I do not hold back on expressing my view that over the course of history I believe that religion and religious belief have likely caused more harm than good and are directly responsible for countless deaths. While some Christian denominations seem to be trying to move away from their toxic and often deadly pasts, others like the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention appear to be moving in the opposite direction and increasing their vitriol against non-believers and those they claim their myth based dogmas condemn. It goes without saying that LGBT individuals of all ages continue to be a preferred target for hatred and stigmatization by the self-congratulatory, self-anointed godly folks. A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the phenomenon in the wake of the suicide death of 17 year old Josh Pacheco, who killed himself because of constant anti-gay bullying. Bullying that is encouraged and made respectable by the incessant mantra coming from far too many pulpits. And bullying that isn't restricted to physical violence. Truth be told, most LGBT individuals experience persistent psychological violence - again almost exclusively because of the anti-gay jihad of fear and hate based religious denominations such as the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptists and, of course, the Mormon Church. Here are some excerpts:
I don’t know Josh or his family. And I’ve never even been to Michigan. But every queer person knows Josh Pacheco. Josh was a junior in high school and had just told his mother that he was gay. Like so many mothers, she wasn’t too surprised and was very supportive of her son. What did surprise her—what she didn’t know until very recently—was that Josh was the victim of persistent physical bullying and verbal harassment at school. Her son was a victim of violence.
“Queer” is not synonymous with “suicide,” as it has begun to seem. Not every queer person is on the brink of despair and self-destruction. Not every queer person is bullied by their peers or rejected by their parents. Not every queer person is vulnerable to depression or has a suicide plan at the ready.
But queer suicide should alarm us. It should keep us up at night.
Violence against queer people runs much deeper than physical bullying, verbal harassment, or even hate crime murder. It is a violence that takes place at the level of the psyche, the soul—at the very level at which our sense of “self” is constructed within our relation to society.
It is a type of violence that cannot be assessed by examining bruises. Violence against queer people in any form is an ideologically aggravated, theologically intensified violence— legitimated by a discourse about queer people that is already embedded in the lives of both attacker and victim.
Insults like “fag,” often combined with physical assault, name the queer self as sick, sinful, or an object of disgust and derision—images that swirl in social consciousness long before blows are brought to bear upon a queer body.
Every queer person knows Josh Pacheco. Not every queer person grew up being pushed into lockers and teased at school like Josh. Not every queer person contemplates suicide. But the effects of insult and hatred that write themselves onto our bodies mark the life of every queer person. Every one of us is familiar with the kind of violence that psychiatrist Marie-France Hirigoyen so aptly calls “stalking the soul.” Josh’s last note read, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be strong enough.”
As I said in a Religion Dispatches article after the spate of highly publicized bullying-related gay teen suicides back in 2010, anti-gay bullying is a theological issue. But, to be clear, queer suicide is more than a theological “issue.” It is an indicator of rampant ministerial malpractice.
By ministerial malpractice, I mean the negligent attitudes of clergy and congregations concerning the violence being enacted upon queer lives—not just the violence of bullying, but the persistent injury to the bodies, psyches, and souls of queer people.
By ministerial malpractice, I mean the youth minister who invites representatives of “ex-gay” ministries to speak to teenagers because these “practices of love” are theologically responsible, despite evidence of their destructive power.
By ministerial malpractice, I mean the pastor who knows the realities of violence enacted upon queer lives and is deeply concerned, but who, nevertheless, avoids any mention of sexuality in the pulpit so as not to upset parishioners.
By ministerial malpractice, I mean the theological scholar who prevaricates in public when asked about concerns of justice for queer lives—not even out of a sense of personal conviction on the matter, but in order to protect a public career: speaking invitations, book deals.
By ministerial malpractice, I mean the congregation that skirts around open discussions of queer affirmation, inclusion, and justice because they don’t want to become a “gay church” or (more liberally) they don’t want to be “defined by that one issue.”
The difficulty is that I know these people and these churches, and so does every reader of this article. More difficult is the realization that those of us who live and work in a religious context are the only ones capable of providing accountability for ministerial malpractice.
I for one will not hold my breath waiting for anti-gay churches and congregations and the insidious professional Christian class to cease their violence both physical and psychological against LGBT people. Instead I will try to educate people about the truth about those of us in the LGBT community and, with luck, more and more of these people will do what seems to be the trend with the "nones" and younger voters: see religion for the evil that it too often is and simply walk away.
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