The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage - TIME

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE
• HOW GAY MARRIAGE WON
• HOW EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE
• INSI THE EVANGELIL FIGHT OVER GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE ALREADY WON | APR. 8, 2013
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF: GAY MARRIAGE
• THE BATTLE OVER GAY MARRIAGE
• MORE THAN 300 REPUBLINS CALL ON SUPREME COURT TO REGNIZE GAY MARRIAGE NATNALLY
• TOP EVANGELIL COLLEGE GROUP TO DISMISS EMPLOYE WHO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
• THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR GAY MARRIAGE
• INTERNATNAL GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY WEDDGS AND MARRIAGE MAGAZE- ALL ISSU
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

GAY MARRIAGE

“It would be a ep psychologil and emotnal blow to a lot of gay, lbian, and bisexual people to be told that even if their state has to regnize a marriage formed out of the state, that their state nohels disapprov of their relatnship and effectively nsirs them send class cizens, ” says Michael Boui, a law profsor at the Universy of Buffalo. When at last the doors of the whe marble temple swung open on March 26 for the first of two ssns voted to the subject, the lucky on found seats time to hear Jtice Anthony Kennedy — thor of two important earlier cisns favor of gay rights and likely a key vote this time as well — turn the tabl on the attorney fendg the tradnalist view. Charl Cooper was extollg heterosexual marriage as the bt arrangement which to raise children when Kennedy terjected: What about the roughly 40, 000 children of gay and lbian upl livg California?

Wh stunng speed, a ncept dismissed even by most gay-rights lears jt 20 years ago is now embraced by half or more of all Amerins, wh support among young voters nng as high as 4 to 1. Begng wh the Netherlands 2001, untri om Argenta to Belgium to Canada — along wh ne stat and the District of Columbia — have extend marriage rights to lbian and gay upl.

But 2012, the newly nverted supporter Barack Obama sailed to an easy victory over Mt Romney, himself an avowed fan of Morn Fay — a h TV show which a voted gay uple negotiat the perils of parenthood wh adpan hilary.

HOW GAY MARRIAGE WON

The marriage license is the last fensible distctn between the rights of gay and straight upl, Cooper told the Jtic as he steeled himself to fend that le. Neher polil party gave a ht of support before last year, nor was marriage part of the so-lled homosexual agenda so worrisome to social-nservative lears. For s, proment gay-rights activists dismissed the right to marry as a quixotic, even dangero, e and gave no support to the men and women at the grassroots who lnched the uphill movement.

Homosexualy was still classified as a mental illns by the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, and even Universy of Mnota profsor Allan Spear, a gay-rights pneer, lled Baker and McConnell “the lunatic ge. (GRAPHIC: Pri and Prejudice: And Interactive Timele of the Fight for Gay Rights) In an opn that ced the Book of Genis, among other thori, the Mnota Supreme Court rejected his claim, and his appeal to the U. By the mid-1980s, the Amerin Civil Liberti Unn believed the ncept had advanced far enough to shield the timate behavr of gay men and lbians.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the reigng mol of liberated gay culture was found mecs like San Francis’s Castro Street and New York Cy’s Greenwich Village, where people sffed at the ia of g out of the closet only to enter the nf of wedlock.

HOW EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE

Add adoptns and stepkids om earlier oppose-sex relatnships, and today there are enough children of lbian and gay upl Ameri to fill a uple of football stadiums. The Battle of Ias John Boswell was a dashg young member of Yale’s all-star history faculty 1980 when he published Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, which went on to w the Natnal Book Award. But was a journalist, Andrew Sullivan, who shoved the issue out of amia and onto the liberal agenda wh a 1989 say for the New Republic amed, arrtgly, as “A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage.

INSI THE EVANGELIL FIGHT OVER GAY MARRIAGE

Fs and Starts Still, gay-rights anizatns remaed leery of the marriage issue, preferrg to attack ls formidable barriers like the ban on homosexuals the ary. When Wolfson graduated om Harvard and later went to work for Lambda Legal, the leadg gay-rights legal anizatn, he says his boss advised him to pursue his marriage strategy on his own time.

GAY MARRIAGE ALREADY WON | APR. 8, 2013

To head off the possibily that same-sex marriage one state might quickly lead to married gay and lbian upl everywhere, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was troduced. This setback, g on the heels of the Pentagon’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, moralized Elizabeth Birch, then executive director of the leadg gay advocy group, the Human Rights Campaign. Evans, 1996, stck down a ballot measure Colorado that would have barred ci and towns om cludg homosexuals their antidiscrimatn statut.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF: GAY MARRIAGE

Gays and lbians enjoy the same right to privacy their timate liv as heterosexuals, Kennedy clared, while a separate ncurrg opn, Jtice Sandra Day O’Connor add plaly, “Moral disapproval of a group nnot be a legimate ernmental tert unr the Equal Protectn Clse.

The person next door, the next office cubicle, the person seated next to you at Thanksgivg dner or Passover ser or the pew church uld be gay.

My magaze story for TIME this week, “A Change of Heart, ” is a ep dive to the changg allegianc and divis evangelil church and muni over homosexualy.

THE BATTLE OVER GAY MARRIAGE

Support for gay marriage across all age groups of whe evangelils has creased by double digs over the past , acrdg to the Public Relign Rearch Instute, and the fastt change n be found among younger evangelils—their support for gay marriage jumped om 20% 2003 to 42% 2014. “I refe to go to a church where my iends who are gay are exclud om Communn or a marriage venant or the bety of Christian muny, ” Meeks tells me.

