SAME GENDER MARRIAGE

The “Supremes” have lurched their way into the 18^th Century and makes it possible for same gender people to marry and have full rights and benefits due all Americans. I did the first blessing of a lesbian couple at St. Aidan’s in 1969. We have come a long way to do what is just and right for all Americans.  I don’t see my marriage to Ann threatened by the gay and lesbian couples with children whom we know.

I am thrilled that so many of our friends can be legally married. How many people died of AIDS by not being allowed to marry had unsafe sex and felt hopeless to enter into permanent relationships?

My Philosophy of Religion

I was a philosophy minor at NYU. Sidney Hook was chair of the department. William Barrett, the existentialist scholar, was one of my teachers. I read lots of Kierkegaard then and sill do from time to time. K. was a believer as I am. Hook and Barrett were not. They presented their arguments fairly and objectively. I soon was comfortable with the notion that religion in general was a matter of transcendence, wonder, awe, compassion, forgiveness and love. These were matters that might be understood by logic and science and should be investigated. I was drawn to the ethical and moral teaching derived from religion and its writings.

In particular I was inspired by the ethical and behavioral practices of Jesus as found in the gospels.

“If Kierkegaard is your benchmark, then you judge any philosophy not just on the basis of how cogent its arguments are, but on whether it speaks to the fundamental needs of human beings trying to make sense of the world.”

I see Christianity at its best as concerned with the basic needs of human beings dealing with the paradoxes, the fundamental evil and goodness inherent in human nature. Living in that tension is the sign of maturity, health and intensity of human life.

Working for peace, an end to poverty, health care for all, and an end to hunger is a impossible task. Yet the paradox is that that is exactly what we have to do as Christians and as human beings

LETTER TO HEAD OF US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey

3839 20 Street,

San Francisco, CA 94114

415-824-6321

twocromeys@earthlink.net

Thomas J. Donohue, President and CEO

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

1615 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20062-2000

Dear Mr. Donohue,

I read with interest the article about you in the NY Times of June 2, 2013. I too was born in Brooklyn.

I am the beneficiary of The Episcopal Church Pension Fund, an enormously rich fund providing retirement benefits for retired clergy widows and widowers. JP Morgan and Bishops of the church started the fund in the early 20^th century. I have profited from free market capitalism.

While I am a knee-jerk liberal and deeply concerned for the poor in this country and around the world, I do appreciate that capitalism is the best economic system for most people. However, it is a truism that capitalism leaves a large number of people behind who are in poverty, inadequate housing and poor health.

I just can’t imagine that the smart, enterprising, intelligent, energetic, creative and sensitive leaders of the capitalistic system cannot make adjustments to the existing system that so many women, children and men are not in such deep economic trouble. Obviously there is plenty of money moving through the economic system.

I don’t pretend to have answers or systems to make such adjustments. In my work as a priest in New York City and in San Francisco, I have seen such poverty and injustice. I do not think the poor have to be always with us.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Robert Warren Cromey

Father Cromey