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Faith in the "middle"
Advocate, The, April 25, 2006
How do you find out what mainstream religious leaders really think about same-sex marriage? Ask them, said the organizers of an event titled "Moving the Religious Middle on Marriage Equality," held at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center March 20-21.
"It wasn't a lovefest," said Rabbi Jack Moline of Virginia's Agudas Achim, a conservative synagogue. "But to everyone's delight, there was a lot more goodwill on both sides than everyone presumed."
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The event's goal, said Moline, was to build a broad-based coalition on marriage equality by starting a conversation with the "religious middle," those Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders who have come partway across the bridge to full acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships. "One topic was how to engage the religious community rather than chastise them," said Moline.
That includes demonstrating that the gay community wants to be inclusive, said the Reverend Leonard Jackson of Los Angeles's First African Methodist Episcopal Church and past president of the Los Angeles Council of Churches. "The so-called religious majority would rather see the LGBT community exclude them than include them," he said. "But they must remember that [gay people] are all someone's children. It's our parents, our sisters, and our brothers that make up the majority of these faith communities."
Joining Moline and Jackson on the panel of speakers were Bishop Yvette Flunder, senior pastor and founder of the San Francisco inner-city congregation City of Refuge United Church of Christ; and the Reverend Welton Gaddy, Interfaith Alliance president. The event, co-organized by the Alliance and the San Francisco--based Horizons Foundation, drew a passionate and enthusiastic crowd, said Horizons spokeswoman Julie Dorf.
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