In the final episode of our first live broadcast, we tackle more audience questions. To get things started, we field a question about the BCA’s official position on same-sex marriage (a big shout out to Rev. Briones’ officiating at the wedding of George Takei and Brad Altman!). This bounces us around some questions regarding BCA’s political opinions more generally which is hard to pin down with such a large, internally diverse organization. And from there we segue into a conversation about how we got interested in Buddhism and the religious backgrounds we were raised in. Not surprisingly, this takes us back to the earlier question about basic Buddhism the value basic Buddhism can have when you’re just starting out on the Buddhist path.
We’d like to thank everyone who helped up pull off our first live show. And you can be sure that there will be more live events in the new year!
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Hi guys, I enjoyed the last installment of your live broadcast. Y’all got some good questions! Anyway, sorry to keep coming by here and adding more info about your topics, but somehow you managed to keep bringing up stuff I happened to know for one reason or another. In this case, I know about the gay marriage stuff and BCA, partly because I’ve got many married same-sex couples in my family. BCA rarely if ever issues a specific directive on matters like this (because they consider these to be matters of individual conscience), which is what the lady was asking about. And they have not done so in this case. This is interpreted by all to mean that BCA is OK with gay marriages being performed in its member temples. The BCA Ministers Association, on the other hand–a powerful group that more or less represents the official line of BCA by virtue of said power–does sometimes issue such statements. A few years ago, they issued one that specifically sanctioned gay marriages, noting for example that such ceremonies have in fact been going on for more than three decades at American Shin temples. Here is the text of the resolution:
“SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RESOLUTION
August 18 2004
Whereas, there is no negative judgment of homosexuality in the Buddhist religion,
Whereas, a number of BCA ministers have been performing same-sex weddings for a period of at least thirty years,
Whereas, we wish to affirm the worthiness of all persons independent of sexual orientation.
Now therefore be it resolved, that the Ministers Association of the Buddhist Churches of America oppose any governmental prohibition of same-sex marriage.”