who pull the two verses about men sleeping together from this ancient holiness code to say that the Bible seems to condemn homosexuality.
But wait, before we go any further, let's ask: What does this text say about God? Even if the old holiness codes no longer apply to us as Christians, it's important to remember that in every age, people of faith are responsible for setting moral and ethical standards that honor God. But we people of faith must be very careful not to allow our own prejudices to determine what those standards should be.
Instead of selecting one item from an ancient Jewish holiness code and using it to condemn sexual or gender minorities, let's talk together about setting sexual standards that please God -- standards appropriate for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, standards based on loving concern, health, and wholeness for ourselves and for others.
Now what do the Leviticus passages say about homosexuality?
I'm convinced those passages say nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today. Here's why. Consider this single Bible passage that was used for centuries to condemn masturbation:
"He spilled his seed on the ground... And the thing which Onan did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also" (Genesis 38:9-10).
For Jewish writers of Scripture, a man sleeping with another man was an abomination. But it was also an abomination (and one worthy of death) to masturbate or even to interrupt coitus (to halt sex with your spouse before ejaculation as an act of birth control). Why were these sexual practices considered abominations by Scripture writers in these ancient times?
Because the Hebrew pre-scientific understanding was that the male semen contained the whole of life. With no knowledge of eggs and ovulation, it was assumed that the man's sperm contained the whole child and that the woman provided only the incubating space. Therefore, the spilling of semen without possibility of having a child was considered murder.
The Jews were a small tribe struggling to populate a country. They were outnumbered by their enemy. You can see why these ancient people felt it was an abomination to risk "wasting" even a single child. But the passage says nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
We've talked about the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that are used (or misused) by some people to condemn sexual minorities. Now let's look at three verses from the letters of the apostle Paul in the Christian Scriptures that are used the same way. Remember: First, we'll ask what the text says about God; second, we'll consider what it may or may not say about sexual orientation.
PASSAGE 4
ROMANS 1:26-27
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
What does Romans 1:26-27 say about God?
For our discussion, this is the most controversial biblical passage of them all. In Romans 1:26-27 the apostle Paul describes non-Jewish women who exchange "natural use for unnatural" and non-Jewish men who "leave the natural use of women, working shame with each other."
This verse appears to be clear: Paul sees women having sex with women and men having sex with men, and he condemns that practice. But let's go back 2,000 years and try to understand why.
Paul is writing this letter to Rome after his missionary tour of the Mediterranean. On his journey Paul had seen great temples built to honor Aphrodite, Diana, and other fertility gods and goddesses of sex and passion instead of the one true God the apostle honors. Apparently, these priests and priestesses engaged in some odd sexual behaviors -- including castrating themselves, carrying on drunken sexual orgies, and even having sex with young temple prostitutes (male and female) -- all to honor the gods of sex and pleasure.
The Bible is clear that sexuality is a gift from God. Our Creator celebrates our passion. But the Bible is also clear that when passion gets control of our lives, we're in deep trouble.
When we live for pleasure, when we forget that we are God's children and that God has great dreams for our lives, we may end up serving the false gods of sex and passion, just as they did in Paul's time. In our obsession with pleasure, we may even walk away from the God who created us -- and in the process we may cause God to abandon all the great dreams God has for our lives.
Did these priests and priestesses get into these behaviors because they were lesbian or gay? I don't think so. Did God abandon them because they were practicing homosexuals? No. Read the text again.
In our Soulforce video, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, the Rev. Dr. Louis B. Smedes, a distinguished Christian author and ethicist, describes exactly how the Bible says these promiscuous priests and priestesses got into this mess. Once again it has nothing to do with homosexuality:
SMEDES: "The people Paul had in mind refused to acknowledge and worship God, and for this reason were abandoned by God. And being abandoned by God, they sank into sexual depravity."
SMEDES: "The homosexuals I know have not rejected God at all; they love God and they thank God for his grace and his gifts. How, then, could they have been abandoned to homosexuality as a punishment for refusing to acknowledge God?"
SMEDES: "Nor have the homosexuals that I know given up heterosexual passions for homosexual lusts. They have been homosexual from the moment of their earliest sexual stirrings. They did not change from one orientation to another; they just discovered that they were homosexual. It would be unnatural for most homosexuals to have heterosexual sex."
SMEDES: "And the homosexual people I know do not lust after each other any more than heterosexual people do... their love for one another is likely to be just as spiritual and personal as any heterosexual love can be."
Thank you, Dr. Smedes. (To get a copy of the video featuring Dr. Smedes, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, visit www.soulforce.org.)
Getting to know a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person of faith will help you realize that it is unreasonable (and unjust) to compare our love for each other to the rituals of the priests and priestesses who pranced around the statues of Aphrodite and Diana. Once again, I feel certain this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it.
You'll also note that Romans 2 begins with "Therefore, [referring to Romans 1], you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself..." Even after he describes the disturbing practices he has seen, Paul warns us that judging others is God's business, not ours.
PASSAGES 5 AND 6
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10
THE MYSTERY OF "MALOKOIS" AND "ARSENOKOITAI"
Now what do the writings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 say, first, about God, and then about homosexuality? These are the last two places in the Bible that seem to refer to same-sex behavior. We can combine them because they are so similar.
Paul is exasperated. The Christians in Ephesus and Corinth are fighting among themselves. (Sound familiar?) In Corinth they're even suing one another in secular courts. Paul shouts across the distance, "You are breaking God's heart by the way you are treating one another."
Like any good writer, Paul anticipates their first question: "Well, how are we supposed to treat one another?" Paul answers, "You know very well how to treat one another from the Jewish law written on tablets of stone."
The Jewish law was created by God to help regulate human behavior. To remind the churches in Corinth and Ephesus how God wants us to treat one another, Paul recites examples from the Jewish law first. Don't kill one another. Don't sleep with a person who is married to someone else. Don't lie or cheat or steal. The list goes on to include admonitions against fornication, idolatry, whoremongering, perjury, drunkenness, revelry, and extortion. He also includes "malokois" and "arsenokoitai."
Here's where the confusion begins. What's a malokois? What's an arsenokoitai? Actually, those two Greek words have confused scholars to this very day. We'll say more about them later, when we ask what the texts say about sex. But first let's see what the texts say about God.
After quoting from the Jewish law, Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that they are under a new law: the law of Jesus, a law of love that requires us to do more than just avoid murder, adultery, lying, cheating, and stealing. Paul tells them what God wants is not strict adherence to a list of laws, but a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith that isn't phony.
That's the lesson we all need to learn from these texts. God doesn't want us squabbling over who is "in" and who is "out." God wants us to love one another. It's God's task to judge us. It is NOT our task to judge one another.
So what do these two texts say about homosexuality? Are gays and lesbians on that list of sinners in the Jewish law that Paul quotes to make an entirely different point?
Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois probably meant "effeminate call boys." The New Revised Standard Version says "male prostitutes."
As for arsenokoitai, Greek scholars don't know exactly what it means -- and the fact that we don't know is a big part of this tragic debate. Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to the customers of "the effeminate call boys." We might call them "dirty old men." Others translate the word as "sodomites," but never explain what that means.
In 1958, for the first time in history, a person translating that mysterious Greek word into English decided it meant homosexuals, even though there is, in fact, no such word in Greek or Hebrew. But that translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time.
In the past, people used Paul's writings to support slavery, segregation, and apartheid. People still use Paul's writings to oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in society.
Now we have to ask ourselves, "Is it happening again?" Is a word in Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society's prejudice and condemn God's gay children?
We all need to look more closely at that mysterious Greek word arsenokoitai in its original context. I find most convincing the argument from history that Paul is condemning the married men who hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose.
Responsible homosexuals would join Paul in condemning anyone who uses children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed priests and priestesses in Rome. So, once again, I am convinced that this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
MY SIXTH PREMISE:
The biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it.
We've looked closely at the six biblical texts used by some people to condemn homosexuality. But we must also remember that Jesus, the Jewish prophets, and even Paul never even comment on the responsible love a gay man or lesbian feels for another.
The Bible is completely silent on the issue of homosexual orientation. And no wonder. Homosexual orientation wasn't even known until the 19th century.
The discovery that some of us are created and/or shaped in our earliest infancy toward same-gender attraction was made in the last 150 years. Biblical authors knew nothing about sexual orientation. Old Testament authors and Paul assumed all people were created heterosexual, just as they believed the earth was flat,
that there were heavens above and hell below, and that the sun moved up and down.
Ulrichs
In 1864, almost 3,000 years after Moses and at least 18 centuries after the apostle Paul, the German social scientist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first to declare that homosexuals were a distinct class of individuals. It was a big moment for all sexual minorities. It's our Columbus discovering the New World. It's our Madame Curie discovering radium used for Xrays. It's our Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It may seem like one small step for the rest of you, but it's a giant leap for us.
Ulrichs assured the world of what we who are homosexual already know in our hearts. We aren't just heterosexuals choosing to perform same-sex behaviors. We are a whole class of people whose drive to same-sex intimacy is at the very core of our being from the very beginning of our lives.
Although the word homosexual was not used for the first time until later in the 19th century, Ulrichs recognized that homosexuals had been around from the beginning of recorded time, that we were "innately different from heterosexuals," and that our desire for same-sex intimacy and affiliation is intrinsic, natural, inborn and/or shaped in earliest infancy. According to Dr. Ulrichs, what may have looked "unnatural" to Moses and Paul was in fact "natural" to homosexuals.
So this is my sixth premise. The Biblical authors knew nothing of homosexual orientation as we understand it, and therefore said nothing to condemn or approve it.
The authors of the Bible are authorities in matters of faith. They can be trusted when they talk about God. But they should not be considered the final authorities on sexual orientation any more than they are the final authorities on space travel, gravity, or the Internet.
Since the writers of Scripture are not the final authorities on human sexuality, since they didn't even know about sexual orientation as we understand it today, since Jesus and the Jewish prophets were silent about any kind of same-sex behavior, I am persuaded that the Bible has nothing in it to approve or condemn homosexual orientation as we understand it.
MY SEVENTH PREMISE:
Although the prophets, Jesus, and other biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today, they are clear about one thing: As we search for truth, we are to "love one another."
We may not be able to use the Bible as our final authority on sexual orientation. But as we search for the truth, we can and should use the Bible as our final authority on how we should treat one another along the way.
A young Jewish scholar asked Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment?" Quoting the prophets, Jesus replied, "The great commandment is this... to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second command is like it, to love your neighbor as you love yourself."
"This is my commandment," Jesus said, "that you love one another, as I have loved you." On this the Bible is explicitly clear. Even if we disagree about what the Bible seems to say about homosexuality, we can agree that above all else we are commanded by the Scriptures to love God and to love one another.
Since God is the God of truth, since Jesus himself told us that the truth would set us free, one way that we love God and love one another is by seeking the truth about sexual orientation wherever we can find it.
There is a growing body of evidence from science, psychology, history, psychiatry, medicine, and personal experience that leads to a clear verdict: Homosexuality is neither a sickness nor a sin. Unfortunately, the church has always been slow, if not the last institution on earth, to accept new truth.
In 1632 the scientist Galileo (who was a man of faith) dared to support the radical 15th-century idea of Copernicus that all planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun. Immediately, Galileo was proclaimed a heretic by the Pope who quoted Scriptures in his attempt to disprove what science was proving.
Earlier, Protestant heroes had joined in quoting Scriptures condemning Copernicus. These weren't evil men. But they couldn't admit that the Bible was a book about God, not about astronomy -- just as good men and women today have trouble admitting that the Bible is a book about God, not about human sexuality.
Martin Luther said, "This fool Copernicus wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture in Joshua 10:13 tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."
Calvin
Melancthon
John Calvin quoted Psalm 93 in his attack on Copernicus. "The earth also is established. It cannot be moved." Calvin added, "Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"
Melancthon, one of Luther's closest allies, used Ecclesiastes 1:4-5 to condemn Copernicus. "The sun also rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place from which it came." Then he added these dangerous words: "It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to obey it." In other words, believe what the Bible says -- even if science disproves it.
Because Christians refused to let their understanding of God's Word be informed by science, Copernicus was condemned and Galileo was declared a heretic and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. In 1992, 359 years later, Pope John Paul II finally admitted the church had been wrong to ignore science and to interpret the Bible literally.
The Pope said something we must never forget: "Recent historical studies enable us to state that this sad misunderstanding now belongs to the past." Unfortunately, the apology came too late to relieve Galileo of his suffering. What if the biblical scholars of Galileo's day had said to Galileo, "We don't agree with your Copernican theories, but we love and trust you. As long as you love God and seek God's will in your life, you are welcome here."
Imagine the suffering that could be avoided if the church could say this to their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children: "We don't understand your views about sexual orientation, but we love and trust you. As long as you love God and seek God's will in your life, you are welcome here."
Instead, well-intentioned Christians are driving their own children away from the church, using Scripture passages that may not even pertain to sexual orientation as we understand it.
