Asterisk

There’s a bit of a dust up going on in university and legal circles. It seems that many universities require that in order to obtain official approval, any club must agree to the school’s anti-bias policy. Some clubs are refusing based on their objection to the inclusion of homosexuals in that policy. The university then denies approval, which leads the club (with religious right backing) to take the them to court.

One major test case comes from the Hastings College of Law of the University of California. According to the original opinion (pdf), the Hastings College anti-bias policy is as follows:

The College is committed to a policy against legally impermissible, arbitrary or unreasonable discriminatory practices. All groups, including administration, faculty, student governments, College-owned student residence facilities and programs sponsored by the College, are governed by this policy of nondiscrimination….

The University of California, Hastings College of the Law shall not discriminate unlawfully on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation. This nondiscrimination policy covers admission, access and treatment in Hastings-sponsored programs and activities.

The problem is that the Hastings Christian Fellowship (HCF) became affiliated with the Christian Legal Fellowship (CLF) in 2004. The CLF (stay with me!) requires that all members a) sign a statement of faith, and b) not participate in “unrepentant homosexual conduct”. This requirement broke two of the stipulations in the Hastings policy, meaning that the HCF could not gain official status, which meant that the HCF couldn’t use the school’s name or school grounds.

The CLF took the case to court, arguing that the religious basis of the club’s rule should take precidence over the Hastings rule. The court found  (in the pdf I linked to above) that Hastings was within its rights to deny approval.

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling. The decision is two sentences long.

The parties stipulate that Hastings imposes an open membership rule on all student groups — all groups must accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group. The conditions on recognition are therefore viewpoint neutral and reasonable.

Note that the problem is not that the HCF doesn’t want The Homosexuals. The problem is that agreeing to that is a requirement for membership. You can not want The Homosexuals you want, but make it official and you’ve got a problem.

This issue is expected to get to the Supreme Court soon, possibly with the Hastings case.

I’d like to think that if I were the parent of a gay teen I’d be doing as good a job as Natali Quintanilla. Her son Chris is 14 this year, and is out enough to be comfortable wearing a rainbow wristband with “Rainbows are gay” on it. (He apparently got it at Hot Topic, where all the kids get their tacky novelty accessories.)

Anyway, some of Chris’s teachers decided they were offended by his wristband and…well, I’ll let the ACLU tell you what happened next.

After a school principal told a gay 14-year-old student to turn his rainbow wristband inside-out or stop wearing it to school, the American Civil Liberties Union today demanded that the school district rescind its ban of the wristband. In a letter sent to Peoria Unified School District, the ACLU said that the principal’s demand violates Chris Quintanilla’s constitutional rights, pointing to a 40-year-old landmark Supreme Court decision guaranteeing students’ free speech and expression.

“When I asked my son’s principal why he wouldn’t be allowed to wear his wristband to school anymore, he said some teachers found it offensive,” said Natali Quintanilla, mother of the eighth grader whose wristband was banned. “My son is honest and happy about who he is, and I love him and support his right to be himself. There are a lot of things teachers should be more concerned about than one little wristband – like educating our children.”

Okay, first of all, don’t you love Ms. Quintanilla? Isn’t she the best? Her son is who he is and rather than telling him to stop being gay or suggesting that he at least tone it down so people won’t make trouble, she calls Principal David Svorinic and gives him what for. And when that didn’t work…

Quintanilla contacted the ACLU last month after her son Chris’s principal told her he wouldn’t allow her son to wear his cloth wristband with words “Rainbows are gay” to school anymore. When her son was harassed for being gay earlier this school year, Quintanilla said the same principal told her, “If he didn’t put it out there the way he does, he wouldn’t have much of a problem.”

Emphasis on that last line is mine. Principal Svorinic has a history with young Chris, and not a good one. According to Ms. Quintanilla, he seems to think that Chris getting bullied is Chris’s fault. It’s sad how often that happens.

The ACLU has sent a polite letter (pdf) to Dr. Denton Santarelli, Superintendent of the Peoria (Arizona) Unified Schools, requesting that he correct the situation by March 27, 2009. (For more details on the most recent cited court cases, see Florida Community Backs Gay-Bashing Principal from last May.)

