[eahollen]

Hello fellow adoptive parents. If you live in Ohio, I ask that you get out on Tuesday and vote NO in Issue one. My son has two moms, and already legislation has prevented us both from legally adopting him. I shudder to think what other benefits this will take from him. Below I have several religious leaders' opionions on the subject. Thank you!

Beth

o Friends: Please pass the following information on to friends and family everywhere in the State of Ohio. Lets get the word out and defeat Issue One!

Vote NO on State (Ohio) Issue 1

On THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28th at 2:00 p.m. religious leaders across the Greater Dayton, Ohio area gathered for a press conference at Cross Creek Community Church, United Church of Christ, 667 Miamisburg-Centerville Road in Centerville, to voice their opposition to Ohio State Issue on the November 2nd ballot. The issue reads:

"Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage."

Seven clergy persons spoke at the press conference. Below are their comments.

OPENING STATEMENT
Rev. Dr. Michael D. Castle,
Cross Creek Community Church, United Church of Christ

Members of the press, fellow clergy colleagues, friends from the
community: welcome and thank you for your presence here today. As religious leaders in the Miami Valley, from various denominations and religious traditions, we come to give voice to our opposition to STATE ISSUE ONE. We come to urge the citizens of this state, and particularly people of faith, to vote NO on STATE ISSUE ONE.

The religious leaders assembled here do not all agree theologically, or biblically, or ethically on matters of family, marriage, sexuality or gay rights. However, we do agree that what is being proposed in STATE ISSUE ONE is not a good law and it is not good public policy for all the citizens of this state.

As religious leaders, we are deeply, deeply grieved that STATE ISSUE ONE is on the ballot next Tuesday through the efforts and motivation of other peoples of faith, namely the Christian Right. As committed and sincere people of faith, we want to lift up an alternative vision of a religious faith rooted in compassion and justice, not in the politics of power and privilege. We want to go on record that the Christian right does not speak for us, or for all Christians, or for all people of faith.

I am indebted to my colleagues assembled here for their willingness to speak openly and prophetically, to risk a word of justice, and to seek peace among all the citizens of this great state and country of ours. To each of you, I offer my genuine gratitude.

You will find the names of our speakers, and the order by which they will speak, listed on the orange sheets you received when you entered.

Without further introduction, each clergy person will come now to the microphone to speak. There will be a time for questions and answers following their presentations.

[eahollen]

Rev. Dr. Rod Kennedy, First Baptist Church, Dayton

The list of groups belonging to the Scapegoating Hall of Shame is omnious and odious -- at times including the church. Today we witness church's climbing on the Black Stallion of scapegoating and trying to ride roughshod over the gay community.

A scapegoat is a person or group subjected to irrational hostility. as a part-time rhetorical scholar, I have made a somewhat extensive study of scapegoating. The practice is as common as the dirt in the barnyard recently employed in a calssic example of scapegoating by our secretary of state. And it is as old as human speech. In the 1960's when "God" supposedly belonged to the Democratic Party, George Wallace employed scapegoating against African-Americans. It didn't work then and we aren't going to allow it to stick its ugly head above ground now.

Let us ask why we use language to hurt and demean other people? Why, in the words of Richard Weaver, does our language become a "perverse shibboleth." More to the point, why are some Christians now scapegoating gays? For example, why are more people enraged about who is having sex than about children starving to death in America?

In the field of persuasvive appeals, scapegoating is unethical, misleading, and can only be defined as propaganda. It fails to qualify as an acceptable form of argument. And here's why. Scapegoating asks, "Who can we blame instead of who can we bless?" I don't know which group came first to the frivolous and sill policy of blaming the gay community -- Bible-waving, pulpit-pounding preachers or politicians.

Scapegoating engages in the use of false cause reasoning. Christians use false cause reasoning frequently. For example, a preacher will claim that the moral decline of America was caused by granting civil rights to homosexuals. Homosexuals can and have been blamed for everything from moral collapse, bad schools, the breakdown of the family, and the high rate of divorce. I'm sure the gay community is stunned by the accusation that they have destroyed heterosexual family
life in America.

Scapegoating dresses in the clothes of evangelistic concern and compassion. But no matter how you dress this attack on the gay community, it is still punitive, hateful, and cruel. Its condemnation is excessive, its charity sparse.