MY EIGHTH PREMISE:
Whatever some people believe the Bible says about homosexuality, they must not use that belief to deny homosexuals their basic civil rights. To discriminate against sexual or gender minorities is unjust and un-American.
Please consider one last thing. I love the Bible. I read God's Word in it and hear God's Word through it. But the United States is not a nation governed by the Bible. Our nation is governed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Our laws were created to protect an individual's right to disagree. If the Bible (or someone's view of the Bible) replaces the Constitution as the law of the land, we undermine the great foundation upon which this country was built.
When I was a guest on a talk show in Seattle, I saw what might happen to me and to millions like me if a genuine literalist gained political power over this country. The other guest on the show was an independent Presbyterian pastor. When I told him that I was gay, he said without hesitation, "Then you should be killed." A Christian brother sentenced me to death, guided only by his literal understanding of Leviticus 20:13.
I asked him, "Who should do the killing, you church folk?" He answered, "No, that's the civil authorities' job. That's why we need to elect more good men of God into government." I sat there in stunned silence, until he added, "I know it must be hard for you to hear it, Dr. White -- but God said it first and it's our job to obey."
I hope we can agree that all of us must stand together against those who would replace the Constitution with biblical law. That's why, when I lecture on a university campus, I carry a Bible in one pocket and a Constitution in the other.
Can we support full civil rights for all... even if we disagree?
In this last premise, I'm asking you who disagree with my stand on homosexuality to support my stand on full civil rights for all people, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans.
Jefferson
I hope you'll agree that we are family, all sisters and brothers of the same heavenly parent. We may be different, but we can still live together in peace.
Thanks for reading this pamphlet. I'm grateful. If you are interested in learning more, I've listed a few resources on the next few pages. You can also find resources online at our Web page, www.soulforce.org.
by Rev. Mel White
Copyright by Soulforce
http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-gay-christian
LIKE YOU, I TAKE THE BIBLE SERIOUSLY!
Many good people build their case against homosexuality almost entirely on the Bible. These folks value Scripture, and are serious about seeking its guidance in their lives. Unfortunately, many of them have never really studied what the Bible does and doesn't say about homosexuality.
We gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians take the Bible seriously, too. Personally, I've spent more than 50 years reading, studying, memorizing, preaching, and teaching from the sacred texts. I earned my master's and doctoral degrees at a conservative biblical seminary to better equip myself to "rightly divide the word of truth." I learned Hebrew and Greek to gain a better understanding of the original words of the biblical texts. I studied the lives and times of the biblical authors to help me know what they were saying in their day so I could better apply it to my own.
I'm convinced the Bible has a powerful message for gay and lesbian Christians -- as well as straight Christians. But it's not the message of condemnation we so often hear.
I'm not expecting you to take my word for it, though. I ask only that you'd consider what my research has taught me about the passages used by some people to condemn God's gay and lesbian children. Then decide for yourself...
MY FIRST PREMISE:
Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the biblical texts often used to condemn God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children.
As you may know, biblical ignorance is an epidemic in the United States. A recent study quoted by Dr. Peter Gomes in The Good Book found that 38 percent of Americans polled were certain the Old Testament was written a few years after Jesus' death. Ten percent believed Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. Many even thought the epistles were the wives of the apostles.
This same kind of biblical ignorance is all too present around the topic of homosexuality. Often people who love and trust God's Word have never given careful and prayerful attention to what the Bible does or doesn't say about homosexuality.
For example, many Christians don't know that:
Jesus says nothing about same-sex behavior.
The Jewish prophets are silent about homosexuality.
Only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way -- and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today.
Most people who are certain they know what the Bible says about homosexuality don't know where the verses that reference same-sex behavior can be found. They haven't read them, let alone studied them carefully. They don't know the original meaning of the words in Hebrew or Greek. And they haven't tried to understand the historical context in which those words were written. Yet the assumption that the Bible condemns homosexuality is passed down from generation to generation with very little personal study or research. The consequences of this misinformation are disastrous, not only for God's gay and lesbian children, but for the entire church.
The apostle Paul says, "Test all things and hold fast to that which is good." By reading this little pamphlet, you are taking Paul seriously.
MY SECOND PREMISE:
Historically, people's misinterpretation of the Bible has left a trail of suffering, bloodshed, and death.
Over the centuries people who misunderstood or misinterpreted the Bible have done terrible things. The Bible has been misused to defend bloody crusades and tragic inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support Hitler's Third Reich and the Holocaust; to oppose medical science; to condemn interracial marriage; to execute women as witches; and to support the Ku Klux Klan. Shakespeare said it this way: "Even the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
We'd like to believe that no person of good will would misuse the Bible to support his or her prejudice. But time and time again it has happened with tragic results.
In the 16th century, John Selden pointed at two Latin words carved into a marble wall in an ancient church in Rome: "Scrutamini Scripturas," which means search the Scriptures. "These two words," Seldon said, "have undone the world."
In one way, John Selden was right. Misusing the Bible has drenched the planet in blood and tears.
But in another way, he was wrong. Most people who misuse the Bible DON'T search the Scriptures. They simply find a text that seems to support their prejudice and then spend the rest of their lives quoting (or misquoting) that text.
The way certain Bible verses are used to condemn homosexuality and homosexuals is a perfect example of this.
On September 22, 2000, a 55-year-old man named Ronald E. Gay, angry for being teased about his last name, entered the Back Street Café in Roanoke, Virginia, a gathering place for lesbians and gays just a few miles from Lynchburg. Confident that God's Word supported his tragic plan of action, Mr. Gay shouted, "I am a Christian soldier, working for my Lord." Claiming that "Jesus does not want these people in his heaven," he shot seven innocent gay and lesbian people. One man, Danny Overstreet, died instantly. Others still suffer from their physical and psychological wounds.
Matson and Mowder
In July 1999, Matthew Williams and his brother, Tyler, murdered a gay couple, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, in their home near Sacramento, California. Speaking to his mother from the Shasta County jail, Matthew explained his actions in this way: "I had to obey God's law rather than man's law," he said. "I didn't want to do this. I felt I was supposed to. I have followed a higher law... I just plan to defend myself from the Scriptures."
After Matthew Shepard was killed in 1998, a pastor in North Carolina published an open letter regarding the trial of Aaron McKinney that read: "Gays are under the death penalty. His blood is guilty before God (Lev. 20:13). If a person kills a gay, the gay's blood is upon the gay and not upon the hands of the person doing the killing. The acts of gays are so abominable to God. His Word is there and we can't change it."
Most of the people I know who say "the Bible condemns homosexuality" would never condone these acts. Most Christians have no idea that the people killing gay and lesbian persons go around quoting those few verses of Scripture as justification.
But it's important to hear these stories, because I'm not writing this little pamphlet as a scholarly exercise. It's a matter of life and death. I'm pleading for the lives of my lesbian sisters and gay brothers who are rejected by their friends and families, fired by their employers, denied their civil rights, refused full membership in their churches, and kill themselves or are killed by others -- all on the basis of these six or seven verses.
MY THIRD PREMISE:
We must be open to new truth from Scripture.
Even heroes of the Christian faith have changed their minds about the meaning of various biblical texts.
It took a blinding light and a voice from heaven to help the apostle Paul change his mind about certain Hebrew texts. A sheet lowered from the sky filled with all kinds of animals helped the apostle Peter gain new insights into Jewish law.
Jerry Falwell believed the Bible supported segregation in the church until a black shoeshine man asked him, "When will someone like me be allowed to become a member of your congregation?" Through those simple words, the Holy Spirit spoke new truth about the ancient biblical texts to the Rev. Falwell, and in obedience he ended segregation at Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Even when we believe the Scriptures are "infallible" or "without error," it's terribly dangerous to think that our understanding of every biblical text is also without error. We are human. We are fallible. And we can misunderstand and misinterpret these ancient words -- with tragic results.
Almost 1,000 people believed Jim Jones was a faithful interpreter of God's Word. They died with him in the jungles of Guyana. I studied Jones and leaders of other cults while writing the book and documentary film, Deceived. I found that the only people who were able to break free of the dangerous influence of such Bible-quoting cultic gurus were the ones who took the Bible seriously enough to study the texts themselves and make their own decisions about their meaning. The others "leave their bones in the desert."
What if someone asked you, "Is there a chance you could be wrong about the way you've interpreted the biblical texts sometimes used to condemn homosexual orientation?" How would you respond? What does it say about you if you answer, "No, I could NOT be wrong"? I am asking you to re-examine these texts -- carefully and prayerfully. Lives hang in the balance.
Anna
There are far too many tragic stories of what happens when we fail to study these texts. Mark B. was a young man who accepted his sexual orientation "until he became a Christian" and was told on the basis of these texts that he couldn't be both a Christian and a gay man. Mark committed suicide and wrote this suicide note to God: "I just don't know how else to fix this." Mary Lou Wallner, one of our most faithful Soulforce volunteers, was led by these texts to condemn her lesbian daughter, Anna, who hanged herself. Mary Lou now says, "If I can steer just one person away from the pain and anguish I've been living, then maybe Anna's death will have meaning."
If heroes of the Christian faith could change their minds about the meaning of certain biblical texts, shouldn't we be prepared to reconsider our own interpretations of these ancient words when the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to new truth? That's why we study the Bible prayerfully, seeking the Spirit of Truth, God's loving Spirit, to help us understand and apply these words to our lives.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus told his disciples he was going away from them for a while, but that the Father would send them a "Comforter," an "Advocate," the "Holy Spirit" who would "teach them all things."
I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit is still teaching us. When we reconsider the texts that are used by some people to condemn God's gay children, we must fervently seek the Holy Spirit's guidance, or we risk being misled by our own prejudices.
MY FOURTH PREMISE:
The Bible is a book about God -- not a book about human sexuality.
The Bible is the story of God's love for the world and the people of the world. It tells the history of God's love at work rescuing, renewing, and empowering humankind. It was never intended to be a book about human sexuality. Certainly, you will agree.
In fact, the Bible accepts sexual practices that we condemn and condemns sexual practices that we accept. Lots of them! Here are a few examples.
DEUTERONOMY 22:13-21
If it is discovered that a bride is not a virgin, the Bible demands that she be executed by stoning immediately.
DEUTERONOMY 22:22
If a married person has sex with someone else's husband or wife, the Bible commands that both adulterers be stoned to death.
MARK 10:1-12
Divorce is strictly forbidden in both Testaments, as is remarriage of anyone who has been divorced.
LEVITICUS 18:19
The Bible forbids a married couple from having sexual intercourse during a woman's period. If they disobey, both shall be executed.
MARK 12:18-27
If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir.
DEUTERONOMY 25:11-12
If a man gets into a fight with another man and his wife seeks to rescue her husband by grabbing the enemy's genitals, her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown her.
I'm certain you don't agree with these teachings from the Bible about sex. And you shouldn't. The list goes on: The Bible says clearly that sex with a prostitute is acceptable for the husband but not for the wife. Polygamy (more than one wife) is acceptable, as is a king's having many concubines. (Solomon, the wisest king of all, had 1,000 concubines.) Slavery and sex with slaves, marriage of girls aged 11-13, and treatment of women as property are all accepted practices in the Scriptures. On the other hand, there are strict prohibitions against interracial marriage, birth control, discussing or even naming a sexual organ, and seeing one's parents nude.
Over the centuries the Holy Spirit has taught us that certain Bible verses should not be understood as God's law for all time periods. Some verses are specific to the culture and time they were written, and are no longer viewed as appropriate, wise, or just.
Often, the Holy Spirit uses science to teach us why those ancient words no longer apply to our modern times. During the last three decades, for example, organizations representing 1.5 million U.S. health professionals (doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and educators) have stated definitively that homosexual orientation is as natural as heterosexual orientation, that sexual orientation is determined by a combination of yet unknown pre- and post-natal influences, and that it is dangerous and inappropriate to tell a homosexual that he or she could or should attempt to change his or her sexual orientation. (See Recommended Resources, p. 23-24.)
While there are some people now living in heterosexual marriages who once perceived themselves to be gay, there are millions of gay and lesbian persons who have accepted their sexual orientation as a gift from God and live productive and deeply spiritual lives. The evidence from science and from the personal experience of gay and lesbian Christians demands that we at least consider whether the passages cited to condemn homosexual behavior should be reconsidered, just as other Bible verses that speak of certain sexual practices are no longer understood as God's law for us in this day.
MY FIFTH PREMISE:
We miss what these passages say about God when we spend so much time debating what they say about sex.
If the Bible is the story of God's love for the world and not a handbook about sex, then that should shape how we read the Scriptures. So as we take a look at the six biblical texts that are used by some people to condemn homosexuality, let's ask two questions about each of them:
First, what does the text say about God that we need to hear but might be missing?
Second, what might the text be saying about homosexuality?
PASSAGE 1
GENESIS 2:21-25
THE CREATION STORY
Let's start "In the Beginning..." What does the creation story in Genesis 1-2 say about God?
I'm so tired of reading signs carried by protesters that say: "It's about Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." In fact, the creation story is as important to Adam and Steve as it is Adam and Eve. Gays and non-gays alike need to know and celebrate the truth at the center of this story.
This creation story is primarily about God, a story written to show the power of God who created the world and everything in it. It teaches us that ultimately God is our Creator, that God shaped us, and that God said, "It's good." Isn't this the heart of the text?
Now what does the creation story say about homosexuality? Because the text says it is "natural" that a man and a woman come together to create a new life, some people think this means gay or lesbian couples are "unnatural." They read this interpretation into the text, even though the text is silent about all kinds of relationships that don't lead to having children:
couples who are unable to have children
couples who are too old to have children
couples who choose not to have children
people who are single
Are these relationships (or lack of relationships) "unnatural"? There's nothing said here that condemns or approves the love that people of the same sex have for each other, including the love I have for my partner, Gary.
So I believe the creation story says a lot about God's power and presence in the universe -- but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
PASSAGE 2
GENESIS 19:1-14
THE STORY OF SODOM
Now let's consider the second biblical text used by some people to condemn God's gay children. You remember the ancient story of Sodom. First, what does the story of Sodom in Genesis 19 say about God?
When Gary and I arrive at a college or university to speak, there are often protesters carrying signs that read, "Mel White, Sodomite." (Has a nice ring to it.) Actually, I'm not from Sodom. That city was buried beneath the Dead Sea centuries ago. I'm from California -- but perhaps that just confirms their suspicions!
Once again, this story is not primarily about sex. It is primarily about God. Some people say the city of Sodom was destroyed because it was overrun by sexually obsessed homosexuals. In fact, the city of Sodom had been doomed to destruction long before. So what is this passage really about?
Jesus and five Old Testament prophets all speak of the sins that led to the destruction of Sodom -- and not one of them mentions homosexuality. Even Billy Graham doesn't mention homosexuality when he preaches on Sodom.
Listen to what Ezekiel 16:48-49 tell us: "This is the sin of Sodom; she and her suburbs had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not help or encourage the poor and needy. They were arrogant and this was abominable in God's eyes."
Today, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike do well to remember that we break God's heart when we spend all we earn on ourselves, when we forget the poor and hungry, when we refuse to do justice or show mercy, when we leave strangers at the gate.
I admit, there are a lot of gay folk who are Sodomites (and a lot of straight folk as well). Sodomites are rich and don't share what they have with the poor. Sodomites have plenty and want more. While millions are hungry, homeless, and sick, Sodomites rush to build bigger homes, buy bigger cars, and own more property -- putting their trust in safer stock portfolios and more secure retirement accounts.
Whatever teaching about sexuality you might get out of this passage, be sure to hear this central, primary truth about God as well. God has called us do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our Creator. Sodom was destroyed because its people didn't take God seriously about caring for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, or the outcast.
But what does the story of Sodom say about homosexual orientation as we understand it today? Nothing.
It was common for soldiers, thieves, and bullies to rape a fallen enemy, asserting their victory by dehumanizing and demeaning the vanquished. This act of raping an enemy is about power and revenge, not about homosexuality or homosexual orientation. And it is still happening.
Louima
In August 1997, Abner Louima, a young black immigrant from Haiti, was assaulted by several police officers after he was arrested in Brooklyn. Officer Charles Schwarz held Louima down in a restroom at the precinct, while Officer Justin Volpe rammed a broken stick into Louima's rectum. These two men and the three other officers involved in this incident and its cover-up were not gay. This was not a homosexual act. It was about power.
The sexual act that occurs in the story of Sodom is a gang rape -- and homosexuals oppose gang rape as much as anyone. That's why I believe the story of Sodom says a lot about God's will for each of us, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
PASSAGE 3
LEVITICUS 18:22 AND 20:13
THE HOLINESS CODE
Let's move on. What do the two verses sometimes cited from Leviticus say about God?
Leviticus 18:6 reads: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." A similar verse occurs two chapters later, in Leviticus 20:13: "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed." On the surface, these words could leave you feeling rather uneasy, especially if you are gay. But just below the surface is the deeper truth about God -- and it has nothing to do with sex.
Leviticus is a holiness code written 3,000 years ago. This code includes many of the outdated sexual laws we mentioned earlier, and a lot more. It also includes prohibitions against round haircuts, tattoos, working on the Sabbath, wearing garments of mixed fabrics, eating pork or shellfish, getting your fortune told, and even playing with the skin of a pig. (There goes football!)
So what's a holiness code? It's a list of behaviors that people of faith find offensive in a certain place and time. In this case, the code was written for priests only, and its primary intent was to set the priests of Israel over and against priests of other cultures.
At the age of 10, I signed a holiness code written by the Women's Christian Temperance Union that said I would never taste beer, wine, or liquor. I thought signing it would please God and my grandmother. That's a holiness code. When I was in high school we evangelical Christians had an unwritten holiness code that went like this: "I don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do." Now I know what you're thinking. That last part about "girls who do" proved especially easy for me. But the point is that I obeyed this evangelical holiness code because my parents said that breaking these rules didn't please God, and I knew it didn't please them.
We had another evangelical holiness code while I was in high school that prohibited dancing. I was student body president, yet I refused to go to the prom because I had promised not to dance. I did this to please God and my mother -- whose mother had made her sign a holiness code that she wouldn't go to dances either.
What about this word abomination that comes up in both passages? In Hebrew, "abominations" (TO'EBAH) are behaviors that people in a certain time and place consider tasteless or offensive. To the Jews an abomination was not a law, not something evil like rape or murder forbidden by the Ten Commandments. It was a common behavior by non-Jews that Jews thought was displeasing to God.
Jesus and Paul both said the holiness code in Leviticus does not pertain to Christian believers. Nevertheless, there are still people who pull the two verses about men sleeping together from this ancient holiness code to say that the Bible seems to condemn homosexuality.
But wait, before we go any further, let's ask: What does this text say about God? Even if the old holiness codes no longer apply to us as Christians, it's important to remember that in every age, people of faith are responsible for setting moral and ethical standards that honor God. But we people of faith must be very careful not to allow our own prejudices to determine what those standards should be.
Instead of selecting one item from an ancient Jewish holiness code and using it to condemn sexual or gender minorities, let's talk together about setting sexual standards that please God -- standards appropriate for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, standards based on loving concern, health, and wholeness for ourselves and for others.
Now what do the Leviticus passages say about homosexuality?
I'm convinced those passages say nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today. Here's why. Consider this single Bible passage that was used for centuries to condemn masturbation:
"He spilled his seed on the ground... And the thing which Onan did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also" (Genesis 38:9-10).
For Jewish writers of Scripture, a man sleeping with another man was an abomination. But it was also an abomination (and one worthy of death) to masturbate or even to interrupt coitus (to halt sex with your spouse before ejaculation as an act of birth control). Why were these sexual practices considered abominations by Scripture writers in these ancient times?
Because the Hebrew pre-scientific understanding was that the male semen contained the whole of life. With no knowledge of eggs and ovulation, it was assumed that the man's sperm contained the whole child and that the woman provided only the incubating space. Therefore, the spilling of semen without possibility of having a child was considered murder.
The Jews were a small tribe struggling to populate a country. They were outnumbered by their enemy. You can see why these ancient people felt it was an abomination to risk "wasting" even a single child. But the passage says nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
We've talked about the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that are used (or misused) by some people to condemn sexual minorities. Now let's look at three verses from the letters of the apostle Paul in the Christian Scriptures that are used the same way. Remember: First, we'll ask what the text says about God; second, we'll consider what it may or may not say about sexual orientation.
PASSAGE 4
ROMANS 1:26-27
NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
What does Romans 1:26-27 say about God?
For our discussion, this is the most controversial biblical passage of them all. In Romans 1:26-27 the apostle Paul describes non-Jewish women who exchange "natural use for unnatural" and non-Jewish men who "leave the natural use of women, working shame with each other."
This verse appears to be clear: Paul sees women having sex with women and men having sex with men, and he condemns that practice. But let's go back 2,000 years and try to understand why.
Paul is writing this letter to Rome after his missionary tour of the Mediterranean. On his journey Paul had seen great temples built to honor Aphrodite, Diana, and other fertility gods and goddesses of sex and passion instead of the one true God the apostle honors. Apparently, these priests and priestesses engaged in some odd sexual behaviors -- including castrating themselves, carrying on drunken sexual orgies, and even having sex with young temple prostitutes (male and female) -- all to honor the gods of sex and pleasure.
The Bible is clear that sexuality is a gift from God. Our Creator celebrates our passion. But the Bible is also clear that when passion gets control of our lives, we're in deep trouble.
When we live for pleasure, when we forget that we are God's children and that God has great dreams for our lives, we may end up serving the false gods of sex and passion, just as they did in Paul's time. In our obsession with pleasure, we may even walk away from the God who created us -- and in the process we may cause God to abandon all the great dreams God has for our lives.
Did these priests and priestesses get into these behaviors because they were lesbian or gay? I don't think so. Did God abandon them because they were practicing homosexuals? No. Read the text again.
In our Soulforce video, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, the Rev. Dr. Louis B. Smedes, a distinguished Christian author and ethicist, describes exactly how the Bible says these promiscuous priests and priestesses got into this mess. Once again it has nothing to do with homosexuality:
SMEDES: "The people Paul had in mind refused to acknowledge and worship God, and for this reason were abandoned by God. And being abandoned by God, they sank into sexual depravity."
SMEDES: "The homosexuals I know have not rejected God at all; they love God and they thank God for his grace and his gifts. How, then, could they have been abandoned to homosexuality as a punishment for refusing to acknowledge God?"
SMEDES: "Nor have the homosexuals that I know given up heterosexual passions for homosexual lusts. They have been homosexual from the moment of their earliest sexual stirrings. They did not change from one orientation to another; they just discovered that they were homosexual. It would be unnatural for most homosexuals to have heterosexual sex."
SMEDES: "And the homosexual people I know do not lust after each other any more than heterosexual people do... their love for one another is likely to be just as spiritual and personal as any heterosexual love can be."
Thank you, Dr. Smedes. (To get a copy of the video featuring Dr. Smedes, There's a Wideness in God's Mercy, visit www.soulforce.org.)
Getting to know a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person of faith will help you realize that it is unreasonable (and unjust) to compare our love for each other to the rituals of the priests and priestesses who pranced around the statues of Aphrodite and Diana. Once again, I feel certain this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it.
You'll also note that Romans 2 begins with "Therefore, [referring to Romans 1], you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself..." Even after he describes the disturbing practices he has seen, Paul warns us that judging others is God's business, not ours.
PASSAGES 5 AND 6
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9 AND 1 TIMOTHY 1:10
THE MYSTERY OF "MALOKOIS" AND "ARSENOKOITAI"
Now what do the writings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 say, first, about God, and then about homosexuality? These are the last two places in the Bible that seem to refer to same-sex behavior. We can combine them because they are so similar.
Paul is exasperated. The Christians in Ephesus and Corinth are fighting among themselves. (Sound familiar?) In Corinth they're even suing one another in secular courts. Paul shouts across the distance, "You are breaking God's heart by the way you are treating one another."
Like any good writer, Paul anticipates their first question: "Well, how are we supposed to treat one another?" Paul answers, "You know very well how to treat one another from the Jewish law written on tablets of stone."
The Jewish law was created by God to help regulate human behavior. To remind the churches in Corinth and Ephesus how God wants us to treat one another, Paul recites examples from the Jewish law first. Don't kill one another. Don't sleep with a person who is married to someone else. Don't lie or cheat or steal. The list goes on to include admonitions against fornication, idolatry, whoremongering, perjury, drunkenness, revelry, and extortion. He also includes "malokois" and "arsenokoitai."
Here's where the confusion begins. What's a malokois? What's an arsenokoitai? Actually, those two Greek words have confused scholars to this very day. We'll say more about them later, when we ask what the texts say about sex. But first let's see what the texts say about God.
After quoting from the Jewish law, Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that they are under a new law: the law of Jesus, a law of love that requires us to do more than just avoid murder, adultery, lying, cheating, and stealing. Paul tells them what God wants is not strict adherence to a list of laws, but a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith that isn't phony.
That's the lesson we all need to learn from these texts. God doesn't want us squabbling over who is "in" and who is "out." God wants us to love one another. It's God's task to judge us. It is NOT our task to judge one another.
So what do these two texts say about homosexuality? Are gays and lesbians on that list of sinners in the Jewish law that Paul quotes to make an entirely different point?
Greek scholars say that in first century the Greek word malaokois probably meant "effeminate call boys." The New Revised Standard Version says "male prostitutes."
As for arsenokoitai, Greek scholars don't know exactly what it means -- and the fact that we don't know is a big part of this tragic debate. Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to the customers of "the effeminate call boys." We might call them "dirty old men." Others translate the word as "sodomites," but never explain what that means.
In 1958, for the first time in history, a person translating that mysterious Greek word into English decided it meant homosexuals, even though there is, in fact, no such word in Greek or Hebrew. But that translator made the decision for all of us that placed the word homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time.
In the past, people used Paul's writings to support slavery, segregation, and apartheid. People still use Paul's writings to oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in society.
