LGBT Americans Are Less Religious For Good Reason

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A new Gallup survey has not surprisingly found that LGBT Americans are "less religious" than other segments of society.   Of course, given the evils done to gays in the name of religion and the daily religious based discrimination many of us face, the findings should surprise no one.  Yet the usual Christofascists and professional Christians are using the data to denigrate gays and depict us as a societal evil.  As I said, there is good reason that many in the LGBT community have walked away from religion which has hate and bigotry as its most noticeable attributes.  An article in The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the survey findings and the reasons why gays eschew religion.  Here are excerpts:

By a wide margin, LGBT Americans are "significantly less religious" than heterosexuals. A new Gallup survey finds that LGBT people in the U.S. are "significantly less likely than non-LGBT Americans to be highly religious, and significantly more likely to be classified as not religious."

Overall, nearly half -- 47 percent -- of LGBT people are "not religious," they say, agreeing that "religion is not an important part of their daily lives and that they seldom or never attend religious services." By comparison, 30 percent of non-LGBT people identify as not religious.
 
Those who say they are moderately religious, claiming "religion is important in their lives but that they do not attend services regularly, or that religion is not important but that they still attend services," weigh in equally at 29 percent of the population -- both LGBT and non-LGBT.

In reality, it's no wonder that LGBT people are less religious, when daily the LGBT community is lambasted as perverted, sick, sinners, of the devil, and "worthy of death." It's no wonder that LGBT people are less religious, when those who claim to represent God and religion call for the mass murder of the world’s homosexuals. 

Gays are regularly treated them as inhuman by most of the religious right's loudest voices. Those same voices, along with the majority of GOP politicians -- who are often one in the same -- attack LGBT people as “perverted,” “degenerate,” “spiritually darkened” and “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally.” They often engage in verbal assaults, like claiming homosexuality is an "unhealthy, sexual addiction,” an “abomination in the sight of God,” that same-sex marriage leads to "Adam and a bull," and almost daily compare LGBT people to alcoholics, child-molesters, and thieves, and claim same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, incest, increase in disease, and general immorality. And they call coming out as LGBT a "tragedy," and a "family crisis."

Ironically, the loudest voices who also claim to represent religion -- or the religious right -- now regularly claim that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible, and even that "Jesus would stone homos."

I remain nominally a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America but rarely attend church services.  For me to enter a church, it usually involves a funeral or a wedding.   With science and modern knowledge increasingly proving the Bible to be false, it simply is more and more difficult subscribing to what is in someways a fairy tale authored by ignorant, backward herders who knew nothing of modern science, medical or mental health knowledge.  Add to that the Church's manipulation of the Bible's contents to enhance power and control and the entire work but for some of the Gospel message becomes almost obscene.

Jimmy Carter: "Jesus Never Said a Word About Homosexuality"

Jimmy Carter may not have been the greatest of presidents, but certainly has shown himself to be a true Christian in the positive sense in contrast to Christianists who are better known for the hate and intolerance that are their primary hallmarks. In a new book, NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter makes some statements that will cause Christianists to convulse and spray spittle. More specifically, Carter notes that Christ never said a word about homosexuality -something that was well known and prevalent in the Roman dominated world of Christ's time. Huffington Post has a piece in which Carter is interviewed about the new book and topics that include among other things the treatment of women and gays, and Bible literalism. Here are some highlights:

What do you say to those who point to certain scriptures that women should not teach men or speak in church? (1 Corinthians 1:14):

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews -– everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

There are some things that were said back in those days –- Paul also said that women should not be adorned, fix up their hair, put on cosmetics, and that every woman who goes in a place of worship should have her head covered. Paul also said that men should not cut their beards and advocated against people getting married, except if they couldn’t control their sexual urges. Those kinds of things applied to the customs of those days. Every worshipper has to decide if and when they want those particular passages to apply to them and their lives.

A lot of people point to the Bible for reasons why gay people should not be in the church, or accepted in any way.

Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things -– he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

Should we approach the Bible literally, or metaphorically?

When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. . . . The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent our ability, our wealth, our influence.

What a difference from the message of condemnation, hate, division and intolerance preached daily by those such as Benedict XVI, Tony Perkins, Albert Mohler, Matt Staver, Pat Robertson, etc. I have no issue with Christians like Carter who don't exalt themselves while seeking to condemn and tear down others.

Faith Too Vulnerable to be Disputed, Will Not be Taken Seriously.

