To see what I mean about Chap making his faith an issue, read this example of Chap’s post election commentary about his faith, http://blog.oxroadsouth.com/2006/05/19/da-vinci-code.aspx . In this post, he describes himself as a persecuted minority because he is a Christian.

During the 2005 campaign, Chap used his faith frequently as a part of his political pitch. Once a candidate makes his faith an issue, selling it as a positive aspect of his candidacy, it is no longer a “private” matter.

Chap’s letter to Vivian on the blog clearly implies that Chap intends to remain in the church that has made its stand in favor of exclusion clear. No one is objecting to his membership in Truro Church. He can choose to worship anywhere he wants. The question being raised is whether he supports the exlusionary policies of the Church in question and whether conclusions should be drawn from his membership about his public political positions.

Accordingly, unless Chap wants us to assume that, because he is staying in Truro, he supports the exclusion of women and gays from church leadership and in the case of gays and lesbians full membership in the church, he should say otherwise. We do not have a right to tell him what to believe or where to worship, but we do have a right to know how his faith will guide his public policy decisions.

I see this as no different really than taking folks to task who choose to remain in private clubs that discriminate against women and minorities. The decision to join the club and remain despite a discriminatory membership policy is private. Each person clearly has a right to freedom of association. But, a candidate running for public office does not have a right to be free of criticism for his private choices … even those that involve his faith. Kerry and Kaine both had to answer questions about their views on abortion and the death penalty in light of the fact that they are Catholics. The fact that Kilgore took the issue too far is not reason to say that the public didn’t have a right to ask Tim how his faith would affect his ability to carry out the law.

Now, let’s review the record of Chap’s past actions on issues related to GLBT Virginians. NLS, to say that Chap came out against Amendment #1 is a bit of an overstatement. He allowed you to print on your blog that he thought the amendment to be “gratuitous.”

Unlike Steve Shannon, Creigh Deeds, Dwight Jones, Frank Hall and Katherine Waddell who all made public statements and/or wrote about their changes of heart over their own signatures when they switched their positions, Chap’s supposed conversion appeared grudging and half-hearted … apparently teased out of him by you and others concerned about his anti-gay record in the legislature and its impact on the Senate campaign.

As to why the amendment might be said to be “gratuitous,” could it be that Chap’s support for HB 751, and his and Steve Shannon’s votes to pass the bill notwithstanding the Governor’s veto, thereby ensuring its passage, are what rendered the amendment unnecessary overkill?

Chap consistently supported the Virginia marriage amendment as a legislator in 2005 and voted in 2004 for a resolution to ask Congress to pass a federal marriage amendment. He also voted for a bill to recriminalize sodomy in 2004. His last minute statement about the gratuitousness of the amendment through you offered no explanation for his change of heart.

Did Chap support HB 751 and the marriage amendment because of his faith? If not, what was his rationale for supporting this legislation and his rationale for deciding that the amendment he previously supported was gratuitous? Does he think that HB 751 is good public policy? If not, why not?

I listened to Chap (and Senator Puckett) argue in several debates in 2005 that the reason to nominate him as the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor was that Republicans would have little to criticize him for since his positions were closely aligned to theirs. Has Chap changed his views or learned a political lesson from his defeat?

Time and the rigors of the campaign will tell.

P.S. NLS, your defense of Chap comes across as more than a bit defensive. Your candidate would be better served by an authentic statement of his position and the reasons for it than the defensive and ineffective effort to make those asking about the issue “wrong.” He’s not an incumbent and a Rose Garden strategy here won’t help him … especially when his own announcement speech made the personal life of his opponent an issue and came across as a sexist condemnation of a woman professional continuing her career after marrying someone in the same business.

Just one woman’s view.

“The Rev. Martyn Minns of Truro Church, who is missionary bishop of the splinter group known as CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), said that although the dissident Virginia churches believe that homosexuality is banned by Scripture, they do not support criminalization of gay sex.”

So, even if you disagree completely with their decision or their theology or their interpretation of scripture, please at least get what they stand for correct.

Sorry, I’m just a didactic fuss budget but when I see something plainly in the newspaper article, it irritates me to see folks raising issues and making claims that have already been answered. Repeat: they don’t agree with Bishop Akinola that gays should be jailed. It’s a non-issue.

So should Chap’s membership in a church that he grew up in and that he has generational family ties to.

I do care about his positions on civil unions, women’s reproductive rights, and laws to fight all discrimination. I also care about whether he supports a raise in the minimum wage, a living wage law, and if he has ideas on transportation, education, and a host of other issues that face Virginians and affect our quality of life.

And you know what, when I see Chap, I’ll ask him about those things. And frankly I could care less what church he goes to.

