More Hate for LGBTQI+ in Oklahoma

I’ve come to believe that Christianity is largely defined by its relational nature. What I mean is, authentic Christianity is characterized by the interpersonal relations it encourages and fosters, especially those between historically alienated groups. We find true justice and mercy not in impersonal, faceless bureaucracies and second-hand charity, but in going to and identifying with those in need, in joining with them in their space and looking within them seeing their Thou, as Buber puts it. Only through this kind of face-to-face human interaction do we experience God, and start to bring the Kingdom here on Earth.

Consequently, much of the bigotry and hatred we see expressed towards people who are different is a result of a deficit of relational interaction. Being tribal beings, we herd together with those like us and view the strange and different as dangerous and bad. It’s basic evolutionary psychology that we have yet to consistently be able to overcome. Only by breaking down walls and barriers, by bringing disparate groups together and facilitating relationships, will we finally begin to defeat the aforementioned bigotry and hatred.

A lack of respect and love for our neighbors in on display here in my home state of Oklahoma, as it seems to be every year when the Legislature goes back into session. Our House and Senate seem characterized by fear and reactionary legislation aimed at those that are different and not understood and thus scary. Usually, that manifests in discriminatory legislation aimed at LGBT individuals, Muslims, women, or black and brown people. This year is no exception, and I particularly want to focus on the latest hate being directed by our elected leaders towards the LGBTQI+ community in Oklahoma.

This has been a banner year for LGBTQI+ rights in America, with the Supreme Court finally upholding marriage equality for all people, and acceptance becoming more common across the nation and in most arenas of public life. Despite this amazing progress, someone forget to clue in the Oklahoma legislature. Three pieces of legislation in particular are coming to a committee near you:

SB1014, which protects us from the nonexistent and imagined scourge of trans people using public restrooms to molest unsuspecting patrons.
SB440, which brings back the tired fight for “religious freedom” for your friendly neighborhood bakers and hair dressers and photographers who feel that having to interact with LGBT folks somehow will send them to hell
And HB3044, probably the most disgusting of all, which forbids school counselors from providing any counseling or resources to kids who are feeling conflicted or confused about their sexuality. That was authored and introduced by the legendary Sally Kern, who really needs no introduction from me.

It’s that last one that really has my blood boiling and my heart filled with sadness. Questions of sexuality and gender and attraction are some of the toughest things teenagers have to deal with. These feelings can be terrifying, and often times, families are unwilling to help. Especially in the case of those who may be feeling that they are LGBT, families and pastors are often the most unwilling, and the first to condemn. Thus, the school counselor may be the only friendly face they have, the only knowledgeable, supportive adult that may be preventing them from becoming another terrible, tragic statistic. For our state legislators to presume to insert themselves between a counselor and his or her students is unconscious able and immoral. If this piece of legislation gains the status of law, then the blood of every LGBTQI+ child who takes their own life because of the despair and alienation they feel will be on their hands.

Would they feel that these kinds of legislation were called for if, say, it was their child who was LGBTQI+? This brings me back to where I started: this kind of hate and bigotry comes from a lack of relations with those classified as “different.” Our legislators act this way, and thousands of Oklahomans continue to vote for them, because they essentially have no contact with LGBTQI+ people, or Muslims, or black and brown people, or basically anybody who is not a straight, white Christian. If they did, if they had to face up on a day-to-day basis with those they spend so much time condemning, they would be confronted with their lack of love, with their abdication of our Christian, and human, obligation to live in peace with one another. They would be convicted of their hate, and maybe begin to come around. But instead, so many live in bubbles of safety, shunning and hating all that is different, justifying that hate in the name of Jesus and the Bible and whatever else it takes to soothe their souls, knowing deep down that love is the only honest way of living in the world, but unwilling to take that chance.

