Going Through The Old Liquor Cabinet - Mumms, Peter Heering, Vandermint, and Tawny Port

There were some old photo albums in the living room that I hadn't put back in the hall closet last time we were visiting my mom.  But to put them back I had to make room.  I did this by pulling out some old boxes that had alcohol in them.  Old champagne, tawny port, vermouth.  I'm not a drinker.  I drink a beer now and then and I like a good glass of wine, but I never really got into hard liquor.  Well, all the Mekhong - a common Thai whiskey - that was forced on me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer so many years ago, when I would, to be culturally open, say yes to anything, probably cured me of wanting hard liquor. 



I started googling how long champagne and the other bottles are good for.  The answers I found online suggest things are still drinkable but not in their prime.




From For The Love Of Port:

How long do I cellar Vintage and other styles of port?

Vintage Ports typically need at least 15 years to start reaching maturity. The top Vintage Ports can easily last 30-100+ years if stored properly.
Late Bottle Vintage Ports that are filtered are not meant to be aged. So there is no reason to do so. Unfiltered LBV’s generally will start showing their best at around 10+ years of age. Generally, they are not designed to be aged beyond 20 years, with a few exceptions.
Tawny Port with an Indication of Age is not meant to age in bottle. This type of Port group is usually best when consumed closer to the date of bottling.

This all led to another cabinet that was full of a wide variety of bottles.  I offered my mom a couple of sips of the Vandermint.  And she seemed to really enjoy it.  The fragrance lingered most of the night around the dining room table.  I found this description at This Next:

"Few things are as obscure and good as Vandermint: the chocolate and mint liqueur from Holland. You might not take milk glass-like bottle seriously but the contents will surpise and likely amaze. Unlike its lesser mint & chocolate counterparts this elixir is smooth, rich, creamy and alluring - all without being milky, syrupy sweet or heavy in any way. Dont be fooled, this is a serious drink with refined taste. If you want alcohol steeped candy, look elsewhere. A few sips and you'll be solving the world's problems from your sofa throne in no time at all."

After reading that, I guess I better try some before I go to bed tonight.

When I looked up the Peter Heering Liqueur, I learned this history about the Singapore Sling (which I'd known about, and I think actually have had one in my younger days.)  From Heering.com:

The Singapore Sling was created at Raffles Hotel at the turn-of-the-century by Hainanese-Chinese bartender mr Ngiam Tong Boon. Till today, in the Hotel’s museum, visitors may view the safe in which Mr Ngiam locked away his precious recipe books, as well as the Sling recipe hastily jotted down on a bar-chit in 1936 by a visitor to the Hotel who asked the waiter for it. Mr Ngiam Tong Boon concocted the very first coctail to achieve global fame by mixing 30 ml gin, 15 ml Heering Cherry Liqueur, 120 ml pineapple juice, 15 ml lime juice, 7.5 ml Cointreau, 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine, 10 ml Grenadine and a dash of Angostura Bitters. Shaken not stirred, served on ice in a cocktail glass.

Somewhere I have a slide of the Raffles Hotel from 1968 or 69, and a more recent one - it didn't look at all the same - from when I visited my son in 2008.

 One more thing.  Does anyone have any idea what this item is for.  I've photoshopped two views into this one image.  One of the excuses I've used to get my mom to allow me to go through the stuff in the closets now, is so that she can explain things.  But she didn't know what this was either. 

What If Marriage Was Only Expected To Last Until The Last Kid Turned 18?

We got to LA late last night and my mom had saved us the Sunday Times.  This quote caught my attention in an article called "Middle-raged woman."

"I think there are some people for whom long-term marriages really work;  it's a wonderful thing to see.  But biologically speaking, probably one in every four couples can do that with some level of comfort.
There are other cases where a long-term marriage may not be the best choice for two people. . .

I feel like I married the right person.  I made the right choice then, had a 20-year relationship, and I'm so grateful for the time that we had together, the children that we made and how we continue to take care of those children."

Basically the article is a book review interview for Sandra Tsing Loh's The Madwoman in the Volvo:  My Year of Raging Hormones.

She also mentions in the interview that therapists sort of do and don't work.

". . . some midlife advice you need to hear is:  I guess you need to divorce your husband, or have an affair, or date a younger man, or go on a cruise, or move to Africa.  You might actually need to do something extreme to change your life and a therapist really can't give you advice that's not healthy or sensible."

