Democracy: Ongoing Battle, Shifting Faces

Interesting today to read Adam Liptak’s news analysis article about the California Supreme Court decision this week. The article is entitled “Same-Sex Marriage and Racial Justice Find Common Ground” (www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/us/17marriage.html?th&emc=th).

Liptak notes the many strong parallels between the struggle for African-American civil rights (including the right of interracial marriage), and the struggle for LGBT civil rights. As he notes, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald M. George, quoted repeatedly from Perez v. Sharp (1948) in the oral-argument phase of the recent hearing. Perez struck down California’s ban on interracial marriage.

As Liptak concludes, “The chief justice seemed to be accepting arguments for same-sex marriage that were consciously rooted in the struggle for equal rights for blacks.”

When Perez lifted legal denial of the possibility of interracial marriage in California, 29 other states still had laws barring interracial marriage. These include almost all of the states that have now passed laws forbidding gay marriage, and/or constitutional amendments defining marriage as the marriage of one man and one woman.

In other words, just as interracial marriage was stoutly contested by legal means in the American South through the middle part of the 20^th century, gay marriage is just as fiercely rejected in the very same area as the 21^st century begins. The same defenders of Christian values in the churches of Main Street USA who today combat gay marriage fought against interracial marriage in the preceding century.

Bans on miscegenation were not finally eradicated in the U.S. until 1967, when Loving v. Virginia struck down the 16 remaining antimiscegenation laws still on state books in the U.S. I will leave it to readers to discover which states still carried these laws on their books in 1967.

When California abolished its prohibition of interracial marriage in 1948, no other state supreme court followed suit. The Perez decision preceded the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which called for the integration of public schools “with all deliberate speed.”

Democracy takes work. It requires vigilance, determination to keep enfranchising those who are disenfranchised. Such enfranchisement doesn't happen quickly or easily, when groups have historically been disenfranchised. Moving democracy forward—making it fully participatory, bringing everyone to the table—requires strong sacrifice and strong courage on the part of those who care about the ideals for which our nation was founded.

The story I tell in yesterday’s blog—my experience growing up in Arkansas in the 1950s and 1960s—happened in that “deliberate speed” time frame, a period in which we white Southerners kicked and screamed against speed, did all we could to resist integration, and would not ever have willingly gone into that good night without pressure from the federal government, from both the executive and the judicial branches. We bitterly resented those activist judges of the Supreme Court who told us that our Christian customs and Christian culture were insufficiently democratic.

Had civil rights for African Americans been left up to popular consensus, to a majority vote, I have absolutely no doubt that the majority of Southern states—and, indeed, of the nation—would have voted against abolition of segregation in the middle of the 20^th century. The democratic ideals of the founding fathers and mothers have worked themselves out only slowly over the course of history, and have required stringent defense by a watchful minority of concerned citizens and journalists, as well as by conscientious judiciaries and legislators.

This is a point Bill Moyers makes in his new book Moyers on Democracy (Doubleday, 2008). Today’s Alternet website carries and excerpt from the book.

What Moyers has to say about journalists is music to my ears. As readers of this blog may have noted, one reason I celebrate the internet’s development of alternative news sites (and blogs) is that this development finds ways around the traditional media’s control of the news. I am alarmed at the ways in which the mainstream media today appear to have sold their souls to money and power.

Moyers argues that democracy is seriously imperiled when journalists have allowed themselves to be bought by wealthy power mongers. He notes:

I wish I could say that journalists in general are showing the same interest in uncovering the dangerous linkages thwarting this democracy. It is not for lack of honest and courageous individuals who would risk their careers to speak truth to power -- a modest risk compared to those of some journalists in authoritarian countries who have been jailed or murdered for the identical "crime." But our journalists are not in control of the instruments they play. As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and networks, and profit rather than product becomes the focus of corporate effort, news organizations -- particularly in television -- are folded into entertainment divisions. The "news hole" in the print media shrinks to make room for advertisements, and stories needed by informed citizens working together are pulled in favor of the latest celebrity scandals because the media moguls have decided that uncovering the inner workings of public and private power is boring and will drive viewers and readers away to greener pastures of pabulum. Good reporters and editors confront walls of resistance in trying to place serious and informative reports over which they have long labored. Media owners who should be sounding the trumpets of alarm on the battlements of democracy instead blow popular ditties through tin horns, undercutting the basis for their existence and their First Amendment rights.

Thinking about creating and maintaining a democracy that is really participatory—one that allows all to be at the table of public life—brings me back to the example of that exemplary African-American leader of the early 20^th century, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. At a time in which some African-American women seem unwilling to recognize the obvious strong parallels between the struggle of people of color (and of women) for a place at the table, and the similar struggle of LGBT Americans, prophetic African-American women like Mary McLeod Bethune deserve renewed attention.

Dr. Bethune recognized that marginalization of any group of citizens—whether on the basis of gender, class, economic status, or any other stigmatized difference—frayed the fabric of a participatory society. The town-hall meetings she innovated at the school she founded, Bethune-Cookman College, brought together different groups for dialogue not only because she believed that institutions of higher education can play a significant role in assuring the health of civic societies, but also because she viewed these meetings as an enactment of her social analysis, which stressed the interconnections of all those who are shut out of the process of participatory democracy.