Now we have to ask ourselves, "Is it happening again?" Is a word in Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society's prejudice and condemn God's gay children?
We all need to look more closely at that mysterious Greek word arsenokoitai in its original context. I find most convincing the argument from history that Paul is condemning the married men who hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose.
Responsible homosexuals would join Paul in condemning anyone who uses children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed priests and priestesses in Rome. So, once again, I am convinced that this passage says a lot about God, but nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.
MY SIXTH PREMISE:
The biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it.
We've looked closely at the six biblical texts used by some people to condemn homosexuality. But we must also remember that Jesus, the Jewish prophets, and even Paul never even comment on the responsible love a gay man or lesbian feels for another.
The Bible is completely silent on the issue of homosexual orientation. And no wonder. Homosexual orientation wasn't even known until the 19th century.
The discovery that some of us are created and/or shaped in our earliest infancy toward same-gender attraction was made in the last 150 years. Biblical authors knew nothing about sexual orientation. Old Testament authors and Paul assumed all people were created heterosexual, just as they believed the earth was flat,
that there were heavens above and hell below, and that the sun moved up and down.
Ulrichs
In 1864, almost 3,000 years after Moses and at least 18 centuries after the apostle Paul, the German social scientist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first to declare that homosexuals were a distinct class of individuals. It was a big moment for all sexual minorities. It's our Columbus discovering the New World. It's our Madame Curie discovering radium used for Xrays. It's our Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It may seem like one small step for the rest of you, but it's a giant leap for us.
Ulrichs assured the world of what we who are homosexual already know in our hearts. We aren't just heterosexuals choosing to perform same-sex behaviors. We are a whole class of people whose drive to same-sex intimacy is at the very core of our being from the very beginning of our lives.
Although the word homosexual was not used for the first time until later in the 19th century, Ulrichs recognized that homosexuals had been around from the beginning of recorded time, that we were "innately different from heterosexuals," and that our desire for same-sex intimacy and affiliation is intrinsic, natural, inborn and/or shaped in earliest infancy. According to Dr. Ulrichs, what may have looked "unnatural" to Moses and Paul was in fact "natural" to homosexuals.
So this is my sixth premise. The Biblical authors knew nothing of homosexual orientation as we understand it, and therefore said nothing to condemn or approve it.
The authors of the Bible are authorities in matters of faith. They can be trusted when they talk about God. But they should not be considered the final authorities on sexual orientation any more than they are the final authorities on space travel, gravity, or the Internet.
Since the writers of Scripture are not the final authorities on human sexuality, since they didn't even know about sexual orientation as we understand it today, since Jesus and the Jewish prophets were silent about any kind of same-sex behavior, I am persuaded that the Bible has nothing in it to approve or condemn homosexual orientation as we understand it.
MY SEVENTH PREMISE:
Although the prophets, Jesus, and other biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today, they are clear about one thing: As we search for truth, we are to "love one another."
We may not be able to use the Bible as our final authority on sexual orientation. But as we search for the truth, we can and should use the Bible as our final authority on how we should treat one another along the way.
A young Jewish scholar asked Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment?" Quoting the prophets, Jesus replied, "The great commandment is this... to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second command is like it, to love your neighbor as you love yourself."
"This is my commandment," Jesus said, "that you love one another, as I have loved you." On this the Bible is explicitly clear. Even if we disagree about what the Bible seems to say about homosexuality, we can agree that above all else we are commanded by the Scriptures to love God and to love one another.
Since God is the God of truth, since Jesus himself told us that the truth would set us free, one way that we love God and love one another is by seeking the truth about sexual orientation wherever we can find it.
There is a growing body of evidence from science, psychology, history, psychiatry, medicine, and personal experience that leads to a clear verdict: Homosexuality is neither a sickness nor a sin. Unfortunately, the church has always been slow, if not the last institution on earth, to accept new truth.
In 1632 the scientist Galileo (who was a man of faith) dared to support the radical 15th-century idea of Copernicus that all planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun. Immediately, Galileo was proclaimed a heretic by the Pope who quoted Scriptures in his attempt to disprove what science was proving.
Earlier, Protestant heroes had joined in quoting Scriptures condemning Copernicus. These weren't evil men. But they couldn't admit that the Bible was a book about God, not about astronomy -- just as good men and women today have trouble admitting that the Bible is a book about God, not about human sexuality.
Martin Luther said, "This fool Copernicus wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture in Joshua 10:13 tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."
Calvin
Melancthon
John Calvin quoted Psalm 93 in his attack on Copernicus. "The earth also is established. It cannot be moved." Calvin added, "Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"
Melancthon, one of Luther's closest allies, used Ecclesiastes 1:4-5 to condemn Copernicus. "The sun also rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place from which it came." Then he added these dangerous words: "It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to obey it." In other words, believe what the Bible says -- even if science disproves it.
Because Christians refused to let their understanding of God's Word be informed by science, Copernicus was condemned and Galileo was declared a heretic and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. In 1992, 359 years later, Pope John Paul II finally admitted the church had been wrong to ignore science and to interpret the Bible literally.
The Pope said something we must never forget: "Recent historical studies enable us to state that this sad misunderstanding now belongs to the past." Unfortunately, the apology came too late to relieve Galileo of his suffering. What if the biblical scholars of Galileo's day had said to Galileo, "We don't agree with your Copernican theories, but we love and trust you. As long as you love God and seek God's will in your life, you are welcome here."
Imagine the suffering that could be avoided if the church could say this to their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children: "We don't understand your views about sexual orientation, but we love and trust you. As long as you love God and seek God's will in your life, you are welcome here."
Instead, well-intentioned Christians are driving their own children away from the church, using Scripture passages that may not even pertain to sexual orientation as we understand it.
MY EIGHTH PREMISE:
Whatever some people believe the Bible says about homosexuality, they must not use that belief to deny homosexuals their basic civil rights. To discriminate against sexual or gender minorities is unjust and un-American.
Please consider one last thing. I love the Bible. I read God's Word in it and hear God's Word through it. But the United States is not a nation governed by the Bible. Our nation is governed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Our laws were created to protect an individual's right to disagree. If the Bible (or someone's view of the Bible) replaces the Constitution as the law of the land, we undermine the great foundation upon which this country was built.
When I was a guest on a talk show in Seattle, I saw what might happen to me and to millions like me if a genuine literalist gained political power over this country. The other guest on the show was an independent Presbyterian pastor. When I told him that I was gay, he said without hesitation, "Then you should be killed." A Christian brother sentenced me to death, guided only by his literal understanding of Leviticus 20:13.
I asked him, "Who should do the killing, you church folk?" He answered, "No, that's the civil authorities' job. That's why we need to elect more good men of God into government." I sat there in stunned silence, until he added, "I know it must be hard for you to hear it, Dr. White -- but God said it first and it's our job to obey."
I hope we can agree that all of us must stand together against those who would replace the Constitution with biblical law. That's why, when I lecture on a university campus, I carry a Bible in one pocket and a Constitution in the other.
Can we support full civil rights for all... even if we disagree?
In this last premise, I'm asking you who disagree with my stand on homosexuality to support my stand on full civil rights for all people, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans.
Jefferson
I hope you'll agree that we are family, all sisters and brothers of the same heavenly parent. We may be different, but we can still live together in peace.
Thanks for reading this pamphlet. I'm grateful. If you are interested in learning more, I've listed a few resources on the next few pages. You can also find resources online at our Web page, www.soulforce.org.
Hulu Offers a $9.99 Subscription to Full Seasons of Current TV Shows
Hulu Offers a $9.99 Subscription to Full Seasons of Current TV Shows
By BRIAN STELTER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 29, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/media/30hulu.html?hpw
Hulu lifted the curtain on its sweeping vision of the future of television Tuesday, promising access to full seasons of TV shows on laptops, iPhones, iPads, Blu-ray players, video game consoles and even old-fashioned TV sets.
Most Hulu users are already paying more than five times that amount for an unlimited package of channels from a cable or satellite company. Both Hulu and those established distributors are betting that people will pay for both.
Hulu, a hub for online TV and movie viewing, was founded three years ago to capitalize on the growing popularity of free video streaming. It quickly dominated the marketplace for free episodes of shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “Glee.” But advertising revenue has not been enough for Hulu’s powerful content providers, some of whom have been clamoring for a subscription service since last year.
Hulu’s chief executive, Jason Kilar, said Tuesday that what was free on Hulu — typically the five most recent episodes of shows from ABC, NBC, Fox and other providers — would remain free.
The subscription service, called Hulu Plus, will open the door to more episodes of current and classic shows, including entire seasons in many cases. Both flavors of the Web site will have ads; Hulu has signed two sponsors, Nissan and Bud Light, for the introduction of the paid site.
In a first for Hulu, the shows will be accessible to subscribers on the iPhone, the iPad and some Samsung television sets and Blu-ray players, with more platforms expected to be added later.
Access through the PlayStation 3 and Xbox video game consoles is also planned. Hulu Plus will consist of over-the-air shows like “The Simpsons” and “Brothers and Sisters.” Cable shows will not be included.
Hulu Plus amounts to a free-with-paid-perks model for content, not unlike the business models being contemplated by some newspapers. Michael Vorhaus, who has extensively studied online pay models for networks and newspapers as the president of Magid Advisors, said he thought that Hulu had made a good decision.
“They are offering a hybrid approach which I think leverages the Web — some content is free and supported by ads and some content will be paid,” he said in an e-mail message.
Even just a partial pay wall is still a risk, though. Bruce Leichtman, the president of the Leichtman Research Group, said that “there is not a lot of interest in paying for Hulu.”
He cited his company’s three-month-old survey of 1,250 households, which found that only 5 percent of respondents with home Internet connections were willing to pay $9.95 a month for a service like Hulu. Four in five respondents strongly disagreed with the proposal. But if even 5 percent of users sign up, it will create a new revenue stream for Hulu. The closely watched company is finishing its third quarter of profitability, but because those profits are split among dozens of content contributors, no one company is making a meaningful amount of money from the Web site.
Analysts suggested that the so-called season ticket of episodes on Hulu Plus was a new window to be exploited by producers. The NBC series “30 Rock” is an example: its first window is on network TV; its second window is on Hulu and NBC.com; and its later windows include TV syndication and DVD sales.
The prospect of putting more episodes online is sure to bring new attention to the dichotomy of online streaming by TV networks and traditional distribution by the Comcasts and DirecTVs of the world, which pay fees for the right to carry those networks. There has been talk for years about people “cutting the cord” and simply watching TV online, though there is little evidence of a mass migration in that direction.
“I think the hope is that a $10 subscription is a complement to a $50-plus subscription from a cable or satellite company,” said Quincy Smith, a former chief executive of CBS Interactive and a founding partner of Code Advisors.
“At minimum,” Mr. Smith said, Hulu Plus “conveys the opportunity of more platforms, more eyeballs and more ways to monetize. Some of TV consumption in the future will take place not on TV sets, but online and on mobile devices, he added. Publicly, cable and satellite companies shrugged at Hulu’s announcement, saying they had known it was coming for months. Privately, they said it could be used as leverage in future negotiations with the networks over payments for retransmission of their programming. The companies have previously complained about paying to carry networks when so many of the shows are available online.
“We’re in a kind of a wait-and-see mode right now,” an executive at one of the leading distributors said. The executive asked for anonymity because the parent company had declined to comment on the subject.
In an initiative sometimes called TV Everywhere, distributors like Comcast and Time Warner cable are building their own online hubs for replay cable shows, but none has yet garnered the same user interest as Hulu.
In an interview, Mr. Kilar of Hulu stuck up for cable, saying he could not believe that anyone would view Hulu Plus as a substitute for monthly cable or satellite service. “It’s full-season passes of largely broadcast television shows,” he said. “It’s a library of older shows. It’s not news. It’s not sports. It’s not cable.”
“In many ways,” he added, “it’s like what the smartphone is to the laptop,” implying that it would be a secondary way to watch video, not a primary one.
Hulu has much to gain from being a friend, rather than a foe, of cable and satellite companies. The company was jointly founded by NBC Universal and the News Corporation — which both rely on fees from those distributors — and the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners in 2007.
Having signed myriad contributors of content since then — the Walt Disney Company became an equity stakeholder in Hulu last year — the Web site drew a formidable 43 million unique visitors in the United States in May, up from 38 million the month before, according to comScore.
CBS and the CW are not available on Hulu. The subscription service will start as a preview by invitation only, the same way that Hulu was gradually introduced in 2007. It has not indicated when the service would be available to all users.
There is evidence that Hulu’s users are eager to have more to watch. The number of monthly video streams on Hulu has more than tripled in a year, to a record 1.2 billion in May. Hulu’s users are loyal; they watch an average of 2.7 hours of video a month, according to comScore. That statistic surely buoys Hulu’s executives, who will now see whether its customers are loyal enough to pay.
By BRIAN STELTER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 29, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/media/30hulu.html?hpw
Hulu lifted the curtain on its sweeping vision of the future of television Tuesday, promising access to full seasons of TV shows on laptops, iPhones, iPads, Blu-ray players, video game consoles and even old-fashioned TV sets.
