Branding or Just Obvious Naming?

Senior Pastor Emeritus Jan Hettinga of Northshore Baptist who is against gay marriage thinks that gay rights supporters were smart in "strategy" for branding the disagreement over same-sex marriage as "hated and bigotry". (Seattle Times July 21, 2009) That statement makes me stop for a moment. How would you describe a philosophy and activism that tries to intrude on people's bedrooms, tries to keep loved ones from being able to be at the bedside of their dyng life partner, tries to make the children of gays and lesbians feel demeaned....how would you name those beliefs and attempts to limit someone's civil rights, if not as hatred and bigotry? Strategy? or just naming what is? Perhaps Pastor Hettinga gives us too much credit in a subconscious attempt to not reflect on how far from the love of Jesus that such religious right activists have strayed.

Give 'em hope, not Hell

As a Unitarian UNIVERSALIST minister, I was pretty surprised to read in the Seattle Times today about a local "religious right" pastor saying things like: "God is not coercive, the idea that people ought to be free to live their life and live the way they want to--I don't object to that." That's Pastor Joseph Fuiten of Bothell. Sounds like something I'd say, not something that a pastor who has provided leadership to try to defeat gay rights in our state. But Fuiten isn't backing Referendum 71, the attempt to block our state's domestic partnership act.

Why? Well he is saying that maybe it's because he is getting older; maybe it has something to do with perspective thrust upon him after his 2004 heart attack and his current prostate cancer. I don't know. I'd like to think the spirit of love is moving in him, calling him to a transformation. He says he doesn't want the church to be seen as oppressive...well, good, but well duh...it takes a transformation of your theology to believe that each person's right to love whomever they will is good in the eyes of whatever powers operate in this universe.

Fuiten says people need to hear about hope, not hell. I wonder if he has ever read our UU spiritual ancestor, the Universalist John Murray who said, "Give 'em Hope, Not Hell." Indeed, he may be a becoming a Universalist without knowing it. Maybe I'll invite him to church. We believe in universal salvation, don't we? Even of born agains?

Enjoy the beautiful day, 88 degrees!