First she says this is what one needs to be told, but then, that it's not healthy or sensible.  Is she saying you only need to be told, but not act on it?  I think not.  She seems to be saying you should do 'something extreme to change your life.'   But is it just that her well conditioned societal norms take over to suggest this isn't healthy or reasonable?  If it's what you need, why isn't it healthy or reasonable?  Maybe she's implying different short term and long term consequences.

That got me thinking.  What if marriage was more like a job?  It could be for a lifetime or at least for one's working career.  Or it might not last and you get another one.  What if marriage was for ten years, or, if there are kids, until the last kid turns 18?


What we actually have now is much worse than that.  We have divorce and lots of folks take advantage of that while their kids are still young.  And I don't disagree with those who think the best child-rearing setting is with the natural parents, but with the caveat that they are reasonably happy together and know how to solve problems without violence (verbal or physical).  Having grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins nearby can certainly help.  But there are lots of different alternatives to this ideal that also work reasonably well if the people taking care of the kids are 'good parents' [maybe defining  that's for another dozen posts] no matter who they are. 

BUT, divorce is, seen as a failure. A broken marriage.  What if it were seen as normal?  What if marriages that were renewed past the due date were also seen as normal?  Kids would know that their parents had a good chance of splitting up eventually, so that when it did happen, it wouldn't been seen as a terrible thing.  And maybe more importantly, the marriage partners would know that things would end and they would have new choices and opportunities.  They would do better financial planning for that day.  Both partners would have a stake at both parenting and having a career - or would work out an agreement so that the working partner's income would be seen as something that would be potentially split.  Pre-nuptial agreements would probably become a lot more common.  Affairs, especially as the marriage came closer to its due date, would become more acceptable, and possibly even feel normal and not a threat.

When asked what marriage advice she gives her daughters, Tsing Low says she hasn't thought about it, but goes on:

In the end, for a family core to rely on the notion of a man and a woman feeling romantically in love with each other for 10, 20 or 30 years - it's the most unstable thing to rely on.  Biologically, romantic feelings wane after four years, then you have to work on it.   

Without a doubt, the excitement of a new relationship doesn't last unless you work on it.  But a different kind of relationship also grows, one that can be stronger.  But as someone who's been married over 40 years, I can attest that you need to work at it.  Be imaginative, be honest, talk.  More than talk.  Communicate.

Would such an environment be perfect?  Perfection may be achievable in endeavors such as moon landings, but it's an impossible standard for social projects.  The real standard for change is whether the proposed program is likely to work better than the existing one and any other options proposed.  The poster below from Daily Infographic offers some standards for the status quo.  But like all internet info, take it with a grain of salt until you double check all their stats.  And remember that divorces (and when there are kids involved, how the parents handle their parental responsibilities post divorce) come in many different shapes and forms and if they identified five main types of divorce, I suspect the worst impacts on kids would be mostly found in the worst two or three types of divorce.

From Daily Infographic

Note: It says that 41% of first marriages end in divorce. That means, of course, that 59% do NOT end in divorce. A few may end in murder of one spouse by the other, but it's still the vast majority last.

[UPDATE 4:36pm ADT:  Here are two This American Life shows that give long and thoughtful attention to this topic:
Monogamy and look at Act 1: Best Laid Plans in the Valentine show.]

Elvis Heads To Germany And Mao Takes Over China - Pathé News Footage Archive On Youtube

When I was a kid, when you went to the movies there was typically a newsreel and a cartoon before the movie.  And sometimes, I particularly remember Saturdays, there would  be a short episode of some continuing weekly serial.

A month ago (April 18) Pathé put its collection of 85,000 newsreels onto Youtube.  The ones I looked at have that typical authoritative male announcer voice with the typical music to fit the film.






Pathé's site gives this description of their newsreels:

Created at the beginning of the 20th Century by the Pathé brothers, the newsreel was the world's first televised news platform. Pioneering the technology and methods of cinema, British Pathé stayed at the forefront of filmed news for decades.
Releasing 3 newsreels a week during that period, British Pathé was the way the people of Britain experienced world events until the advent of television. Every one of those thousands of newsreels are now here and available for you to view.