Scapegoating projects its serious problems onto the backs of others. Just as the "black problem" turned out to be a problem of white racism, just as the "woman problem" turned out to be a problem of male sexim, so the "homosexual problem" is really scapegoating defensiveness. Kenneth Burke said, "Let us try to discover what kind of medicine these medicine men have concocted, that we may know exactly what to guard against." After all, those who come bearing gifts of generalization, false cause, and sloppy reasons should be spurned as inadequate persuaders -- and their thin, badly dressed issue falls apart like a cheap suit.

Our job, then, is to find all availabe ways of making these
distortions of religion apparent, in order that we are not swindled into believing that a scapegoat is actually responsible for our sin. "GOD HAVE MERCY ON ME A SINNER." This is one preacher who must say NO to ISSUE 1.

[eahollen]

Rev. Bill Youngkin, David's United Church of Christ, Kettering

Issue One as an Amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio is Bad Public Policy. In fact, the definition of marriage should not even be a Constitutional issue. There is already legislation on the books which defines marriage as an institution exclusively for one man and one woman. This proposed amendment would take a social issue in our common life that is properly the purview of legislation, where it can be more easily altered, amended, or rescinded as time changes and our understanding changes and give it more permanent Constitutional status. The Constitution should give us guiding principles for legislation but not the specifics of legislation.

More egregious than that, Issue One reverses the good tradition of ensuring the rights of some citizens. It takes rights away from a group of citizens instead of extending rights to all citizens. What a slippery slope that is! One hates to think which group might be next in line for the denial of common rights.

In the second place, this proposed amendment overreaches its target, as spiteful as its target is, with the second sentence: this state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage. The word approximate alone is enough to unleash an avalanche of litigation and a nightmare for our courts.

Are we talking about the possibility of denying the right of life
insurance, health care coverage, and patient visitation to
quietly-committed domestic partners gay or straight? Do we really want to create a legalistic, monolithic state of affairs that stifles, even oppresses relationships of good-law-abiding, contributing citizens of our society who live in our neighborhoods and share family life with us?
What about an unmarried mother needing maternity leave? Might she be denied that right because she is a public servant working for one of our government or educational institutions? What about family leave to care for children in the myriad relationships already operating in our society?

Finally Issue One is bad public policy because it is bad for
business. Highly valued employees already working for corporations like NCR and institutions like The Ohio State University could be affected by the vague, catch-all second sentence of this amendment.

The list of organizations and governmental leaders who oppose the passage of this amendment -- Governor Bob Taft, Senators George Voinovich and Michael DeWine, Attorney General Jim Petro, The Ohio State University, AARP of Ohio, and the League of Women Voters among others - should give us pause and make us realize that Issue One is bad for business. Our common sense and our common decency should cause us to reject the proposed amendment to our state Constitution as Bad Public Policy.

[eahollen]

Rev. Dr. Lisa Wolfe, Assistant Professor of Old Testament
United Theological Seminary, Dayton

My name is Lisa Wolfe, and I am an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, and Assistant Professor of Old Testament at United Theological Seminary.

Some Christians have said that Issue One is biblical. I am here today as a Christian, a Pastor, and a Bible scholar to offer some clarification on that. If Issue One were biblical, and if the United States of America were a country whose laws blindly took the lead from biblical law, then menstruating women would become untouchable (Leviticus 15:19-24), rapists would have the option of marrying their victims (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), there would be no more hot dogs at ballgames (Leviticus 11:26), we would still practice slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46), adultery would carry a death sentence (Deuteronomy 22:22; Leviticus 20:10), and there would be no religious liberty in "the land of the free" (Deuteronomy 13:6-11; Matthew 24:23-24; 1 John 2:18-25). The fact is that as a collection of books, the Bible interprets and re-interprets itself, and any of us who take the Bible as authoritative have to choose one way or another to interpret it as well.

I take the Bible very seriously. I'm holding a Bible that lists the names of my family members for several generations back. The bible is an integral part of my family heritage. The Bible has been the focus of my graduate work for over ten years, and now it is the focus of my research and teaching.

