All posts by Anja Marie Tranovich

 
Interviews

The gay evangelical

The Rev. Mel White served the Religious Right until he came out as a gay man. Here he discusses the reconciliation of his politics, his faith, and his sexual orientation.


 

Rev. Mel White penned the life stories and speeches of conservative Christian superstars like Pat Robertson. His religious leaders publicly and vehemently condemned gays and lesbians, and White tried to overcome his homosexuality with exorcisms and electric shock therapy. In 1993, White came out as a gay man and denounced the politics of hate in the evangelical church. Now, 15 years and two books later, White spearheads Soulforce, an organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender acceptance in religious communities.

Here, White discusses the latent power of the Religious Right in the forthcoming presidential election, his antipathy toward civil marriage, and the rationale behind the Religious Right’s homophobia.

Interviewer: Anja Tranovich
Interviewee: Rev. Mel White

What prompted you to come out after many years of marriage and trying to lead a heterosexual life?

I don’t ever remember making the decision to come out. After all the years of marriage, therapies, and counseling to overcome the demon, I finally sliced my wrists. Driving back from the hospital, my wife said, “You know, you are a gay man.”

We separated, and slowly I started learning about my sexuality. First, I learned to accept it, then to celebrate it, and finally, to share it, as the truth dawned on me that it is a gift from God, just like heterosexuality is a gift from God.

In 1993, I had my public coming-out. Since the Religious Right that I had worked for for so long refused to listen to me, I wrote my book, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America. I needed them to hear me, and the book was a national coming-out.

I know you were raised as an evangelical Christian. Do you still consider yourself one? What does that label mean for you?

I consider myself an evangelical, but I don’t advertise it widely.

I am an evangelical, meaning “good news recipient and bearer” — that God loves humankind. I’m trying to both appropriate good news for myself in my own life, follow Jesus as best I can, and share the good news.

You’ve said in the past that gays are the top villain right now for the Christian Right. Do you still think that’s still accurate?

I think the Christian Right is widening its target to include illegal immigration and abortion doctors in terms of the amount of vitriol, but homosexuals still take the biggest beating. We [at Soulforce] monitor the Religious Right media. We’ve got filing cabinets filled with data. Much of this is a caricaturizing of homosexuals, condemning and demonizing.

Why have they targeted homosexuality? Where does that impulse come from? Is it really rooted in religious conviction and a literal reading of the Bible?

It is very important that we acknowledge they are sincere in their fears about homophobia — it is dangerous to see them as insincere. They are true believers.

They think if we break out of the sexual roles we were meant to play from the beginning — if a man takes on the role of a woman, which is how they view homosexuality — and the country accepts it, then the country is accepting a grave sin, and God can no longer bless the country.

What is your response to those sentiments?

Empirical and biblical data don’t support the position that homosexuality is a sickness or [a] sin. The Religious Right has to ignore all the data to make [a] case against us, and misuses the Bible to condemn us. We must remember that the Bible has been used throughout the centuries to support intolerance, and now it is being used again to support homophobia.

You spent some time a few years ago talking about homosexuality with Fred Phelps of “God hates fags” fame. What was that like? Was it possible to have a dialogue?

Fred Phelps is a former [American Civil Liberties Union] ACLU lawyer. He has a doctorate. He reads in Greek and in Hebrew. He has a massive theological library.

His favorite preacher is Jonathan Edwards, and Jonathan Edwards dangled sinners above fiery hell to awaken them to their “lostness.” He believes anyone who accepts his or her homosexuality is lost [and] needs to be awakened. We spoke quietly and calmly for about two hours on his views.

He is a Calvinist, and his sermonizing uses fear to drive people into the arms of God. He looks like a nutcase, but he really isn’t. He has a rationale for what he is doing, and that’s what is most frightening. He is not only a sincere believer, he is following a historic tradition.

You are about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of your organization, Soulforce, and you first spoke out publicly against Christian homophobia 15 years ago. What has changed since you started doing this work?

Well, now we are having internecine wars not seen 15 years ago over gay issues. Large churches are splitting apart so that they don’t have to accept gays. Famous pastors and preachers are getting kicked out for supporting [ordination] of gay leaders.
 
There is a growing mass of allies, gay and straight alike, fighting the battle. It’s true that the media has changed a lot, but there is a strong backlash. Now people have discussions about whether clergy should deny membership to homosexuals. It is absolutely heresy to keep people out of Christ’s church!
 
There is a terrible threat to fall backwards. We could easily be completely taken over by these well-meaning fundamentalists.

Is the extension of civil marriage rights important to you — would you like to legally wed your partner?

Absolutely. We have been together 27 years now; I am looking Father Time in the eye. If we had equal rights, he would get my social security. As [it] is now, he will lose tens of thousands [of] dollars a year, those kinds of things.

