BOB ABERNETHY, host: There is a new conversation taking place in parts of the religious community about anti-gay bullying. In recent weeks, several young men committed suicide after being targeted for harassment and violence because of their sexual orientation. Religious supporters of gay rights have launched new anti-bullying campaigns, while some opponents of homosexuality are re-examining their rhetoric. Our managing editor Kim Lawton has more.
KIM LAWTON, managing editor: There’s been a lot of concern in the religious community about these acts of violence and harassment. Several religious denominations and faith-based organizations have been providing local congregations with resources. They’ve been urging pastors to preach about this in the sermons and providing information for youth groups and for youth leaders how to minister to people, young people, who might be struggling over some of these issues. A coalition of Jewish organizations from the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movement is actually asking Jewish leaders to sign a pledge promising to end bullying, this kind of anti-gay bullying, within the Jewish community. And even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons—they oppose homosexuality—this week they released a statement saying while we are not changing our position we do condemn any kind of bullying based on sexual orientation.
ABERNETHY: And the language involved, that’s being reconsidered, too?
LAWTON: Well, there’s been some interesting soul-searching among those religious groups that do consider homosexuality a sin. But how do they communicate that? How do they come across as they are communicating that? And some evangelical leaders have suggested that perhaps their community has been too harsh in their condemnations, as if homosexuals are in some kind of special depraved category or something like that. The Catholic Church, which considers homosexual behavior a moral disorder—one Catholic priest this week suggested that perhaps it should be considered within the pro-life agenda if these kids are committing suicide. None of these groups are suggesting that their churches change their theological position, and that then leads to this dilemma—how do you communicate dislike for the behavior without condemning the individual, and that’s a difficult dilemma.
ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton. Many thanks.
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Forgive me, but I’m going to be very blunt. I’ve witnessed four decades of gay life. I have never been harassed or bullied in school or since, so I have no axe to grind. Most everyone I’ve known as friends, however, have been, including three friends, over the past 25 years who were murdered, in brutal hate crimes that have never been solved. Ironically, one of the worst violent attacks I’m aware of took place outside a restaurant, where a young man was waiting for his girlfriend. He was severely beaten by young thugs who thought he was gay. It is worth noting, that the mother of Matthew Shepard, who was tortured & murdered in Wyoming, some years ago, said afterwards that she didn’t blame the punks who killed her son so much as society for giving them permission to do so.
There’s no doubt that the aetiology of such barbarism & the damaging of self esteem that leads to suicide is religiously inspired. One doesn’t have to attend any church to pick up on what is being said. Having followed the online articles found on the usual conservative Christian websites, I can guarantee you that none of them stick to anti-gay opposition based solely on verses from the Bible. They use an endless array of lies, slander, defamation & innuendo, & usually it involves statements that were long ago disproved, but they ignore this & carry on defiling people they don’t even know. There’s a term for that. It’s called hatred, pure & simple.
Many years ago, while living in California, I recall seeing an episode of POV (Point of View), on a PBS station. In the particular program I speak of, they interviewed sex offender inmates at Atascadero. This included quite a number of incarcerated men who had commit serious crimes of violence against homosexual men, & some had actually murdered their victims. Without exception, they cited religious teachings as having motivated their crimes. Some were homosexual themselves, of course, but hated that part of themselves & took it out on others.
I`m no theologian, but I`ve read numerous articles by those who are respected in the field. They mention the verses from Leviticus, which we`re all aware of. They explain that of all the 76(??) things forbidden by God, all were considered abolished as belonging to some ‘old covenant’, that was replaced with a ‘new one’ with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Except one, & they didn’t really understand why. It was the sections dealing with homosexuals, as you know. What the uninformed do not know, or refuse to accept, is the fact that homosexuality is far more about who one falls in love with, rather than specific sex acts.
Thank you for your attention, & please forgive the length of this message. There may well be soul searching over the recent suicides, but I’m not optimistic. Too many clergy & denominations have painted themselves into a corner, & fear the loss of credibility should they suddenly display anything resembling understanding or compassion. Just as so many who decades ago participated in the lynchings of blacks & are still around, having gotten away with it; those who have fed into & enabled the negative mindset that damages both body & psyche; are typing online daily.
“A lot of concern in the religious community” about religiously-inspired anti-gay bullying is a pretty vague characterization. Some religious groups, such as Focus on the Family, are expressing their “concern” by actively opposing education programs that deal with anti-gay bullying.
If you attend a church that preaches that homosexuality is a sin or a disorder, you are promoting hatred and giving permission to violence. If your religion opposes equal rights for sexual minorities–from marriage to adoption to insurance and Social Security–you are promoting hatred and giving permission to violence. If you think you can hate the so-called sin, but love the sinner, you are kidding yourself.
Have you seen the latest post at Faith In Public Life? They’ve highlighted some “It Gets Better” videos from people of faith and invited others to share their own
http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2010/10/faith_gets_better_ctd.html
The sermon at Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas addressed this topic very directly on Oct. 10: “Bullying and the Theology Behind It.”
