Culture War Skirmishes

Alright, so it's the Christians versus the gays. Again. You were missing it, weren't you?

What's it been - a week? Two? I've just finished trying to understand the primates meeting in Tanzania, and what it means for gay American Episcopalians (I'm still a little baffled). Just in time for the next round of of the war.

And "war" its the word, according the NY Times piece about a 25,000 member Christian youth rally whose "rhetoric used onstage... is overtly antigay and subtly militaristic." Nothing new here, right? Oh yeah - the organizers set up their stage in San Francisco. Um... again.

It is not the first time that BattleCry has gotten the cold shoulder from San Franciscans. The group held a concert here last year, an event that was greeted by a resolution from the Board of Supervisors calling BattleCry a “right-wing Christian fundamentalist group” trying “to negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

BattleCry officials complain that the city has made their lives difficult by imposing noise restrictions on a planned Saturday-morning celebration. City officials said the restrictions came after numerous complaints about last year’s event.

The dispute may come to a head on Friday afternoon when hundreds of Christian teenagers are expected to congregate on the steps of City Hall to pray and “raise their voices on behalf of their generation,” organizers said. A group opposing BattleCry plans to protest alongside.

Something called BattleCry is "subtly" militaristic? Is that dry wit from the Old Grey Lady? The kids just want a place where "young Christians [can] speak out against what they view as destructive cultural elements, including sex on television, obscene music and violent video games." And apparently Topeka's after-hours scene was lame.

From Adelle Banks at Religion News Service, a great blog catch: A prominent Southern Baptist, Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., says that homosexuality should be genetically nipped in the womb.

"If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin," Mohler wrote in advice for Christians.

This will presumably forestall any Anglican-style clashes when the Southern Baptist Convention faces that issue sometime in the 23rd Century.

Big implications here, as Banks noted, since many Christians believe that homosexuality is a choice. If it is not, there are theological implications, aren't there? Help me understand. Is Andrew Sullivan in the house?

And lastly, from my old stomping grounds, the latest development in the Harper v. Poway case, which was seen by the Supreme Court this week. To catch you up, Tyler Chase Harper wore a shirt with the Bible verse Romans 1:27 and "Homosexuality is shameful" during his high school's "Day of Silence" bringing attention to gay and lesbian issues. The school told him to remove the shirt.

The Supreme Court, in a squirrely move, decided that Harper no longer had any standing to sue the school since he graduated (the incident was in 2004). The school's policy stands.

Which is kind of a shame - that the Supreme Court backed out, I mean. The Bible is pretty unequivocal about the sinfulness of same-sex love, while our culture, more and more, is trying on the idea that gay and lesbian people are entitled to equal rights and recognition under the law. There's a growing pain here. The language that this plays itself out in is, for the moment, religion. And some black-robed wisdom on the topic would have been welcome.

My thoughts? Equivocal. I'll defer to Lance Bass, the gay former boy band-it:

Q:Did your mom ask you if you would still go to church?

A:Yeah, definitely. And I still go to church. I'm still Christian. I was not raised in a Christian church to hate people. I was taught to love people and accept people. I know what I believe.