I do not take this collection of holy books lightly. Because of
that, I am here today to state emphatically that to vote yes on Issue One is to desecrate, abuse, violate, misrepresent and scandalize the Bible. True, there is a long tradition of using the Bible for the sake of oppression. Throughout the centuries, people have invoked the Bible to drown witches, keep women out of pulpits, justify genocide, motivate anti-Catholicism, and sell human beings as if they were cattle. To vote yes on Issue One is to use the Bible in this shameful tradition.

But today, I want to recall another tradition of biblical
interpretation, a tradition that calls us to vote NO on Issue One. It is a tradition in which slaves surreptitiously learned to read because the biblical stories fueled their quest for freedom. In this tradition of interpretation, the Bible empowered the civil rights movement, like when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted Amos 5:24 from the Lincoln Monument, saying "we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." In this tradition, Nelson Mandela found strength from the Bible to demand the end of South African apartheid even during many years in prison. After he was released this tradition of interpretation motivated him to seek truth and reconciliation with the oppressors. This tradition of biblical interpretation motivated the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer to oppose the Nazis, even to the time of his death in a concentration camp. This tradition of biblical interpretation upheld the work of Dorothy Day as she crafted her life into a model of Catholic servanthood, in solidarity with the poor workers of this country during the depression. This tradition of biblical interpretation demands that we vote NO on Issue One, and reject its antiquated, exclusionary, narrow-minded, uncharitable spirit.

So I call today on people of faith and people of conscience to stop using this collection of holy books as an instrument of torture, oppression, cruelty, hatred and malice. For those of you who, with me, take the Bible seriously, I call you to reclaim the Bible as the liberating story of a loving creator, whose spirit comes "to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners." (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18). Please, vote NO on Issue One. (Biblical citations from the New Revised Standard Version)

[eahollen]

Rev. Dr. John Paddock, Christ Episcopal Church, Dayton

Years ago when I was in elementary school we were taught a definition of democracy. "Democracy is rule by the majority with respect for the rights of the minority." Too often, people seem to forget the second phrase. That is particularly true of this attempt to disrespect and deny rights to homosexuals and others -- rights that are enjoyed only by married people.

People often point to the Adam and Eve story as evidence of God's intention that only male/female sexuality is proper. But the Adam and Eve story is not about sexual identity, it is about companionship and community. Remember in the story how God brought different creatures before Adam -- seeking to provide him with a companion? Human beings were created for relationship. And what better relationship is there than one that is filled with love and commitment. Issue One denies the
integrity and dignity of gay and lesbian covenants and commitments.

According to the 2000 Census, there are 18,937 gay and lesbian families in Ohio. Because they are often treated with less than human warmth and affection, we know that there are many more who did not declare their status to the census takers. These folk are among our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors. Many are our relatives, and they worship with us in our churches, synagogues, mosques and ashrams.

Children in Ohio are being raised, lovingly and well, by homosexual parents. These children do not have the legal protections afforded to the children of straight couples. For example, if the biological parent dies, the children can be legally removed from the care of their remaining parent. Passage of Issue One will further legitimize the denial of civil rights for gay and lesbian couples and legal protection for their children.

Another thing that I was taught in school was that some of the earliest Europeans who came to this land and settled here were escaping religious persecution at home. This country was founded on the principle that here in American there will be no religious Talibans.

But that is exactly what is proposed here...where the religious values of some will be imposed upon the entire state of Ohio. The final result is that the rights of a minority will be restricted -- rights to share health care benefits, rights of survivorship, even the right to visit a loved one when he or she lies unconscious in a hospital.

Here stands one American who finds a constitutional amendment like Issue One to be in direct conflict with the principles of democracy and freedom upon which this nation was built.

And here stands one Christian who finds Issue One to be hateful, an abomination, and wholly incompatible with the loving, Holy Spirit of Jesus.

[eahollen]

Rev. Sherron Courneen, Ordained United Methodist Minister,
Serving in Dayton, Ohio

If this constitutional amendment passes, it will hurt many
heterosexual people -- unnecessarily! We already have an Ohio Law called the Defense of Marriage Act that was passed in May that defines marriage for the state of Ohio.

There is no reason to extend that to punish single people and seniors and others who don't have anything to do with the concerns of the religious right's definition of morality. In other words, there are very important reasons to vote against Issue 1 that have nothing to do with gay marriage.

For example, if I decide to live with my sister -- two single women -- because it is cheaper or to help me care for her if her cancer gets worse -- we cannot jointly own the property where we would live. I cannot leave any of my property or assets to her. I could not exercise power of attorney to make health decisions for her if that was necessary. I might not even be able to visit her in the hospital.