At the very center of Dr. Bethune’s understanding of social transformation was a belief that, in a viable democracy, there must be an ongoing process of extending inalienable rights to all disenfranchised groups. In Dr. Bethune’s view, the concept of inalienable rights enshrined in the United States’s foundational documents requires that, over the course of time, as democratic society recognizes that any group is being unfairly disenfranchised on grounds of race, gender, or other accidental characteristics, this group must be brought into full participation in the structures of the society.

As a student of Dr. Bethune’s thought, Elaine Smith, notes, Mary McLeod Bethune did not confine herself to pursuing civil rights for either African Americans or for women. She recognized the interconnections between the struggle of all disenfranchised Americans for access to the table of participatory democracy. Smith notes that, both as an educator and a political activist, Dr. Bethune “confronted issue layered upon issue” (see Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith, ed., Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1999], “Introduction,” p. 201).

Mary McLeod Bethune concerned herself (and her students) with civil rights for blacks and women, but also with issues of education, job placement, housing, health care, the military, and civilian defense—all in a central quest to extend full civil rights to all disenfranchised minorities.

Thinking about Dr. Bethune in light of this week’s baby-step attempt to bring LGBT Americans to the table of participatory democracy—thinking about the prophetic role that some African-American women, including Coretta Scott King and Barbara Jordan, have played in the struggle for LGBT civil rights—brings me back to a question I raised in a previous posting.

This is a question about the role of the United Methodist Church and its institutions in addressing key issues of social need. This week, Wayne Hudson reports on the Bilerico blog that, yet again, the state of Florida is in the news for heated resistance to gay civil rights.

Hudson’s report is entitled “Florida Bully Principal Loses His Case, But May Win His Battle” (www.bilerico.com/2008/05/florida_bully_principal_loses_his_case_b.php). He reports on a case in which students at Ponce de Leon High School in Panama City who wore symbols supporting solidarity with gay students were forced to remove these symbols, while students wearing Confederate flags were allowed to continue displaying those overtly political symbols.

The students contacted the ACLU, and a Florida federal court ruled in their favor.

Thinking about this case reminds me of some imperatives the recent UMC General Conference developed for United Methodists. Legislation passed at General Conference calls on United Methodists to educate—to teach people how to understand and prevent mechanisms of social violence including homophobia.

General Conference specifically calls on United Methodist Churches and UMC institutions to combat homophobia, and to educate communities and churches about homophobia and heterosexism.

In a state where battle lines are drawn, where violence against LGBT citizens is becoming routine, where a homophobic bill is on the ballot for the coming election, what better place to launch the educational initiatives for which General Conference calls than Bethune-Cookman University? As the welcome statement of the university’s current president, Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed, on the Bethune-Cookman website, notes,

Founded in 1904 by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Bethune-Cookman College is an outstanding liberal arts college with a rich legacy. Through her pursuit of lifelong learning and social equity for all people, Dr. Bethune demonstrated that education was capable of democratizing society through civic engagement and academic excellence. Today, this legacy lives on in our students as they engage in volunteerism projects, service learning, and civic engagement projects that enhance effective citizenship.

The rich legacy of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and of the university she founded makes that United Methodist university a perfect location for the United Methodist Church to begin putting into practice its concern to combat discrimination in all forms, to educate for tolerance in a culture where violence is rearing its ugly head. The fact that Bethune-Cookman University is a United Methodist HBCU (an historically black university) makes it a perfect location for UMC-sponsored educational initiatives to build bridges between the African American and the gay communities—both of whom struggle with persistent discrimination about which the United Methodist Church professes to be concerned.

In a November 1941 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Bethune notes that she believed it was imperative that the school she had founded thrive, because Bethune-Cookman College had become a “community center” for discussion and civic engagement in its region.

As I continue to reflect on the statements made by the United Methodist Church at its recent General Conference—and as the United Church of Christ launches its Sacred Conversation on Race—I encourage the UMC bishop of Florida, Bishop Timothy Whitaker, to give serious consideration to the legacy of Dr. Bethune as a foundation for serious educational work at the "community center" she founded, Bethune-Cookman University, around issues of homophobia, racism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination in American society.

What more splendid countercultural witness could the United Methodist Church offer in a state so divided over these issues today as the state of Florida, than carrying on Dr. Bethune’s dream of educating through civic engagement to continue the democratization of American society?

Talking about General Conference reminds me to summarize the three discourse rules I developed for holy conferencing in previous postings. As I do this, I’m reminded, too, to express my gratitude to several United Methodist websites—including UMNexus—that have linked to this blog’s discussion of UMC issues. I have received quite a few new blog visitors because of those links, and am grateful for the new readers.

Here, in one list, are my three discourse rules for holy conferencing:

1. In effective holy conferencing that aims at the practice of faithful Christian discipleship, truth claims need to be backed by evidence and sources that are accessible to all, and capable of being evaluated by all.

2. Effective holy conferencing requires policies and procedures to create transparency and accountability among all participants about organizations other than the church that they may be representing in holy conferencing. In particular, effective holy conferencing requires policies and procedures that create transparency and accountability about funding sources for delegates who represent organizations other than the church, as they engage in holy conferencing.

3. Effective holy conferencing that aims at the practice of faithful Christian discipleship will give a privileged place at the table to those whose voices are least powerful in mainstream culture.