If this bill passes here in Oklahoma, maybe next year a related piece of legislation should be considered. Maybe we should mandate that every student denied the services of their school counselor should instead get partnered with a legislator who votes for this bill, who then has to sit with them through their anguish and fear, and see what their actions have done. And every family who loses a child due to the feelings of guilt and shame encouraged by our “leaders” should get an hour alone with a legislator to let them know what they think of their legislative cowardice and pandering.

Of course, they would never dream of giving themselves such responsibilities. Instead they will continue to invoke the name of their god in the defense of their hate, and continue to live in their disconnected little bubble, away from the people who they are hurting every time they make that trip to OKC to encode their bigotry in law. And in so doing, they will continue to reject the Way of Jesus, the only way to God, which is through love of neighbor.

Finding Bonhoeffer in the face of American Fascism

I just started reading The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I knew the bare outlines of his life and death, but the edition I have had a great foreword documenting Bonhoeffer’s life and beliefs. Obviously, there was much about his principled and faith-filled stand against Hitler, the Nazis, and consequently, his own country.

This knowledge coincided this week with the visit of Donald Trump here to Tulsa, appearing at Oral Roberts University with Sarah Palin in tow yesterday. To me, Trump’s candidacy and the following he has inspired over the last year is positively fascist in its outlook, rhetoric, and goals.

Now, I don’t mean to say this for reasons of provocation, nor do I mean to intimate that I believe Trump supporters are fascists or Nazis. Far from it. I think the infatuation with Trump, and more specifically, with the message he is spreading, is appealing to a demographic that is feeling threatened and frustrated with the trajectory of America in the Obama era. Trump supporters are no more responsible for his hate and bigotry than average Germans were responsible for the actions of the Nazi Party seventy years ago.

I also know the perils of comparing anybody to Hitler or Nazis, and as former political operative and ongoing politics and history junkie, I fully understand the weight of such an allusion. But it is one I fully intend to make.

One of the actions that inspired this line of thinking from me was Trump’s new ploy of calling out and tossing protestors from his appearances, and specifically, tossing visible Muslims. Especially striking was the taunting and hate directed several weeks ago against a hijabi who was silently standing in protest against Trump.

This video, this whole thing, makes my very soul ache. I have seen few sadder things. I can’t even express the deep level of genuine anguish and sadness this makes me feel as I just think about it, without even having to watch the video again. I can’t watch it again.

Is this where we are America? Is this what animates us, what gets us excited and into the political arena? Pure, unadulterated hate towards a group of peaceful people, towards our fellow human beings?

Over the past months, as a result of the hate emanating from swathes of America, I have had the beautiful opportunity to get to know the Muslim community in Tulsa. I have made good friends, and send beautiful acts of love and tolerance towards people of different beliefs. Some of my friends look strikingly like this woman who Trump targeted. It makes me so sad to picture my friends in that place. It makes me so sad to think about what they must be feeling, as they go about their normal American lives, at the grocery store or the mall or the gas station or in their place of worship or at their child’s school, in constant fear that they will the target of hateful words, or possibly even worse.

In a few weeks, I have the opportunity to sit on a panel at the Muslim Day at the Oklahoma Capital. I greatly look forward to the whole event, and to interacting with amazing people. But I dread the hate and bigotry I will be witness to from my fellow Oklahomans. I fear for the safety of my friends, their physical safety and their psychological safety. I don’t want to see them hurt, but I know I will see it, because people can’t control their hate and their fear.

And I hold Donald Trump responsible right now. I hold his campaign, and the whole twisted premise of it responsible. He is not the first to act this way; he is certainly part of a political party full of power-hungry individuals who view the degradation of Muslim men and women, and the fear they stir up, as effective electoral strategies. It is sickening that an entire party has seized on such a tactic. But Donald Trump is in effect the standard bearer of the Republican Party in 2016, and certainly the standard bearer for right wing hate, and so he is responsible for this moment in American life.