In fact, proponents of Issue One call my living with my sister a "deviant relationship" that "seeks to imitate marriage." This is insulting, ridiculous and blatantly not true.

In my neighborhood, our crumbling economy is hitting us hard. Single people -- who work hard at full-time jobs are sharing living space because they can't make it any other way. Should they be punished?

There are others who would suffer unnecessarily. Single women (widows?) might not get maternity leave. They also may not qualify for support from the WIC program that helps with infant formula, etc.

And then there are business issues. Businesses and universities may not be able to offer family health insurance or other benefits to employees who are not married. It is like people who aren't married get punished.

As I said, there are many reasons to vote NO on Issue 1. That is why our Republican Senators -- Dewine and Voinovich -- are voting NO. That is why Republican Governor Taft is voting NO. That is why Republican Attorney General Petro is voting NO. That is why AARP and the Ohio State University and NCR officials are voting NO. They are voting NO because Issue 1 is unnecessary, redundant, moralistic, poorly written, punishing to single people, anti-business and discriminates.

[eahollen]

Rabbi Bernard Barsky, Beth Abraham Synagogue, Dayton

I have been asked to address the question of how Issue one is offensive to religious liberty. This is a subtle question, and difficult to address easily in the allotted few minutes. Those who have initiated this measure surely understand that the question of what constitutes a marriage has always been defined by a community's religious context. But in the pre-modern world, no distinction existed between a community's religious organization and its political structures. Certainly this was the case in the religion of ancient Israel, whose catalogue of religious law included its incest prohibitions, its rules for who may marry whom -- or more accurately, who may not marry whom. That ancient law also permitted a man to have many wives.

Despite their biblical authority, these marriage rules have evolved over time, and continue to evolve. In ancient Israel, for instance, it was expected that a man would marry his deceased brother's widow, if he died childless. But rabbinic law discouraged the practice, and eventually it disappeared. Polygamy continued to be permissable among Jews, though it was rarely practiced, until it was prohibited by rabbinic decree in the year 1000. Divorce was and is permitted by Israelite and Jewish law, but the Catholic Church prohibited it. The Episcopalians among my colleagues will recall that the Anglican confession had its origins in a dispute about whether Henry VIII was legitimately married to his dead brother's widow. Out of that divorce came the English Church's separation from Rome.

In our pluralistic community -- a community of many religious traditions living side-by-side in harmony -- many of our faith traditions continue to evolve, and are currently engaged in passionate discussion about some of our marriage rules, and in particular whether homosexual marriages may be consecrated. And so it is offensive to religious liberty in our country and community when adherents of a particular belief attempt to short-circuit and cut off that solemn and serious discussion by using the heavy-handed power of the state to enforce its own will. One group tells us, in effect: "Don't bother even talking about this, we have made up your minds for you. What we
call marriage has to be what the state will call marriage."

If I may draw an obvious parallel between "pro-choicers" and "pro-lifers" in the abortion debate. Judaism has its own three thousand year old history of sensitive and careful discussion about abortion -- we were engaged in this debate before Christianity or Islam were even born -- and it has continued to evolve into our own time. It has of course at all times given careful weight to the teachings and values of scripture, to the values of human life, to the God's providence over the life of the child in the womb. So, frankly, it is repugnant to the spiritual liberty of Judaism to have the law of the land made so fixed and rigid that our own teachings are made irrelevant in one fell swoop.

A nation that is serious about its religious liberty and its pluralism, and which takes seriously the notion that the marriage relationship is a sacred bond, will let our various and varied religious traditions work out these questions according to their own spiritual lights. What does the power of the state have to do with telling us which relationships are sacred before God? "My Father's house has many mansions," taught the prophet. But some would rather cram us all into a one-room efficiency apartment and insist that we call that our Father's house. Where will this intolerance and religious repression end?

[eahollen]

Get out and vote if you haven't already!!

[Volfe]

On that note, Mississippi is voting on the same issue (except MS will deem any union legalized in another state or foreign territory to not be valid in MS).

[eahollen]

Yes, there are 11 states with something like this on the ballot. It is discouraging.
There are so many other problems out there to be concerned about, and people are wasting their time with this.