Hopefully this will be over by April. If not, the people in the Peoria Unified School District will be looking for a way to pay for attorneys. Regardless of how long it takes, big ups to Natali and Chris Quintanilla. Your bravery is inspirational, quite surely even to some people in the school who haven’t come out yet. Keep it up!

And Chris? Stay away from the Hot Topic, hon. You’ll thank me in 20 years.

h/t Joe.My.God

In an editorial yesterday, the Washington Post came out in favor of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). This bill (H.R. 1024, S. 424) amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to permit lesbians and gay men to sponsor their partner/spouse for immigration, a common practice for straight couples.

The Uniting American Families Act would allow gay and lesbian Americans and permanent residents to sponsor their foreign-born partners for legal residency in the United States. The bill, introduced last month in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and in the House by Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), would add “permanent partner” and “permanent partnership” after the words “spouse” and “marriage” in relevant sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. If passed, it would right a gross unfairness.

Under the proposal, a “permanent partnership” is defined as a “committed, intimate relationship” with another adult “in which both parties intend a lifelong commitment.” The couple must be financially interdependent and not married to or in a permanent partnership with anyone else. And the partners can’t be related. The benefit comes with the same immigration restrictions and enforcement standards that apply to heterosexual couples. Fraudulent permanent partnerships face the same penalties as fake marriages: up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

“Under current law, committed same-sex foreign partners of American citizens are unable to use the family immigration system, which accounts for a majority of the green cards and immigrant visas granted annually by the United States,” Mr. Leahy said upon introducing the bill. “The promotion of family unity has long been part of federal immigration policy, and we should honor that principle by providing all Americans the opportunity to be with their loved ones.” According to the most recent census, he added, about 35,000 binational, same-sex couples are living in the United States. The new legislation would ensure that the family connections valued under immigration law are extended to gays and lesbians.

The strain of the status quo on gay and lesbian binational couples should not be discounted. Because their relationships are not legally recognized by the United States, some couples have resorted to illegal marriages where the foreign nationals marry Americans to get green cards that allow them to stay in the country permanently. In other cases, Americans have exiled themselves to be with their partners. Sixteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United Kingdom, allow residents to sponsor same-sex permanent partners for legal immigration. American gays and lesbians should not have to choose between their country and their partners.

This important issue is generally left on the sidelines, and unfairly so. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that overturning DOMA or otherwise ensuring (federal, not state) marriage equality would grant this automatic benefit of civil marriage. Nevertheless, it’s good to see immigration inequality getting some press.

This is the sixth time this issue has been introduced in Congress in the last nine years. The previous five attempts ended with the bill stuck in the Judiciary Committees. Hopefully it will fare better this time. I seem to remember reading that President Obama was all for it.

For more information on this important issue, please visit Immigration Equality.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that before last night I’d never heard of Bishop Melvin E. Wheatley, Jr., who passed away earlier this month. Now I find that we Methodists, and we gay Methodists, owe him a debt of gratitude for being the first UM Bishop to stand up for equal rights in the 1970s and 80s. He was a man of uncommon courage and resolve.

To get both secular and spiritual perspectives on Bishop Wheatley’s life, I’ll be pulling from articles by Elaine Woo for the LA Times and Linda Green for the United Methodist News Service.

(UMNS) Bishop Melvin E. Wheatley Jr., a champion of gay rights in The United Methodist Church, died March 1 after a prolonged illness.

Wheatley, 93, retired, of Laguna Woods, Calif., had been residing in a private board and care residence in Mission Viejo, Calif.

He received an award of appreciation in 1984 from Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. “Arrogant judgmentalism as some have experienced by society, even religious institutions, is too great a price for society to be able to continue to pay,” he said at that time.

A quote from another source: “The scriptures at no point deal with homosexuality as sexual orientation…Those acts labeled as wrong out of the context of the times in which the writers wrote and perceived those acts to be either idolatrous, exploitative, or pagan. The kind of relationships between two consenting adults of the same sex which are mutual, affirming and fulfilling are not dealt with in the Scriptures. Homosexuality is an authentic condition of being with which some persons are endowed (a gift of God, if you please), not an optional sexual lifestyle which they have willfully, whimsically or sinfully chosen.”

