Josh DuBois might be called a New Evangelical. He is a Pentecostal pastor (with a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton) who believes Jesus is his personal savior.
But he also seems to put more weight on the social gospel (that is, that Christians should take care of the poor and the disenfranchised) than on the old Evangelical hammers of gays and abortion.
Now the 26-year-old has a new position: head of the new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Under Bush, this was called the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and it spent a lot of money pushing abstinence-only programs.
Obama's idea is different. The office will go beyond grant giving to find ways to partner with religious organizations to find solutions to social problems. Most notably, at least for gays and lesbians, the Faith-Based Council will forbid religious organizations from discriminating against gays and lesbians when they hire for programs that are taxpayer supported.
That means if a church applies for a grant to fund a program that feeds the needy, the organization can't refuse to hire chefs or program directors or secretaries for the program just because they're gay.
And yet - it's not enough just to prove fairness in hiring. Gays and lesbians are rightly suspicious of federal programs that purport to be "faith based." For too long, faith has been a tool of exclusion for us. We've gotten used to hearing political leaders tell us they want to take our rights away because of their own superior "family values."
We might also be suspicious of Josh DuBois. DuBois has been silent about his personal beliefs on religious right touchstones like homosexuality and abortion, but I suspect he's not a religious centrist, despite being a Democrat. Columnist Sally Quinn notes that DuBois was the person who first floated Rick Warren's name as a possibly inaugural speaker.
DuBois, who was in charge of faith-based outreach for the Obama campaign as well, also put together the program that featured Donnie McClurkin, an "ex-gay" gospel singer who has said that "homosexuality is a curse."
Yet I'm going to give DuBois - and Obama - the benefit of the doubt here. DuBois is young. I don't think he did these things to send a message to gays and lesbians - I think he did these things because he doesn't figure us in at all.
And maybe that's partly our fault.
Gays and lesbians have given religion over to the right. This is not good. There are many religions that have denied us our personhood; there are many of us who have been hurt by the religious traditions we grew up in. But gays are a diverse people, and there are many of us who are religious or spiritual - and we should not be ignored by a national program that should serve the whole country.
My hope is that gay religious organizations will approach DuBois's office about funding their valuable social service programs that assist homeless queer youth, people with AIDS, and other disenfranchised LGBT communities. And that we will all make noise about it until we know that our programs are being treated equally.
There are plenty of gays and lesbians who will disagree with me here. They think that religion is poison, and we are fools to drink it. We shouldn't want to be part of a club that doesn't want to grant us membership. They think we should fight the existence of a faith-based anything in the West Wing.
That is a battle we won't win, not this time around, not with a president who was partly elected through the voter turnout strength of the black church.
But in any case, seeking equity when it comes to this new President's Council isn't a referendum on religion. It's about fairness. Take the military as an example. I'm not too keen on the whole military-industrial complex. But if there are gay people who want to fight in the military, then I support their right of equal access. It is not for me - but I will not deny my gay brothers and sisters their own choice.
If there is a federal conduit for getting funds to religious organizations, then gay religious organizations should be getting equal access to those funds. Any President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships should not only be reaching out to Evangelicals - it should also be reaching out to us.
13 Comments for “Faith-Based Means Us, Too”
posted by TS on
Ms. Vanasco,
You’re right about one thing: We’ll get nowhere deliberately creating a political link between anti-religion and LGBTness. That would be a candidate for weakest American political coalition ever.
But in your discourse on religion, you don’t really cut to the heart of the the connection between being LGBT and being unconventionally, non, or anti religious. It is, of course, not a coincidence that very few of us are religious in the traditional sense, but I don’t buy the typical argument that we reject religion because it rejects us (or “We shouldn’t want to be part of a club that doesn’t want to grant us membership” to use your paraphrase.) All LGBT people except those that grow up in anomalously accepting environments basically have to go on some variant of a common intellectual journey in order to accept their nature and reconcile it with society.
I grew up in a religious household in which my sexual orientation was basically regarded as a non-possibility. When, around the age of 15, I realized the impossible was happening to me, I asked God to help me however He saw fit, just to guide me to the solution to my problem. As usual, He made himself scarce; the reply was an awkward silence. To add injury to insult, not long afterward, my problem blew up in my face when my parents found out. My dad was furious, my mom depressed (she’s never recovered). While still limping along by not talking or dealing with anything, my family is basically destroyed. And there’s no closed door, opened window here. I now have no support structure. If I ever get hit by a car or something, I hope they accept emotional scars as currency, because those and student debt are all I currently have in my name.