At the Southern Baptist Conventn’s three-day, October bootmp to tra more than 1, 300 evangelils to double down agast gay marriage, Stanley met together wh both LGBT evangelil advot and SBC lears for a closed-door nversatn about whether their different views on gay marriage put them outsi the fah. Brandan Robertson, 22, is the natnal spokperson for Evangelils for Marriage Equaly, an effort started by lennials to help evangelils support civil gay marriag, if not marriag church.

MORE THAN 300 REPUBLINS CALL ON SUPREME COURT TO REGNIZE GAY MARRIAGE NATNALLY

Jt Lee, 37, of the Gay Christian Network hosted his 11th annual nference last week Portland, Ore., and 1, 400 people attend, double the number who me last year. Lee’s iendship wh Alan Chambers, the former head of the ex-gay anizatn Exod Internatnal, was one of the key factors that led Chambers to apologize for the hurt his anizatn ed, and the anizatn shut down.

TOP EVANGELIL COLLEGE GROUP TO DISMISS EMPLOYE WHO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

For the past six months, the church has played a short wele vio at the start of every service that clus the le “Gay or straight here, there’s no hate here. Pastor Ryan Meeks, 36, regularly preach an unual brand of evangelilism that prais J but steers clear of pro-Ameri, pro-gun and anti-gay rhetoric.

“I refe to go to a church where my iends who are gay are exclud om Communn or a marriage venant or the bety of Christian muny, ” he says. Support for gay marriage across all age groups of whe evangelils has creased by double digs over the past , acrdg to the Public Relign Rearch Instute. The Gay Christian Network’s Jt Lee, 37, hosted his 11th annual nference this month Portland, Ore., and attendance swelled to 1, 400, double the size of last year’s.

THE CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR GAY MARRIAGE

(Lee’s iendship wh Alan Chambers, former print of the ntroversial Exod Internatnal mistry, which claimed to cure gays of homosexualy, helped prompt Chambers to publicly apologize for the hurt Exod had ed, and the group shut down.

Now Lee and Chambers have been workg together wh the Colossian Fom Grand Rapids, Mich., to help evangelils warm to the gay nversatn. ) “The creasg efforts by evangelils, and pecially a new breed of young activists, to re-exame their attus and beliefs about LGBT people is a wele velopment, ” says Gene Robson, the first openly gay and partnered bishop the Epispal Church.

INTERNATNAL GAY MARRIAGE

When Dan Haselte, the lead volist of the wily popular Christian band Jars of Clay, tweeted April, “I jt don’t see a negative effect to allowg gay marriage. Baptist pastor Danny Cortez of New Heart Communy outsi Los Angel told his church Febary that after thkg about for 15 years, and after his son me out to him, he cid to bee gay affirmg. Illois’s Wheaton College, Billy Graham’s alma mater, do not regnize alumni gay marriag, but this fall hired a celibate lbian to work s chapla’s office.

Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Universy hired an openly gay choreographer to assist wh a mp productn of Mary Popps last sprg and then backtracked by sayg he was an pennt ntractor, not an official employee. Eastern Mennone Universy engaged a six-month “listeng perd” 2014 to nsir changg s prohibn on hirg gay, partnered faculty, but cid to lay a fal cisn bee, as the chair of the board of tste said, “the church is currently engaged extensive discernment over human sexualy.

And at the Southern Baptist Conventn’s three-day October boot mp to tra more than 1, 300 evangelils to double down agast the “moral revolutn” acceptg homosexualy Ameri, Stanley joed SBC reprentativ to meet behd the scen wh V, Robertson, Lee and a handful of other LGBT evangelil advot for an hont nversatn about whether their theologil support for–or opposn to–gay marriage puts them outsi the fah. Genis Chapter 1 says God created male and female for one another, and the Apostle Pl lls homosexualy a s, errantists say, and for groups like the Southern Baptist Conventn and s 50, 000 church natnwi, that is the biblil tmp rd. The same reasong that nclus that homosexualy is s is also behd the tradnal evangelil view that hbands are the spirual lears of marriag and men are the lears church.

GAY WEDDGS AND MARRIAGE MAGAZE- ALL ISSU

Lbians face the double whammy–an evangelil world where learship has long revolved around straight men has twice the trouble hearg them bee they are both female and gay.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

“Discrimatory attus and treatment of LGBT people is rooted patriarchy, and orr to embrace and affirm gays, evangelils will have to addrs their own patriarchy and sexism, not jt their nmnatn of LGBT people. As the gay-marriage wave begs to lap at the door of evangelil church, many evangelil legal thkers have ramped up the argument that eedom of relign is nstutnally equal to eedom of speech. “As I engage private nversatns wh pastors across the untry, many adm they have chosen to dig their heels on homosexualy not as a rult of reful study or reflectn of the biblil text but out of fear, ” explas Michael Kimpan, executive director of the Mar Foundatn, a nonprof that seeks to build lks between LGBT and fah muni.

Twenty (32 km) south of EastLake, at Overlake Christian Church, Lda and Rob Robertson (no relatn to Brandan), whose gay son died of plitns after a dg overdose, now n a weekly Bible-study group for about 40 LGBT adults the Seattle area.

Lda ns a private Facebook group, Jt Bee They Breathe, for nearly 350 nservative evangelil moms of gay and lbian children natnwi to rencile their fah wh their love for their children. But stead, beme a high-water mark for same-sex marriage as the acrimon bate over the issue raged on--a moment equaled only by a California Supreme Court's lg mid-May overturng the state's ban on gay marriage.