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Also on this website:
Toby
Johnson's books:
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of
Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE:
Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe
SECRET
MATTER,
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE
PLAGUE:
A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.
Articles
and Excerpts:
The
Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
Why gay people should NOT Marry
Wedding Cake Liberation
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
The
cause of homosexuality
What Jesus said about Gay
Rights
The purpose of homosexuality
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
"It's Always About You"
The myth of the
Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara
Joseph Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
You're
Not A Wave
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The Joseph Campbell Connection,
The Nature of Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.
"The Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the Cross &
the
Dark Night of the Soul."
Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.
Eckhart's Eye
Let Me Tell You a Secret
Religious Articulations of the
Secret
The Collective Unconscious
Driving as Spiritual Practice
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
Gay
retirement and the "freelance monastery"
Seeing with Different Eyes
The
mystical
experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby
Part 2: The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus
and the Resurrection
Part 4: A
Course in Miracles
The
Secret of the Clear Light
Understanding the Clear Light
Mobius
Strip
Finding Your Tiger Face
How Gay
Souls Get Reincarnated
About Alien Abduction
In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
Toby's friend
and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
About
Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Guy Mannheimer
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Gay Marriage in Texas
In the name of saving American morality, the
legislatures of the various states are moving to pass constitutional
amendments that would define marriage as between hetoersexual couples
only and, in some states, outlaw any kind of parallel to marriage for
homosexuals, like civil unions or domestic partnerships, and, indeed,
in some cases, invalidate contractual agreements between gay couples
regarding inheritance, powers of attorney, authority over medical
decisions, and even common ownership of property.
These efforts have nothing to do with morality. They
seem more like ploys to distract the American people from real issues
facing us in the first decade of the 21st Century.
Getting married and pledging monogamy is about
as conservative and "moral" as you can get.
In November 2005, Texas voters were asked to vote on the
Anti-Gay-Marriage Amendment.
The amendment passed statewide by some 70%. Only in Austin did it fail
to get a majority of votes.
What a nasty thing that says about Texans. What about the old "live and
let live" ideal of the West? What happened to Texan rugged
individualism? What happened to Texans love of freedom and distaste for
government meddling?
What a waste of money and time and effort
to have an election for a non-issue!
Marriage in Texas is already defined as the union of a man
and a woman. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Texas, and there's very
little chance the legislature would make it legal.
The supposed threat that merited this was that so-called "activist
judges" might force gay marriage on Texans by overturning the
opposite-sex requirements as unConstitutional.
It's certainly true that laws against gay marriage amount to unequal
treatment of individuals before the law. These laws truly are
unAmerican and unConstitutional. And the "activist judges" are serious,
intelligent, experienced jurists who are looking very carefully at the
issues of same-sex marriage and deciding that allowing gay people the
same
freedoms as straight people is simply unavoidably American.
What else could "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness" possible mean?
But the Texas Supreme Court is not about to legalize gay
marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court is not about to legalize gay marriage.
There was no need for this amendment.
Worse than what the "Defense of Marriage" campaign might do to gay
couples is what it does to American democracy and Founders' vision of a
free society. For the reality is that this amendment is blatantly
religious and driven by politicized religious officials.
The amendment writes into American law a
particular religious doctrine.
It may be so that the idea that marriage is between a man
and a woman is widespread and generally accepted by the vast majority
of Americans, but it is still a tenet of a very specific religion. Not
all religions oppose gay marriage: some Native American traditions on
the American continent practiced same-sex marriage long before
Europeans came and tried to kill them all; African-disaporic religions
in the the Caribbean recognize religious forms of same-sex marriage; in
the early days of Christianity, apparently, there were rites for
declaring a pledge of lifelong companionship between same sex
individuals.
There are currently progressive churches in the U.S. -- like the United
Church of Christ -- that officially support gay marriage. For the
government to come down on one side of this issue is to establish one
religious doctrine over another. That's not permitted in the United
States Constitution.
Besides, everybody knows it's the particular brand of right-wing,
neo-conservative, Fundamentalist Christianity that has been drawn into
the Republican Party that is pushing this idea of "Defending Marriage"
by making homosexuals the scapegoats for all the problems striaght
people are having with traditional marriage today. (The nuclear family
that these conservative Christians declare to be the backbone of
civilization is really only less than a hundred years old. It's a new
thing for a man and a woman and their couple of children to live
separate from the grandparents, aunts and uncles--some of them "maiden
aunts" and "gay uncles"--and cousins and family friends that make
up the real family.)
The Defense of Marriage Amendment is really about the Republicans
giving official recognition to right-wing Christianity. It's a sort of
indirect way of "establishing" them as the religion of the United
States--something they very much want. (These Fundamentalist Christians
DO NOT believe in separation of Church and State.)
Toby Johnson, PhD is
author of
eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In
addition to the novels featured
elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN
THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF
THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH
CAMPBELL.
Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness was published in 2000.
His Lammy-nominated book GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.
Toby Johnson and
Kip Dollar have been partners for over 21 years.
Their relationship is a fine example for both gay couples and straight
couples.
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