{"id":7439,"date":"2004-04-21T14:40:46","date_gmt":"2004-04-21T14:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/rainbow_coalitions.html"},"modified":"2004-04-21T14:40:46","modified_gmt":"2004-04-21T14:40:46","slug":"rainbow_coalitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/rainbow_coalitions.html","title":{"rendered":"Rainbow Coalitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Christianity Today piece on African-American and Hispanic pastors taking the lead against same-sex marriage<\/a><\/p>\n

Bishop Roderick Caesar, 53, thinks he was 17 or 18 when a friend confessed, “I am in the life,” meaning he was homosexual. Caesar sat with his friend and prayed. “I told him I would be his friend until the day he died. I also told him I would pray that he would not find happiness.”<\/p>\n

Caesar, pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle in Jamaica, Queens, helped organize a rally against gay marriage at City Hall on March 29 with the 400-church City Covenant Coalition, led by Puerto Rican-Italian Joseph Mattera. Earlier, on March 14, more than 8,000 Hispanic evangelicals converged in the Bronx for the nation’s largest rally to date against gay marriage. One of the speakers was a white Assemblies of God pastor.<\/p>\n

In New York City and elsewhere, African American and Hispanic pastors are facing off against a large homosexual-rights contingent over the issue of gay marriage. For Christian leaders steeped in personal compassion, the confrontation is full of anguish, fear, and anger.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd then, for a different perspective, in NCR(eporter), writer Richard Rodriguez<\/a><\/p>\n

I find myself in a one-sided battle against various bishops of my church, and at what I perceive is their abrogation of moral example. I do not expect the church to bless my union with another man, but I do expect the church — at a time of sexual scandal within, at a time of extraordinary example of love and fidelity on the part of gay couples — to admit at least ambivalence or puzzlement or pause at all the church does not understand about the mystery of love. The church is no longer my teacher, maybe because my life doesn\u2019t teach the church.<\/p>\n

And yet, and yet, the most influential document describing the intersection of my religious and mundane life was composed, 40 years ago, by an assembly of princes of the church at the Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes described how Catholics must and should live in a spirit of exchange with the world beyond church doors; learning from the world, as well as teaching the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Christianity Today piece on African-American and Hispanic pastors taking the lead against same-sex marriage Bishop Roderick Caesar, 53, thinks he was 17 or 18 when a friend confessed, “I am in the life,” meaning he was homosexual. Caesar sat with his friend and prayed. “I told him I would be his friend until the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRainbow Coalitions - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/04\/rainbow_coalitions.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rainbow Coalitions - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Christianity Today piece on African-American and Hispanic pastors taking the lead against same-sex marriage Bishop Roderick Caesar, 53, thinks he was 17 or 18 when a friend confessed, “I am in the life,” meaning he was homosexual. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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