Open Culture gives a little more background on this new online resource:

British Pathé was one of the leading producers of newsreels and documentaries during the 20th Century. This week, the company, now an archive, is turning over its entire collection — over 85,000 historical films – to YouTube.
The archive — which spans from 1896 to 1976 – is a goldmine of footage, containing movies of some of the most important moments of the last 100 years. It’s a treasure trove for film buffs, culture nerds and history mavens everywhere. In Pathé’s playlist “A Day That Shook the World,” which traces an Anglo-centric history of the 20th Century, you will find clips of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the bombing of Hiroshima and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, alongside footage of Queen Victoria’s funeral and Roger Bannister’s 4-minute mile. There’s, of course, footage of the dramatic Hindenburg crash and Lindbergh’s daring cross-Atlantic flight. And then you can see King Edward VIII abdicating the throne in 1936, Hitler becoming the German Chancellor in 1933 and the eventual Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 (above).

There's a section called "A Day that Shook History" that seems to be, not from the weekly movie newsreel footage, but a brief overview of events after the fact.  For example the day the Chinese Communists took over China gives a slightly longer time line. It's not clear if these were produced to be shown in movie theaters or what.




This is how people's views of world events were shaped before television.  The newsreels themselves are a little formulaic and stuffy with a definite male and Western bias if you look at them to learn about what happened.  But for a sense of how news was packaged, it's interesting to explore.  And I expect there is a lot of interesting footage and pictures.

Here's a list from the categories pull down menu:

• Entertainment & Humour
• Fashion & Music
• Historical Figures & Celebrities
• Lifestyle & Culture
• Religion & Politics
• Science & Technology
• Sport & Leisure
• Trade & Industry
• Travel & Exploration
• War & Revolution

There's Programmes:

• 20th Century Hall Of Fame
• A Time To Remember
• A Day That Shook The World
• British Pathé Royal Collection
• British Pathé Travelogues
• Dave And Dusty
• Feminine Pictorialities
• Film Fanfare
• Jerry The Troublesome Tyke
• News In A Nutshell
• Review Of The Year
• Secrets Of Nature
• This Day
• Would You Believe It?

And there are photo archives with collections like Nerves of Steel where I got this photo:

From Pathé Photo Collection Nerves of Steel

Have fun exploring - especially in the very extensive WW I - the definitive collection

Arctic Terns Potter Marsh At Sunset

 

After a wonderful dinner with friends not far from Potter Marsh, we swung by to see what birds we could find.  Note the official time of sunset tonight in Anchorage was 10:46.  This picture was about ten minutes later.

Here's an arctic tern (as was the first one).  They fly between here and Antarctica and back each year.  They're such beautiful, sleek birds. 

This spot has terns and gulls nesting near each other.  Things were relatively calm, when all of a sudden the birds were all in the air screeching and flying this way and that.

And then I heard the unmistakeable croaking sound of a sandhill crane which flew over me, and I'm guessing disturbed the gulls and terns.  They're huge birds - wing span about 6 feet, probably a little less than bald eagles (though the web shows a variety of wingspans for bald eagles.)

[UPDATE May 18, 2014 noon:  Edgywytch comments below that sandhills eat tern and gull eggs.  The Crane Foundation website linked below says:

"All cranes are omnivorous. Sandhill Cranes are generalists and feed on a wide variety of plant tubers, grains, small vertebrates (e.g. mice and snakes), and invertebrates such as insects or worms. Sandhills find these foods in uplands and in shallow wetlands. Like most cranes, flightless chicks forage primarily on a diet of insects and other protein filled foods during their early stages of rapid growth. The Sandhill's tendency to feed on plant tubers creates conflicts with farming. Sandhill Cranes are adept at probing in the ground and finding planted agricultural seeds such as corn. When large flocks of cranes feed on planted fields, the damage they cause to an unprotected crop can be severe enough to force the farmer to replant the entire field. "]

Sandhill cranes are another great bird we get to see in Alaska.  You can read a lot more about them at the International Crane Foundation website.   I had my telephoto on and finding the bird in my camera and focusing in the fading light was beyond my ability and I'm a little embarrassed by how fuzzy the bird is in the next picture, but it gives you and idea of how big it is.  It's the white horizontal line in the picture.  I'm guessing it's approach is what upset the gulls and terns.  Since its wingspan is close to that of eagles, perhaps they originally thought it might be an eagle.  But that's merely a wild guess  - you'd think they should have learned to distinguish between the two.

