Why Sexual Justice is Integral to Social Justice

Yesterday, I taped an interview for this Sunday's State of Belief show on Air America.

Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy and I discussed my reaction to the Media Matter's study on which religious voices are covered in the media. (See Wednesday's blog!) Over the last few years, The Interfaith Alliance, the organization Dr. Gaddy heads, has slowly become more vocal about reproductive choice and LGBT rights, especially as they related to separation of church and state issues, and I was very pleased that he asked me to appear.

He asked me, partially as playing "devil's advocate" and partially because I think he really wanted to know, how I would answer so-called progressive leaders who feel that poverty, hunger, homelessness, the war in Iraq, global warming are so important that we cannot let "divisive issues" like abortion and LGBT issues distract us from forming coalitions with evangelicals and Catholics who oppose them.

My answer was threefold. First, these issues are directly related to poverty. It is poor women who suffer most when contraception, emergency contraception, and abortion services are not readily available, both in the United States and around the world. It is poor same-sex couples who are most affected by laws prohibiting the benefits of civil unions and marriage, and poor transgender persons who have no access to medical treatment. The Religious Institute staff is currently working on a fact sheet on how sexual justice and poverty are interrelated.

Second, these issues affect hundreds of thousands of people. More than a third of adult women in the United States have had abortions. More than half a million women die each year around the world because of pregnancy related complications. There are at least 600,000 families headed by gay and lesbian families in the United States alone. According to a new Pew research study, 4 in 10 Americans have a family member or close friend who is lesbian and gay. These issues are NOT about other people -- they are about us.

And finally, I reminded Rev. Gaddy about Martin Luther King's statement: injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Progressive people of faith -- and that includes religious leaders who want to label themselves as progressive -- must stand up against sexual injustice as part of their commitment to social justice. These are not issues of "personal piety" or even about what people do in their bedrooms -- they go to the soul of whether we are all truly recognized as being created in God's image and whether we can celebrate the gift of our sexuality with holiness and integrity.

I hope you'll tune in to State of Belief on Sunday and listen to more of this interview. Check out their web site for times and station in your area or listen online.