Most Hulu users are already paying more than five times that amount for an unlimited package of channels from a cable or satellite company. Both Hulu and those established distributors are betting that people will pay for both.
Hulu, a hub for online TV and movie viewing, was founded three years ago to capitalize on the growing popularity of free video streaming. It quickly dominated the marketplace for free episodes of shows like “America’s Got Talent” and “Glee.” But advertising revenue has not been enough for Hulu’s powerful content providers, some of whom have been clamoring for a subscription service since last year.
Hulu’s chief executive, Jason Kilar, said Tuesday that what was free on Hulu — typically the five most recent episodes of shows from ABC, NBC, Fox and other providers — would remain free.
The subscription service, called Hulu Plus, will open the door to more episodes of current and classic shows, including entire seasons in many cases. Both flavors of the Web site will have ads; Hulu has signed two sponsors, Nissan and Bud Light, for the introduction of the paid site.
In a first for Hulu, the shows will be accessible to subscribers on the iPhone, the iPad and some Samsung television sets and Blu-ray players, with more platforms expected to be added later.
Access through the PlayStation 3 and Xbox video game consoles is also planned. Hulu Plus will consist of over-the-air shows like “The Simpsons” and “Brothers and Sisters.” Cable shows will not be included.
Hulu Plus amounts to a free-with-paid-perks model for content, not unlike the business models being contemplated by some newspapers. Michael Vorhaus, who has extensively studied online pay models for networks and newspapers as the president of Magid Advisors, said he thought that Hulu had made a good decision.
“They are offering a hybrid approach which I think leverages the Web — some content is free and supported by ads and some content will be paid,” he said in an e-mail message.
Even just a partial pay wall is still a risk, though. Bruce Leichtman, the president of the Leichtman Research Group, said that “there is not a lot of interest in paying for Hulu.”
He cited his company’s three-month-old survey of 1,250 households, which found that only 5 percent of respondents with home Internet connections were willing to pay $9.95 a month for a service like Hulu. Four in five respondents strongly disagreed with the proposal. But if even 5 percent of users sign up, it will create a new revenue stream for Hulu. The closely watched company is finishing its third quarter of profitability, but because those profits are split among dozens of content contributors, no one company is making a meaningful amount of money from the Web site.
Analysts suggested that the so-called season ticket of episodes on Hulu Plus was a new window to be exploited by producers. The NBC series “30 Rock” is an example: its first window is on network TV; its second window is on Hulu and NBC.com; and its later windows include TV syndication and DVD sales.
The prospect of putting more episodes online is sure to bring new attention to the dichotomy of online streaming by TV networks and traditional distribution by the Comcasts and DirecTVs of the world, which pay fees for the right to carry those networks. There has been talk for years about people “cutting the cord” and simply watching TV online, though there is little evidence of a mass migration in that direction.
“I think the hope is that a $10 subscription is a complement to a $50-plus subscription from a cable or satellite company,” said Quincy Smith, a former chief executive of CBS Interactive and a founding partner of Code Advisors.
“At minimum,” Mr. Smith said, Hulu Plus “conveys the opportunity of more platforms, more eyeballs and more ways to monetize. Some of TV consumption in the future will take place not on TV sets, but online and on mobile devices, he added. Publicly, cable and satellite companies shrugged at Hulu’s announcement, saying they had known it was coming for months. Privately, they said it could be used as leverage in future negotiations with the networks over payments for retransmission of their programming. The companies have previously complained about paying to carry networks when so many of the shows are available online.
“We’re in a kind of a wait-and-see mode right now,” an executive at one of the leading distributors said. The executive asked for anonymity because the parent company had declined to comment on the subject.
In an initiative sometimes called TV Everywhere, distributors like Comcast and Time Warner cable are building their own online hubs for replay cable shows, but none has yet garnered the same user interest as Hulu.
In an interview, Mr. Kilar of Hulu stuck up for cable, saying he could not believe that anyone would view Hulu Plus as a substitute for monthly cable or satellite service. “It’s full-season passes of largely broadcast television shows,” he said. “It’s a library of older shows. It’s not news. It’s not sports. It’s not cable.”
“In many ways,” he added, “it’s like what the smartphone is to the laptop,” implying that it would be a secondary way to watch video, not a primary one.
Hulu has much to gain from being a friend, rather than a foe, of cable and satellite companies. The company was jointly founded by NBC Universal and the News Corporation — which both rely on fees from those distributors — and the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners in 2007.
Having signed myriad contributors of content since then — the Walt Disney Company became an equity stakeholder in Hulu last year — the Web site drew a formidable 43 million unique visitors in the United States in May, up from 38 million the month before, according to comScore.
CBS and the CW are not available on Hulu. The subscription service will start as a preview by invitation only, the same way that Hulu was gradually introduced in 2007. It has not indicated when the service would be available to all users.
There is evidence that Hulu’s users are eager to have more to watch. The number of monthly video streams on Hulu has more than tripled in a year, to a record 1.2 billion in May. Hulu’s users are loyal; they watch an average of 2.7 hours of video a month, according to comScore. That statistic surely buoys Hulu’s executives, who will now see whether its customers are loyal enough to pay.
The Credit Card Choice: Miles or Points?
The Credit Card Choice: Miles or Points?
By SUSAN STELLIN
copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 28, 2010
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/travel/04Prac.html?hpw
IF you’re one of the millions of people who use a credit card connected to a particular airline — one of the cards that typically award frequent flier miles for every dollar spent —you probably earn more miles by swiping your card than by flying.
But given how difficult it is becoming to redeem frequent flier miles for free tickets and the fact that credit card companies are developing their own rewards programs — some with better travel benefits than airlines offer — it may be time to rethink which card is front and center in your wallet, especially if the card’s primary selling point is the ability to rack up free flights.
While there is no perfect travel-rewards card for everyone, cards that offer points instead of miles might be a better option for people who aren’t particularly loyal to a single airline since points can usually be redeemed on many airlines.
I recently reshuffled my credit cards after a year of frustration trying to redeem Delta miles earned with an American Express Delta SkyMiles card for a free ticket. Although the card’s promotional materials promise that the 25,000 bonus miles one can earn just by signing up are “good for a free flight,” every time I tried to book a Delta award ticket, the cost was usually 40,000 miles. So when my American Express statement arrived with a charge for the card’s $95 annual fee (which had been waived for the first year), I canceled the card.
My current go-to credit card is U.S. Bank’s FlexPerks Visa card, which isn’t affiliated with any airline and was named the best credit card for travel perks by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine last year. Instead of earning frequent flier miles, I get one point for every dollar I spend, and those points can be used to book free tickets on dozens of airlines. Once I earn 20,000 points, I can cash them in for a ticket worth up to $400 using U.S. Bank’s booking partner, Travelocity.
This accomplishes the neat trick of allowing me (and other cardholders) to avoid something airlines refer to as capacity control, which limits the number of seats on a flight that can be bought with frequent flier miles. Since I wasn’t exchanging miles, but effectively buying a ticket, there were no restrictions on the flights I could choose from.
For a trip from New York to Los Angeles in April, I cashed in 20,000 FlexPerks points for a round-trip ticket on JetBlue. (Delta wanted 40,000 miles for a similar nonstop itinerary.)
Bob Daly, a senior vice president with U.S. Bank, said that when the company set out to design its own travel rewards program — after its previous Visa card partner, Northwest Airlines, merged with Delta — delivering on the promise of free flights was a primary objective.
“It had become more and more difficult for people to get award seats,” Mr. Daly said, adding that users of the card, which first became available last year, had cashed in more than a billion FlexPerks points in the last 60 days, which adds up to 50 thousand airline tickets at the 20,000-point level.
Other travel rewards cards that earn accolades are also awarding points instead of miles. Some even allow customers to use them toward hotel stays — an often overlooked benefit.
For three years in a row, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card (a card affiliated with the hotel company) was voted the best travel card in the Americas by members of the frequent flier site Flyertalk.com. That card, which charges a $45 annual fee after the first year, was also recently rated the best travel rewards card for domestic use by the editors of SmarterTravel.com.
Cardholders earn one “Starpoint” for every dollar spent, and each point can be converted to one mile in 30 frequent flier programs; there is a 5,000-mile bonus when users transfer 20,000 points. Starpoints can also be used to buy airline tickets — 30,000 points gets a ticket that costs $345 to $410 — and free nights at Starwood hotels.
Another card that earns free flights on multiple airlines is Capital One’s Venture Rewards card (annual fee $59 after the first year). In this case, cardholders do earn miles — two for every dollar spent — but Capital One’s miles can be redeemed for monetary credit: every 20,000 miles earns you a $200 credit on your card statement.
Chase’s Sapphire card is another option for travelers who want to exchange points for tickets on any airline. Cardholders earn one point for every dollar spent; points can be used for tickets on multiple carriers (it takes 30,000 points to buy a $300 ticket).
But despite the flexibility offered by this growing breed of card, Tim Winship, editor of FrequentFlier.com, said credit cards connected to particular airlines still have some benefits that bank cards can’t match, like the ability to use miles for upgrades.
Chase’s Continental cards and the American Express Delta SkyMiles card (which I just jettisoned) have recently introduced another perk: allowing cardholders to check one bag free.
But Mr. Winship emphasized that travelers should choose a rewards card based on their individual spending and flying habits: people who fly a lot on one airline may benefit from concentrating their spending on a card affiliated with that airline, whereas a less loyal traveler might prefer a card that awards points that can be redeemed for flights on multiple airlines.
“If there were a categorically ‘best’ travel credit card,” he said, “that’s the one everybody would have in their wallet.”
But before you jump to sign up for a new credit card, there’s another issue to consider: the effect of such a switch on your credit score, which can suffer if you frequently open and close credit card accounts, a practice known as “churning” cards. That can be tempting since card issuers offer generous bonuses when you sign up for a new card — typically 10,000 to 25,000 miles (or points) — and waive the annual fee for the first year.
Adam Levin, founder of the advice site Credit.com, said that opening and closing credit card accounts can affect your FICO score in two ways. First, consumers who cycle through cards fail to develop the kind of long-term history with a particular card that enhances a credit score; second, users might make the mistake of swapping a card with more credit for one with less.
“If you had a great rewards card that had a $10,000 available credit limit and find one that’s better with a $5,000 limit, the danger is, you’re going to be reducing your available credit,” Mr. Levin said. “You need to maximize the amount of your available credit because it keeps your utilization low.”
He also pointed out that travel rewards cards often have stricter standards than other types of credit cards (meaning you might not get approved if your credit score is low). They also tend to have more expensive annual fees and charge higher interest rates — which you should consider carefully if you typically carry a balance on your card.
“Your eye should be toward the lowest fees and the lowest rates,” Mr. Levin said. “Rewards are a perk on top of that.”
By SUSAN STELLIN
copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 28, 2010
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/travel/04Prac.html?hpw
IF you’re one of the millions of people who use a credit card connected to a particular airline — one of the cards that typically award frequent flier miles for every dollar spent —you probably earn more miles by swiping your card than by flying.
But given how difficult it is becoming to redeem frequent flier miles for free tickets and the fact that credit card companies are developing their own rewards programs — some with better travel benefits than airlines offer — it may be time to rethink which card is front and center in your wallet, especially if the card’s primary selling point is the ability to rack up free flights.
While there is no perfect travel-rewards card for everyone, cards that offer points instead of miles might be a better option for people who aren’t particularly loyal to a single airline since points can usually be redeemed on many airlines.
I recently reshuffled my credit cards after a year of frustration trying to redeem Delta miles earned with an American Express Delta SkyMiles card for a free ticket. Although the card’s promotional materials promise that the 25,000 bonus miles one can earn just by signing up are “good for a free flight,” every time I tried to book a Delta award ticket, the cost was usually 40,000 miles. So when my American Express statement arrived with a charge for the card’s $95 annual fee (which had been waived for the first year), I canceled the card.
My current go-to credit card is U.S. Bank’s FlexPerks Visa card, which isn’t affiliated with any airline and was named the best credit card for travel perks by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine last year. Instead of earning frequent flier miles, I get one point for every dollar I spend, and those points can be used to book free tickets on dozens of airlines. Once I earn 20,000 points, I can cash them in for a ticket worth up to $400 using U.S. Bank’s booking partner, Travelocity.
This accomplishes the neat trick of allowing me (and other cardholders) to avoid something airlines refer to as capacity control, which limits the number of seats on a flight that can be bought with frequent flier miles. Since I wasn’t exchanging miles, but effectively buying a ticket, there were no restrictions on the flights I could choose from.
For a trip from New York to Los Angeles in April, I cashed in 20,000 FlexPerks points for a round-trip ticket on JetBlue. (Delta wanted 40,000 miles for a similar nonstop itinerary.)
Bob Daly, a senior vice president with U.S. Bank, said that when the company set out to design its own travel rewards program — after its previous Visa card partner, Northwest Airlines, merged with Delta — delivering on the promise of free flights was a primary objective.
