Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.

Arrogance? The National Organization for Marriage takes legal action to ensure the entire country abides by their personal religious belief that our relationships our inferior to theirs. Yeah, they got arrogance.

Abundant food? NOM pulls in $10 million a year and pays their top staff 6-figure salaries. That’s a lotta bread.

Careless ease? Well, they do work hard, but they work hard to make sure gay folks don’t get married — in other words, to make sure people do nothing.

Not helping the poor and needy? NOM hampers our ability to provide health insurance for our partners and kids. Furthermore, they don’t care. In fact, Maggie’s even crusaded against private employers offering domestic partner benefits. And if that’s not convincing enough, I’ll refer you to this video I made a while back.

My verdict? NOM is an arrogant and wealthy group that does harm to those in need.

Sounds like sodomy to me. I’d love to see someone call Maggie Gallagher or Tony Perkins a sodomite on one those cable news debates. And by the way, what was God’s punishment for that sin?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or so finds Mark Oppenheimer in a new Slate article that seeks to understand the motivations and drives of Maggie Gallagher the author and activist and how that person differs from Maggie Gallagher the mother, wife, and friend. This is a valuable look into Maggie’s world, one that each of us should know as we continue our fight for equality.

Those who appreciate a scholarly and thoughtful approach will enjoy this article. Here’s a taste:

The relevant question for faithful Christians is thus not whether Paul would have affirmed homosexual marriage: on the basis of the conceptual apparatus he had available, he would have been able to grasp neither the concept homosexual nor the Nicene affirmation that the Son is “of one substance” with the Father. Even if, as is likely, he would have been alarmed on both counts, this does not settle the issue, for the force of Paul’s teaching may point toward developments that he would not have expected. Just as Athanasius argued that the teaching of Scripture recommends ways of speaking that the authors of Scripture would not have recognized, it may be that the fidelity to tradition requires new ways of thinking about the status of same-sex unions.

I don’t always find that an article changes my perspective or opens new ways of thinking. But after reading Newheiser’s piece I came away with a new understanding of tradition.

Theological responses to same-sex marriage are no more longstanding and traditional than theological responses to online dating or sexting. Tradition is more than just “doing what we did before” when there is no “before” with which to compare. Rather, the church should utilize another tradition, that of applying discernment to questions before it. And that is, indeed, an old and established tradition.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Mormon family with two wives and nine children, about 1889

The LDS Church has responded to the Prop 8 ruling:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice determined in a general election that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We have always had that view. [Emphasis mine.]

Ahem.

M.I.A.

Jim,

I hate to say it, but I’m not surprised…

The courts have ruled against the Family once again.

California’s Proposition 8, the ballot referendum to preserve real marriage as one man and one woman, has been ruled illegal by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But it’s not over yet my friend.

Allies of the Family are already moving to appeal this decision to a higher court.

…I am proud to say that Public Advocate will be standing by to assist them in any way possible in the coming months and years.

Right. I’m sure your allies are waiting breathlessly by the phone for your assistance. As far as I can tell, he’s had zero involvement in California. Nevertheless…

P.S. Please prayerfully consider chipping in with a donation of $10 or more to help Public Advocate fight for traditional values.

But now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals may have given them an ideal excuse. They can now say that while they had no obligation to advance marriage equality, now that the state has done so taking it away is an impermissible violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. So until that has been addressed by the Supreme Court, they’d best not reverse the law.

If, as I am guessing, they are looking for an excuse. And I rather suspect that our allies in the Democratic Party have already mentioned it.