It was pretty far away by the time I got this picture - about 11:05 pm. 

War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

I've spent a lot of time critiquing student papers.  It uses up the same energy and brain cells that good blogging uses.  So I'll just pass on this excerpt from a  review of Chris Hedges'  2002 book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning from Quaker Libertarians.

As the title suggests, Hedges pushes us all to think about what psychological benefits we may gain from war when we blind ourselves to its reality. “The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living” (3).

This is especially true in the age of declining religious participation. As Hedges observes, “because we in modern society have walked away from institutions that stand outside the state to find moral guidance and spiritual direction, we turn to the state in times of war. The state and the institutions of the state become, for many, the center of worship in wartime” (146-147).

The seductive lure of violence is one he frankly acknowledges out of his own experience, but he presents it as more a product of human nature than individual failing. Sadly, like a drug that can never offer true satisfaction, “War never creates the security or the harmony we desire, especially the harmony we briefly attain during wartime” (22).

 Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times  before he quit after he was reprimanded by the paper for comments he made in a Rockford College graduation speech (see Wikipedia) in 2003.  I find him one of the most insightful writers today.  His years of experience as a foreign correspondent seem to give him insight in how the world works, that most Americans simply don't have.   In the graduation speech he said,

"We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."

Eleven years later, thinking about all the lives lost, the soldiers who have come home broken in body and spirit - not to mention those that didn't come home - and our slipping status in the world, and our failing infrastructure from roads to education that got deferred in part because of the costs of war, and our Congressional gridlock, I don't think he was wrong.  But in 2003 in America's heartland, no one wanted to hear what he was saying.  

What's The Difference Between An Undeclared And A Nonpartisan Voter?

I became a voter registrar today and part of the training included the distinction between these two categories here in Alaska.

Undeclared means someone doesn't want to say what party they are registered with.  They could be Democratic, Republican, or one of the other two official parties and three political groups.

Nonpartisan means they have no party affiliation.

The person doing the training said most people don't know the difference between the two.  What is significant is that undeclared and nonpartisan voters are the only groups - along with declared Republicans - who can vote in the Republican primary.

You have to be registered 30 days before the election.  If a registrar - like I became today - takes your application and checks that you are who you say you are and watches you sign the application and signs the form - then your registration counts that day you got registered.  If the registrar doesn't sign your form, or you do it all by yourself and send it in, then it counts when the Division of Elections gets it.

The two state elections coming up are

• the primary election - August 19, 2014.
• the general election - November 4, 2014

There's also REAA election listed which will be October 7, 2014.

REAA stands for Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA)   The Division of Elections website explains:

A Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA) is an educational area that is established in an unorganized borough of the state under AS 14.08.031(a). The REAA elections are held annually on the first Tuesday in October and are administered by the Division of Elections. For more information about REAA boards or school districts in general, visit the Department of Education's web site.

Also, where 5% of the population speaks a language other than English, ballots should be available in those languages.  Here are the languages the Division of Elections lists:

Filipino (Tagalog)
Spanish (Español)
Central Yup'ik
Siberian Yupik
Inupiaq
Koyukon Athabascan
Gwich’in Athabascan

(Sorry, it appears this went up before it was finished.  I've deleted that post and replaced it with this one.)

Bugs In The Night

Windows tend to be left open as summer comes on here in Anchorage, and as it gets sort of dark outside, we get really interesting critters flying in.

Last night this bizarre looking moth visited while I was brushing my teeth.

No, it wasn't like a bi-plane, it was resting on the mirror.  The closest I could find in Dominique M. Collet's Insects of south-central Alaska was a Leaf Blotch Miner, Family Gracilariidae.  The Bug Guide website shows lots of examples, but I couldn't find one with its wings spread out.  Most of them look like dead specimens.  So, I'm not quite sure.

Note the hind legs have little 'branches' on them.

Here's a closer view of the left wing.

The wings were an inch, maybe an inch and a half long.  Collet says,

"The larvae of the leaf blotch miners tunnel between the two outer layers of aspen leaves.  The flat caterpillar pupates at the end of the tunnel."

 The cottonwood (in the aspen family) plus the aspen leaves just came out in the last week, so this guy didn't have a lot of time tunnel and pupate.  

For those wondering - pupate means to become a pupa which the free dictionary defines as:

The nonfeeding stage between the larva and adult in the metamorphosis of holometabolous insects, during which the larva typically undergoes complete transformation within a protective cocoon or hardened case.

