Colorado is voting in November on whether to legalize marijuana
for recreational use. It’s already permissible for ostensible
medical reasons. Naturally many traditional religious leaders are
opposing Amendment 64. But the Huffington Post quotes a
United Methodist minister who supports a pot friendly Colorado.
“How we punish people and what we punish them for are central
moral questions,”
explained Rev. Bill Kirton, who is identified by
HuffPo as being with Denver’s United Methodist church,
though the article doesn’t explain which one. “If a punishment
policy fails to meet its objectives and causes harms to humans, I
believe we have a moral obligation to support change.”
Building on his argument that legalizing marijuana is a moral
cause meriting clergy support, Rev. Kirton declared: “Our laws
punishing marijuana use have caused more harm than good to our
society and that is why I am supporting replacing marijuana
prohibition with a system of strict regulation with sensible
safeguards.”
And Rev. Kirton sermonized: “As we seek to teach compassion and
love, it seems inconsistent to support, in cases of private
personal adult marijuana possession, the use of police, guns, and
courts.” After all, he said, “The faith community, parents, peers,
and educators are the appropriate institutions in society to
address this kind of personal behavior.”
Actually, although unmentioned in HuffPo, Rev. Kirton
does not evidently pastor a church and is apparently retired from
active ordained ministry. According to the group’s website, he currently works for the
Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center, whose mission is to
promote the “employee-ownership model as an important business
option.” The group advocates “‘shared capitalism’ as a viable
alternative to conventional notions of free enterprise.” And it
espouses “democracy as an alternative to corporate rule.”
Previously Rev. Kirton worked for the Interfaith Alliance, which is
a Religious Left group founded in the 1990s to combat the Religious
Right.
Rev. Kirton is among a group of about two dozen clergy publicly
endorsing Colorado marijuana legalization. Almost all the signers
are Unitarians or liberal Mainline Protestants. Nearly one third
are United Methodist pastors. It’s probably safe to assume that
none of them preside over any of Colorado’s larger congregations.
There are also several Jewish rabbis, but no Catholic or Orthodox
clergy.
“I do not support smoking pot. I do not like the stuff,” Rev.
Kirton told the Associated Press, which identified him as a retired
minister. “But the harm it does is much less than sending more and
more people to prison. And I think it’s time to legalize
marijuana.” The AP
reported Kirton “chuckled that many of his former parishioners
had probably tried marijuana.” Bu he lamented that most clergy find
it difficult publicly to address marijuana legalization.
“A lot of pastors are, because of the toxic nature of current
politics, they’re hesitant to speak out on issues,” Kirton told AP.
“I think there’s some hesitancy to speak out, but I think most of
my peers would agree with me.” In its official policy statements,
the United Methodist Church urges “abstinence from the use of any
illegal drugs,” which are cited as factors in “crime, disease,
death, and family dysfunction.” Another church statement describes
“marijuana as a “precursor to the use of other drugs” and urges
abstinence from it unless legally prescribed for a medical
condition. Although it supports “strong, humane law-enforcement
efforts against the illegal sale of all drugs,” apparently there’s
no specific denominational official stance for or against actual
legalization. The absence of a stance is a little surprising, as
Methodists were the original Prohibitionists. Undoubtedly most
United Methodists would be a little stunned by one of their clergy
publicly pushing for marijuana legalization.
Both the AP and HuffPo stories cited mostly evangelical
clergy who are opposing Amendment 64 in Colorado. About 10 pastors
spoke at an anti-legalization press conference this week. “Is this
really what we want for children? I don’t think it is,” said one
Denver pastor, according to AP, which described the ministers
citing Colorado’s 12 years as a medical marijuana state with dire
consequences. “We help folks with a medical marijuana card and have
seen it being abused,” complained one pastor in the AP story.
“We’ve seen it end up in the hands of children.”
Some of the quotes from anti-legalization clergy emphasize God’s
disapproval of mind-altering drugs. The liberal clergy supporting
Amendment 64 seem not to dispute the inadvisability of
mind-altering drugs but think regulation of them like alcohol might
more effectively control their use. The traditional clergy are on
stronger ground when citing the already experienced abuse of
medical marijuana laws. Stronger theological insights into what the
civil state could and should ban versus regulate would be
helpful.
Much of the pro-legalization side assumes a pseudo-libertarian
perspective that wants law enforcement out of “personal” life.
Clergy who believe in creating a more just and godly society need
to argue for maintaining a healthy common culture of mutual
responsibility that guards against vice without exceeding the
state’s proper vocation.
Meanwhile, fiery old Methodist prohibitionists, from their dry
heavenly mansions, may now be fretting over Rev. Kirton and his
Colorado United Methodist clergy colleagues who’ve endorsed
Amendment 64.
