Transcripts

LORNA BENSON: Macalester Plymouth United Church was formed by the merging of two congregations, a United Church of Christ and a Presbyterian Church. The merged congregation is open and affirming. That means Macalester Plymouth welcomes everyone, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.

Parishioner Tom Richardson attends Macalester Plymouth with his partner Don. Richardson says he feels embraced by his congregation. But since the election, he's felt rejected by other Christian voters who helped pass gay marriage bans in 11 states.

TOM RICHARDSON: I think my first reaction was bewilderment. It was almost like I looked in the mirror, and I thought, wow, you're the pariah. How did I do this? How did I become this? And it was laughable. I think the bottom line for me is I think I'm just a person like anybody else.

And my guess is that a lot of people, who really feel that we are bad people or need to be alienated-- we need to be on the outskirts. Our rights need to be limited. We need to be silenced. I think that they probably have not had much exposure to gay people. It's very easy to say somebody is bad when you don't have much exposure to them.

LORNA BENSON: Richardson voted for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, so did the other parishioners we spoke with, including Betsy Daub. She says regardless of what's happening legally in other states, gay marriages will still occur.

BETSY DAUB: I think it's denial on the part of our elected officials to say, we're not going to let this happen. It is happening. It is happening. And we will, sooner or later as a society, have to deal with the fact that we have thousands of families out there who are struggling to figure out, how do they ethically and honestly file their taxes?

How do we form families so that we can visit each other and make medical decisions about each other in the hospital or who gets to put whom on each other's insurance? I mean, these are real daily logistical questions. But in terms of relationships, we're doing marriages already.

LORNA BENSON: While gay marriage is important to parishioner Jeff Schulz, there were other issues that mattered more to him in this election. But he says politicians were so distracted by gay marriage that they didn't spend much time talking about those issues.

JEFF SCHULZ: More in depth discussion on our role internationally, education policy and reform here, the economy, policy issues, foreign and domestic. And I think attention was so diverted that I was just incredibly disheartened by that.

LORNA BENSON: Don, who doesn't want his last name used for this report, agrees.

DON: I was dumbfounded that the discussion of morals failed to include anything about war or peace. To me, I can't think of much more immoral than convincing a country to go to war on a cause that proved to be faulty. And once you've gone to war, having the reason for going to war changing every other month. So I was amazed that the discussion of morals failed to go and include that aspect of the dialogue.

LORNA BENSON: Don and his fellow parishioners say they think moral behavior is showing respect for all people. They think it's immoral to do anything that deliberately harms another person. Parishioner Gail Hanson says Christians who want to prevent him from marrying his partner are harming him.

GAIL HANSON: It's fine to have disagreements, but there was so much agenda going with it that it was not right. It just that was not moral to go in. You can have your own teachings and do it with yourselves or with your own group of people as you believe, but you shouldn't be telling other people what they should be doing and forcing issues on people to everybody be the same.

LORNA BENSON: As a Christian, do you feel you should reach out to other Christians who do not think the way that you do about the gay lifestyle or gay marriage?

GAIL HANSON: Well, I think we have a witness, as our church does, with how we act and how the church community as a whole treats gays and lesbians. I think friends, relatives are aware. I mean, it's incredible. Some of the friends in the gay community that can't understand why I bother going to church because they're so alienated from the church.

And that's sad because there is hope, and there's meaning for everyone. But it's an effort sometimes for people to make that bridge and see how the church can be relevant, especially when they see how so many people in the church, broad church, are so judgmental of gays and lesbians.

LORNA BENSON: Ed, who doesn't want to use his last name either, says this debate has made him worry about the future of Christianity and the United States.

ED: The church today is becoming fractured over this issue. And I think it comes back to fear. I think of what concerns me most is that people are motivated by fear that what's happened after 9/11. I think a lot of the reactions since then have been a-- we were attacked, therefore, we have to attack. And that's a reaction out of fear. And when a country is afraid, one of the first things it does is begin to close in on itself and exclude other people. And that's what's happening here.

And I don't think there's any cases in history where countries that have become afraid have continued to be successful countries and continue to develop. I think there's a very solid pattern that when that happens, that's the beginning of a serious decline in the quality of life in that country. So that the fact that we are falling into our fears rather than dealing with them and figuring how we move forward is to me, a very scary thought.

LORNA BENSON: Ed is a parishioner at Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul. We also heard from Don, Gail Hanson, Tom Richardson, Jeff Schulz, and Betsy Daub. I'm Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio.