NOTES, 5 AUGUST 2022
Greetings, blog reader, on Friday, August 5, 2022.
This week was a good one for the forces of democracy and human rights, welcomed relief for those cheering on the Great Democratic Revolution of our age. It was only a few weeks ago (24 June) that democracy and rights suffered a staggering defeat when the U.S. Supreme Court revoked, for the first time in history, individual liberties that it had once guaranteed. At that time, it seemed that the anti-democratic counter revolution might have the upper hand in America for the near future. It even seemed that reactionary politicians might ride high to a majority of seats in the fall elections for the House of Representatives, and possibly even the Senate. All of that now appears to have vanished. The momentum has reversed.
The forces of anti-democratic counter-revolution that we have been following on this blog suffered two huge defeats this week and both were in large measure their own faults. Kansas is one of the most conservative and Republican states of the union. It has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. The anti-abortion crowd there quietly slipped onto the ballot a vote on removing the provision in the state constitution protecting a woman's right to abortion certainly thinking that few people would pay attention to their little ploy. Boy, were they wrong.
There was a massive backlash in Kansas against this. Nearly a million voters turned out, twice as many as the last off-year election, and they shouted loudly by 59 to 41 % "No" on removing the state constitutional protection of women's freedom over their own bodies. It proved that even in one of the most conservative places in America, the vast majority of people refuse to allow individual rights to be taken away from Americans. Moreover, this has greatly energized the human rights movement across America. This may very well lead to a Democratic landslide in the November elections giving the Dems a much larger majority in both the House and the Senate. The anti-abortion crowd, and their Republican allies are reeling from the shock of Kansas. They have no one to blame but themselves.
The other big defeat of anti-human rights this week was over at the Lambeth Conference, the gathering of bishops of the Anglican Communion from all around the world, some 650 strong this year. It is meeting at Canterbury on the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the figure head of the AC. For years, anti-homosexual-rights primates and bishops from some countries, most notably equatorial Africa, have campaigned to enforce the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 on all forty-two provinces of the Communion. This resolution condemned homosexuality and same-sex marriage thus denying human rights and inclusion of homosexual persons. Three key Anglican archbishops in Africa very publicly announced their boycott of this year's Lambeth Conference because non-celibate gay bishops and their partners would be in attendance. Of course, by absenting themselves, they greatly weakened the strength of the anti-homosexual coalition at the Conference. They left it to the archbishop of South Sudan to lead the charge at Canterbury.
Before the meeting, there was a nervous expectation on both sides that the Conference would be overshadowed and divided by the clash over 1.10. The Global South coalition made a lot of noise about pressing a showdown in the Conference as a way of strengthening and enforcing 1.10. The threats of an Anglican civil war were ominous. The anti-homosexual-rights side misplayed their hand, which had already been weakened by the absence of three major archbishops of Global South/Gafcon.
The Archbishop of Canterbury would have none of it. He was resolved not to let a threat of rain ruin his little garden party. Early on, he came out defending the rights of provinces to make their own decisions about the treatment of homosexual persons as he flatly rejected the idea that provinces would be "punished" for refusing 1.10. He supported the revision of the first "Calls on Human Dignity" to remove the provision that 1.10 was the mind of the Communion. He suspended individual voting on the "Calls" and limited discussion of the issues to brief periods. In short, he cut the legs out from under the anti-homosexual-rights crowd leaving them stunned. The best they could do was to call on the bishops to email in "votes" to reaffirm 1.10. Meanwhile, the pro-homosexual-rights crowd beat them to the draw and issued a declaration supporting LGBT people. It has already drawn some 165 bishops' signatures. Virtually the entire American delegation signed on. If the anti crowd does release the results of their "voting" in support of 1.10, it is likely to be fewer than half the bishops at the Conference. This would compound the embarrassment of the antis' defeat. Like the reactionaries in Kansas, the reactionaries at Lambeth to a large degree have no one but themselves to blame for their own failure.
In my view, both of these cases are evidence that the prevailing force of our age is still the Great Democratic Revolution. Since the 1950's, it has transformed America, and arguably much of the world. The reactionary counter-revolution is putting up a fierce fight but if this week's events indicate the future, and I suspect they do, it will not be enough to overwhelm the tide of history that is evermore bringing liberty and equality to people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability.
