Pastor Tom Brown's Words on attending "Hispanic School"

Pastor Tom Brown of the Word of Life Church in El Paso, Texas has some interesting things to say on his My Space page.

In his profile he gives us a little background about his upbringing. I think its very telling. Brown talks about being raised by his grandmother following the divorce of his parents. I'll give some of my thoughts on that particular scenario later, but what I found most interesting is when he says, "Then I went to Riverside High School for 2 years, and because it was difficult being white in an all Hispanic School, my sister and I transferred to Eastwood High."

First of all, Riverside is in fact predominantly Hispanic, but its not "all" Hispanic. Secondly, what does me mean when he says it was "difficult being white" while attending Riverside High School, particularly when he makes reference to the number of Hispanics in the same sentence?  Is he alleging that Hispanics are mean to white people? Is he alleging that he was discriminated against?


But wait, it gets more interesting. Pastor Brown then talks about meeting his future wife after high school. "After graduating from Eastwood, I met my future wife, Sonia Blanco." 

Brown proudly proclaims, "Yeah, 'Blanco' is Spanish for 'White'."

He ends the tale of meeting his future wife by saying. "So sometimes she says she just changed colors."

Draw your own conclusions about Pastor Brown's remarks. If you want to read the full profile you can find it here on My Space.


But getting back to what I said earlier about Pastor Brown's upbringing, I think its very insightful. While Lisa D was holding up her sign in City Hall today about Pastor Brown, an elderly woman who was sitting next to and chatting with his wife the entire time called Lisa a "hypocrite" when she saw the message on the sign.


That's an interesting choice of words when you put several things in context. First, the group in opposition to domestic partner benefits refer to themselves as Traditional Family Values. 


While Christ never mentions homosexuality in his teachings, he is pretty clear on what he thinks about divorce. In Mark 10:1-12 I found the following: "Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
He answered, "What did Moses command you?"
They said, "Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her."
But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery."

Brown says he was raised by his grandmother. Again, straight from Pastor Brown himself, "They divorced when I was only a year, so my grandparents took my sister, Cathy and me into their home. My grandmother was like a mother to me."

So what is a traditional family? It think that's an interesting question. One would assume that their definition of traditional family would be something taken from the Bible. If that's the case, an even greater paradox arises. At one point in the Bible, a traditional marriage and traditional family meant a man and multiple wives. 

Catholicism teaches us that Mary was ever-virgin and there are little if any references to Joseph after Jesus' presentation in the temple as a young boy. So did Mary spend most of her life as a single-mother? If that's the case, is polygamy and single-parent households consistent with Pastor Brown's definition of a traditional family?

Moreover, is his own upbringing, from a divorced set of parents and raised by a grandmother, something he would define as "traditional"?

Obviously most of us would believe that yes, he was raised by a family and many probably come from a similar background and find no fault with it at all.

That brings me to my last point. The ordinance that Pastor Brown and his group passed has taken away benefits from, among others, grandmothers raising their grandchildren.

Help me out here. Whats the word used to describe someone who writes an ordinance that takes away benefits from someone who is in a similar position in which he himself was raised? Hmmm, let me think....its on the tip of my tongue...oh yeah, I remember..."hypocrite"!