Trump is appealing to people because of their feelings of alienation and disempowerment. His supporters are chiefly white, middle class, and with lower levels of education. This demographic feels like the America they are living in is one they no longer recognize. They feel that the growing diversity and calls for inclusive spaces and speech are aimed at them. They feel that the benefits of being American no longer are reserved chiefly for them, but are instead being bestowed upon minority groups. And by and large, they are right about these things. America is increasingly less white and less Christian. The edifice of white supremacy is being torn down bit by bit, and like a cornered animal, it is fighting back harder than ever. It is almost assuredly a losing fight, but it won’t be conquered quietly. So, just like the mass of German citizens who felt their nation was being humiliated and marginalized, and this turned to a leader who promised to “make Germany great again,” so this class of Americans are turning to a man who scratches an itch for them.

The fact that Donald Trump almost assuredly doesn’t believe the things he says, deep down, makes it that much worse, and that much scarier. Trump has a 30+ year public record, and this tone and attitude has just come out in the last couple of years. If he is nothing else, Trump has an amazing ability to discern what it is the America public wants to hear, and to give it to them. That’s what makes this whole thing so crazy: it’s not that Trump has burst onto the scene with a previously formed worldview, that he is now dressing up in patriotism to win supporters; instead, he is tapping into the sentiment of public discontent, and telling the people what they, deep down, want to say themselves. A deeply committed fascist is bad enough; an opportunistic, pandering barometer of public sentiment who has seized upon fascism because it fits the national mood is a whole other, terrifying animal.

I started this talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his opposition to Nazism in Germany, and I want to circle back to that. I have no idea what is was like to live in that time or place. I don’t want to insinuate that we are on the brink of anything as earth-shatteringly awful as the Holocaust. But I imagine that the climate we see towards Muslims as a result of Trump is very similar to what Jews experienced in Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s. This is the chief reason why I attribute the title “fascist” to the Trump campaign. Fascism is primarily distinguished by nationalism, a militant/masculine tone, social conservatism, and the scapegoating of political, religious and ethnic minorities. Who can deny that those are key features of the Trump movement?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a hero and martyr because he stood strong in his convictions, even in the face of horrendous death. Not only that, but he did it in opposition to his nation and heritage. Bonhoeffer was a proud German, and the fact that he, in effect, took the position of advocating for his own nation’s defeat in a world war, for the sake of the human race, is an amazing testimony.

The prevailing Christian attitude in America is a weird amalgam of two seemingly opposing worldviews, one that embraces a religious nationalism that has equated America with Christianity, and one that tries to show how “non-worldly” it is, that revels in the idea of being “not of this world,” and that constantly laments the sinfulness of American society. We are a people who complain about the commercialization of American society while we walk through megamalls loading up on all the stuff we can.

Bonhoeffer showed us a different a way. He was a man who was proud of the nation and people he came from, who despite it’s shortcomings, loved Germany and took pride in his identification as a German. And at the same time, understood that, as a Christian, he had a higher allegiance, not just to God, but to humanity as a whole, to the entire Earth. Thus, when his nation became a menace to that very humanity, he didn’t public lament it’s descent into madness while failing to back up his ideas with his actions. He stood against his nation, it’s leaders and his fellow citizens in the name of love and justice and grace. He recognized that demonizing others isn’t the way to restore a nation. He was the quintessential Christian of the 20^th century, and amazing example for all those who strive to exist in modern society while practicing the loving, others-oriented Way of Jesus.

It is for these very reasons that I wrote months ago that one cannot be both an honest Christian and a Trump supporter. I got a lot of pushback for that statement, but I stand by it as much now as I did then, if not more. The actions of Donald Trump and his supporters towards our Muslim brothers and sisters are despicable and heartbreaking. They reveal a deep-seeded, extreme nationalist, bigoted streak of pseudo-fascism that has long existed deep in the American psyche, and is bursting forth like never before. We have a Christian obligation to stand against this attitude, to stand with our brothers and sisters, even if they have a different religion or ethnicity or skin color. We have a duty to be an army of Dietrich Bonhoeffers in the face of ugly fascism, acting with humility and love and a steadfast regard for the oppressed and beaten down. That is what the cost of discipleship looks like. That is what it means to be a follower of the Way of Christ today.