If anyone decides to have lunch with Mr. Peterson, please let us know what he says. We don’t need to know how he voted, but we’d like to know if he thinks homosexuals should be jailed, etc. and if he thinks the Episcopal Church should head in the direction of Truro.

Even if my family had been in that church for 100 years, I personally would run like heck from the place in light of what has happened there.

This is Chap Petersen. I’m a little bit late in the game here, as I had a trial which just ended on Tuesday (and I took today off to watch my kids).

Anyway, I grew up next door to Truro and was baptized there in 1968. My mother served on the Vestry until a couple years ago, and my uncle Ed Prichard was the senior warden before his death (fyi, he was a former Mayor of Ffx City, leader of the anti-Byrd Dems in Northern VA in the Sixties and argued the “one man, one vote” case in 1964 before the U.S. Supreme Court). My wife and I have been members since 1996. My second daughter currently attends preschool there.

If someone has an objection to my membership at Truro or wants to discuss my personal position on a relevant issue, I invite them to call me at my law office (703-277-9702). I’ll be there all day tomorrow. I’m happy to chat or even meet for coffee. I’m not kidding.

Vivian, I recognize that when you have held public office you put your name in the spotlight — so you take the heat.

All the best and Merry X-mas!

Chap Petersen

It’s not like Truro just up and decided one day to vote on this. The fact that he felt comfortable in that atmosphere says to me he probably agreed with it. If he doesn’t publicly explain his views, and he remains a parishioner there, we will know for sure.

There are lots of other churches in NoVA where he could worship if he doesn’t want to be in a partnership with the Bishop of Nigeria.

I’ll admit that the action of Truro and other churches bothers me a great deal. I’ve followed this closely and have read theocracywatch too.

However, I make it a policy not to express opinions about religions other than my own except when their practitioners get involved in public and political campaigns and attempt to legislate their theological beliefs and force them on others.

I think it’s fair to question Chap about his stands on issues of equal rights in the public sphere. As a state senator, how will he vote on a marriage amendment or civil unions, how will he vote on women’s right to choose or discrimination? All fair questions that citizens of Virginia have a right to ask.

But how he feels about gays in his church or women’s leadership role in his church are not my concern. If I don’t like his church’s positions, I don’t have to join his church. And I think the American Episcopal Church is quite capable of fighting their own battles in court to retain the property of those splitting away. In fact, I wish every success to the Episcopal dioceses involved in keeping their property from those leaving.

But I don’t have a dog in their theological fight. All I care about is how Chap will vote on those issues as they affect state law. I don’t care what his personal scriptural interpretation of the Bible is unless he starts voting to keep women from running for office or serving in the legislature. If his personal religious beliefs don’t translate into public policy, then I can support him.

By the way, it’s perfectly possible to believe that women should have equal opportunity in business and government but that they are not called to be ministers. And it’s also possible to defend the inherent dignity of gay people and to support civil unions to protect their civil rights but to be opposed to extending the sacrament of marriage within one’s church to them because of one’s scriptural interpetation.

Do I agree with that. Hell no. That’s why I’m not a member of churches that do that. But as long as gays and women are guaranteed their civil right – all of their civil rights – an individual church’s theology is not my battle. I think of that as separation of church and state.

More BS from Meyerson. No surprise there. In fact, we do believe that all men are created equal. Some, however, simply refuse to accept the God-given truth that homosexual activity is sinful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901282.html

I understand why there is resistance to reason. Reason requires change periodically as we learn, and change is painful.

How does the statement above by the Truro rector, “You don’t need to know why,” reflect the use of reason?

I suspect Chap was smart, stayed home, and missed the vote.

“When the Father tells you to do something, you don’t argue with him…You don’t need to know why.”

That is completely at odds with this:

We believe that revelation continues, that God continues to be active in creation, and that all of the many ways of knowing — including geology, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and arts such as opera, punk rock or painting — can be vehicles through which God and human beings partner in continuing creation.

Given this worldview, we are compelled to use the resources God has given us. Not to use our brains in understanding the world around us seems a cardinal sin…

The above is from a statement by Bishop Schori. Let’s hope that Chap would endorse the second statement, and not the first. I think such a world view question is perfectly within the bounds of what is appropriate to ask anyone who wants to be an elected representative. I don’t think that we especially want to put people in office who are opposed to reason and thinking.

Even so, there is no practical need to attack a candidate just because of the church he or she attends. If you want to know a candidate’s position on a particular issue, ask. You do not have to ask which church this candidate attends. You do not have to ask about his or her religion. What should be important is whether this candidate has an honorable record of public service that demonstrates a deep commitment to those principles you deem correct.

Please read this:
http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm

As an Episcopalian, I share your concern about those who want to gain control of the mainstream churches from within. It’s also taking place in other mainstream religions, such as the group which calls itself the “Confessing Church Movement” within the Presbyterian Church, USA. They really want to take over the denomination and move it toward the right.