We can’t have a will that in any way looks like marriage, we can’t do our income taxes together, we double pay. It’s just bizarre that we don’t have those rights. It’s not about religion; it is about civil rights. We are not arguing for civil unions, it has to be called “marriage” to have equal laws.

We have been married in the eyes of each other and in the eyes of our families and in the eyes of God. We have marriage; we just don’t have the civil rights to go with [it].

Do you have a take on the upcoming presidential elections? Are we entering into a new era where the Religious Right doesn’t have as much political power?

I think the Religious Right doesn’t have a political candidate. Therefore, they are simply waiting. Their organizations are still very much in place, accumulating funds and members and power. They don’t have a candidate, and they are divided over McCain. But they are not dead, just latent, waiting.

And evangelical work has changed somewhat. It has broadened. They are more interested in issues of the environment and the earth, poverty, HIV-AIDS. But among even progressive evangelicals, none have come out for gay marriage — Jim Wallace, Tony Campolo — none of them is our ally.

I am offended when Christians suggest gays are unworthy of marriage and therefore second-class. It creates an environment where gays are killing themselves when even progressive Christians say your marriage isn’t worthy, is sinful; in other words you are sinful, unworthy.

I’m really offended when people think they are taking a giant step forward when they call for civil unions and refuse to call them by their right name. It is true that some are calling for civil unions, but when they say our relationship is not worthy of marriage, it is demeaning. I’m being demeaned by my friends as well as [by] my enemies.

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Interviews

No rest for the Good Samaritan

200712_activists.jpgActivist Lupe Anguiano reflects on a life spent fighting for equality.


 

Lupe Anguiano is a former nun who offers a religious framework that counters Christian conservatism. She was a pioneer in welfare activism and the women’s rights movement, and reframed religious debates to include issues of social justice. At the opening of the Lupe Anguiano archive at UCLA earlier this year, she was called, “truly an unsung heroine of the American civil rights movement.”

Below, Anguiano discusses the perils of large, rich institutions, and recounts a time when the church actually leaned left.  

Interviewer: Anja Tranovich
Interviewee: Lupe Anguiano

How have your religious beliefs influenced your activism?

I was always raised knowing we were made in the image and likeness of God. Fighting for equality has always been part of my upbringing. I was always brought up with the dignity of people.

Equality is something I have always struggled with. My dad was from an Indian background, and my mom was a Spaniard. My dad’s mom was the housekeeper to my mother’s parents. There was struggle from both of my grandparents’ sides. There were a lot of equalities issues.

To tell you the truth, the whole issue of standing up for your rights, I didn’t feel the need or strength of that until the ’60s.

You went into the convent when you were young, but got reprimanded because of your activism during the ’60s, especially on civil rights issues. What were you doing then?

I was a missionary sister, and the whole training is to respect others’ languages and cultures and not to impose your own ideas, and to be respectful of people, particularly of the poor. If people are poor, it shows the need for education; it’s not an issue of intelligence.

I feel very strongly about the issue of equality because I am Latina — Mexican American — and I had experienced problems of inequality among our people and black people. Some of the training I had as a missionary sister was to observe, judge, act — you observe, you judge, you act. You, as a citizen, have responsibility to stand up and do your part to make things equal for everyone. I was working with agricultural workers, with Latinos and black people as a missionary sister, and I saw some [of] the discrepancies and discrimination in how they were treated, especially with red lining. I thought that the church needed to stand up for these people.

One of my big confrontations, or rather challenges, with the church was with red lining, when blacks and Mexican Americans were not allowed to buy homes in certain areas of Los Angeles. I started to work for open housing. So did other nuns and priests, and many people were reprimanded.

I eventually left the missionary sisters because of that issue. The cardinal in Los Angeles then, Cardinal McIntyre, really forbade the sisters and priests from getting involved. The cardinal had local ties with developers, so he didn’t want to offend them. Some of us felt that it’s not an issue of not wanting to offend, but an issue of educating the Catholic community, that this is what the church stands for: equality.

That’s when you really saw the first exodus, not only myself, but also many others.

Pope John XXIII called for us to get involved with social issues. The pope called a Vatican Council and said that the church needed to be more involved and, like Christ, go out and work with people instead of just working in the convent.
So from the pope’s standpoint, and really knowing the doctrines of [the] church, we had to speak out and oppose on the local level.

The church used to have more involvement in these types of social issues. If you look at New York when unions were first founded, when the worker was exploited, the church stood up in support of the worker. And as a result of the church’s support, the unions were able to form.

Now you don’t see that kind of activism from the church.

You are right. Some of the very conservative churches have used the name of God and Christ to discriminate, particularly against women. It’s very confusing right now. You see the evangelical churches really coming down very hard on the equality of women and immigration, and supporting unjust things like the war. In those days [in the ’60s], the churches would be up in arms against the war. Today you just don’t have that.