Ross Douthat has a column in today's New York Times that gets to an issue discussed before on this blog. Namely, that of weak faithed fundamentalists - and people at St. Johns Lutheran in Roanoke - who cannot stand anything that might disturb their house of cards faith system and cause the whole edifice to collapse. The hysteria over gays is a case in point. With these believers, if what they claim the Bible says about homosexuality is not indeed true, their entire faith system unravels and what they have seen as certainty becomes more shades of gray rather than black and white. Worse yet, they might have to think and analyze about what in the Bible is true and what is not. There are already many things that are casually ignored - the Gospel prohibition on divorce being the most noticeable, perhaps - but sexuality issues scares the living you know what out of them. Douthat makes the point that their rigidness on aspects of faith actually shows weakness, not strength and argues to others why their beliefs are not worthy of respect. Here are some highlights:
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Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas.
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That’s the theory. In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion.
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A week ago, Brit Hume broke all three rules at once. Asked on a Fox News panel what advice he’d give to the embattled Tiger Woods, Hume suggested that the golfer consider converting to Christianity. “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume noted.
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Hume’s critics suggested that had he been a Buddhist commentator urging a Christian celebrity to convert — or more provocatively, a Muslim touting the advantages of Islam — Christians would be calling for his head.
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No doubt many would. The tendency to take offense at freewheeling religious debate is widespread. There are European Christians who side with Muslims in support of blasphemy laws, lest Jesus or the Prophet Muhammad have his reputation sullied. There are American Catholics who cry “bigotry” every time a newspaper columnist criticizes the church’s teaching on sexuality. Many Christians have decided that the best way to compete in an era of political correctness is to play the victim card.
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But these believers are colluding in their own marginalization. If you treat your faith like a hothouse flower, too vulnerable to survive in the crass world of public disputation, then you ensure that nobody will take it seriously. The idea that religion is too mysterious, too complicated or too personal to be debated on cable television just ensures that it never gets debated at all.
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When liberal democracy was forged, in the wake of Western Europe’s religious wars, this sort of peaceful theological debate is exactly what it promised to deliver. And the differences between religions are worth debating. Theology has consequences: It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them.
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Thought and analysis terrifies fundamentalist be they Christian extremists or Islamic extremists. Anything that challenges their belief system is to be stomped out rather than run the risk that other believers might begin to question the legitimacy of elements of dogma. We gays frighten the Hell out of Christianists for the very reason that our lives and love suggest that just maybe they are wrong. Once the unraveling begins, their entire fragile and artificial world begins to collapse. Thus, we are a feared/hated enemy.

Who Says Religion is an Immutable Trait?

The religious enemies of gays claim that sexual orientation is a choice and not immutable and, therefore, not worthy of anti-discrimination legal protections. Meanwhile, they disingenuously claim that religion is NOT a choice. Obviously, it is and I dedicate the above chart (via Joe. My. God) to Tony Perkins, James Dobson, et al

Standing Up to Intolerance

John Aravosis has a post on America Blog that struck me. It contains the words of a speech given by David Lee, who was the co-producer of the television show CHEERS and co-creator of WINGS and FRASIER. The speech looks at what is wrong with this country in terms of how so many people turn a blind eye to hate, bigotry and intolerance until they themselves are the victims. The truth is that when we abide the mistreatment of others, we lessen ourselves and imperil the entire democratic experience. Yesterday's post on the terrible precedent set by Proposition 8 is a case in point about the slippery slope to fascism and cruel majority rule. Here are some highlights that struck me in particular:

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I now find myself in a similar position around another subject: the anti-gay bigotry of some of our major religious institutions. I keep looking around for someone, anyone to say something, anything in response to the incessant bile about of gay and lesbian people that is spewed forth daily by the some of the world’s so called spiritual leaders. I keep looking around for someone to finally say “Enough. This has got to stop!” And what I see when I turn around is a bunch of folks who have taken a step to the rear. Sadly and shockingly our major gay political groups are the most conspicuous in their silence.

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First, let me make it absolutely clear that this is not an attack on religion. I am on a spiritual path myself. I’m sure many of you are too. What I am attacking is homophobic bigotry that justifies itself in religious belief. And the free pass that we in the gay community have given much of this stuff over and over again. Folks, the time for polite silence is finished. We have got to start defending ourselves when attacked. And we are under a massive attack.

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The Mormon Church is the fastest growing cult in the world. Every year they send out 30 to 40 thousand new missionaries. They are not trying to convince people that gays and lesbians are cool. As late as the last decade this group was attaching electrodes to gay men's testicles trying to shock them back into the hetero fold. There is a task to be tended to here, yet the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has said nothing.

