When the man who was once called Richard Nixon’s hatchet man steps up to the podium to deliver a statement of conscience along with 150 or so right wing evangelical and catholic leaders, you can safely bet that conscience has nothing to do with what is about to be said. As I write this, the full 4000 plus word “Manhattan Document” Colson and friends are set to announce at the National Press Club today is not yet available for anyone to actually see. But it’s being advertised as a call for “Christians” to, among other things, disobey government regulations giving their gay and lesbian neighbors equal access to jobs and services paid for with tax dollars.
I put the word “Christians” in quotes, not to mock anyone’s identification as such, but to emphasize how often, and how casually, the religious right uses the word as if they are the trademark owners. And they’re not the owners of that word any more then the money they’re declaring today that they’ll spend however they darn well please.
The document they’re calling their “Manhattan Declaration”, even though it will be unveiled today in Washington D.C. not Manhattan, pledges that “…that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence”. The document attempts to draw a line in the sand when it comes to government attempts to require compliance with any civil rights ordinances the signers find objectionable. So then, it is a document intended, clearly, to intimidate the rest of America that believes in that united we stand, liberty and justice for all stuff.
It declares, according to The Catholic News Agency, that while the signers “…recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not…” they…
“…will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”
Emphasis mine. This would be the same Catholic church that recently announced it would stop feeding the homeless in Washington D.C. if it had to obey D.C. laws forbidding discrimination against gay citizens. Let me say a couple things about this: first, if you take tax money you have to abide by the strings attached to it. There isn’t a government contractor who doesn’t understand how this relationship works. I know, because I have worked in that environment myself. This isn’t religious persecution, it’s called accountability. And the government isn’t accountable to the pulpit, it’s accountable to the pews. It’s their money gentlemen, not yours. Not until it goes into a collection plate anyway.
Secondly, if you run a business or operate a public service, you have to abide by this nation’s civil rights laws. This isn’t a new argument…we’ve been having it for ages. Where is the line between the bigot’s freedom to be a bigot and the nation’s promise of liberty and justice to all? The first civil rights laws ever passed in The United States, so I am told, were passed back in the 1800s in New York City to protect Irish Catholics. You can still find “No Irish” signs at the random flea market, along with the ones reading “Whites Only” and “No Indians After 5PM” (I actually saw one of those). However, nowadays we are The United States Of America, not the Loose Collection Of Various Your Kind Isn’t Welcome Here Signs.
Finally…please….you are not being asked to “bless” anything. Just do the work or provide the services you contracted with the government to do with its money. Your power to bless is very awesome, but governments don’t spend taxpayer money for blessings.
Christians…capital ‘C’ are not being told anything by the government. Government contractors are being told how they must spend government money. Business are being told they must abide by civil rights laws. Organizations that want tax breaks are being told the rules for applying for, and holding onto those tax breaks. Whether they’re Christians or not. I get a tax break every year on the interest on my mortgage, and you’d better believe I stay inside the line when it comes to filing for it. What makes you think you’re any different? Think you’re blessed do you?
There are those Christian groups who get tax breaks for providing goods and services to the public and gladly abide by the rules saying they can’t discriminate against their gay and lesbian neighbors, because they wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing in the first place. So the government is not discriminating against Christians. If that’s not your idea of Christianity gentlemen, then spend your own money.
One more thing. In a column about all this over at The Christian Post, Mr. Colson takes a swing at that horrible state of New Jersey for taking away the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association’s tax break…
It isn’t hard to cite numerous cases where Christian organizations and individuals have been singled out and punished for adhering to their faith.
In New Jersey, a Methodist camp lost its tax exempt status for refusing to hold a same-sex civil union ceremony…
Er…no. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association got a tax break in exchange for allowing the public to use, among other things, its boardwalk pavilion…which the public had before the lawsuit for a variety of activities, including the marriages of people who were neither Methodist nor Christian. When a same-sex couple asked to use it the Association balked, reneged on its deal with the state, and called the resulting revocation of its tax break religious persecution. I suppose a lot of people would like to get free money from the government.
Different boss…same hatchet…
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[...] 145 fundamentalist, evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian activists, who claimed they were above the law and would refuse to obey state rules unless they were in alignment with their sectarian church [...]
Pingback by Truth Wins Out - TWO Declares That ‘Manhattan Declaration’ is Bigoted, Lawless and a Danger to American Values — November 20, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
Well good, looks like us gay-guys and gay-gals can keep sitting on our a**. The people of the “good” books will be the ones staging the sit-ins and getting arrested for civil disobedience. Unless of course it turns out they don’t have anything to really protest… First they dismantled the “welfare state”, so we’ll dismantle the “religious welfare state”. That’s what tax-free addiction and “special rights” will get ya: cold-turkey withdrawls. Chuck musta seen some of that while in prison. I’m sure that’s not all he saw…
Comment by LawsLuvr — November 20, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
It sure does appear that they want special rights.
Comment by Wayne Besen — November 20, 2009 @ 6:02 pm
Funny how they keep screaming that we want “special rights” when it is they who have them, and want even more of them.