Maybe someone out there knows for sure what this critter is.  

[UPDATE May 18, 2014:  I emailed Dominique Collet with a link to this post and asked if he might double check my identification.  He modestly said his book was hardly comprehensive and thought it was a Pterophoridae or plume moth. He also suggested someone else if I needed more details.  The link shows there are lots of species of this kind of moth, but pictures do show the same kind of branching on the legs.]

Monday's Becoming Cop Day, LIO Remodel, Fog, Green Bike Trail, Moose

It's May in Anchorage.  We're greened up a little bit early and yesterday (Monday) was a little cooler than it had been.  People were biking in short sleeves and in jackets.

I ran into police action as I left home.  That's two weeks in a row now.    There was a car that clearly was involved.   It appeared that the red truck on the far right was also somehow involved.  It was easier to get by this time because I was on my bike.

I'm not sure why it took 3 police cars and fire truck to handle this.  You'd think Anchorage had no crime and the cops had nothing to do but wait for a call.  Maybe the insurance companies should be paying the police if they require these lengthy police reports before they pay claims.


I had to support a friend in the State Court building yesterday and the building offered a great view of the Legislative Information Office remodel.  I suspect that this fiasco will be forever linked to Rep. Mike Hawker.  The only winner here is developer Mark Pfeffer.

In the ten years from 1996-2006 he make $1.36 million in political contributions  alone, mostly related to building a private prison.   So one might understand why the Legislative Council didn't pay close attention when Hawker worked out this deal.  Sounds like a lot, and it surely gets the legislators' attention.  But it's not much when you keep getting multi-million dollar contracts from the state.

Then down to the Captain Cook statue as he watches the fog forming  in Cook Inlet.  It was all over town this morning, but burned away fast. 

 

Here's a view of the fog from the mudflat level next to the bike trail from downtown to Westchester Lagoon. 

                      There was even a moose munching the new green along the bike trail.

And this south facing hill was full of blooming dandelions.

Isn't this a much better way to travel than by car on the roads?  Especially when summer comes so early? 

Being Fair On TV By Showing One Rep From 'Each' Side Doesn't Work

Fair people always want to hear 'both' sides of the story.  But sometimes there's only one side. (Sometimes there are four or five different takes.) 

Here's a video from a new comedy news show that applies this idea to Climate Change.






  But what's Last Week Tonight?  According to Wikipedia:  

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is an American late-night talk show airing weekly at 11:00 p.m. on HBO in the United States.[1] The half-hour long[2] show premiered on Sunday, April 27, 2014, and is hosted by comedian John Oliver."

Thanks KS for the link.  

Love Your Gay Neighbor Night At East High - Minnery Tries Out A New Approach

Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Action which includes the Alaska Family Council was holding a Love Your Gay Neighbor Q&A Friday night at East High and although I was tired, it seemed like something I should attend.  I've already posted a short video of the question and answer to: What should I do if my son says he's gay and wants to bring his partner to a family function?

In 2012 Minnery led a successful campaign to stop GLBT folks from being added to the Anchorage Anti-Discrimination ordinance.

There were two couches, for panelists, and narrator Jim Minnery.

Click to Enlarge A Lot

Panelists (left to right)

Peter Hubbard - pastor and author of Love Into Light:  The Gospel, the Homosexual, and the Church.  (I looked for a different link from the previous post, but couldn't find a better one.)  The book argues for the church to find better ways to deal with GLBT parishioners.

Andrew Walker - Is a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and the director of policy studies at the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.  (Yes, the Heritage Foundation is the place that former Jim DeMint left the US Senate for.  And some think destroyed its credibility.)

Minnery is in the middle.  It gets more interesting though.

Jeff Johnston - who works at Focus on the Family.  He talked about his former gay life and how he got back to the church.  He now is married to a woman, though he doesn't deny he still has same-sex attractions.  The link is a radio interview that - in the beginning - covers much of how he introduced himself last night.  He said he was not ex-gay or gay. 

Melinda Selmys-   She described herself as a lesbian who broke up with her long time girlfriend when she converted to Catholicism.  She is now married to a man, though she still calls herself a lesbian.

