Obama, Election, and Prop 8

I remember May 16, the day the CA Supreme Court ruling upholding Same Sex Marriage was passed, I was doing laps up at UCSD.  As I mulled over the news suddenly I had to stop in the middle of the pool I was so taken aback.  I felt like the world had shifted.  I remember feeling that suddenly the world really had said, to me, “you are valid; you are worthwhile; you can love who you feel called to love.”  A couple of nights before I’d had a difficult conversation with my sister who is getting married this summer.  I was being irrational and unfair with a stressed out bride to be, venting my frustration at watching so many friends get married, and complaining that I couldn’t have that experience.  So as I swam I felt both silly for making such a fuss with my sister, and joyous that suddenly the impossible wasn’t.  That day it seemed a hole had broken through the wall between us and the Kingdom of God and the light was shining through.

We’ve heard a great deal about hope this election.  Many of us have been inspired by what has been called, “nothing short of a peaceful, orderly and constitutional overthrow of a tyrannical, violent and unjust government.“  In so many ways this election became a reason to hope, and the results were a realization of that hope.  45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” the United States of America has elected its first African American president.  Dr. King knew that Christian hope is located in the Kingdom of God, what Desmond Tutu calls “God’s dream.”  Dr. King’s dream was God’s dream.  He said, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; ‘and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’”  This is the dream, this is the kingdom, a place where justice reigns and love is the only law.

This Kingdom of God is both our hoped for destination, and at moments it breaks through into the present.  It broke through when the US Court ruled that segregation was not equal protection under the law.  It broke through when women’s right to vote was acknowledged.  It broke through when Katherine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop.  It broke through as Barack Obama spoke Wednesday night as the newly elected president.

That May afternoon in San Diego I could feel the light shining through a fresh hole in the wall that separates us from the Kingdom of God.
Then someone decided to throw a patch up over that hole.

As Senator Obama spoke, the votes were being tallied in California that would take away the newly recognized right to marriage for Same Sex attracted people.  Proposition 8 passed by a tiny majority.

I have been amazed by the responses from so many of my friends, especially my straight friends.  Allies across the state sent messages of sympathy and anger at the results.  They couldn’t believe that Prop 8 had passed.  I was blown away that people had made contributions in my name to the No on 8 campaign and were so concerned about my rights.

While I think justice fell short a few days ago, I know that it is a simple patch in the wall that is coming down.  Christians believe that we will get to that hoped for Kingdom.  Dr. King knew setbacks.  Still he said:

“With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

So do not despair.  Continue to tell your story, or the story of the ones you love who love people of the same gender.  Let’s bring more than 51% of people with us to the Kingdom.