A Week ago yesterday, I sat at our weekly farmers market and watched one of our St. Clement's Episcopal Church parish families sitting down to dinner. The parents had their 3-year-old daughter along with her little friend, and they were making sure everyone had what they needed. The little friend seemed to be having trouble with something he was eating - he wasn't throwing up but he was certainly spitting it back out. And one of the parents lovingly took his hand and caught whatever it was and disposed of it so he wasn't embarrassed. The other parent asked how their play day had gone, encouraging them to talk about the specifics of their activities. It was a picture of parents and children, the kind of activity that would make for a great commercial about loving families.

This is exactly the kind of activity we support here: families coming together to enjoy time with their neighbors and friends. But the next day, Friday, Hawaii state representatives determined that this family is not really welcome in Hawaii, because there are some religious groups that think this family and others like them are sinful. Tatum and her two mommies are not acceptable, according to the definition of “;family”; of these particular groups.

So the unity and wholeness of some families are in constant danger because a few religious groups think they have the right to have their beliefs written into our laws.

On Jan. 29, House Speaker Calvin Say and the state House made it very clear that families like Tatum's are neither welcome nor safe in Hawaii. What is happening here and in other states with spineless and misled

legislators is that we are succumbing to a form of religious terrorism. This is no different than the religious terrorism that we are fighting in other parts of the world. We just haven't started killing each other to the extent that those societies have. This form of terrorism, in the name of God and the Bible, is the same terrorism that legalized slavery, legally kept women out of the public sector, and legally banned people of different races from marrying.

It's not just through the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures that God directs us to righteousness with one another and with God. That's exactly what Jesus was preaching about when his so-called friends decided that they'd heard enough and tried to run him off a cliff.

We are called to righteousness with one another; we are called to free one another from the chains of oppression that have been used in the name of God over the past 2,000 years. When will we, as Christians, stand up for our families, our sisters and brothers, and all those condemned by people who claim the name of Christ but use judgment and fear instead of love?

St. Clement's is an inclusive and caring Christian community where all families and individuals can come and be accepted for who they are as children of God, where all families can be safe from those who would impose their religious beliefs on them. Christ calls us to take his light to a world shadowed in darkness. And that's what we will do as a community of followers of Jesus Christ.