Hubbard and Walker both sounded genuinely committed to love and being welcoming to LGBT folks, but also strongly committed to church doctrine.  Johnston seemed like he was still figuring out who he was and I found his generalizing from his personal experience to all gay men problematic, even though he did recognize everyone is not the same.  Selmys sounded the most grounded in a reality that I could recognize.  


Here's my short take on what I heard

Overall, it sounded like a genuine search for a way to change the church's approach to LGBT issues while staying true to 'biblical truth' (a term I heard a lot that night.) 

1.    Homosexuality has been treated as a special class of irredeemable sin by evangelical churches.  While we helped all other sinners struggle to overcome their issues, we assumed that LGBT folks were beyond God's grace and treated them differently.

2.   But homosexuality is no different from other sins.  From the link to a review of Hubbard's book by Tim Challies:

The gospel makes all the difference and the gospel is exactly what Fred Phelps and so many others have thrown away in their misguided, hate-filled attempts to address homosexuality. “If our attitude toward a gay or lesbian person is disgust, we have forgotten the gospel. We need to remember the goodness and lovingkindness that God poured out on us. God should have looked at us and been disgusted. Instead, without condoning our sin, He loved us and saved us. And I want everyone to know that kind of love!”

3.   We must love our kids, yet also tell them the biblical truth.  Hubbard distinguished between family relationships and church discipline.

4.  Homosexuality is still a sin and having gay sex is not condoned.


What Does This All Mean?

I couldn't help wondering what Minnery's motivation was for bringing these people here.  I also was wondering if this meant that he was having second thoughts on his fight against  Proposition 5 [to add LGBT to the Anchorage Anti-Discrimination ordinance] in 2012.

Prop 5
This question came up in the discussion.  My notes are pretty rough, but this is what I have down for Minnery's comments:

Prop 5 was a hornets' nest; it's the reason I'm having this conference.  We hurt a lot of people.
If there was any business that would deny service to LGBT person, I'd be the first to [defend the LGBT right to service] 

I'd note how easily people can use phrases like "I'd be the first . . . "  There are a lot of people who have already been doing that for years and years.  It's a little presumptuous for Minnery to claim he'd be the first here.  Especially since he led to the fight to keep LGBT people off anti-discrimination ordinance.  Though I'd guess that this phrase just popped into Minnery's head and if he had time to think about it, he would agree with me and say he didn't mean it literally. 

There's a little more, he clarified a little.

But it's different for some issues - marriage, adoption - where the law requires [businesses]  to [serve someone in a situation that violates their religious beliefs].  That crosses the line.

He also made some comments - to explain what Prop 5 was - including a description of the tv commercials they made that suggested day care centers and schools would be required to hire transgender people with the implication transgender people were a reater danger to your children than other people.   As he talked about it, I couldn't be certain, but it seemed more like he was talking about something he was proud of than sorry about.

Minnery's Motivation

A little background first:   The advantage of being some place a long time is that you know a lot of people. I talked to Rick Benjamin, the former pastor at Abbot Loop Community Church, at the break.  I'd gotten to know him when I was helping the Anchorage Ethics Board rewrite the Ethics Code.  (Much of the work was undone later by Muni attorneys.)  I had grown to like and respect Rick and met with him after that work was done so I could ask questions I had about evangelicalism.  One of the things he told me was that issues like abortion and gay rights were not big issues in the church when he was growing up and he thought they became big issues because pastors found that when they talked about them, people gave the church a lot of money.  Friday night Rick offered to introduce me to Jim Minnery.  But we couldn't find him.

After the discussion, Minnery was walking up the aisle and so I went up to him and waited for him to finish talking to someone.  Rich Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News came over introduced me to Minnery and we talked for a few minutes.  I asked about his motivation to host this event.  Our culture is changing, he said.  I asked if he meant church culture or overall culture.  Overall.  And he repeated what he'd said about Prop. 5.  It released a hornets' nest and he realized that a lot of people got hurt.   He said, We won, but we didn't really win.  I asked if he was a competitive person.  I was reminded of a dean who told me his son complained that he was too competitive.  The dean then told me that he did see everything as a contest and he played to win.  It explained a lot of things that I hadn't understood before.  I'm not that kind of person.  I care about ideas and issues, but not about winning personally.  I asked Minnery if he was a competitive person and he said, something like, well, sure.  What I meant, I continued, winning was an important part of defeating Prop 5 and his eyes seemed to light up a bit and he said, of course.  I don't want to project anything onto him that isn't there, but I wonder how many people (probably more men than women) fight hard to win, even if the issue isn't that important.  Or if when they get into a contest, even if they realize a victory will do harm, winning is still more important.

