Misleading to the point of being a lie. We’re not talking here about a gay couple getting married in the chapel, here: We’re talking about a pavilion on the boardwalk that the church rented out to anyone with the money for any use they wanted… Until they found out that gays wanted to rent it, too. They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Ron Sider. Here’s politics and religion internet blogger Fred Clark on Sider’s signature on the declaration:
I agree with a lot of what Clark (and appleciders) is saying; that the main purpose of this declaration is an attack on those evangelicals who are focusing on environmental and social justice issues.
Is anyone else reminded of the recent Republican purity test? What do you suppose is behind this reaffirmation of allegiances among religious and political conservatives?
p.s. I love the slacktivist’s comments on the declaration’s pompous prose:
Even before this specific incident, including such a mundane-business installation under the general rubric of “religious tax exemption” is a stretch that would make Mr. Fantastic look like a cigar-store wooden Indian.
Bingo. It’s the same kind of silly litmus test that the Republican party does all the time. To be fair, the Democratic Party does the same thing when they decry environmental destruction before they vote for that environmental destruction, or applaud gay marriage outside of their districts before voting to ban it within their districts. Almost8 everyone does it and it’s almost* always; this is just an egregious and high-profile example.
And yeah, Fred Clark can turn a phrase. I enjoyed this one:
*I can’t think of a counterexample, but I’m just hedging my bets here by not using absolutes.
I underlined the parts that you hit upon, and the more I read it, the more hypocritical it is.
We want our ideas to be written into law and we want “the people” to be complled by law, to obey.
We want religious freedom for ourselves, but we want to curtail that freedom for others by getting “our stuff” on the law books.
We want to enforce “our” idea of law and make everyone obey, but we will disobey anything we don’t like.
I call bullshit on their entire platform.
As for them deciding what belongs to Caesar, they better re-read history. The Caesars generally took a very dim view of that idea. Those who disagreed, usually didn’t get their way.
In my daydreams and looking just at the names on the list, I would send a letter out to all of the married couples in which the wife is beyond child-bearing years. I would tell them that they do not serve the purpose of marriage any longer and must not, in good conscience, continue to live as one.
Here’s a new blog post from the site I linked to earlier. It describes a connection between the Manhattan Declaration and The Family. Supposing these connections are what they appear to be, I can’t help wonder if the language in the Manhattan Declaration isn’t just a calculatedly civilized veneer designed to appeal to American tastes – but their hearts are more in line with the Ugandan bill.
Reading about The Family, I recall what Captain Amazing said about the main purpose of the declaration:
Because Jeff Sharlet reports that:
Since social justice issues tend to focus on the poor and downtrodden, is the agenda of statements like the Manhattan Declaration an attempt to pull evangelicals back in line with The Family’s up-and-out philosophy, so as not to dilute their power? Or am I getting too conspiracy theory for my own good?
