Being in Charlottesville for the weekend and looking after my mother raises - as always - the issue of church attendance. In some ways I feel badly that I am refusing to take her to and sit with her at Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has been and to this very day continues via funding of anti-gay propaganda to be responsible for far too much violence and psychological abuse of LGBT individuals for me to ever darken the door of a Catholic Church again in my lifetime. I volunteered the option of going to a gay accepting Lutheran parish, and the verdict is still out on that issue (elderly Catholics were brainwashed beyond belief growing up in respect to attending non-Catholic services).*
Yes, it's easy to stay with what's familiar, but if that familiar parish or denomination is a well spring for hate and intolerance, in my view, folks need to start voting with their feet. True, many churchgoers ignore what they don't like or agree with, but by merely attending, the hierarchy is set a message that the hate and condemnation of others is acceptable. After all, people are still attending, right? I truly believe that straights have no concept of the damage done to gays by self-professed "godly people" and their religious institutions - even the ones who mean no harm and are merely too lazy to say "no more" and cease their involvement with anti-gay churches. There are two things that priest and preachers understand: attendance numbers and money donations. If and when both plummet, then change may occur. Andrew Sullivan - who has formally remained a Catholic - has reflections on the torture of a New York City man - simply because he is gay- that are relevant to why our straight allies need to distance themselves from those who foment hate and discrimination:
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I also want to ask, plead, and beg those who have sincere and principled arguments against, say, marriage equality or openly gay military service, to be mindful of the impact of their words. I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of those on the other side of the debate are as horrified by these events as I am. I am not in any way saying otherwise, or in any way suggesting indirect responsibility for horrors such as these.
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What I am saying is that in making these arguments, people need to take care to ensure that they also insist that gay people are always described as human beings, as worthy of respect and dignity as anyone else, that the case for keeping us out of core civil institutions must be made without inflammatory generalizations about gay people, generalizations that have an impact, especially on those only waiting for an excuse from authority to act, or those deeply confused and afraid of who they find themselves to be in adolescence.
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For too long, gay people have been described by too many on the right as a threat to the family, society and decency. Those words have consequences. This is especially true of religious leaders. When even the Pope describes us as "intrinsically disordered" and directed to an "objective moral evil", when Republicans call us a threat to family life, when NOM runs ads of a "storm coming", I hope they understand what these words do to the psyches and souls of the young and impressionable, and to those who need a mere signal to take up arms and attack us.
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If you want to help, the best organization to donate to is The Trevor Project, for whom I held a fundraiser at my apartment earlier this year. I know and can vouch for this group. They do amazing work. If you save one kid from killing himself, you have, as the Jewish tradition has it, saved the world.
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I also want to ask, plead, and beg those who have sincere and principled arguments against, say, marriage equality or openly gay military service, to be mindful of the impact of their words. I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of those on the other side of the debate are as horrified by these events as I am. I am not in any way saying otherwise, or in any way suggesting indirect responsibility for horrors such as these.
*
What I am saying is that in making these arguments, people need to take care to ensure that they also insist that gay people are always described as human beings, as worthy of respect and dignity as anyone else, that the case for keeping us out of core civil institutions must be made without inflammatory generalizations about gay people, generalizations that have an impact, especially on those only waiting for an excuse from authority to act, or those deeply confused and afraid of who they find themselves to be in adolescence.
*
For too long, gay people have been described by too many on the right as a threat to the family, society and decency. Those words have consequences. This is especially true of religious leaders. When even the Pope describes us as "intrinsically disordered" and directed to an "objective moral evil", when Republicans call us a threat to family life, when NOM runs ads of a "storm coming", I hope they understand what these words do to the psyches and souls of the young and impressionable, and to those who need a mere signal to take up arms and attack us.
*
If you want to help, the best organization to donate to is The Trevor Project, for whom I held a fundraiser at my apartment earlier this year. I know and can vouch for this group. They do amazing work. If you save one kid from killing himself, you have, as the Jewish tradition has it, saved the world.
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