I told him I'd felt a little reluctant to talk to him, but I knew I should, and he invited me to contact him to follow up.  So I will put that on my list of things to do.  Because I still have a lot of questions, which I try to describe now.

Why this change?

Let's look at Minnery's comment that culture is changing.  Peter Hubbard's Love Into Light website has a page on how to respond to last year's  same-sex marriage Supreme Court decision.  Hubbard is strongly opposed to same sex marriage:

Every serious sociological study has concluded that a child does best with his natural father and mother. Of course, the presence of a natural father and mother is not always possible, but a society that legalizes same-sex marriage is codifying dysfunction and intentionally dismantling the family. This dismantling paves the way for every kind of sociological malady. As the meaning of marriage is stretched to near meaninglessness, polygamy and incest will eventually be recognized as “marriage.” If marriage is the government’s way of recognizing love, then on what basis can any government declare two or more sincere people unmarriageable? Marriage, friendship and “shacking up” have all been convoluted. No one can explain the legal difference. And children will pay the price for our country’s moral suicide. This makes us sad.

There's a lot to quibble with.  I'd agree that in the ideal world being raised with one's natural parents would be best.  But

• not all natural parents are good parents.  
• people other than birth parents can be better sometimes
• not all birth parents stick around and there are lots of single mom's and a growing number of single dad's who have no choice
• there are often lots of male or female friends and relatives who can be role models for kids being raised by same-sex couples if that's as big an issue as Peter (and Jeff in the discussion) think it is.  I think it's worth talking about, but don't see it as crucial.
• allowing same-sex marriage doesn't automatically open marriage to other configurations - it's still just two people
• while he cites reputable sociological studies on marriage, he ignores reputable psychological and biological studies of homosexuality.  We can cite, he seems to say, science when it supports the bible, but when it doesn't support the bible we reject it.
• same-sex marriage opponents have said they were fine with marriage equivalent arrangements that weren't called marriage.  In that case the quibble is only about the word marriage.  Not about 'codifying dysfunction.' 
• Religions are free to marry or not marry whomever they choose, but I don't see why they should be able to dictate what people not part of their religion can do
• Actually, other religions cannot marry whomever they choose because even though Islam allows for more than one wife, that is illegal in the United States. 

Basically, to deny same-sex marriage on the grounds that kids should be in a perfect natural parent family is to ignore that a lot of families already don't work that way.

But Peter, at least, doesn't ignore that entirely.  In the talk and on his website, he says that the church had already trashed heterosexual marriage.

"We paved the way for gay marriage by watering down the meaning of marriage through our immorality, selfishness and the culture of divorce in our churches."

So Evangelical Christians seem to be facing a dilemma.   Tim Challies, the book reviewer I cited above, is a pastor in Ontario, Canada.  He writes in the review of Hubbard's book:

It seems inevitable that same-sex marriage will soon be legalized across America; it has been the law in Canada for several years now. Meanwhile the acceptance and celebration of homosexuality is becoming a cultural shibboleth, a means of determining who has a voice worth hearing and who does not.

What I hear in this, and other things I read online, is that now that homosexuality is becoming culturally and legally accepted, the evangelical church has to figure out a way to get rid of its gay bashing past. 

Option one is to reinterpret the scriptures and find a way to 'discover' that homosexuality is not a sin.  Perhaps science has supplanted what was known at the time the bible was written down.  They discussed Matthew Vine's book, God and the Gay Christian, which apparently does find ways to make the bible and homosexuality compatible.  Walker pretty much trashed Vine's thinking in the discussion.  (I found a review of Vine's book by Walker here.)

Option two is to treat LGBT folks with love, but not compromise biblical truths.  I understand that approach, because it's like the one I tried to take as a teacher - treat my students with warmth and respect, but still hold them to high academic standards.  But in the church, it still means labeling them as sinners.  We still love you and will help you find God's grace.

They even had one now married (to a woman) formerly gay man and one Lesbian who is now married to a man.   What was that all about?  It seems it was to show that you can stop acting on your same-sex attraction when you have something more meaningful.  I'd note I can believe both their stories - they didn't deny they still had same-sex attractions -  but their path wouldn't work for everyone.  And the panelists acknowledged this.  Some LGBT folks would have to stay single and celibate. 

