The power of naming

I notice with some interest the church trial of Jane Spahr, a retired Presbyterian minister in California. Jane performed two wedding ceremonies for lesbian couples. There's no question of whether or not Jane performed the ceremonies, but rather it is a question of whether or not she committed a breach of Presbyterian church law. She has been through the machinery of the Presbyterian court system where she was found innocent of any wrong-doing by a local court, then guilty by a higher one. She appealed to the highest Presbyterian court and the verdict will be announced tomorrow.

In this case it only appears that Jane is on trial. What's actually on trial is the Presbyterian church. This is because in issuing a verdict on Jane, the Presbyterian Church (USA)...(sorry about that...there are numerous factions (sects? arms? flavors?...whatever) of Presbyterianism and the one bearing the suffix, USA, is the one at hand...I'm not a Presbyterian so I'm not too sharp on their labels and nomenclature)...anyway...the Presbyterian Church USA is forced to make a definitive statement on the OK-ness of same-sex marriage. If it is not OK, Jane is guilty of something, and if it is OK, Jane is declared innocent.

This is a hard spot for the PC-USA because they traditionally don't come down hard on one side or the other on nettlesome personal issues, preferring instead to be open and accepting to as many people as possible. Apparently, there are some in the PC-USA who are extremely pissed off because of such lack of clear definition of what is OK and not OK. They believe that right is right and sin is sin, damnit. (See President Bush's remarks, April 17). And then there are others who find this fuzzy ambivalence to be a very attractive feature because they appreciate that we human beings come in so many different varieties, the ambivalence allows more room for those who are at some variance from the norm.

Anyway, I started this post to address the power of naming, because I noticed in a blog that someone, I think it was a guy named Jim Berkley, who referred to Jane as, "the lesbian advocate Jane Spahr." and I thought Wow! He just renamed her. That's effective! She used to be a whole person, Jane Spahr, but now renamed she's just a fraction of a person. It would be fair to say that former whole human being Jane Spahr, who laughs and loves, who pays taxes and does her laundry, who has thousands of interests and friends of every stripe, who loves art and good jokes, who has a rich spiritual life, who prays for others and cries with them, who tends flowers and still rides a bicycle for fun, has now been reduced to "the lesbian advocate Jane Spahr." The renaming effectively seems to remove from her identity, all of the other aspects of her being that don't immediately address her advocacy for lesbianism. What a neat trick! I can't wait to try this out for myself.

Where can I start?...let's see....how about,

"the conservative demagogue Jim Berkley."

Cooool!

I like it!