Comment by Buffy — November 20, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
This shows them for what they are: bigots (not that we haven’t known that all along). This is indeed a lawless and dangerous declaration. Everyone is supposed to obey the law except Christians and other fundies if they happen to not feel like it.
Yes, Wayne it certainly looks like they want special rights, amongst them the right to discriminate. I personally don’t give a damn what they want to believe—fine, whatever. But when they want to use that belief to opress me as well as the rest of the GLBTQ community, that is too much.
No one has said the fundies can’t believe their nonsense, but they have no right to foist it on the rest of us. I guess I should have expected something like this. These people are fanatics and will stop at nothing. And here’s the irony: the fundies and the Catholic fundies are using each other: the Catholics consider the Protestants to be heretics and many fundies consider the Church of Rome to be little better than Paganism with a thin Christian veneer. Hopefully this unholy alliance will eventually fall apart.
I am saying flat out, fellow-GLBTQ’ers: this is yet another step towards building anger and resisitance which could lead to violence against GLBTQ’ers. These people are not the pacifists that they claim to be–and never have been. I read this thing and got a chill down my spine: it would take very little to set these people off, thinking they are called to “kill a queer for Christ”. Calls for this are already being made in the more radical Evangelical communities, such as a minister in the Phoenix area who is bluntly saying that GLBTQ people ought to be executed.
The point made by Wayne is correct: if you take government money, you are not allowed to discriminate. Against anyone. Period. If all these Catholics and other fundies want to discriminate, then go right ahead–BUT GIVE UP THE TAX BREAKS AND FEDERAL FUNDING. This is a clear-cut case of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. These people are hypocrites and dangerous.
Comment by Merlyn — November 20, 2009 @ 8:37 pm
Let’s see now, exactly how many people have been forced out of the military? And how many are active or affiliated with the SLDN.org? Many thousands? Is that enough for a militia, to help provide for “our common defense”? Because if neither Republicans nor Democrats have any real interest as Reps/Senators or Parties to strenuously and continuously speak out and speak AGAINST our own religious extremism… oops, excuse me: I mean christian supremacists.. then we may eventually have no other way to protect ourselves. I agree with Merlyn, their words and ideas are both hypocritical and dangerous. But, historically, especially as related to Catholicism, THEY ARE NOT UNPRECEDENTED. The Catholic Church organizationally has never, in thousands of years, had a problem using threats, violence and war to backup their claims of heavenly authority.
“Bishop” Harry Jackson promised this campaign to be “the armageddon of the marriage battle…” and he is keeping his promise. And all that our gov’t is promising us is to investigate hate crimes: AFTER our friends have been burned, stabbed, shot, decapitated and dismembered. That is grossly inadequate, on a scale of 1/10 the action needed.
Comment by LawsLuvr — November 21, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
Tristero has a great take on this over at Digby’s place.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/christianist-manifesto-partial-fisking.html
Comment by Evan — November 22, 2009 @ 12:21 am
[...] their ivory tower aloofness from the same civil laws we heathens must observe. complete at: http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/11/4893/ orhttp://tinyurl.com/y93k8el EXCERPT: This would be the same Catholic church that recently [...]
Pingback by Religious Right is Demanding Special Rights « Women Born Transsexual — November 22, 2009 @ 1:27 am
The folks at AXIOS the Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christian organization would like to see the list of clergy namily the Orthodox Christian sign-ons to this “Manhattan…..” document. It’s sort of strange the Eastern Orthodox clergy if that’s what your refering to when you see Orhodox clergy usaully do’t take a activists stand on issues. They only recently came out of the closet (about 10 ten years ago)& started attending these pro life rallies and on gay marriage. I like to see many of their asses at these so few anti war demo’s or doing AIDS work, or stand up againist hate crimes, or even stand up & be counted for single payer. Though many of our church leaders would forcus on personal spritiual issues they can’t just put their heads in the sand and ignor these other needs just outside their door. He we know those who do all these things but dam there aren’t evough of them. So to close this please send us the info or link to this document and their sign ons to me at: georplagian@cs.com. We’ll do our best to have them take off their names. Thanks again for posting this, Sincerely, Geoege Plagianos at AXIOS in NYC
Comment by George Plagianos — November 22, 2009 @ 6:47 am
Hi George. It would indeed be interesting. I am trying to run the rumour down, but I understand that Met. Jonah of the OCA signed. Given their notable abscence in other activist causes, I find it interesting that they can get all fired up over this. I guess things like single payer insurance and AIDS and anti-war work are a bit too far afield. This was my big beef with them when I was still in monastic life–I always felt as if people wondered about me because I did AIDS nursing. It was like, “How noble. But don’t sit too close to me. I don’t want to catch it.” Seriously. I ran into some of the most incredibly homophobic individuals in Orthodoxy that I have ever met–anywhere.
I suspect they want to get high-profile in this whole anti-abortion/anti-marriage equality thing because most converts over the past few years have been Anglicans who are upset at the Episcopal Church’s having come into the 21st Century.
Comment by Merlyn — November 23, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
I guess there is no edit thing on here, but I wanted to say thanks and I wish you the best in getting these people to take their names off of this document. BTW, it would be interesting to know how many of the Orthodox signatories are themselves GLBTQ.
Comment by Merlyn — November 23, 2009 @ 12:35 pm