Why is that?

[In] my honest opinion, I think it’s because of wealth and institutionalization of religion. Many times, ministers and priests and cardinals and bishops are more concerned about supporting the buildings and institutions instead of the message of Christ.

When Christ started the church, he lived his example — compassion, love, equality, peace, and justice. The church has become more concerned with sustaining the institution instead of Jesus’ message.

You see that in government as well. There is a general trend toward protecting the institution for the institution’s sake.
My feeling is that we’ve come to the point where people have to act. They have to look at their communities and voice their concern.

I was really delighted with the change in Congress, but there are still so many issues. Oil companies are really raiding the pocketbook[s] of the American people; it’s the height of injustice to Americans and all people. Bush doesn’t do anything about it, the church doesn’t say anything about it, and neither does the government.
I thank God we are in a free country; there is always the opportunity for change. I am 78 and I rely a lot on young people.

You did a lot of work for women in the ’70s alongside Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, forming the National Women’s Political Caucus and advocating for policies like the Equal Rights Amendment, which still hasn’t passed. In the ’70s, did you think that movement would have made more gains than it has?

Yes, because you know we were like on a roll; the Equal Rights Amendment was almost certified. I did a lot of work to bring church support to the Equal Rights Amendment.

You are often credited with changing the religious debate on this issue.

I was disappointed that it didn’t pass.

There were internal struggles within the movement as well. When I was fighting to change welfare so that it promoted education and training to help women go to work, some feminists decried having Latina women out of the house and working. Well, they were already working! Even the women at the Women’s Conference felt that we might be dismantling the safety net of Latina women by helping them work. How would we be dismantling their safety net by giving them the right to work? Not to do so would be condemning them to live in poverty. “Protect the minority women.” What is this?

Here we are, and women still earn 70 cents on every dollar earned by men. Talk about inequality! We still have it right now.

Gloria, Bella, and I thought, if you are going to talk about equality, we have to talk about equality across the board. They were very supportive.

I think we need the Equal Rights Amendment and its clear interpretation of equality for all. We need to really see equal rights from a total perspective of all people.

What I would like to see is young people really looking at equality from a local, state, and national perspective, and using their global eyes to really look at the world. You guys have a big job to do. I really believe in young people.

I sometimes feel that those concerned and active in younger generations are in the minority.

That’s always the case. Revolutions are started in groups of 10 or 12. If you can educate people to the issues and provide information, people will start to come out.

What are you working on now?

We are fighting the oil companies here in Ventura County, California. 
The Houston-based Northern Star natural gas company is trying to bring liquid natural gas into the area. For two years we’ve been fighting against them. All the independent studies commissioned on the topic show that the need for natural gas is flat. It’s questionable whether or not we really need it, and it will do great harm to the coastal environment.

California is very resourceful. We have a lot of innovators, companies creating wind and solar solutions. Investing in liquid natural gas will prevent us from investing in clean energy. The lieutenant governor [of California] has been really fighting with us.

We are also really dealing with the legacy of Enron. We’ve heard the tapes, how Enron manipulated the California energy market, manipulating the need. This seems like such a clear parallel, and we are very conscious of that. 

You’ve been involved in so many different campaigns: workers’ rights, unions, women’s rights, welfare reform, and environmental activism. What draws you to a particular subject or campaign?

Well, I am going to share with you a big secret. In reality, what I think happens to me is that our Lord just places me at the right place at the right time.

I do not enjoy confrontation. I would like to go to the hermitage and get away from all this stuff.

But I am placed in a situation, and I say, in my [conscience], I say: this is wrong. And I start becoming involved with people who are really doing something about it. I come in and support that work.

Recently I’ve been working with the Environmental Defense Center and Susan Jordan. She’s been an environmentalist all her life. She’s come up with some concise documents pinpointing some of the inequalities with the liquid natural gas issue. You have to be really dumb not to see it.

I’ll tell you what got me really ignited: when President Bush and the Congress signed the energy bill. It was more than I could handle. I just saw the exploitation [by] oil and gas companies. You’d have to be very callous and not very alert to see that. That [becoming angry] happens to me, and I guess it should really happen to a lot of people.

It’s a challenge. I would like to have young people take over so I can just rest.

What advice do you have for those young people?

To be strong.

We have a [conscience], and we know what’s right and wrong. We need to listen to our intelligence and come together.
And not to lose hope.

We can’t allow ourselves to get into a situation where we are ruled by the institutions around us.

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Interviews

Laying down arms to fight for peace

A conversation with Ashraf Khader, a Palestinian fighter turned peace activist.200711_activists.jpg


  

Ashraf Khader’s group, Combatants for Peace, brings Israeli military veterans and former Palestinian fighters — people who have actively fought against each other — together to advocate peace.

“After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only through weapon sights, we have decided to put down our guns and to fight for peace,” reads the group’s mission statement.