“It had become more and more difficult for people to get award seats,” Mr. Daly said, adding that users of the card, which first became available last year, had cashed in more than a billion FlexPerks points in the last 60 days, which adds up to 50 thousand airline tickets at the 20,000-point level.
Other travel rewards cards that earn accolades are also awarding points instead of miles. Some even allow customers to use them toward hotel stays — an often overlooked benefit.
For three years in a row, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card (a card affiliated with the hotel company) was voted the best travel card in the Americas by members of the frequent flier site Flyertalk.com. That card, which charges a $45 annual fee after the first year, was also recently rated the best travel rewards card for domestic use by the editors of SmarterTravel.com.
Cardholders earn one “Starpoint” for every dollar spent, and each point can be converted to one mile in 30 frequent flier programs; there is a 5,000-mile bonus when users transfer 20,000 points. Starpoints can also be used to buy airline tickets — 30,000 points gets a ticket that costs $345 to $410 — and free nights at Starwood hotels.
Another card that earns free flights on multiple airlines is Capital One’s Venture Rewards card (annual fee $59 after the first year). In this case, cardholders do earn miles — two for every dollar spent — but Capital One’s miles can be redeemed for monetary credit: every 20,000 miles earns you a $200 credit on your card statement.
Chase’s Sapphire card is another option for travelers who want to exchange points for tickets on any airline. Cardholders earn one point for every dollar spent; points can be used for tickets on multiple carriers (it takes 30,000 points to buy a $300 ticket).
But despite the flexibility offered by this growing breed of card, Tim Winship, editor of FrequentFlier.com, said credit cards connected to particular airlines still have some benefits that bank cards can’t match, like the ability to use miles for upgrades.
Chase’s Continental cards and the American Express Delta SkyMiles card (which I just jettisoned) have recently introduced another perk: allowing cardholders to check one bag free.
But Mr. Winship emphasized that travelers should choose a rewards card based on their individual spending and flying habits: people who fly a lot on one airline may benefit from concentrating their spending on a card affiliated with that airline, whereas a less loyal traveler might prefer a card that awards points that can be redeemed for flights on multiple airlines.
“If there were a categorically ‘best’ travel credit card,” he said, “that’s the one everybody would have in their wallet.”
But before you jump to sign up for a new credit card, there’s another issue to consider: the effect of such a switch on your credit score, which can suffer if you frequently open and close credit card accounts, a practice known as “churning” cards. That can be tempting since card issuers offer generous bonuses when you sign up for a new card — typically 10,000 to 25,000 miles (or points) — and waive the annual fee for the first year.
Adam Levin, founder of the advice site Credit.com, said that opening and closing credit card accounts can affect your FICO score in two ways. First, consumers who cycle through cards fail to develop the kind of long-term history with a particular card that enhances a credit score; second, users might make the mistake of swapping a card with more credit for one with less.
“If you had a great rewards card that had a $10,000 available credit limit and find one that’s better with a $5,000 limit, the danger is, you’re going to be reducing your available credit,” Mr. Levin said. “You need to maximize the amount of your available credit because it keeps your utilization low.”
He also pointed out that travel rewards cards often have stricter standards than other types of credit cards (meaning you might not get approved if your credit score is low). They also tend to have more expensive annual fees and charge higher interest rates — which you should consider carefully if you typically carry a balance on your card.
“Your eye should be toward the lowest fees and the lowest rates,” Mr. Levin said. “Rewards are a perk on top of that.”
E.C.B. Auction Provides Reassurance on Banks
E.C.B. Auction Provides Reassurance on Banks
By DAVID JOLLY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/business/global/01bank.html?hpw
PARIS — Europe’s financial institutions sought far less money from the European Central Bank on Wednesday than many analysts had expected, offering some reassurance about the health of the euro-region banking system.
The offering had seized investor attention because it came just before a Thursday deadline for 1,121 banks have to repay €442 billion, or $540 billion, in one-year crisis loans that the E.C.B. extended in June 2009 to unfreeze lending in the 16 euro-zone countries. The end of that program could mark a tentative step toward weaning the financial system off of life support.
Although the financial crisis has eased since then, new worries about the safety of sovereign debt issued by several European countries has made the Continent’s banks nervous once again about lending to each other. The refinancing operation Wednesday had been watched for indications of how extensive the problem is.
In the end, the E.C.B. said 171 banks would be allotted €131.9 billion in three-month funds at a fixed 1 percent rate. That was well below the forecasts of analysts surveyed by Reuters, who had expected banks to ask for about €210 billion.
“The fact that we've got such a small number of loans being rolled over shows the euro-area banking system isn't as stressed as people were fearing,” Peter Westaway, chief European economist at Nomura International in London, said of the result.
“In normal circumstances, banks should be able to lend to one another,” said Mr. Westaway, who had been expecting demand for the three-month loans to approach €300 billion. “The interbank market had become dysfunctional, but this suggests that things are better than they were.”
Bank stocks and the euro gained after the E.C.B. announcement, and the cost of insuring euro-zone bank debt against default with credit default swaps fell. On Tuesday, fears that the three-month auction would show that banks were depending more heavily on the central bank had weighed on global stocks.
Some monetary policy watchers have argued that the markets were exaggerating the importance of the expiration of the 12-month funding program, as E.C.B. officials have stressed in recent weeks that the central bank was committed to ensuring adequate liquidity.
Jean-Claude Trichet, the E.C.B. president, told reporters in Rome that the €131.9 billion “was below what some analysts had expected, but it was it was for us the normal transition that we had in mind.”
Analysts noted that there was never a likelihood of banks borrowing the full €442 billion Wednesday at one operation before turning around to repay the E.C.B. a day later with its own funds.
Marco Troiano, who covers the banking industry at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research in London, said it was possible that some of the crisis lending had gone not to banks’ “core” business, but instead to finance speculative trades in which they funded themselves from the E.C.B. and invested at higher rates, although in liquid assets. Banks would easily be able to liquidate some of these trading positions to reduce their short-term funding needs and meet E.C.B. repayments, he said.
The European Union, the E.C.B. and the International Monetary Fund have taken a number of significant steps to stabilize the euro zone since the Greek debt crisis began this year, notably a €750 billion program to help governments finance their debts when doing so on the market had become prohibitively expensive. The E.C.B. agreed as part of that program to buy government and corporate bonds on the market to ease credit.
In their latest confidence-boosting effort, E.U. governments are carrying out individual “stress tests” on the region’s financial institutions. The European Union has said it will publish in July the results for 25 major banks.
Michel Barnier, the E.U. commissioner for monetary affairs, has likened the bank tests to earthquake tests that are performed on buildings: “It doesn’t mean an earthquake will hit tomorrow morning, but one never knows, and one must test the solidity of the walls and the foundation,” Mr. Barnier said on French radio late last week.
He added that he was in favor of making the results of the tests public and of extending the tests to “other European financial firms that do cross-border business.”
There is still some doubt about the utility of those tests, as investors have been concerned that soured loans have been secreted away on the balance sheets of institutions like Germany’s Landesbanken and Spanish savings banks, which may not be covered by the assessments.
On Wednesday, the German central bank, the Bundesbank, and the BaFin market regulator jointly issued a statement from Berlin saying that the country’s big banks were prepared to participate in the tests “on the basis of uniform, Europe-wide rules” as soon as the criteria were made available.
The assessments could ultimately lead national governments either to nationalize or to recapitalize some of their worst-hit banks.
Mr. Westaway said the stress tests could go a long way toward restoring calm, noting that similar assessments by the U.S. Treasury last year “were sort of the beginning of the end in terms of uncertainty” for American banks.
“What kills markets is not knowing whether your counterparty is able to trade with you,” Mr. Westaway said.
James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.
By DAVID JOLLY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/business/global/01bank.html?hpw
PARIS — Europe’s financial institutions sought far less money from the European Central Bank on Wednesday than many analysts had expected, offering some reassurance about the health of the euro-region banking system.
The offering had seized investor attention because it came just before a Thursday deadline for 1,121 banks have to repay €442 billion, or $540 billion, in one-year crisis loans that the E.C.B. extended in June 2009 to unfreeze lending in the 16 euro-zone countries. The end of that program could mark a tentative step toward weaning the financial system off of life support.
Although the financial crisis has eased since then, new worries about the safety of sovereign debt issued by several European countries has made the Continent’s banks nervous once again about lending to each other. The refinancing operation Wednesday had been watched for indications of how extensive the problem is.
In the end, the E.C.B. said 171 banks would be allotted €131.9 billion in three-month funds at a fixed 1 percent rate. That was well below the forecasts of analysts surveyed by Reuters, who had expected banks to ask for about €210 billion.
“The fact that we've got such a small number of loans being rolled over shows the euro-area banking system isn't as stressed as people were fearing,” Peter Westaway, chief European economist at Nomura International in London, said of the result.
“In normal circumstances, banks should be able to lend to one another,” said Mr. Westaway, who had been expecting demand for the three-month loans to approach €300 billion. “The interbank market had become dysfunctional, but this suggests that things are better than they were.”
Bank stocks and the euro gained after the E.C.B. announcement, and the cost of insuring euro-zone bank debt against default with credit default swaps fell. On Tuesday, fears that the three-month auction would show that banks were depending more heavily on the central bank had weighed on global stocks.
Some monetary policy watchers have argued that the markets were exaggerating the importance of the expiration of the 12-month funding program, as E.C.B. officials have stressed in recent weeks that the central bank was committed to ensuring adequate liquidity.
Jean-Claude Trichet, the E.C.B. president, told reporters in Rome that the €131.9 billion “was below what some analysts had expected, but it was it was for us the normal transition that we had in mind.”
Analysts noted that there was never a likelihood of banks borrowing the full €442 billion Wednesday at one operation before turning around to repay the E.C.B. a day later with its own funds.
Marco Troiano, who covers the banking industry at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research in London, said it was possible that some of the crisis lending had gone not to banks’ “core” business, but instead to finance speculative trades in which they funded themselves from the E.C.B. and invested at higher rates, although in liquid assets. Banks would easily be able to liquidate some of these trading positions to reduce their short-term funding needs and meet E.C.B. repayments, he said.
The European Union, the E.C.B. and the International Monetary Fund have taken a number of significant steps to stabilize the euro zone since the Greek debt crisis began this year, notably a €750 billion program to help governments finance their debts when doing so on the market had become prohibitively expensive. The E.C.B. agreed as part of that program to buy government and corporate bonds on the market to ease credit.
In their latest confidence-boosting effort, E.U. governments are carrying out individual “stress tests” on the region’s financial institutions. The European Union has said it will publish in July the results for 25 major banks.
Michel Barnier, the E.U. commissioner for monetary affairs, has likened the bank tests to earthquake tests that are performed on buildings: “It doesn’t mean an earthquake will hit tomorrow morning, but one never knows, and one must test the solidity of the walls and the foundation,” Mr. Barnier said on French radio late last week.
He added that he was in favor of making the results of the tests public and of extending the tests to “other European financial firms that do cross-border business.”
There is still some doubt about the utility of those tests, as investors have been concerned that soured loans have been secreted away on the balance sheets of institutions like Germany’s Landesbanken and Spanish savings banks, which may not be covered by the assessments.
On Wednesday, the German central bank, the Bundesbank, and the BaFin market regulator jointly issued a statement from Berlin saying that the country’s big banks were prepared to participate in the tests “on the basis of uniform, Europe-wide rules” as soon as the criteria were made available.
The assessments could ultimately lead national governments either to nationalize or to recapitalize some of their worst-hit banks.
Mr. Westaway said the stress tests could go a long way toward restoring calm, noting that similar assessments by the U.S. Treasury last year “were sort of the beginning of the end in terms of uncertainty” for American banks.
“What kills markets is not knowing whether your counterparty is able to trade with you,” Mr. Westaway said.
James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.
Airbus Subsidies From Europe Are Ruled Improper
Airbus Subsidies From Europe Are Ruled Improper
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/business/global/01wto.html?ref=global-home
The United States won an “important victory” in a trade ruling that a European company had benefited from improper subsidies on a variety of commercial planes, taking sales from Boeing as a result, the United States trade representative, Ron Kirk, said on Wednesday.
The ruling, by the World Trade Organization, seems certain to fuel concerns in Congress about whether the Pentagon should consider the subsidies in deciding whether to award a $40 billion contract for refueling tankers to Boeing or to the European company, Airbus.
Boeing, based in Chicago, has long contended that the subsidies helped Airbus vault past it in 2003 to become the world’s largest plane maker.
The 1,200-page ruling concluded that Airbus received subsidies — in the form of government loans at below-market interest rates — to produce its six best-selling models, and the trade panel recommended that steps be taken to withdraw the subsidies.
For the American side, the biggest finding was that many of the loans from European governments to help Airbus develop the A380 superjumbo jet amounted to “prohibited subsidies.” The panel found that the loans were expected to aid export sales, and it said those subsidies should be withdrawn in 90 days.
