In Face of Evil, Don't be Silent

No doubt some Facebook "friends" and other social circle "friends" - specifically, those who voted for Donald Trump - likely wish I'd be quite and stop making my dismay evident over the election of Donald Trump, a/k/a, Der Fuhrer, and such "friends'" complicity in the undermining of America's constitutional order.  Such wishes will not be granted.  There is too much at stake and I refuse to "get over it" as these individuals tell me to do and I refuse to be quiet. The reality is that bad things happen when good people do nothing.   Stated another way, as set out below, “evil does not need your help; just your indifference.”  At this moment in time, far too many Americans are indifferent to the rising tide of racism and bigotry directed at ethnic and religious minorities, LGBT Americans, in some cases, women, and anyone who isn't a white right wing Christian. Elena Barr Baum, the director of the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, has a guest editorial in the Virginian Pilot (prompted by growing white supremacist and anti-Semitic activities) that reminds why we cannot be silent in the face of evil.  Here are highlights:

When someone compares his movement to Nazism, quoting “the original German,” is it newsworthy? When someone calls for a “peaceful ethnic cleansing,” and leads his followers, gathered in the Ronald Reagan office building in Washington, D.C., in a raised-hand salute exclaiming “Hail, Trump,” should the media report this?

The alt-right media celebrated it. Where was the mainstream media, on Nov. 19 when Richard Spencer, the leader of the National Policy Institute – a white nationalist think tank – addressed his faithful this way, just blocks from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum?

Spencer announced matter-of-factly that, “America was until this past generation a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity.” He added, “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

Spencer’s statement goes against the very fabric of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

While we are still getting over our history of enslaving other human beings, we are and were intended to be citizens of a land that believes all people are created equal. After much struggle, we have finally begun to make progress toward the civil rights and equality for all that our founding fathers spoke about so eloquently. People of all races, religions, genders and sexual orientations deserve the respect and the rights that America promises.

Why does Spencer’s hate speech, egged on by Nazi-saluting followers, not raise the warning flag to the majority of Americans?

While the mainstream media did not pay much attention to Spencer’s comments, Holocaust scholars and educators did. The Association of Holocaust Organizations, of which the Holocaust Commission of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater is a member, issued a statement last week about the rise of such speech, signed by over 90 Holocaust institutions and over 70 scholars.

“We denounce racism and the politics of fear that fuels it. … We stand in solidarity with all vulnerable groups. We take Elie Wiesel’s words to heart: ‘I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.’ ”

The organization’s statement is a clarion: “We call upon all elected officials as well as all civic and religious leaders to forcefully and explicitly condemn the rise in hate speech and any attacks on our democratic principles. We call upon all media and social media platforms to refuse to provide a stage for hate groups and thus normalize their agenda. And we call upon all people of good conscience to be vigilant, to not be afraid, and to speak out.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit watchdog for hate groups, reported that 867 hate incidents occurred in the 10 days following the November election. The trend has not subsided much.

Just last week, the white supremacist website the Daily Stormer (sound like “Der Sturmer,” the infamous Nazi-sympathizing newspaper in the 1930s?) called for “an old fashioned troll storm” on Jews and other minorities in Whitefish, Mont. Why? Because the mother of Richard Spencer lives there, and her business has shrunk with the increased media exposure of her son’s rancid ideology.

When the people of Whitefish, in a statement by their mayor, came out against Spencer’s brand of white supremacy earlier this month, the Daily Stormer in retaliation posted names and contact information of their targets, including a child, superimposing yellow stars of David on photos of them, and asked its readers to “take action.”

The Holocaust did not begin with killing. It began with words. It is time for good people to stand up.

The Holocaust Commission calls on the Hampton Roads community to heed the words of the late survivor Hanns Loewenbach, who ended every talk he gave to literally tens of thousands of people in schools, churches and military audiences with these words: “Evil does not need your help; just your indifference.”

Confronting Religion, The Source of Anti-LGBT Animus

I continue to feel a general malaise since the massacre at Pulse in Orlando, which has been followed by new assaults on LGBT Americans through the GOP's adoption of the most anti-LGBT platform EVER.  Now, this evening we have seen our own possibly American version of Hitler or Stalin accept the nomination as the Republican presidential nominee.   It is a frightening time to be an American.  It is perhaps even a more frightening time to be an LGBT American despite the strides that have been made in recent years.  Indeed, LGBT people will never be safe and fully equal until we and our allies confront the root cause of homophobia and anti-LGBT animus: religion, especially fundamentalist religions.  My August column in VEER Magazine - which is longer than usual - looks at this issue and what needs to be done.  Pick up a copy on local Hampton Roads newsstands.  For those who are not locals, the following are some excerpts from the column:

Like so many in the LGBT community, I have found myself profoundly shaken by the massacre last month at Pulse, a gay dance club in Orlando, Florida.  When my husband and I travel, we often enjoy going to local gay dance clubs in the cities that we are visiting, be it New York City, Key West, Ft. Lauderdale, or last year, a club called Raidd in Paris, France.  Though worlds apart in some ways such clubs have a common trait: they offer a refuge in a still too homophobic world.  They offer a place to dance, talk with friends and to have fun. While I had never visited Pulse, we know a number of people who had visited.  We also have a friend who lost someone he knew in the carnage that took place during the early hours of June 12, 2016.
 What happened at Pulse sadly could have happened at any gay club, including clubs here in Hampton Roads.  And, if one looks at history, over the years at least twenty five (25) attacks have taken place against gay clubs, although not on the scale of the Pulse massacre.  The most notable was in 1973 at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans where 32 individuals lost their lives. Closer to home, in 2000 an attack on the Backstreet Cafe in Roanoke, Virginia, one person died and six were wound.  The shooter's motivation in the Roanoke attack?  To kill some "faggots" - seemingly the same as that of the shooter in Orlando.   All of these incidents stand as a reminder that if one is LGBT, hatred toward you is always lurking in the hearts of those who would happily commit violence.   Conveniently for Republican politicians and those I call Christofascists, America's homegrown answer to the Taliban, to whom these Republican politicians regularly prostitute themselves, the shooter at Pulse pledged allegiance to ISIS.  This allowed them to quickly blame Islam and "radical Islamic extremists" and to ignore the root cause of homophobia and anti-LGBT animus in America: religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity. Numerous pastors and “professional Christians” like Pat Robertson and anti-gay hate group leaders Tony Perkins and James Dobson stepped forward to make this religious based animus all too visible following the Orlando tragedy.  Some of them implied that the gays and their allies who died at Pulse "deserved" what happened to them.  Others went further and even bemoaned the fact that there had been any survivors at all.  And some advocated for the government to execute LGBT citizens. Some statements even repeated the deliberate lie that most gays are pedophiles - in truth the vast majority of those who molest children are heterosexual males - and suggested the world was now safer for children.  At the same time that some American Christians were making their animus to LGBT people shockingly obvious, others engaged in strenuous efforts to avoid condemnation of Bible based anti-gay hatred even as they condemned that found in Islam.  . . . . . Nowhere does it mention the fact that Leviticus predated the Quran by roughly 2100 years.  The Quran and hadiths were not authored in a vacuum and, sadly, the misogyny of the Bible and in more recent centuries, Christian missionaries and colonial regimes found their way into Islam. Another effort to apologize for religious based hatred can be found in Pope Francis' comment to journalists that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church needed to "apologize to gays and should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they have treated them."  The problem with Francis' nice words is that when he has had the opportunity to dramatically change Catholic dogma and doctrine on gays he has done nothing and backed down in a cowardly fashion to the ugliest homophobes in the Church hierarchy.  Likewise, Francis ignored his own past attacks against gays, equating gay marriage and adoption by gay couples with the work of the Devil, and declaring that gay marriage was a “destructive attack on God’s plan.” 

 We cannot allow these subterfuges and insincere apologies to succeed.  I hope the Orlando massacre has set the stage for a long overdue discussion about the role of Christianity in anti-gay animus.  Likewise, those I call the "good Christians" - i.e., akin the "good Germans" at the time of Hitler's rise to power – must face the complicity they bear in keeping anti-gay animus alive and well and socially acceptable.  I call this Christians "good Christians" because, like their German counterparts of roughly 85 years ago, they stand by silently as their churches and pastors preach anti-gay hatred even as they themselves claim to not agree with the anti-gay diatribes. Despite such protestations - almost always made in private conversations - these Christians continue to financially support the very same churches and "family values" organizations that daily promote hatred and reject modern knowledge while clinging to a few passages written roughly 3400-3500 years ago by unknown Bronze Age authors who would be deemed utterly ignorant by today's standards of knowledge.  

In my opinion, it is long past time that these "good Christians" cease being given a pass for their complicity in funding and supporting homophobic denominations, church hierarchies, and pastors.  They need to either become part of the solution or they need to be confronted for their role in keeping hate and homophobia alive.  Will these people like the confrontation?  Most assuredly not.  Like most of us, they will not like to be forced to candidly analyze their beliefs and/or cease their sheep like following of church leaders. The favored phrase of "love the sinner, hate the sin" needs to be challenged head on for the disingenuous lie that it is.  The implicit support of hate and homophobia must be challenged.  

However, "good Christians" are not the only ones who need to be held accountable.  The Republican Party needs to be held accountable for its role in cynically keeping anti-gay hatred alive and well and politically acceptable.  Over the last year, roughly two hundred (200) anti-gay bills have been introduced in states across America in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling in 2015.  All of these bills have been almost unanimously backed by Republican elected officials only too happy to seek political favor at the expense of the lives and dignity of LGBT Americans. 