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As an American I understand that Islam is not the enemy. But what about as a gay man? Have we have forgotten that there is no sect of Islam worth noting that even tolerates homosexuality, and in countries where Islam predominates punishment can be anything from imprisonment, to torture, to disfigurement to death. Islam may not be the enemy of my country, but I'd be hard pressed to find a bigger enemy of gay people. Human rights transgressions are being carried out daily its name, but what do we hear from the Human Rights Campaign?

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The number of Catholics in this country is increasing by leaps and bounds, mostly by immigration. The leader of this sect now sends "instructions" (his word) to Catholic politicians on gay issues. He has told them that it is their “moral duty” (his words again) to oppose any gay rights reforms. This is absolutely outrageous. The sovereign head of another country giving instructions to our government officials. Yet have you heard one word from our national organizations? Has anyone quizzed these Catholic congressmen, senators, judges and justices about whether they intend to follow these orders from the Vatican?

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Here’s what I think. We as a group have become tolerant of intolerance. Whenever anyone justifies their bigotry with what I call DHRB (deeply held religious beliefs) we roll over as if that were the end of the discussion. We have confused respecting a persons right to hold whatever religious beliefs they chose with respecting those beliefs. The truth is there are plenty of DHRB that are simply not worthy of our respect. Can we start with the ones that have no respect for us? Can you imagine an African American respecting someone’s DHRB that the Bible justifies slavery? The right to believe it, yes. The belief itself? No way.

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We are terrified to call a bigot a bigot if the bigotry is a result of DHRB. We are horrified that we might be accused of attacking someone’s religion. As if attacking bigotry hiding behind the skirts of religion and attacking religion were the same thing. The church homophobes have it easy on this one. They say the most vile, cruel, untruthful things about us, usually to raise funds, and then use their tax exempt dollars to promote anti-gay legislation.

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We have got to start talking about religion. All of it. The good guys—and there are many--and the bad guys. It must be a compassionate discussion but we must not in our compassion shy away from the truth.

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I for one will continue to speak out about religious based bigotry and continue to tell the truth about our enemies until they stop telling lies about us in the LGBT community.

Growing Up Gay

A blogger friend sent me a link to this coming out story on One Love (http://its-raining-men.blogspot.com/2008/02/growing-up-gay.html) with which I can identify in a number of ways. Certainly with the inner conflict the author struggled with in terms of religious belief versus who he really was. It is a sad and difficult struggle growing up gay - at least for me and many in my generation - even to this day. The following are some sections of the story that are pretty much applicable to my life:

But during this period of adolescence, I never really thought about what I was. All the things that took place in the emotional-sexual realm were, admittedly, real and concrete to me: I experienced real feelings for other boys (love, infatuation, sexual attraction). But at the same time, on an "intellectual" level, I never confronted these feelings, and so I continued having them without worrying about them or trying to transform them in any way. They just were, and that was fine with me. While some opponents of homosexuality often claim that it is "unnatural," for me, my homosexual feelings were very natural indeed.

I was very attracted to quite a few boys which I only knew from having observed them around the school, and I also experienced two strong infatuations, involving two boys in my class. Of course, as before, all of this was kept very secret! . . . And I now gradually began to realize, on an intellectual level, what I was. Why did that take so long? I think because when one grows up and hears words like "gay" or "homosexual", one thinks of rather horrid people, who are disgusting, ugly, and immoral. But at this time, while I knew what I was, nobody else knew. And it would take some more years before I told anyone. The period that started about this time was, in a way, a fairly unhappy one. While outwards a success - on the inside, the conflict grew stronger. How could I reconcile my faith in God and the Bible with being attracted to other men?

Worrying about what society and others would think about me and trying to abide by the rules of an utterly corrupt Church. That's how I lived my life. In retrospect I now see that in many ways I threw away much of my life. I in no way regret having my three wonderful children and consider them perhaps my only real achievement in life. But I wish I had had the courage/strength to be true to myself much earlier. So much pain and self-hate could have been avoided. I truly hope that others benefit by learning from my mistakes.

The Big Debate: Can religion and gays be compatible?

My full op-ed column at VNS can be found here http://www.virginianewssource.com/VNS/religion&gays.html. It will be interesting to see what responses come back and whether or not I receive any death threats (some years back, on a seriously whacked out Christianist writer suggested that I should be killed for my views on Christofascists both in an e-mail and on the telephone. She sang a different tune after I reported it all to the police).