The ruling also found that Airbus had also received subsidies that helped it develop and sell its A300, A310, A320, A330 and A340 models.
The trade panel concluded that without the government aid, it “would not have been possible for Airbus to have launched all these models, as originally designed and at the times that it did.” It also said that if Airbus had had to find commercial financing, “the increase in the level of debt Airbus would have accumulated over the years would have been massive.”
Boeing’s chief executive, W. James McNerney, said in a statement that the decision showed that the subsidies “fueled the rise of Airbus” and “continue to provide its products a major cost advantage.”
Airbus said in a statement that it expected European officials to appeal the ruling.
“This final report needs to be read together with the forthcoming interim report on subsidies provided in the U.S. to Boeing,” the E.U.’s trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said in a statement. “The E.U. remains committed to a negotiated outcome to the dispute with no preconditions on either side.”
The decision was given to both the United States and Europe three months ago, and the outlines had been reported then. The full report was released for the first time on Tuesday.
The trade ruling does not apply to the roughly $4.3 billion in European pledges of loans to help Airbus develop the A350, a new plane meant to compete with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, since work on it had not begun when the complaint was filed.
Boeing executives hope the political pressure created by the subsidy ruling will prompt Europe to reduce those loans.
Timothy Reif, the general counsel to the United States Trade, said Mr. Kirk, “has made clear that he would be very disappointed if any member states moved forward with disbursing aid for the A350.”
Mr. Reif also indicated that the United States was not overly worried about the possibility of being found, in turn, to have subsidized Boeing, as the European side has alleged.
“We feel confident in the facts,” he said. “Regardless, the cases are qualitatively different.”
Brian Knowlton contributed reporting.
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/business/global/01wto.html?ref=global-home
The United States won an “important victory” in a trade ruling that a European company had benefited from improper subsidies on a variety of commercial planes, taking sales from Boeing as a result, the United States trade representative, Ron Kirk, said on Wednesday.
The ruling, by the World Trade Organization, seems certain to fuel concerns in Congress about whether the Pentagon should consider the subsidies in deciding whether to award a $40 billion contract for refueling tankers to Boeing or to the European company, Airbus.
Boeing, based in Chicago, has long contended that the subsidies helped Airbus vault past it in 2003 to become the world’s largest plane maker.
The 1,200-page ruling concluded that Airbus received subsidies — in the form of government loans at below-market interest rates — to produce its six best-selling models, and the trade panel recommended that steps be taken to withdraw the subsidies.
For the American side, the biggest finding was that many of the loans from European governments to help Airbus develop the A380 superjumbo jet amounted to “prohibited subsidies.” The panel found that the loans were expected to aid export sales, and it said those subsidies should be withdrawn in 90 days.
The ruling also found that Airbus had also received subsidies that helped it develop and sell its A300, A310, A320, A330 and A340 models.
The trade panel concluded that without the government aid, it “would not have been possible for Airbus to have launched all these models, as originally designed and at the times that it did.” It also said that if Airbus had had to find commercial financing, “the increase in the level of debt Airbus would have accumulated over the years would have been massive.”
Boeing’s chief executive, W. James McNerney, said in a statement that the decision showed that the subsidies “fueled the rise of Airbus” and “continue to provide its products a major cost advantage.”
Airbus said in a statement that it expected European officials to appeal the ruling.
“This final report needs to be read together with the forthcoming interim report on subsidies provided in the U.S. to Boeing,” the E.U.’s trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said in a statement. “The E.U. remains committed to a negotiated outcome to the dispute with no preconditions on either side.”
The decision was given to both the United States and Europe three months ago, and the outlines had been reported then. The full report was released for the first time on Tuesday.
The trade ruling does not apply to the roughly $4.3 billion in European pledges of loans to help Airbus develop the A350, a new plane meant to compete with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, since work on it had not begun when the complaint was filed.
Boeing executives hope the political pressure created by the subsidy ruling will prompt Europe to reduce those loans.
Timothy Reif, the general counsel to the United States Trade, said Mr. Kirk, “has made clear that he would be very disappointed if any member states moved forward with disbursing aid for the A350.”
Mr. Reif also indicated that the United States was not overly worried about the possibility of being found, in turn, to have subsidized Boeing, as the European side has alleged.
“We feel confident in the facts,” he said. “Regardless, the cases are qualitatively different.”
Brian Knowlton contributed reporting.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Enough Already......The Words Are "Marriage Equality"/Democrats: Alexi Giannoulias Shows How It Is Done On Marriage Equality
Enough Already......The Words Are "Marriage Equality"
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 28 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/enough-alreadythe-words-are-marriage-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Marriage-equality You have to give the politicians credit. They can come up with more words and definitions to avoid the two words - Marriage Equality. For years, even the Democrats stayed away from such concepts as domestic partnerships or civil unions. Remember less than a decade ago, candidates in the Democratic party were begging us not to make them take a stand on civil unions after the Vermont Decision. Suddenly they embraced domestic partnerships as if those two words were the Holy Grail. Hell, before that they couldn't even decide to acknowledge as "partners, lovers or significant others."
The poor politicians have struggled with finding the right words so we could somehow be viewed as equal without saying "Marriage Equality. " Our own President, while loudly proclaiming marriage has to be between a man and a woman, has attempted all sorts of proposals to make sure we are equal without acknowledging our right to marry. Please, he seems to indicate, we can change laws, regulations slowly to give you the same rights and not have to say marriage. However at the same time he refuses to start the repeal of DOMA or even support a national civil unions bill which everyone says they support. His heart is in the right place but his policy couldn't be more wrong.
Time is running out for us to continue to indulge this silliness. It really is getting offensive and embarrassing as they struggle to create a whole new separate class of laws just for us. Feel special that they are going to all this trouble? I sure and hell don't!
Gang, 'marriage equality' are the words we need to hear from anyone we support for public office. The concept of marriage is so engrained in our national laws, regulations, rules, protections and benefits that it would take either an entire separate but equal series of laws to slowly give us our rights.We might have to wait until the year 2050 or longer to get them all passed.
Maybe five years ago or a little longer our allies could have convinced us that now wasn't the time. Now it is downright embarrassing to watch them squirm. Hell, just look at some of the people who have supported marriage: Laura Bush, Vice President Cheney, Ted Olson and so many other conservatives! Even rapper Eminem has come out for marriage equality.
Each day another barrier falls on our long journey to freedom. And those are remarkable moments. But the time has long passed where we can tolerate the fear of our allies and insist on not a system of 'separate but equal' but full and complete equality. Come on Mr. President, you can say those two words...."marriage equality". I know you can. You are the most eloquent leader we have had in the White House since Kennedy. Just do it. I promise you the world won't end.
Democrats: Alexi Giannoulias Shows How It Is Done On Marriage Equality
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 28 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/democrats-alexi-giannoulias-shows-how-it-is-done-on-marriage-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
As we watch people in Washington attempt to find ways to dribble out our human rights without taking a tough stand on issues like marriage equality, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who is running for United States Senate in Illinois shows how it should be done. Without equivocating or searching for new words to describe our struggle, he comes down squarely and unconditioinally for full equality.
This charismatic young Democrat represents the new generation of Americans running for office who refuse to abide by the old ways of caution. Want to know who should get your funds this year? Just click here and support this amazing man. Watch this video and you will become even more impatient with those who refuse to stand by our side in marriage equality
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 28 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/enough-alreadythe-words-are-marriage-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Marriage-equality You have to give the politicians credit. They can come up with more words and definitions to avoid the two words - Marriage Equality. For years, even the Democrats stayed away from such concepts as domestic partnerships or civil unions. Remember less than a decade ago, candidates in the Democratic party were begging us not to make them take a stand on civil unions after the Vermont Decision. Suddenly they embraced domestic partnerships as if those two words were the Holy Grail. Hell, before that they couldn't even decide to acknowledge as "partners, lovers or significant others."
The poor politicians have struggled with finding the right words so we could somehow be viewed as equal without saying "Marriage Equality. " Our own President, while loudly proclaiming marriage has to be between a man and a woman, has attempted all sorts of proposals to make sure we are equal without acknowledging our right to marry. Please, he seems to indicate, we can change laws, regulations slowly to give you the same rights and not have to say marriage. However at the same time he refuses to start the repeal of DOMA or even support a national civil unions bill which everyone says they support. His heart is in the right place but his policy couldn't be more wrong.
Time is running out for us to continue to indulge this silliness. It really is getting offensive and embarrassing as they struggle to create a whole new separate class of laws just for us. Feel special that they are going to all this trouble? I sure and hell don't!
Gang, 'marriage equality' are the words we need to hear from anyone we support for public office. The concept of marriage is so engrained in our national laws, regulations, rules, protections and benefits that it would take either an entire separate but equal series of laws to slowly give us our rights.We might have to wait until the year 2050 or longer to get them all passed.
Maybe five years ago or a little longer our allies could have convinced us that now wasn't the time. Now it is downright embarrassing to watch them squirm. Hell, just look at some of the people who have supported marriage: Laura Bush, Vice President Cheney, Ted Olson and so many other conservatives! Even rapper Eminem has come out for marriage equality.
Each day another barrier falls on our long journey to freedom. And those are remarkable moments. But the time has long passed where we can tolerate the fear of our allies and insist on not a system of 'separate but equal' but full and complete equality. Come on Mr. President, you can say those two words...."marriage equality". I know you can. You are the most eloquent leader we have had in the White House since Kennedy. Just do it. I promise you the world won't end.
Democrats: Alexi Giannoulias Shows How It Is Done On Marriage Equality
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 28 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/democrats-alexi-giannoulias-shows-how-it-is-done-on-marriage-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
As we watch people in Washington attempt to find ways to dribble out our human rights without taking a tough stand on issues like marriage equality, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who is running for United States Senate in Illinois shows how it should be done. Without equivocating or searching for new words to describe our struggle, he comes down squarely and unconditioinally for full equality.
This charismatic young Democrat represents the new generation of Americans running for office who refuse to abide by the old ways of caution. Want to know who should get your funds this year? Just click here and support this amazing man. Watch this video and you will become even more impatient with those who refuse to stand by our side in marriage equality
Jonathan Martin: What Will The Senate Be Like In 2011?
Jonathan Martin: What Will The Senate Be Like In 2011?
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Jun 24 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/jonathan-martin-what-will-the-senate-be-like-in-2011-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Senate Many (including yours truly) have made projections of the possible numbers of Republicans and Democrats, but Jonathan Martin of Politico provides a first-rate glimpse of what kind of Senate we might have starting in 2011. In "Gauging the Senate Scenario in 2011," Martin does not paint a hopeful picture. With the Tea Party revolution in the Republican party and increasing polarization it could be a wild and unpredictable ride.
Martin writes in his important article:
"Tuesday's nomination of Mike Lee for the Senate by Utah Republicans served up yet another reminder about what this tumultuous and unpredictable election year might mean for next year’s Congress: The decorous and staid U.S. Senate could get a lot rowdier in 2011.
Lee, a 38-year-old conservative lawyer who enjoyed support from tea party activists, is all but certain to fill the seat of 76-year-old Sen. Robert Bennett, the sober institutionalist and senator’s son who failed to even make his party’s primary ballot after three terms.
The transition from septuagenarian Bennett to Lee, who is younger than anyone else currently in the chamber, may be the most vivid illustration of how the next Senate could veer further from its clubby and collegial tradition, but it’s hardly the only example.
A handful of other Republicans fueled by tea party activists might also end up in the Senate, intent on doing more than carving their names in the desks and sampling the dining room’s famous bean soup.
They owe little to the establishment—party leaders largely opposed their candidacies—and much to the fear-for-my-country movement from which they emerge. Many of them haven’t followed the timeworn paths to elected office.
Perhaps most important, they aren’t expecting to come to the capital to go along so they can get along. They are non-conformists who tend to chafe at authority, with both Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada making names for themselves by bucking the established order."
Later Martin makes the inevitable past historical comparisons
"The new and unlikely faces that could populate the Senate next year reflect the fury of an electorate that is scornful of the political status quo and hungry for change. And at a time of serious churning among voters, it’s easier for politicians who don’t look and sound like the usual models to get elected.
2010 won’t mark the first election cycle that a collection of unlikely individuals joined the chamber of Clay and Webster.
“It's 1980 all over again,” said Rutgers University professor and Senate scholar Ross Baker. “Paula Hawkins, Jeremiah Denton, John East, Steve Symms—the Four Horsemen of the Reagan Apocalypse ride again. A rebellious electorate embraces crackpots and crackpots with certificates of election make public policy.”
As voters directed their anger toward President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by electing Ronald Reagan, they also ushered in a class of senators mostly remembered for, well, being swept in by Carter and Reagan. Among the list that helped the GOP capture the Senate majority that year: Hawkins of Florida, Denton of Alabama, East of North Carolina and Symms of Idaho.
Their presence – and the departure of such Democratic stalwarts as Idaho’s Frank Church, South Dakota’s George McGovern, Washington’s Warren Magnuson and Indiana’s Birch Bayh – underlined that the new right was on the ascent.