(LAT) As an associate pastor in Fresno during World War II, he caused a stir when he moved into the home of a Japanese American family to protect it from vandals after the family was ordered into an internment camp. Two decades later in Westwood, he broke down racial barriers by exchanging pulpits with the Rev. L.L. White of Holman Methodist Church in Central Los Angeles. The exchange took place in 1964, a year before the Watts riots.

In 1972, the year he became bishop, the United Methodist Church took its first official stand against homosexuality. Six years later, in 1978, Wheatley stunned his fellow bishops when he announced that he could not support any church teaching that discriminated against members because of their sexual orientation.

In an emotional speech, he declared that he and his wife, Lucile, knew and cherished several gay people whose lives were “as close to authentic Christian living as we perceive ourselves to be.” Those individuals, he added, included one of his own sons, John, who came out to his family in 1973. At the church’s 1980 General Conference, he was the only bishop who refused to sign the statement that condemned “the practice of homosexuality” and called it “incompatible” with Christian teaching.

Bishop Wheatley with wife Lucille in a 1982 picture

(LAT) In 1982, [Rev. Julian] Rush, a youth minister in Boulder, Colo., told Wheatley and other church officials that he was separating from his wife because he was gay. A parish committee asked that Rush be removed from his post.

Rush later told the New Yorker magazine that he expected to “fold my tent and quietly steal away,” but Wheatley wanted him to remain at the church until a compromise could be reached. After months of controversy, Wheatley reassigned him to a Denver parish that had a large number of gay congregants.

Despite sharp questioning at a hearing held by a national church panel, Wheatley did not back down from his belief that homosexuality was not a sin. On the contrary, he told the seven-member panel hearing his case, “Homosexuality is a mysterious gift of God’s grace.”

Rev. Rush’s story can be found in the biography Julian Rush-Facing the Music.

(UMNS) “[Wheatley] was one of the great preachers of our generation,” said Bishop Jack Tuell, Des Moines, Wash. “He was a gentle and loving man but fearless in his advocacy for the truth.”

A memorial service will be held March 22 at Westwood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Wheatley served this church for 18 years before his election as bishop.

In addition to his wife, Lucile, and son, James, of Kauai, Hawaii, he is also survived by another son, Paul, of Valley Center, Calif. Memorials may be made to the Reconciling Ministries Network, 3801 North Keeler Avenue Chicago, IL 60641 and to Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90024.

Good news from the Transylvania district of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in central/eastern Kentucky this week in a report from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The commissioners of the Presbytery of Transylvania, which includes 56 Central and Eastern Kentucky counties, voted 83-61 Tuesday to approve an amendment that, if supported by the majority of the presbyteries in the United States, would open the door for gays and lesbians to be ordained as pastors, elders and deacons.

The proposal is being considered by each of the nation’s 173 presbyteries. It would have to be accepted by a simple majority of them to take effect.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has considered such amendments to its Book of Order several times since 1996, when an amendment was put in place requiring church officers to live “in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

Keep in mind that the proposed amendment (labeled 08-B) doesn’t simply remove the language from 1996. Instead, it proposes replacing it with this:

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.

I’m still trying to figure out the structure of the Presbyterian Church (And I thought Methodists liked bureaucracy!), but from what I can tell, the inclusion of the amendment was voted on by the General Assembly last summer, passing with a fairly close vote of 380-325-3. The much smaller Church Orders and Ministry Committee passed the amendment on to the Presbyteries with a much clearer majority of 41-11-0.

You can see the full text of the amendment with comments from the minority in the Church Orders and Ministry Committee here. According to the More Light Presbyterians (MLP), the LGBT advocacy group in the Presbyterian Church, the odds seem stacked against us with the current tally 43-71 with 59 still to vote.

While the outlook is relatively bleak (but still hopeful!) for this amendment, MLP points out that there is evidence of a major shift since the last amendment attempt in 2002. Of the votes so far, 19 Presbyteries have flipped their vote in favor of LGBT inclusion, 83 have moved that way regardless of the outcome, and three of the ‘no’ votes are actually ties. You can see a full rundown of the statistics for the vote here.

You’re getting there, LGBT Presbies! Keep up the pressure!