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/northaven-united-methodist/id303922552
See also the “This I Know” study guide developed by Northaven on Christianity and homosexuality, developed to be used with the award-winning documentary “For the Bible Tells Me So”:
http://www.thisiknowstudy.org/c16/About-Northaven-United-Methodist-Church.htm
If only they had been straight……. http://exm.nr/cuxafc
When I attended H.S., a Dominican priest told our sophomore religion class that homosexuality was a weakness and a sin. Being 100% heterosexual, I believed that I could get married some day; but also being an empathetic person, I wondered what homexsexuals could do to satisfy their sex drive.
That began my lifelong study of the causes of homosexuality, the rest of H.S., while attending college, my stint in the US Army, reading every scientic study on the sturdy of the causes of homosexuality that caught my attention, a lifetime as a musician playing for every internationally significant ballet company in the world, playing for broadway shows etc., associating with gays and meeting their family members etc.
After a lifetime of study as to its causes, I have come to a definite conclusion…not my opinion, but an overwhelming no-doubt-about-it definite, intellectual conclusion, that is precisely the way they were created.
For the religious groups, Jesus Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John said not one word one way or the other about homosexuality.
For the secular people, “In 1973: The board of the American Psychiatric Association voted unanimosly to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II. The resolution also urges an end to private and public discrimination and repeal of laws discriminating against homosexuals
With removal of the definition of homosexuality as an illness from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973.” This after many decades of working conscientiously with gays on an individual basis.
Even though the vast majority of us are straight, a far smaller percentage of people are gay, or in some cases AC-DC, that is just the way the minority of human beings were created to be. I ask those who still consider homosexuality wrong or a sin, did you “choose” to be heterosexual?
One’s sexual orientation cannot be changed.
Thoughtful comments. Personally, my experience has been that people “opposed to homosexuality” simply do not want to have a heart to heart discussion, or even a good thoughtful debate about the matter. Not once have I gotten a response to a question that actually answers the question. Not once has an individual entertained a statement I have made on the matter to counter something said. For example, a common “explanation” for homosexuality I have heard is that it results from “not enough fathering”. Note right here that the matter has just been limited to males (like the suicides). Do straight men derive their sexual longings from “not enough mothering”? Sound silly? The “not enough mothering” quote was said by a respected Jungian analyst, so I was just wondering.
I certainly have never gotten a clear response to the question “tell me about how you made your decision, or what you went through when you decided to be straight?”
The fact that more straight people are involved with “homosexual behavior” with the person of their gender preference than are gays (I’m omitting lesbians because I think we are really talking about gay men here) is inconceivable to most of these people. And if you propose the concept of a gay couple living in a loving, committed relationship, they simply go back to the argument from scripture about “it” being a sin. Which, if you really get past the presupposition that scripture is “talking about homosexuals” (it’s not), you see that the condemned behavior is actually destroying the fabric of the community. There’s the sin, and I wish someone in authority in these conservative churches would recognize that their teachings here are destroying the fabric of the community in both church and society.
I consider myself to have come through a journey past homosexuality, being drawn to other women, obsessed, and now I am past it. I am past it because I am not vulnerable as I was. I had no one telling me it was a sin. I went to church, nothing was ever said about it. This was in the 60s and 70s. Had a woman tried to engage me in lesbian activity I was vulnerable enough to perhaps try it. But the same would have been true of a man. I was more leery of men and very insecure. I think I was terrified of the idea of either one. I disliked the obsession I had, but I explained it to myself as a longing to myself be more womanly, a jealousy of other girls having developed more. Basically, I would have fallen into the category some have called “born with it,” but I really think I was just not ready to engage in sex, period. I think sexual experimentation comes way too young, and once you have that experience, whether it was pleasant or forced on you, then you become oriented, because you have become “one” with someone. I have a body that is designed to respond to pleasure, and were I blind, it would still respond to certain stimuli. There needs to be, in my opinion, a greater emphasis on waiting to engage in sex! I would have been eaten up with shame, MY OWN. It would never have been possible for me to confide in anyone had I taken that step. That is because of my internal pressure, no one else’s. I think my parents were very tolerant and would have loved me through anything, but I would have disappointed myself so badly, I waited. I am glad I did, because I went on to fall in love with a man. Later. For me, the mental battle was constant until I could accept myself as someone who could be attractive to a man. That was a process, but not the fault of the church, or others. If we as a culture could be more discreet we’d be better off. Whose business is it? Why do others have to know I even engage in sex? It has become so banal that you might as well ask me how I voted. That used to be private, too. The discussion goes downhill because what is meant to be so special, reserved for 2 people alone gets bandied about like politics. Let children (all the way to age 18 or more!) have their childhood innocence, let them not be sexualized, why do they need to think about it? The culture pushes it on them. And it is my guess that first encounters always involve someone older initiating a younger person. If that is true, then truly, shame on you, and I say that with all the love in my heart. Let them alone. Give them the season of growing every person needs without that powerful sexual influence. It will be interesting to see if my honest comments are labeled hate speech.
@Lee. Your comments come from a very personal and comprehensive perspective. I appreciate and agree wholeheartedly with them. As a heterosexual woman who was raised in a conservative Christian church, I must agree that there is a good amount of fear and ignorance. Alongside that, I must also argue that all conservative Christians do not hold to be true what many non-conservatives believe us to. Before accusations are made and fault is found with conservative exegesis or interpretation of scripture, it should be understood in its complete context.