Petition to Pope Francis and U.S. Catholic Bishops

Faith in America has launched a petition drive via Change.org to make a plea to Pope Francis and the always anti-gay U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to cease preaching that homosexuality and homosexual relationships are a sin.  Study after study has shown that the number one cause of homelessness for LGBT youth is religious based discrimination and bigotry that motivates parents to treat their LGBT children as if they were disposable trash.  This bigotry in turn traces ultimately to the writings of unknown ignorant authors from two millennium ago.  I would urge readers to sign the petition.  Here are highlights about the petition:

Pope Francis and Catholic Bishops, we are asking for your help and the Catholic Church's leadership in righting a grave moral wrong that is being perpetrated on untold millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth as well as their parents, siblings and other members of their families.

By teaching that homosexual conduct is sin or that homosexuality is a sinful inclination, the Catholic Church and other Christian and non-Christian churches are causing immense emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical harm to these youth and families worldwide.

• Last year at least 200,000 LGBT youths experienced homelessness in the United States. LGBT youths make up 40% of the homeless youth population in this country, despite comprising only about 5% of the overall youth population.
• A recent study of Family Rejection found that parents who identified as "strongly religious" were significantly more likely to reject their LGBT children.
• A recent study published by the American Psychological Association reported that a majority of gay participants cited religious teaching as the primary source of conflict within families after they came out.
• LGBT youths who are rejected by their families are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than LGBT youths whose parents accept them.

The pain and torment does not end with LGBT youth as the conflict results in derogation to the entire family – parents, siblings, grandparents and other relatives.

The conflict is often viewed as irreconcilable and parents and other family members feel they cannot affirm the LGBT youth and remain true to their faith. The young person may feel they are the source of such conflict within the family and then are burdened with more guilt from feeling they have brought pain and anguish to their parents, siblings and others.

Such emotional, psychological and spiritual trauma leads many young LGBT youth to feel they must leave the family as their way of resolving the conflict.

Most tragically, many LGBT youth decide that suicide is their only escape from the type of personal and familial conflict that results from religious teaching that condemns their same-sex attraction as a sinful inclination or their sexual acts or expressions of affection with other same-sex individuals as sin. 

So many of these youth feel their sexuality is in conflict with their Christian faith as church teaching tells them they are separate and apart from God. Parents, siblings, grandparents, other relatives and peers also experience this conflict and therefore a profound hindrance to the Gospel is being allowed to flourish within our society.

When the church in the past has refused to examine fault within scriptural teaching, such moral wrongs as genocide, slavery, subjugation of women have flourished within society. The ultimate result of the church's complicity in such moral failure is the denigration of the Christian faith. We see this happening today in relation to traditional church teaching on homosexuality. A younger generation recognizes the church's inability and unwillingness to right a grave moral wrong being perpetrated on their LGBT brothers, sisters, parents, relatives and friends.

We are asking that you, Pope Francis and Catholic Bishops, to allow the Catholic faith to lead the world's religious communities in bringing an end to this grave moral failure in the church's response to and its embrace of LGBT youth and families.

 I have signed the petition and I hope you will do so as well.

Faith in America's Town Hall Meeting

A recent town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina, was the site of a debate between Methodist minister and Faith In America founder Jimmy Creech, and Evangelical minister Rev. Kevin Boling of Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship. Faith In America's "Call to Courage" campaign was implemented on the heels of the May, 2007, death of Sean Kennedy who died from injuries sustained after being assaulted for being gay. According to Creech, religion-based bigotry has historically been, and continues to be, used to justify social inequity and individual attacks such as the one that felled Kennedy. Naturally, the knuckle draggers like Kevin Boling use the tired old excuse of "religious beliefs" in order to discriminate against those who are different, just as in the past the same refrain was used to suppress blacks and women, ban inter-racial marriage and other forms of bias. Here are some highlight's of Faith in America's positions:

The world’s great religious traditions practiced within the United States of America emphasize the love of neighbor as well as the love of God. Compassion, justice, freedom, and respect for the dignity of all people are their most authentic and noble expressions. Religion-based bigotry is hostile and discriminatory attitudes, opinions and behavior toward a group or class of people motivated by fear and ignorance, based on and justified by religious teachings.

Religious teachings that justify bigotry must not be sanctioned by our religious communities. Rather, they must be publicly exposed and denounced. This expression of religion-based bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people has historical precedents, including violence, intolerance, and inequity toward women, people of color, and people with religious traditions different from those of the majority, such as Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons and others. These precedents are recognized today by the mainstream of America to have been misguided, wrong and evil. To end the persecution of gay people engendered by religion-based bigotry, its common link with these historical precedents must be acknowledged.