So, is this because they are remembering their Christian principles of love?  Or simply a way to keep the church relevant in modern America?   I suspect that it's both.  For some people more of one than the other.

Angels Dancing On The Head Of A Pin

I'm amazed as I watch the dedication of people living in 2014 to this book that was written over a span of more than a thousand years starting over 3000 years ago by people who lived in worlds so totally different from our world today.  I also wonder at what it takes to believe in such a book as the literal and absolute moral truth.  I can easily read it as metaphorically telling us morals through stories - like Aesop's Fables or how some Alaska Native cultures use stories to teach proper behavior.

The idea that the literal word of the bible is the ultimate test of right and wrong just doesn't work for me.  With so many different bibles written in so many different languages, how does one even know the literal bible?  Do we take a Hebrew bible?  One written in Aramaic?  Greek?  Latin?  English?  And of these, which translation?  And which interpretation?

And I'm constantly struck by what seem to me to be inconsistencies.  Something like homosexuality is blown up for a time as a particularly egregious sin.  Yet other biblical 'abominations' such as eating shellfish are ignored.  And I don't hear US evangelicals calling for the stoning of adulterers.   Nor do I hear much complaint about violations of the Fourth Commandment.  (Aren't the Ten Commandments the most important laws?)  Do you see any evangelicals railing against businesses that are open on Sunday?

Science seems to be brought in when it supports biblical truth.  Hubbard, in the quote above, cites sociology to support the notion "that a child does best with his natural father and mother."  But what do they do with psychological and biological science on homosexuality that doesn't support their biblical truth? 

I guess for me, it boils down to letting everyone follow their own religious beliefs.  The problem arises when they want to impose those beliefs on others.  Evangelicals shouldn't practice homosexuality or have same-sex marriages.  But they also should NOT impose their beliefs on others.  And when we have conflicts between the religious (or non-religious) beliefs of people, we have to sift through the issues to determine which person is most harmed.  So, if a wedding photographer who doesn't believe in same-sex marriage is asked to photograph a same sex marriage - we have to parse whose rights are more violated.

I didn't have an official photographer at my wedding so I don't personally feel a wedding photographer is critical to getting married.  But for people who believe in the whole big wedding package - including wedding photographers - a wedding without a photographer isn't a wedding.  Such a photographer isn't being asked to perform a wedding or even worse, get married to a same-sex partner.  But I can understand a photographer believing that her photos of a same-sex wedding would be a form of supporting, even promoting, an act she felt was wrong.  But I can also see a same-sex couple - especially one living in a small town where there is only one photographer - feeling they are being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, no differently than if a restaurant refused service based on that.

Life is full of conflicts and reasonable people can work them out.    In this situation, a photographer ought to be able to suggest other professional photographers who would do the job.  A gay couple would probably not want someone who wasn't supportive to take the photos of their wedding. 

You can see the issues raised Friday night can lead one down countless paths and we could go on and on exploring them.  But I did think it significant that evangelicals now see their harsh treatment of LGBT folks as a liability and are now trying to figure out how to jettison that approach yet stay consistent with their version of biblical truth.

When I talked to Minnery, he'd said that Ethan Berkowitz, on his talk show, asked Minnery if this was "A Gentler, Kinder Bigotry."  I had been thinking, as I sat in the audience, if this was a "gentler, kinder evangelicalism."  If one is committed to the literal word of the bible as one's moral truth, and your reading of that bible leads to an understanding that homosexuality is a sin, then you are stuck with that conclusion.  I respect that, up to the point that your chosen path to the truth begins to harm the lives of other people.  I think that the defeat of Prop 5 caused harm to LGBT people in Anchorage.  Fortunately, most people don't believe that truth should cause them to treat GLBT folks differently than other folks.  But enough do to make LGBT people fearful that they could lose their jobs or find a suitable place to live if they disclose their sexual orientation.  That's a heavy burden to live with every day. 


[UPDATE 10:40pm:  Here's a view of the Saturday meeting in the Valley from Alaska Commons by Julien Jolivette who writes:

". . . I am a baptized Catholic, and made a fervent foray into conservative evangelicalism as a teenager. But I felt that my past did not prepare me for the experience of being a queer agnostic walking into an event titled “Loving My Gay Neighbor' . . .”]