Combatants for Peace organizes meetings between former fighters of each side of the conflict, protects threatened communities, and presses the Palestinian and Israeli governments to stop the cycle of violence.                   

Khader discusses the difficulties of renouncing violence in a land plagued by armed conflict, how inciting violence led him to fight for peace, and his group’s hope for a politics without militarization.

Interviewer: Anja Tranovich
Interviewee: Ashraf Khader

You’ve personally fought against Israelis in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. What did you do?
 
Like many Palestinians living in the West Bank, I threw stones and then Molotov cocktails. I also took part in organizing protests and recruiting people to resist the occupation. Once, the Israeli army caught me and forced me to clean a very long road under the threat of their guns.

But I don’t want to talk about what I did in the past, because I don’t believe in violence anymore.

Really, you have to understand that in the first intifada, just raising the Palestinian flag could lead to one year in prison. Despair causes many Palestinians to forget nonviolence and revert to armed conflict, with the belief that this will make their voices heard. Some are filled with hate for the Israelis as a result of a lost family member or friend to violence or prison.

Once this is understood, it is easier to analyze hatred, prejudice, and despair. These sentiments grow out of a lack of understanding that there is a real partner for peace on the ground — one that is not represented by either government.

Part of Combatants for Peace’s mission statement is that “We no longer believe that the conflict can be resolved through violence.” What changed your perspective — from being involved in the violence to thinking the conflict can’t be resolved through violence?

Though members of Combatants for Peace paid a high price for their violent activities, both physically and emotionally, they did not witness any change on the ground. The occupation continues, the societies remain polarized, and we realized that we were a part of this cycle rather than part of the solution. Throughout the world, this may seem perfectly logical, but within the context of Israel and Palestine, it is revolutionary.

 
How did the group begin?

The group began when a group of Israeli soldiers, who refused to serve in the Occupied Territories (refuseniks), and a group of Palestinians, who had served prison sentences in Israel, began speaking about a peaceful solution based on nonviolence and dialogue.

It started in 2004, but remained largely underground until our public launching in March of 2006.

The organization has a membership that fluctuates between 150 and 170 members from each side, Israeli and Palestinian. These members are governed by a 14-member steering committee that is also composed of equal numbers of Israelis and Palestinians who meet in our central office in Al Ram [Israel].

There are plans right now to expand our presence on the ground by creating a number of smaller groups that are geographically distributed in the north [Tulkarm-Tel Aviv], the middle [Ramallah-Jerusalem], and the south [Beersheva-South Mount Hebron]. These smaller, more autonomous groups will meet to decide their actions on a local level before sending coordinators to the steering committee for approval. We envision these groups becoming small, tightly knit, autonomous units, able to understand and react to the particular conditions in their area.

This allows us to expand our presence and visibility, but will also make it much easier for Palestinians especially to attend events in the face of movement restrictions.


Do you work with other groups?
 
Ta’aeosh [coexistence] is one organization we work with, but we are hoping to expand our cooperation as well; our garden project also has many more partners.

In general, Combatants have worked with communities rather than organizations. This weekend, for example, we are assisting Palestinian farmers in Tulkarm and Hebron with the olive harvest, and protecting them from radical settlers who often attack during this time.


How will you protect them from radical settlers who might attack? Do you go armed?

We don’t use violence in any way. We bring Israeli peace activists, media, and international activists with cameras to prevent the settlers and the army from [starting a] conflict.

[Abir Aramin, the 10-year-old daughter of] one of the founders of Combatants for Peace, Bassam Armin, was recently shot by Israeli solders close to her school in Anata. Combatants aligned with other groups and began a project to build a playground in Anata where children can play safely. The killing was a sad testament to the need for groups like Combatants for Peace.

How is fundraising going for the Abir Aramin’s playground project?

We are making progress in our first stage of funding, but are very far off from the second, much larger stage.
 

What do other veterans of the conflict think of Combatants for Peace?

Combatants is a volunteer-based, grassroots organization that depends upon the commitment of our members. This commitment is continually tested by our communities and those who believe that peace is not possible. Members are accused of being naïve, collaborators, or worse, yet we choose to continue anyway. We are able to do so by the overwhelming moral support we receive from the international community that helps to reaffirm our position and assure us that we are not alone.

Is it hard for supporters of either side of the conflict to support or advance a politics without militarization?

It is hard to fight against the perception that there are no partners for peace. Yet our existence is proof that this claim is wrong. Without proving this, there is no reason to believe that peace without militarization is possible. The more our message is spread, the easier our job of convincing people otherwise becomes.


What do you hope will happen in the next five or 10 years in Israel and Palestine?
 
The end of the conflict based upon a just, secure, and mutually agreed upon solution that is in accordance with international laws and norms … and we hope this happens sooner than five to 10 years down the road.

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