If you find yourself falling into the "good Christian" category, perhaps it's time to cease your silence.  Consider (i) speaking out against homophobes, (ii) confronting anti-LGBT clergy, and/or (iii) ceasing your financial contributions until your church ends its homophobic teachings (make sure the church leadership knows why you are taking the action).  If need be, find a new church that does not espouse homophobia and the marginalization of LGBT lives. Such actions may be scary and uncomfortable, but unless you take them, you will be complicit in the hatred and violence based on slavish adherence to a handful of Bible passages - even as the balance of Leviticus, including dictates against wearing clothes of two different fabrics, planting multiple crops, eating "unclean" foods and other supposed "abominations," are utterly ignored by Christian denominations.  

Orlando: The Complicity of Christians

I realize that I have beaten this horse a great deal recently, but given the batshitery just noted in Maine in the previous post, the time has come when Christians who continue to support anti-LGBT churches MUST be confronted with their complicity in anti-LGBT discrimination, animus, and, yes, the murder of LGBT individuals.  No longer can these people be given a pass and allowed to speak out of both sides of their mouths.  They have a moral choice to make: they must renounce the religious based bigotry and cease funding anti-LGBT churches and organizations.  They need to grow the balls and spine to demand that their respective churches end their anti-LGBT policies and positions now, or they need to walk away.  Doing the morally correct thing often brings discomfort with it, but this Christian complicity needs to end.  I came across this lengthy piece written by a Methodist minister that looks at Christian complicity in anti-LGBT animus and atrocities.  Here are some excerpts:

The horrific massacre of 49 people and wounding of 53 more at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando confronted certain Christian leaders with the dreadful reality that their own denominations might be complicit. The possibility that their Biblically-based anti-homosexual beliefs and discriminatory practices could have contributed to the anti-LGBTQ climate inviting such shocking violence was too repulsive for them to consider. Thus they responded with denial — and compassion.

Yet the reality of their complicity must be acknowledged and transformed, if LGBTQ persons are going to feel safe and be themselves in nightclubs – and in sanctuaries. The reality of Christian complicity must also be confronted if Jesus’ fundamental teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is to include everyone – rather than be perverted by denominational beliefs that brand certain neighbors as “incompatible” (United Methodist Church), “objectively disordered” (Catholic Church), or engaging in a “sinful” not “valid alternative lifestyle” ( Southern Baptist Convention).

While the 6,000 SBC messengers “regard those affected by this tragedy as fellow image-bearers of God and our neighbors,” they could not bring themselves to identify their “neighbors” as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons, which leads to another enacted resolution.

In the face of the shocking violence in Orlando just days earlier, The Southern Baptist Convention messengers, representing some 6,000 local churches, adopted a resolution ‘ON BIBLICAL SEXUALITY AND THE FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.’ This resolution reaffirms the biblical statement that “marriage is between one man and one woman ordered by God,” and rejects same-sex marriage, legalized by the Supreme Court in 2015, as it “does violence to the Constitution and is contrary to the Bible and natural order.” The resolution favors the enactment of religious freedom laws that protect the conscience of Christians, by giving them the right to discriminate against persons whose lifestyle conflicts with their anti-LGBTQIA biblical beliefs.

Something else is going on among Christian leaders of anti-LGBTQIA denominations when prayer is their primary response to the Orlando shootings. Their refusal to acknowledge and confront their own denomination’s complicity in creating an anti-gay climate,  . . . .  they are compensating for their comfortable commitment to the status quo. . . . The moral posture of folding one’s hands and doing nothing.

The horrible violence against LGBTQIA persons at the Pulse gay nightclub led the Vatican to issue a statement, which began, “The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred.”

Various Christian leaders used the word “senseless” to describe the horrific attack in Orlando. If the massacre of gay nightclub partygoers is defined as “senseless,” the complicity of Christian leaders and their anti-gay denominations disappears.

Florida Catholic Bishop Robert Lynch is one of the few Catholic bishops reported to have acknowledged the complicity of the Catholic Church in the massacre of people in the Pulse gay nightclub. To him, they were not “objectively disordered” second class church members. He wrote, “Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people.”

The United Methodist Church engages in forked tongue theology by calling homosexuals “individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God,” and in the next breath rejects their integral identity in declaring that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” (Ibid) The practice of discrimination with a straight face. In reality, LGBTQIA United Methodists are relegated to an inferior position, and forced to ride in the back of United Methodism’s family bus — never behind the steering wheel.

But biblically-based and culturally indoctrinating homophobia dies hard. Just two months ago, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church met in Portland, Oregon, and continued its four decades-long practice of kicking the can of real inclusion down the road: another commission was formed to study The Book of Discipline’s discriminatory positions on homosexuality.

My July, 2016, VEER Magazine column looks at the issue of Christian complicity.  I am sure that many of the "godly folk" will be offended.  They need to be offended and forced to open their eyes and face the reality of their actions.