Chap’s longtime family (parents, grandparents) connections to the church aren’t as grave as concern as his own connnections. Since the whole conservative vs. tolerant debate in the Episcopal church has been going on for years and years, you can bet your bottom dollar he was well aware of that church’s attitudes and leanings. Here in Richmond every Episcopalian knows which churches are disgruntled with the mainstream church….those who are disgruntled flock to those congregations.

Those who worship in these churches know what is going on.

Let me be perfectly clear: you created this situation when you decided to share the information on MC’s blog that this was Chap’s church. Outside of NoVA, very few people would have ever known. So if you felt like Chap’s church was irrelevant, why did you find it necessary to point out that Chap attended this church?

You are the one who made it a spectacle. Not me.

And the bottom line remains the same: people have a right to know where their candidates stand.

Surely, you are not as thick as you are pretending to be.

Why should I call him? This issue is one that belongs in the public vein, not in the private one. People have a right to know how where their candidates stand.

You seem to be the only one riled up about this. And you are the only one who has decided to stoop to name-calling and innuendo. The rest of us are carrying on a reasonable conversation.

Not Chap – no, I did not know it was Chap’s church until I saw Ben’s post on MC.

Oh, I knew he was associated with Truro. As do many active democrats north of I-66. I just did not know how closely his family had been associated with that church for all these years. I didn’t care to know any more about Chap at that time because I was voting for Leslie. Now that same church breaks off from the U.S. Church over the perception of gay rights and women equality. Lots of people are talking about this issue, and many are concerned. You should be too.

However, before your comment on Mason Conservative, I bet MC and other bloggers across Virginia may have not known (or forgot). I wonder if Vivian did not know (or forgot) about Chap-Truro until your comment on MC?

Vivian?

The ever so mainline Episcopal church has been under assault from big money wingnuts for some time. This article by Max Blumenthal in Salon from 2004 reveals this pet project of rightwing freakshow Howard Ahmanson:

“In the summer of 2000, a group of frustrated Episcopalians from the board of the American Anglican Council gathered at a sun-soaked Bahamanian resort to blow off some steam and hatch a plot. They were fed up with the Episcopal Church and what they perceived as a liberal hierarchy that had led it astray from centuries of so-called orthodox Christian teaching. The only option, they believed, was to lead a schism.

But this would take money. After the meeting, Anglican Council vice president Bruce Chapman sent a private memo to the group’s board detailing a plan to involve Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., a Southern California millionaire, and his wife, Roberta Green Ahmanson, in the plan. “Fundraising is a critical topic,” Chapman wrote. “But that topic itself is going to be affected directly by whether we have a clear, compelling forward strategy. I know that the Ahmansons are only going to be available to us if we have such a strategy and I think it would be wise to involve them directly in settling on it as the options clarify.” It was a logical pitch: As a key financier of the Christian right with a penchant for anti-gay campaigns, Ahmanson clearly shared the Anglican Council’s interest in subverting the left-leaning church. Moreover, Ahmanson and his wife were close friends and prayer partners of David Anderson, the Anglican Council’s chief executive, while Chapman and his political team were already enjoying hefty annual grants from Ahmanson to Chapman’s think tank, the Discovery Institute”. (The Discovery Institute is that bastion of intellect that would have you believe that Jesus rode around on a dinosaur.)

Is this ringing any bells yet?

The institute is directed by Diane Knippers, an evangelical Episcopalian and writer who also happens to be a founding member of the Anglican Council and its acting executive director. She is the chief architect of the institute’s Reforming America’s Churches Project, which aims to “restructure the permanent governing structure” of “theologically flawed” mainline churches like the Episcopal Church in order to “discredit and diminish the Religious Left’s influence.” This has translated into a three-pronged assault on mainline Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal churches. With a staff of media-savvy research specialists, the institute is able to ply both the religious and mainstream media, exploiting divisive social issues within the churches.

[...]

The campaign against the Episcopal Church climaxed on Aug. 5 last year, just a day before the Rt. Rev. Eugene Robinson was scheduled to be elected as the church’s first openly gay bishop. In a column titled “The Gay Bishop’s Links,” Weekly Standard editor and Institute board member Fred Barnes alleged that the Web site of a gay youth group Robinson founded contained links to “a pornographic website.” Further, Barnes alleged, Robinson “put his hands on” a Vermont man “inappropriately” during a church meeting “several years ago.” The institute shopped the column to various cable news networks but only Fox News broadcast it.

Though Barnes’ smear was discredited by a panel of bishops investigating the charges, it helped widen the rift within the Episcopal Church and isolate it from its global affiliates. Since Robinson’s Nov. 2 consecration, 13 dioceses affiliated with the Anglican Council have threatened to break with the Episcopal Church and form a renegade network. Though the network has yet to congeal, the momentum for a full-blown split continues to build. And the Nigerian and Southeast Asian churches, which, like the Episcopal Church, belong to the global Anglican Communion, have broken off contact with the Episcopal Church.

