The Growing Power of Clergy as a Voice for LGBT Rights

Not to focus too much on US News & World Report this week, but their religion and politics writer Dan Gilgoff has another piece on the issue of LGBT rights, this time in the form on a mini-interview with the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese. The focus is on the role of religion in promoting LGBT rights, and Gilgoff concludes that clergy are becoming a new lobbying force on behalf of equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks.

It might be worth taking issue with that word "new," since there have been progressive religious folks at the forefront of the battle for LGBT equality, particularly marriage equality, since well before Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage.  Last year in fact, religious organizations sprung up in California and Florida to fight anti-LGBT amendments (in California it was Prop 8, in Florida it was Amendment 2).

But Gilgoff is right in asserting that clergy have become a blessing (haha, pun intended) in the fight for equal rights.  Why?  Because it's important not to let radical right clergy (from Pat Robertson to Maggie Gallagher to the Catholic Church in Maine) be the only ones talking about religion.  And that's essentially what Solmonese told US News & World Report.  Here's the synopsis:

During an interview with Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese today, I asked whether the group's stepped-up faith outreach was a reaction to having ceded religious terrain to gay rights opponents for a long time. "It is," he said, and went on to explain how clergy have become a "powerful front-line lobbying force" for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community:

"LGBT people, many of us are people of faith, and there are religious leaders in this country who support LGBT equality, and it has taken us too long to empower those voices and ensure those people are out there fighting on the front lines on our behalf. Our Clergy Call for Justice brought 300 clergy, more than five from each of the 50 states, and we worked with them to walk the halls of Congress and lobby on behalf of LGBT issues in full religious vestments.

With all eyes on Maine now and their ballot measure seeking to "veto" the rights of gays and lesbians to get married, the voice of clergy has been imperative.  Here's how Rabbi Hillel Katzir in Maine expressed his support - and in fact, the religious justication for - same-sex marriage:

Gay men and lesbians, like the rest of us, are created in the image of God, and God said it’s not good for any human being to be alone. In that case, I look at this issue and I think, “Who am I, who are we as a human society, to tell people that they have to live alone or live a lie?” As a Rabbi, as a person of faith, I believe it is a God-given right for each one of us to make family with whomever we choose.

That's pretty powerful stuff, and a way of weaving a religious narrative that doesn't focus on repression or fundamentalist doctrine, but rather respect, acceptance, and the chance for every person to love whomever they choose in this world.

In other words, it's a sample of how religion can be an authentic voice for the struggle of civil rights for gays and lesbians.