For a long time now a number of LGBT organizations have stressed the importance of living out of the closet and through your daily lives going about the task of changing hearts and minds. It's not always an easy thing to do, especially for those of us living in what are basically gay hating states like Virginia where official government policy seeks to denigrate our rights and dignity on a daily basis. But over time being out and proud if you will can and does lead to others coming to the realization that they need to reevaluate past views and prejudices. I was flattered to see these remarks by North Carolina blogger Bob Felton who like myself sees the insidious damage that is done to lives and the nation under the guise of religiosity. Here are some excerpts:
Twenty-five years ago, for instance, I doubt that I would have thought well of same-sex couples adopting children. But after I became an adoptive father and learned how much genuine harm our child welfare system actually does to children, I became an early but cautious supporter, reasoning that an untraditional home couldn’t possibly be worse than what was (and still is) happening.
Nor did I understand how deeply and needlessly estranged gays too often are from the mainstream of civil life until I began to read Andrew Sullivan’s and Michael Hamar’s blogs.
I was raised among, and worked among, decent and well-educated people, and it wasn’t until I moved to a seminary-dominated town in North Carolina that I began to sense the squalor and inexhaustible malice that are, for too many, the daily reality — the hatred of all learning, the hatred of all ambition, the hatred of all … ‘others.’
Thank you to Bob for saying I've made some small difference through this blog.
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