Once again you see the connection between big right wing money, media and power — and not just in government, but all aspects of society. There is nothing the right does that is a true grassroots effort. When you peel away the layers you always find the same people spending a huge amount of money to buy off the leadership and brainwash the folks. Every time. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think a bunch of rich white people were looking to perpetuate an aristocracy.

Different day same shit.

I think it now seems very clear what Ben’s intentions are with Chap. Ben is going to do everything he can on the blogs to defend Chap. Clearly, Ben has some kind of crush on Chap.

The only thing that is repulsive here is that my future state senator candidate apparently has Ben to defend him on the blogs. How ironic that Ben ratted out the Chap-Truro connection earlier this month on a GOP blog, as you keenly pointed out.

Political friendships aside, if Chap wants to represent his constituents and his Democratic Party, he needs to answer whether or not he is against gays, against women in church leadership, against jailing gays, etc., etc. Vivian is right on this discussion because her rights, and the fear of losing rights, makes her voice an important part of our party and our ability and desire to work for the election of a candidate who might be too controversial and conservative for our Democratic Party values.

If Chap can’t answer questions on personal values and how he will properly represent the rights and aspirations of all Virginians, then I say Chap needs to remain a private citizen.

However, it would seem prudent and politic for Chap! to head this one off at the pass. I say this as a quick look at the diaries at Raising Kaine show the party faithful are popping up posts condemning the “homophobia of some Episcopal churches in Virginia” and suggesting that traditionally progressive Falls Church, VA, should be changing their name in light of this development

Regardless of where you stand, it would seem a great idea to quell the party faithful and at least address the question, if only to emulate the Louisiana Sheriff and say “I stand with my friends!”

I’m reading your comments on MC’s blog about this subject.

Not so fast my friend. I live in Sunrise. Which means I live in Ken Plum’s delegate district and Devolites-Davis’ senate district. Nothing would please me more than seeing Devolites-Davis defeated this November.

However, I agree with Vivian that we should not turn a blind eye to the perception of Chap’s hard-right conservative ideology. We are 10 months away from the election, so this is a good time to have this discussion. I plan on asking Ken his views on Chap, and I will be asking Chap direct questions about this. Until then, my checkbook and volunteer calendar is closed.

BTW, nice try at taking the “if he is anonymous then he might be lying about living in Chap’s voting district.” I choose to write anonymously because you bloggers can be so cruel to those who dissent. Dissention is not Disloyalty.

I see you are addressing this issue on your blog. I also applaud you for addressing this issue, although for different political reasons.

As for Chap changing his position on Amendment #1 – I must have missed that announcement. His name doesn’t appear anywhere on the VoteNo website.

The fact that I consider Chap a friend (I campaigned with him in the primary in 2005, I voted for him in that primary, I called to offer my condolences after his loss, and I talked to him via email about the amendment) has no bearing on this issue. What is relevant is how his beliefs will affect his vote. Yes, we Democrats have a big tent and we accept all comers. But we deserve to know where a candidate stands on the issues. And, in this case, whether he stands with the 90% or the 10% tells us a lot about where he stands.

There is also a distinction that needs to be made. There is no issue of CELIBATE homosexuals serving in the church. The problem is that a divorced (which encompasses the sin of adultery, according to Jesus) man in an active homosexual relationship (also a sin, according to Paul and the Pentateuch) was consecrated as a Bishop. This is clearly contrary to the Bible.

Believing these things does not mean that one thinks homosexuals, adulterers, and devorcees should not have basic civil rights.

I’m glad to learn that Chap came out (publically, I assume) against the Marriage Amendment. If he expects to run for the Senate, then he better be prepared to discuss his views of his church’s position.

By the way NLS, the two churches (Truro and The Falls Church) have been in Northern Virginia since the 1700s (my ancestors worshipped at both). They are each worth an enormous amount of money and I imagine the real fight will soon begin about — you guessed it — money!!

This is very parallel to the crap they did to JFK and what Republicans tried to do to Kaine last year. These questions have no business in politics. I think Vivian’s intentions were probably good, but I don’t think she fully appreciated the implications of her inquisition.

Also, Vivian seems to not understand what an unwitting pawn she may be becoming for JMDDs sad attempt to cling to power. United Democratic party = Democratic pickup; fractured Democratic party = unclear — it’s just that simple. We need this seat back and at least 2 more, if not 3, so we can finally re-take full control of the state. This innuendo, inappropriate religious inquisition stuff ain’t cutting it.

And as a general matter, if a politician is running on his faith (see, e.g., George Bush), then it’s most certainly a matter of public interest.