In Colorado Springs

Today Jim and I are volunteering to set up a big cook-out to celebrate the end of the long walk (week-long) from Denver to Colorado Springs. People have walked in relay teams, each team taking a five-mile stretch or so.

The whole event comes to a conclusion tomorrow with a march to Focus on the Family. Please visit the www.Soulforce.org website to learn about our concerns with Dr. Dobson and the spiritual violence we perceive Focus to be committing against God's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Bishop Timothy Whitaker of the United Methodist Church has just published a piece (click on his name). I'll ponder this a while and probably comment on it when I get home next week. Needless to say the Soulforce position (and my position) would be that any religious expression which categorizes lesbian and gay persons as inferior represents spiritual violence. Whitaker seems to relegate lesbians and gays to a position in the church which is inferior. He would, perhaps, consider them equal IF they would practice the ascetism of the single life. I would argue that imposing celibacy on someone who does not have that gift from God is another act of spiritual violence. It is the tradition of the church that celibacy is a gift given by God and not a discipline to be imposed by the church on persons without that gift from God. This tradition goes back to Paul's letters. More on all of this later!