But even though these and the other Reagan Revolutionaries came to Washington intent on overthrowing what they saw as a crumbling citadel of liberalism, they didn’t ultimately succeed in storming the tower."
Martin quotes former Senator John Breaux....
"Still, some longtime Senate-watchers fret about this year’s crop of potential senators, noting that comity in the body is already far worse now than it was 30 years ago.
“What we’re seeing is that the mood of the public tends to generate extremists on both sides now,” lamented former Sen. John Breaux, a centrist Democrat from Louisiana. “People that want to come to Washington to burn the barn down as opposed to fixing the system.”
Breaux, who is now a powerful lobbyist, said the self-styled outsiders would discover how difficult it is to change the body once they get inside.
“Should they get there, they’re going to find out they’re in a distinct minority of a minority in terms of wanting to do away with the current system,” he predicted. “They’ll find out that you cannot change overnight a system of government we’ve had for over 200 years.”
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Jun 24 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/jonathan-martin-what-will-the-senate-be-like-in-2011-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Senate Many (including yours truly) have made projections of the possible numbers of Republicans and Democrats, but Jonathan Martin of Politico provides a first-rate glimpse of what kind of Senate we might have starting in 2011. In "Gauging the Senate Scenario in 2011," Martin does not paint a hopeful picture. With the Tea Party revolution in the Republican party and increasing polarization it could be a wild and unpredictable ride.
Martin writes in his important article:
"Tuesday's nomination of Mike Lee for the Senate by Utah Republicans served up yet another reminder about what this tumultuous and unpredictable election year might mean for next year’s Congress: The decorous and staid U.S. Senate could get a lot rowdier in 2011.
Lee, a 38-year-old conservative lawyer who enjoyed support from tea party activists, is all but certain to fill the seat of 76-year-old Sen. Robert Bennett, the sober institutionalist and senator’s son who failed to even make his party’s primary ballot after three terms.
The transition from septuagenarian Bennett to Lee, who is younger than anyone else currently in the chamber, may be the most vivid illustration of how the next Senate could veer further from its clubby and collegial tradition, but it’s hardly the only example.
A handful of other Republicans fueled by tea party activists might also end up in the Senate, intent on doing more than carving their names in the desks and sampling the dining room’s famous bean soup.
They owe little to the establishment—party leaders largely opposed their candidacies—and much to the fear-for-my-country movement from which they emerge. Many of them haven’t followed the timeworn paths to elected office.
Perhaps most important, they aren’t expecting to come to the capital to go along so they can get along. They are non-conformists who tend to chafe at authority, with both Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada making names for themselves by bucking the established order."
Later Martin makes the inevitable past historical comparisons
"The new and unlikely faces that could populate the Senate next year reflect the fury of an electorate that is scornful of the political status quo and hungry for change. And at a time of serious churning among voters, it’s easier for politicians who don’t look and sound like the usual models to get elected.
2010 won’t mark the first election cycle that a collection of unlikely individuals joined the chamber of Clay and Webster.
“It's 1980 all over again,” said Rutgers University professor and Senate scholar Ross Baker. “Paula Hawkins, Jeremiah Denton, John East, Steve Symms—the Four Horsemen of the Reagan Apocalypse ride again. A rebellious electorate embraces crackpots and crackpots with certificates of election make public policy.”
As voters directed their anger toward President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by electing Ronald Reagan, they also ushered in a class of senators mostly remembered for, well, being swept in by Carter and Reagan. Among the list that helped the GOP capture the Senate majority that year: Hawkins of Florida, Denton of Alabama, East of North Carolina and Symms of Idaho.
Their presence – and the departure of such Democratic stalwarts as Idaho’s Frank Church, South Dakota’s George McGovern, Washington’s Warren Magnuson and Indiana’s Birch Bayh – underlined that the new right was on the ascent.
But even though these and the other Reagan Revolutionaries came to Washington intent on overthrowing what they saw as a crumbling citadel of liberalism, they didn’t ultimately succeed in storming the tower."
Martin quotes former Senator John Breaux....
"Still, some longtime Senate-watchers fret about this year’s crop of potential senators, noting that comity in the body is already far worse now than it was 30 years ago.
“What we’re seeing is that the mood of the public tends to generate extremists on both sides now,” lamented former Sen. John Breaux, a centrist Democrat from Louisiana. “People that want to come to Washington to burn the barn down as opposed to fixing the system.”
Breaux, who is now a powerful lobbyist, said the self-styled outsiders would discover how difficult it is to change the body once they get inside.
“Should they get there, they’re going to find out they’re in a distinct minority of a minority in terms of wanting to do away with the current system,” he predicted. “They’ll find out that you cannot change overnight a system of government we’ve had for over 200 years.”
The President and the LGBT Community
The President and the LGBT Community
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 23 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/the-president-and-the-lgbt-community.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
President Given the fact that it is Gay Pride month, the White House reception for LGBT leaders and the huge amount of praise coming from LGBT leaders within the Beltway, perhaps it is a good time to pause and reflect on the President's record on LGBT issues. In a way, Mr. Obama's record can be viewed differently if you are just looking for a long list instead of the epic battles that cry for presidential leadership.
Two of the most significant accomplishments, that are indeed historical, are the passage of the Hate Crimes legislation and the just issued "Family Leave Policy" for corporations that do business with the government. Both are real milestones for the community and would not have come out of the last administration.
During the short tenure of his presidency, we have seen a significant number of employment policies and repeal of regulations that have been issued or changed for the better. A number of these steps just apply to Federal employees or a small select segment of the LGBT community. Yet, each step toward progress should be highly praised and acknowledged. Progress is progress. However, we would be making a major mistake in assuming that just a couple of steps at a time is adequate in an epic great struggle. Changing of regulations is absolutely welcomed but should not be confused with the bold leadership we need for full equality.
Also we must never fall into the trap of "Well he is a lot better than the alternative." Just because I am not being beaten doesn't mean I am free.
Freedom is absolute; there is no such thing as partial freedom. We are involved in daily struggle for full equality and freedom. The President must be judged on not incremental steps but on concrete actions that clearly show he is on the right side of history in this battle. Overall, the President doesn't seem to 'get it.' His failure to lead on so many fronts illustrates that he still believes we are a constituency group to be placated or just another long list of issues that is in front of him. There is no indication that he is yet willing to show the courage of a President Kennedy or President Johnson and take major, decisive and historic action. In actuality we have mostly seen timid and tepid responses to the major issues and at times downright hostility.
The record so far on those major issues is not good. For the last two years, with a vast majority in Congress, many of us have literally begged Washington to take action while the climate and vote counts were good. Did any individual in their right mind think that the vote count would get better in this next election? The best time to deal with these issues was last year. But we were told to wait until after health care. Now many politicians tell us he is swamped with the oil spill. Then we will be told he has to come to terms with this hopeless war in Afghanistan. Soon it will be election time and we will be urged to not force candidates to vote or our desires for freedom will defeat them. After the election, we will be informed that given the new make up of Congress he has to work with the Republicans to get anything done. Finally come 2012, they will tell us to wait until the second term because if we don't, we personally will be responsible in bringing back the people who hate us.
The record of this President and this Congress on DOMA, DADT and ENDA is dismal. The DADT 'compromise' promises us nothing but a promise that maybe it will be dealt with next year. There is no 'stop-loss' order, no mandate, no timeline and no criteria for implementation of the repeal. And even this compromise has yet to pass the United States Senate. We still don't know if we are included in the immigration legislation to allow our partners to stay in America. The LGBT community's issues were stripped from the healthcare legislation. While I appreciate the Attorney General's lovely Gay Pride speech, the record of opposing us every step of the way in the courts with inflamed language is appalling. Their failure to side with us in the courts on Proposition 8 is unforgivable. The failure to speak out in opposing the initiative in Maine was a cowardly political decision.
Progress with rules and regulations is greatly appreciated but at this rate I will be free man at the age of 100. Being included in Easter egg hunts, Father and Mother's Day proclamations are important symbolic acts. Inviting this new generation of leadership to the White House is a powerful image and I hope they had a great time. Going to the White House, no matter when you go, is always a delight. Witnessing the major LGBT appointments by this administration is admirable and reason to be proud We appreciate and honor those actions by this Administration.
However, we no longer are in the 1990's. Our movement has grown far beyond those actions. Our patience has been stretched thin. One step at a time just doesn't work for a people yearning to be free in their lifetime. So out of the over 1000 protections, benefits and rights granted to all other Americans who can get married, we apparently have about 990 to go with this kind of incremental approach.
The LGBT community has grown into a powerful civil rights movement. We have grown out of our "They like us, they really like us!" period into a community that wants total and complete equality and freedom now. Anything less will be inadequate and unacceptable in this time and age.
I look forward to not only rolling eggs on the lawn of the White House but to a time when an LGBT couple can get married in the White House. Washington's slow and piecemeal actions mean we have a very long way to go indeed to reach that place in the sun.
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jun 23 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/06/the-president-and-the-lgbt-community.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
President Given the fact that it is Gay Pride month, the White House reception for LGBT leaders and the huge amount of praise coming from LGBT leaders within the Beltway, perhaps it is a good time to pause and reflect on the President's record on LGBT issues. In a way, Mr. Obama's record can be viewed differently if you are just looking for a long list instead of the epic battles that cry for presidential leadership.
Two of the most significant accomplishments, that are indeed historical, are the passage of the Hate Crimes legislation and the just issued "Family Leave Policy" for corporations that do business with the government. Both are real milestones for the community and would not have come out of the last administration.
During the short tenure of his presidency, we have seen a significant number of employment policies and repeal of regulations that have been issued or changed for the better. A number of these steps just apply to Federal employees or a small select segment of the LGBT community. Yet, each step toward progress should be highly praised and acknowledged. Progress is progress. However, we would be making a major mistake in assuming that just a couple of steps at a time is adequate in an epic great struggle. Changing of regulations is absolutely welcomed but should not be confused with the bold leadership we need for full equality.
Also we must never fall into the trap of "Well he is a lot better than the alternative." Just because I am not being beaten doesn't mean I am free.
Freedom is absolute; there is no such thing as partial freedom. We are involved in daily struggle for full equality and freedom. The President must be judged on not incremental steps but on concrete actions that clearly show he is on the right side of history in this battle. Overall, the President doesn't seem to 'get it.' His failure to lead on so many fronts illustrates that he still believes we are a constituency group to be placated or just another long list of issues that is in front of him. There is no indication that he is yet willing to show the courage of a President Kennedy or President Johnson and take major, decisive and historic action. In actuality we have mostly seen timid and tepid responses to the major issues and at times downright hostility.
The record so far on those major issues is not good. For the last two years, with a vast majority in Congress, many of us have literally begged Washington to take action while the climate and vote counts were good. Did any individual in their right mind think that the vote count would get better in this next election? The best time to deal with these issues was last year. But we were told to wait until after health care. Now many politicians tell us he is swamped with the oil spill. Then we will be told he has to come to terms with this hopeless war in Afghanistan. Soon it will be election time and we will be urged to not force candidates to vote or our desires for freedom will defeat them. After the election, we will be informed that given the new make up of Congress he has to work with the Republicans to get anything done. Finally come 2012, they will tell us to wait until the second term because if we don't, we personally will be responsible in bringing back the people who hate us.
The record of this President and this Congress on DOMA, DADT and ENDA is dismal. The DADT 'compromise' promises us nothing but a promise that maybe it will be dealt with next year. There is no 'stop-loss' order, no mandate, no timeline and no criteria for implementation of the repeal. And even this compromise has yet to pass the United States Senate. We still don't know if we are included in the immigration legislation to allow our partners to stay in America. The LGBT community's issues were stripped from the healthcare legislation. While I appreciate the Attorney General's lovely Gay Pride speech, the record of opposing us every step of the way in the courts with inflamed language is appalling. Their failure to side with us in the courts on Proposition 8 is unforgivable. The failure to speak out in opposing the initiative in Maine was a cowardly political decision.
Progress with rules and regulations is greatly appreciated but at this rate I will be free man at the age of 100. Being included in Easter egg hunts, Father and Mother's Day proclamations are important symbolic acts. Inviting this new generation of leadership to the White House is a powerful image and I hope they had a great time. Going to the White House, no matter when you go, is always a delight. Witnessing the major LGBT appointments by this administration is admirable and reason to be proud We appreciate and honor those actions by this Administration.
However, we no longer are in the 1990's. Our movement has grown far beyond those actions. Our patience has been stretched thin. One step at a time just doesn't work for a people yearning to be free in their lifetime. So out of the over 1000 protections, benefits and rights granted to all other Americans who can get married, we apparently have about 990 to go with this kind of incremental approach.
The LGBT community has grown into a powerful civil rights movement. We have grown out of our "They like us, they really like us!" period into a community that wants total and complete equality and freedom now. Anything less will be inadequate and unacceptable in this time and age.
I look forward to not only rolling eggs on the lawn of the White House but to a time when an LGBT couple can get married in the White House. Washington's slow and piecemeal actions mean we have a very long way to go indeed to reach that place in the sun.
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