I was a sincere believer. Theology was to me an intellectually stimulating exercise, like chess. In order to justify to myself why it was okay to be the way I am even though I face so much disapproval, I had to change my fundamental perception about the world around me. No more clearly defined rules to determine what moves are and aren’t possible, no more of the arbitrary goals religion provides. And I also began to observe how people, confronted by the terror of the unfamiliar, would rather make sh*t up than take the trouble to seek truth.
The only way forward for LGBT people who have lost their religion is to come to an understanding. If you declare war on faith, you should be aware that you will meet a quixotic doom. Yet it is equally impossible to believe again. It’s like a few glimpses at color in a world of black and white: once you know of the colors, you can never ignore them again. I like to think of my own present attitude as a relatively mature one. Religion is, if nothing else, absolutely harmless. The human tendencies towards violence, exploitation, enslavement, and greed have nothing to do with religion. We must fight, contain, or redirect the bad elements of human nature; to target religion is to pursue a decoy.
posted by Arthur on
Discrimination is inherent in any Faith Based Initiative. Which faith gets the dollars? The goal of most religious organizations is recruitment. Religious charity is often the way to open the door to conversion. A faith based homeless shelter in my area requires the needy to sit through a hour long service in order to be fed and sheltered. We now have another government program with organizations asking for their fair share. The initiative should be called the Full Employment Act for Religious Organizations, or at least the ones the government likes.
This Lutheran wants this program stopped.
posted by Yarrrrrr on
“”””””
Obama’s idea is different. The office will go beyond grant giving to find ways to partner with religious organizations to find solutions to social problems. Most notably, at least for gays and lesbians, the Faith-Based Council will forbid religious organizations from discriminating against gays and lesbians when they hire for programs that are taxpayer supported.
“”””””
True, but they’re also forbidden to discriminate if someone from another faith or an atheist wants to work there…
posted by Bobby on
“Religious charity is often the way to open the door to conversion.”
—So what? Say a Baptist group takes a bunch of poor kids to Orlando, they see Disney, Epcopt, etc. Then they have a group discussion where each person is encouraged to discuss his faith or lack thereof. The christian says his thing, then everyone is given a free bible and everyone goes home. What’s the harm in that? What’s the difference between that and showing a captive audience of student the Al Gore Global Warming movie? Al Gore’s film is clearly propaganda, yet it’s always presented as truth.
If taxpayer-funded faith-based charities can agree to serve people outside their faith, I have no problem with it. You want to worry about something? Worry about the fed money a corrupt organization like ACORN gets from the feds. Now that’s disgusting.
posted by Arthur on
bring on the Muslim Charities and Wiccans.
posted by Arthur on
I?m sorry, but I?m having a problem wrapping my mind around taxpayer funded proselytizing.
posted by Small Obama on
I just can agree with Arthur.
posted by baaaah b on
amen Arthur
posted by Frank Elliott on
The Christian Ethic of death to self and servitude to others is inherently defective. It facilitates the destruction of individuals and groups according to the whims of absolutely powerful Christian leaders. It reduces man to an insect in a hive.
Moreove, it’s a step backwards from the ethic argued by Christ’s contemporary Hillel the Elder, who famously said
“If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am not for others, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”
posted by libhomo on
Queers should be fighting these things in court, not trying to feed at this unconstitutional trough. The intermingling of church and state is something that endangers us and should be resisted in every instance as if our lives depend on it. They do.
The vast majority of this money will go to subsidize churches that promote discrimination and violence against us. The main impact of a small number of queer religious groups exploiting this corruption will be to give political cover to something that is homophobic at its core.
posted by BobN on
If faith-based structures are so effective and efficient and wonderously fabulous in so many ways at delivering “social services”, why doesn’t anyone favor them for other government structures? How about army battalions based on faith? Or maybe we could make the IRS all Quakers. And let’s put alcohol regulation in the hands of devout Wahabis.
posted by jeff on
I’m totally with you on this. I was born gay, raised Lutheran and converted to Catholic as an adult. My partner and I belong there and nobody can tell us we don’t. I would like to see the Pope try to kick us out.
posted by Frank on
Jeff,
Just remember Benedict’s rule: No sucking dick unless that dick is attached to a Nazi.