MLK is Not a Cuddly Teddy Bear for White America

It’s Martin Luther King Jr Day. A federal holiday, celebrated by all Americans, white and black, conservative and liberal, religious and secular, honoring the great civil rights leader. A day when we focus on the things he said and did.

Except we have a rather narrow focus when we as a nation remember MLK. We focus on quotes like, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Because quotes like that one make MLK tame and safe and part of the establishment. It makes us think about racism as this thing that’s about overcoming a bad reaction to dark skin. It makes the civil rights movement an ascethic dispute that we won because no one hates black people for being black anymore, right?

But here’s the thing: Martin Luther King Jr was not a cuddly teddy bear.

MLK didn’t live to make white America feel better about itself by giving them a black person they could point to as that friend that makes them not-racist.

MLK didn’t act in non-political, safe, widely-popular ways. He didn’t do and say things that the white, conservative-and-liberal, majority establishment embraced. He didn’t make us feel self-righteous and vindicated.

MLK was a prophet in the truest sense, in that he came to challenge us and make us uncomfortable and show us our ever-present racist and bigoted ways.

Most importantly, MLK didn’t come for white America. MLK came from and for black America, and our posthumous adoption of MLK as a balm to ease our own guilt and sin is a terrible (but perfectly representative) example of the white tendency to culturally appropriate the things we like about minority culture, while ignoring the deeper meanings and values.

During his life, MLK fought for the equal rights of black America, not just in places like Birmingham and Selma and Memphis, but in Detroit and Washington DC and Chicago. All of white America was convicted, not just southern KKK members.

And he didn’t challenge white supremacy by asking us to be nice. He challenged it by identifying and calling out the inherent, systemic racism present in our governing structures and civil society. He called out the white privilege of all people, that we walk around with everyday, in all that we do. He not only identified the structural racism, he worked to ease it’s effects by supporting anti-poverty measures and equality legislation like the Voting Rights Act. He was targeted not just by the KKK and other racists, but by the FBI and our very own political leaders.

He understood that the liberation of his people was bound up with the liberation of all oppressed people, including poor working class whites and peasant villagers in Vietnam. That is why, during the last years of his life, he also spoke out strongly against the war in Vietnam and in support of anti-war efforts. It’s why his last work was the Poor People’s Campaign, an effort to raise living standards for all Americans by fighting for a higher minimum wage and the rights of workers to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. When MLK was shot and killed in Memphis, he was there to stand in solidarity with unionized sanitation workers who were on strike for higher wages and better benefits.

Martin Luther King Jr worked for social justice and equality and the rights of all people to live and work and vote in a free society. And specifically, he worked to give black America the means to free itself from the shackles of white America. That fight is not over. If we are alive today, there is no doubt MLK would be in the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore and Oakland, standing in support of Black Lives Matter. There is no doubt he would be working against the continued austerity and attempts by elected officials to dismantle our safety net and measures he supported during his life like the Voting Rights Act and Medicaid. There is no doubt he would fight against income inequality and for universal health care. There is no doubt he would join the calls to remove the Confederate flag from government buildings, and for stricter gun control. There is no doubt he would be standing against hate and bigotry towards our Muslim brothers and sisters, and the call for more war overseas. He would not, in short, be a middle class white totem of good feelings and confirmation of our biases. He would still be the object of scorn and hate he was for most of white America when he was alive.

Today, let’s remember Martin Luther King Jr, but more importantly, lets feel convicted by his words and his actions, and know, his fight is on going and we, white America, we are part of what he was fighting against. That’s the first step to supporting his fight. MLK is not our security blanket, or the symbol of our progress. He was, and is, our accuser, and only be recognizing that, can we begin to move towards the America he envisioned.

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