© 2006 Naples Daily News and NDN
Productions. Published in Naples, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps
Co.
reprint from: naplesnews.com
Pastor splits with religious community
over issue of gay unions
By Larry Hannan
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Rev. Rick Sosbe doesn’t fit the stereotypes
many people hold when it comes to a man of God.
The image of most ministers is that of a
conservative. Sosbe, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of
Naples, is politically liberal and gay.
His congregation has about 40 worshippers,
most of whom are also gay. They meet at the Unitarian Universalist
Church in North Naples.
“We believe in everything the right wing
churches believe in,” Sosbe said. “But we’re not narrow-minded and
we don’t believe the Bible condemns us.”
With an ongoing push to enact a
constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage within Florida,
Sosbe and other progressive ministers are in an interesting
position: Much of the push for the amendment is coming from the
religious community.
But Sosbe is not standing with most
churches on this issue.
He supports the legalization of gay
marriage and is opposed to a constitutional amendment that would ban
it.
“Whether you agree with the gay lifestyle
is irrelevant,” Sosbe said. “It’s a matter of civil rights.”
Time has almost run out for the Florida
amendment.
Monday is the mailing deadline and Feb. 1
is the final legal deadline for signatures. Supporters still are
optimistic, but acknowledge they’ll need to generate a lot of
signatures in the next few days to have enough to get it onto the
ballot.
Opposition to gay marriage has been a cause
célčbre among Christian conservatives ever since the Massachusetts
Supreme Court ruled the state cannot deny marriage rights to
same-sex couples.
Nineteen states already have passed a
constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Florida has had a law on the books
prohibiting people of the same sex from marrying since 1977. But
conservatives worry that a court could overturn that law, so they
are pushing for amendments to the state and federal constitutions.
Sosbe is part of a group of pastors that
dubbed itself the Coalition of Progressive Religious Voices. They
are trying to be a counterpoint to conservative religious leaders.
He expects speak out against the amendment
if it makes it onto the ballot.
“I don’t know what heterosexual people do
behind closed doors and I don’t care,” Sosbe said. “I don’t tell
heterosexuals what they can and can’t do.”
All local Metropolitan Community Churches
are members of The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community
Churches. This fellowship of churches addresses the spiritual needs
of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community around the
world.
The constitutional amendment could end up
creating some strange bedfellows. Last summer it appeared that the
Lee County NAACP was throwing its support behind the effort to ban
gay marriage.
Lee County NAACP President Carletha Griffin
sent an e-mail out under the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People name that indicated the organization
supports the constitutional amendment. The e-mail asked people to
sign the petition to help put it onto the ballot.
Griffin later said that e-mail was a
mistake. She declined comment last week when asked about the NAACP
stance on the gay marriage amendment.
The national NAACP hasn’t taken a position
on gay marriage, although its chairman, Julian Bond, has gone on
record as supporting it.
The California NAACP has endorsed same-sex
marriage. The Florida NAACP hasn’t taken a stance.
John Stemberger, chairman of
Florida4Marriage.org, the group that is pushing for the amendment,
said he expects to meet the deadline.
“I am very optimistic,” he said. “The
signatures are now coming in droves.”
They have to come in fast to get the more
than 600,000 verified signatures required to get it onto the
November ballot. As of Jan. 19, about 196,000 signatures had been
turned in to the state.
Stemberger said a lot more have been
collected and are now being turned in.
“I was talking to one of the people who did
the Michigan constitutional amendment (banning gay marriage) and he
told me 40 percent of their signatures came in the last week,”
Stemberger said. “We’re getting thousands of signatures a day now.”
Most of the signatures are coming from
churches that are encouraging their parishioners to support the
amendment, Stemberger said.
Jerry Mount of Sales Consultants of Lee
County in Fort Myers supports the constitutional amendment. His name
and company are listed as supporters on the Florida4Marriage.org Web
site.
“I believe that marriage as it was
originally designed was supposed to be between a man and a woman,”
Mount said. “Recently there has been an effort to redesign this
issue.”
Mount said he supports the issue because of
his Christian evangelical beliefs.
“It’s a very hotly contested issue right
now,” Mount said.
Sosbe will be ready if the issue goes to
the voters. But he hopes the effort fails due to a lack of
signatures.
“It boils down to education,” Sosbe said
when asked how he’d help fight the amendment. “When that happens
people understand that this is wrong and unfair.”
A constitutional amendment in Florida must
get onto the ballot statewide. It then has to be approved by a
majority vote in an election.
The Rev. Kathleen Korb, pastor of the
Unitarian Universalist church in North Naples and another member of
the Coalition of Progressive Religious Voices, said people sometimes
do a double take when she speaks in opposition to the gay marriage
amendment. But she believes her actions help defend the sanctity of
marriage.
“I support marriage in general, whether
it’s gay marriage or heterosexual marriage,” Korb said. “It really
bothers me that marriage has become an almost unimportant thing
among heterosexuals.”
Her church supports the stand, Korb said.
“I think even people in more conservative
congregations believe in what we believe when it comes to the
separation of church and state,” Korb said.
But Korb doesn’t deny that it can get tense
when dealing with more conservative churches. Her position is in
direct contradiction to what many of them believe.
Korb recently got a letter written by the
pastor of a conservative church in Collier County. It called for all
the pastors to throw their support behind the constitutional
amendment.
“I’m about to write back telling him not
only am I not going to stand with him, but I’ll be opposing him,”
Korb said.
Opponents fear the amendment could cut off
other rights for gay couples, such as health-care benefits.
The amendment also would ban civil unions
that offer identical rights and benefits as marriage.
Stratton Politzer, South Florida director
of Equality Florida, a gay rights organization, believes this is an
issue that is losing popular support.
“We had a moment of hysteria in 2004,”
Politzer said. “But I think people now understand this hurts
families and takes away their rights.”
Stemberger disagrees.
“This is one of the largest citizen
initiatives that has ever been done,” he said. “We’re getting
support from churches throughout the state.”
Most citizen initiatives have organizations
pushing them that spend millions of dollars. This issue is being
supported primarily with volunteers who feel passionate about the
issue, Stemberger said.
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