Apologies to Brian Murphy at the San Franciso Chronicle

The following is the Gospel Messenger's paraphrase of a column in the San Franciso Chronicle:

Now, we can't avoid it any longer. It appears the elephant in the living room isn't going away; he's ordering pizza and settling in.

Should [we] have a [questionable] member? In an egalitarian world, yes. It is the 21st century, in case [anyone] has failed to check [their] Farmer's Almanac. And the spread of diversity, in a newsroom, classroom or boardroom, has never hurt life experience. Usually, it enriches. Moreover, as a fellow journalist pointed out, in the ledgers of social history, intolerance has never fared too well. Some have said that including an inevitably rich and well-connected [questionable person] to an already rich and well-connected membership is not worth debating, pointing out this is not about Rosa Parks trying to sit in the front of a bus. True enough. But symbols are important. [The larger group] invites the world to its [calling] and its [big event] every year. The idea that a [child] of mine [might] never have the chance to join the [larger group] that hosts it is, frankly, a tad irksome.

All that said, consider the issue. Voting rights and domestic partners' health benefits are issues of considerable weight. But is this? There exists underneath [this liberal] battle cry a hint of forced morality that feels dangerous.

America has taken on a homogenous tone of late, the undercurrent being: If you don't think the way I think, I will browbeat you until you do. Force-feeding social ethics is a risky business. The great writer Bob Verdi wrote that if a [group] can't choose its own members -- old, young, male, female, [straight, alternative] -- then where can you go to get away from everybody? Precisely.

What was it a great American once said? I may not agree with the prevalence of men's rest rooms at your golf club, but I will defend to my death your right to have them.

Brian Murphy, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer