Brody's Scribbles... When World Views Collide

By Rob Donaldson (San Diego, California) Apr 15 | Mike Huckabee's recent comments about Don't Ask, Don't Tell as a "posturing point for political purposes" rather than a bona fide policy issue which the military itself allegedly doesn't care about, his dismissal of civil unions as "unnecessary," and his dredging up the slippery slope argument that marriage equality will lead to legitimizing bestiality and polygamy all confirm one thing. Those who support marriage equality and those who oppose it (usually on religious grounds) see the world, the Constitution, and the role of government in ways so different that one wonders if they can ever reach common understanding.

The Huckabees of the world believe that in order to survive, American society must be built around the nuclear family model they think the Bible mandates. They think that since the United States was created by divine intervention, it must follow the Christian standards they believe God requires or else God will destroy it. They see everything in life through religious lenses since, when pressed to prioritize, they believe they must choose what they think God wants over all else. They will interpret the Constitution, social issues, cultural questions, family relationships, schooling, and everything in life from this perspective. Anything that clashes with that perspective will be dismissed as erroneous at best, and sometimes as evil--such as gay marriage. While they profess allegiance to all Constitutional guarantees and requirements, many of Mr. Huckabee's supporters would privately like to see a Biblically-based society, perhaps even a theocracy.

Those who support marriage equality do a much better job of separating the religious from the secular. While there are of course exceptions, many on that side of the fence respect the role of religion and everyone's freedom to choose or reject faith, and many are guided by Christian faith themselves. But they also recognize that the Constitution and laws of the United States must operate irrespective of a particular religious view. No religious test may be imposed for any public office, Congress may not act to favor any particular religion, no government action may endorse any single religious faith to the exclusion of others. Persons on this side of the fence see the Huckabees of the world as trying to impose their Biblical model of marriage on the laws of a secular state, effectively forcing everyone to live according to one particular religion's dictates.

I've seen this debate from both sides. Raised in a conservative Mormon family, I attended many church meetings in the run-up to Proposition 8 which were more like campaign organizing sessions in which the anti-gay rhetoric flowed freely with heads nodding in agreement throughout the room. Everyone was instructed that during their precinct walks they should not start arguments, should remain polite, and must above all else maintain the guise of simply talking to neighbors about "the importance of family." But underneath, the agenda was clear and everybody knew it. The gays were out to destroy what God had decreed, and the Mormons, Catholics, and anybody else who cared to join them were mobilizing to defend God's one true approved model for families. Their world view simply didn't permit any other perspective.

While I can't speak for staunch Catholics or Evangelical Christians, I suspect it's the same for them as it was for me. Growing up in a conservative Mormon household was like growing up in a bubble, in a cocoon. Church mandates and imprimaturs influenced everything we did, every single day. It affected my parents' politics, our family's daily schedule, how and what they taught us about life, our place in the world and what our purposes should be, what activities we should pursue and avoid, what government should and shouldn't do, which laws were good and which were bad. When you are saturated in a religious environment like that every day of your formative years, you assume that's just how the world is supposed to work. You assume all right-thinking people will see things as you do, because of course YOU would never choose to believe something that was wrong.

It usually takes some sort of personal crisis or calamity to crack open that cocoon and turn the caterpillar into a butterfly who recognizes that there really are different ways of looking at life, faith and God, ways which may be just as legitimate as what formerly seemed the one right way. A butterfly who can see that the unquestioning self-assurance of "the Biblical" world view may be just as blinkered as that of other religious traditions that so many Christians privately disdain as lesser or counterfeit.  A crisis like coming out, or having a child come out, and then dealing with how reality bites, with how the Huckabees really walk the talk about charity and love.

It wasn't till I finally mustered the courage to come out, risking the anger of my own still staunchly Mormon family at my "apostasy" (which, sadly, they have done), that I found myself able to look at this and many other things much more dispassionately, with the actual humility of conceding that I don't have all the answers, nor does my church (something many staunch Mormons, Catholics and Evangelicals will not admit). I was able to bridge the gap and adopt a more flexible world view only when I actually had to resolve what I knew about myself with what my church said about it--and those things were simply irreconcilable. Conclusion? Something was missing from the way I'd always been taught to look at things. Perhaps it was incomplete after all.  I don't find any conflict between this conclusion and maintaining the basics of my faith, but I know I'm in the minority of Mormons on that.  As if gay Mormons who are out aren't t already a small enough group!

I predict that most of the Huckabees of the world will not change their views until they too face some similar personal crisis, and face it realistically, with honesty and integrity, rather than running for refuge in dogma or bigotry and refusing to consider changing their perspectives. Harvey Milk knew that when he said that everyone in the closet should come out. Force that cognitive dissonance on as many Huckabees as possible. Make it personal. Force them to see that reality is not what they've been taught. Insist that those driven by religious world views really examine the basis for their prejudice.

I'm not naive about this. I know the process is sometimes ugly and unpleasant. I've seen it in my own family. Rumor has it that even the senior Mormon hierarchy recognizes and regrets the countless fractured families, deep hurts and damaged relationships that resulted from the church's aggressive support of Proposition 8, and they may think twice before asking the Mormon faithful to do something like that again. I know that coming out can be the most frightening thing someone may ever do. I've been there. But I also know it's liberating in ways I never comprehended before. I look at the world in new, more welcoming, more realistic, more honest, humble and tolerant ways now.

I wish the Huckabees of the world could experience the same thing. They might realize that we are not the threat they imagine. Sooner or later they're going to have to move, though. Either move out of this world and on to the next, or else move their opinions. Because marriage equality is inevitable. The only real question for the Huckabees is how they're going to deal with it.

Rob Donaldson, a technology attorney & father of two from San Diego, California is a regular contributor to Brody's Notes & Scribbles and can be found on his website located here: 'Scrum Central.'