I mentioned last week that through the synchronicity which often happens as I'm reading through various articles and surfing the internet, there was a confluence of a web-ad called "A Gathering Storm" and an article in Newsweek on Religion called "The End of Christian America."

In the article, author Jon Meacham makes reference to the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey which found that "the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent."  Moreover, much of the shift has occurred in parts of America not associated with liberalism per se...the Northeast for example, has been a bastion for religious institutions, yet the article points out that it "has emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified."

Meacham discussed the issue with R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Mohler is concerned that the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans indicates the "coming storm" (to borrow a phrase) where America's religious life is no longer the underpinning for America's social order.  Mohler (and I dare say the folks at the "National Organization for Marriage;" meaning the National Organization for Keeping Marriage exclusive to heterosexuals) tend to see these numbers as proof of the unravelling of the fabric of our society.

But as Meacham points out so succinctly, "As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom--not least freedom of conscience."

We are, I believe, at a cross-road when it comes to the intersection of religious freedom and equal civil rights for our gay and lesbian neighbors.  And I think Meacham's point about our unifying principle having more to do with freedom and liberty and less to do with particular faith paradigms is so crucial.

Precisely because we are at this cross-road, organizations like NOM (and religious leaders like Mohler) are in a position where they feel vulnerable and threatened.  In the past, it was easy to assume that everyone shared the same religious tenets; that the power exercised by religious authorities within the public square was not only right but natural.

But we have seen the crumbling of discrimination, in many cases fostered by the church, founder on the rocks of our national dedication to equality, freedom and justice.  We've seen it with slavery, with anti-miscegenation laws, with women's rights and now we are beginning to see the dawn of the day where gay men and women are recognized as full citizens with equal rights.

Unfortunately, the ad by NOM is addressed to the worst instincts of fear.  Actors intone that a storm is gathering, that "gay activists" want to change "my life."  (Which begs the thinking person to ask, "Really?  They want you to be gay?")  They cite a few situations where religious organizations and the State have conflicted over equal rights for gays.  Catholic Charities voluntarily withdrawing from adoption when they couldn't exclude adoptions to gay couples in Massachussets.  A church that received tax exempt status for a recreation area and was subsequently denied tax exemption (which had originally been a state incentive encouraging private charities and religious organizations to allow access to open spaces for the general public) when they refused to allow a lesbian couple to wed there.

And, of course, there are the ubiquitous protests of "They'll teach my kids that gay couples are equal to straight couples."  This argument will be painfully familiar to those who endured the Prop 8 ads last fall.  What I object to the most in this ad is the fear-mongering and the "aw shucks, we're just folks who don't want things to change" tone that puts me uncomfortably in mind of our former President's tactics for keeping us afraid for so very long.

And yet, I think we have solutions available to us that will allow churches and their adherants to maintain their religious freedom while also allowing the State to recognize gays and lesbians as fully equal citizens.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about an article proposing a third way--where religious freedom was protected specifically by law--allowing churches, synagogues and mosques to teach and practice their faith according to their doctrine; not requiring them to marry or even accept as members those who break with their doctrine.  The idea has grown on me.

In this interim, I don't see anything wrong with protecting ACTUAL religious freedom.  But when it comes to matters where the State has primary interest, commerce, education, equal employment and, yes, the right to marry the person you love--I think religious freedom is trumped by our national interest in adherance to our fundamental values of liberty and justice for all.

As Meacham said in his article, "The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life."  I hope he's right and this cross-road leads to calmer, informed and respectful discourse among us all, regardless of our beliefs.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court heard arguments about Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment passed by a narrow majority last November that defined marriage in California as "between a man and a woman."

There are a number of reasons why Prop 8 passed in "liberal" California.  The campaign against Prop 8 never really got it's message out clearly; the campaign for Prop 8 became a cause celebre with three factions of the religious right--fundamentalists, Catholics and (ironically imho) Mormons.  The Pro-Prop 8 campaign saturated the public with false claims about the impact equal marriage rights might have on the rights of religious institutions to adhere to their own set of beliefs about gay marriage.  Unfortunately, the scare tactics worked.

This is, in some ways, a California issue to be resolved by the California Supreme Court (and the passage of time...because I do believe that another amendment defining marriage as an equal right will inevitably pass as younger voters...who've grown up in an era of acceptance of homosexuality as a variation rather than an abomination...begin to outnumber older voters).

In other ways, it's a national conversation about whether or not individuals have equal rights under the law.  Mom #1 sent me an interesting op-ed from the NY Times about a week ago.   Titled "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage," and co-written by a liberal and a conservative, the op-ed proposed a "third way" for resolving the contention surrounding gay marriage.

Essentially, the authors (David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch) propose that Congress enact a law recognizing Federal Civil Unions in states where civil unions or same sex marriages are legal.  Their proposal comes with a couple of interesting caveats.

The Federal Civil Union would confer "most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage."  Forgive me for quibbling, but I have a problem with defining something as equal (even if it's just a temporary solution designed to make our "national conversation...considerably less contentious") where the words "most or all" are part of the solution.  If such a plan were to succeed, the rights would have to be absolutely equal.

Second, they limit Federal Civil Union recognition to states that have "robust religious conscience exceptions" providing that "religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will."  This is the proposal in the piece that I find most promising.  Not because I believe that a separate but equal category of life-partnership is a stepping stone to genuine equality.  Rather, I see a fourth way to proceed.

What if our next "Proposition 8" says that California recognizes both opposite sex and same-sex marriages while providing those "robust" religious exceptions?  If Mormons, Catholics and Fundamentalists are deprived of their chief scare tactic (We'll have to let them marry in our church!), and their chief source of fear (The government will force us to believe something we don't want to believe--that gay individuals are no different from straight in terms of civil rights), then I believe same-sex marriages would pass with a healthy majority in California.

I don't believe we need a federal band-aid to achieve the goal of equality.  But I do see a place for religious conscience exceptions (similar to abortion rights exceptions) in the crafting of our next constitutional amendment to extend equal marriage rights to same sex couples.  It's an approach worth consideration.