FAITH IN AMERICA: ¨Religion-based bigotry causes enormous harm to LGBT people, especially young, vulnerable teens¨



Countering Religious-Based Bigotry Against LGBT People

Religion-based bigotry is the greatest barrier to LGBT rights, says Steve Hildebrand, advisor to Faith in America (FIA), a group formed to counter such prejudice.

Part of the problem, says Hildebrand, is that many LGBT advocates are afraid to confront religion-based arguments. They may feel unprepared to engage someone who has religious training; they may have past negative experiences with religion themselves, and want to avoid discussing it; or they may fear being seen as anti-religious.

FIA has just issued a new report aimed at helping LGBT advocates get over their fears. It offers "tested, effective messages that FIA has used successfully in communities across the country." The three core messages are:

1. Religion-based bigotry causes enormous harm to LGBT people, especially young, vulnerable teens.

2. Sexual orientation is a natural part of a human being, whether it be heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. Same-sex orientation is not a choice to go against God’s will. It is a normal, natural and healthy expression of human sexuality that is innate for some people.

3. Religion-based bigotry against LGBT people is wrong ... just as it was wrong to use religious teachings to justify discrimination against Native Americans, African Americans, minority religious groups, women and interracial couples.

The first point takes on extra urgency at the moment, given the recent media coverage of teen suicides related to anti-LGBT bullying. Even before these stories hit the headlines, though, religious intolerance was causing pain for LGBT youth. The 2008 book CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing The Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America, by furniture maven and FIA founder Mitchell Gold, tells of even more cases where this was true.

We must address religion-based bigotry, whether we ourselves are people of faith or not. Just as important as the core messages above, however, is how we convey them. FIA recommends:

1. Use your own experience or story

2. Challenge the harm, not the person’s faith

3. Remember that ending religion-based bigotry has a positive impact on us all

4. Speak to the movable religious middle, and engage boldly but with patience

The full report has even more helpful hints, such as not using the word “homophobia” with people of faith. “Homophobia,” FIA explains, "is defined as an irrational or unreasonable fear of homosexuality." For many people, however, being gay is a sin, and "there is nothing wrong or irrational about fearing sin." Using the phrase "religion-based bigotry" instead, FIA says, is generally more effective in helping people of faith to understand the impact of anti-LGBT actions. HERE

· Thanks to Faith in America, Achieving Equality HERE
· Thanks to Steve Hildebrand
· Thanks to Mitchell Gold
· Thanks to Change.Org, Gay Rights
· Thanks to Dana Rudolph
· Thanks to Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laurete

 LGBTI murder is ¨all to common. This must change¨

"Today I pray for people in Africa and throughout the world who long for freedom because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender," starts the letter. "It grieves me to be retiring at this crucial moment in history, so I write to you in this open letter, to invite you to pick up the work that remains to be done. More than 70 countries still imprison or execute gay and transgender people, and bullying and murders are all too common. This must change." HERE

EVERYONE MEANS EVERYONE: ¨God wants us to live abundant lives...¨

·Fundamentalists of any stripe, be it from the RC Church, the LDS Church, or from any denomination, church, or secular authority are birds of a feather who flock together. Hence, the Vatican holds its arms open to reactionary Anglicans, even going so far as to allow them to have their own liturgy and married clergy within the context of Roman Catholicism, some doctrines of which are antithetical to those of Anglicans and protestants in general·

The Reverend Jerry Maneker HERE


¨...Since God created Gay and Straight (and bisexual and transgender) people, God wants us to live abundant lives that only comes from living lives of authenticity that comes from partaking of the unique gifts, among them our sexuality, that God has conferred upon us.


And like being Straight, being Gay is a gift from God, and to deny that gift is to not only stunt the spirituality of that person but is tantamount to throwing that gift back in God's face.


The Archbishop of Guam, the Vatican, and all religious homophobes are advocating that others throw God's gift of sexuality back in God's face, and by so doing are helping to create lives of self-loathing manifested in untold suffering, suicides, assaults, and murders of LGBT people.


And this suppression of sexuality, the projection of one's warped views of sexuality onto others, and the condemnation of the sexual lives of Gay people bears no relationship to Christianity!¨


The U.S. Catholic Bishops teach Americans about sexual morality.


¨In LGBT people and popular bigotry, they have an effective scapegoat for the “moral evils” plaguing marriage and society. Thereby they are able to refocus popular attention away from the pedophilia sex scandals in the Catholic Church and re-establish themselves as a moral authority. What if someone should bring up the inconvenient fact that most Catholic priests and bishops are gay and that this data has been published? Well, hypocrisy is the obsequious bow which vice pays to virtue. Besides, most people chose not to believe that embarrassing data.¨ Father Geoff Farrow HERE

·Thanks to The Reverend Jerry Maneker
·Thanks to Father Geoff Farrow, at the right sidebar
·Thanks to A Christian Voice For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights, at the right sidebar
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing

PERMISSIBLE PREJUDICES: Responding to Religion-Based Bigotry Our Biggest Obstacle, Part V

Op-ed excerpt from Faith In America’s Founder Mitchell Gold in the Washington Blade

“As thousands converge on the nation’s capital this weekend for the National Equality March, our demand is simple: We want full equality.

Now. Although there has been great progress in the last 50 years, the equality movement for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans has not moved forward as quickly as we should and could have. In the final analysis, it is because we have not effectively addressed the biggest barrier between us and our equality: religion-based bigotry and prejudice.

For those who do not realize the significance of religion and the impact religion-based bigotry has on our struggle for equality, they will continue to wander about aimlessly, dragging the pink elephant in the room behind them, holding them back.”

¨RELIGION-BASED BIGOTRY CAUSES UNTOLD HARM TO MILLIONS, ESPECIALLY YOUTH¨

RELIGION-BASED BIGOTRY is a giant pink elephant in the room. It is the cause of incredible harm to millions of people and especially vulnerable adolescents and teens
To be clear, I am not anti-religion. I am anti-religion based bigotry. I feel truly blessed to have former Rev. Jimmy Creech, Bishop Gene Robinson, Revs. Welton Gaddy, Reggie Longcrier, Benny Colclough, and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum in my life.¨

····Bishop V.Gene Robinson of the The Episcopal Church diocese of New Hampshire. Consecrated in 2003, Bishop Robinson is the first openly Gay/Partnered Bishop in The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Communion (of course there have been, and currently are, many other Gay Bishops, of many denominations, who were or remain ¨closeted¨).

····Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum is since 1992 of New York City’s Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST), Sharon Kleinbaum is as immersed in politics as one can get. She is the openly lesbian leader of the world’s largest gay religious congregation, and is at the forefront of the movement to secure basic civil rights for lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

····The Reverend Dr. Bennie Colclough named as winner of the 2008 Trailblazer Award, which recognizes an individual who has a record of consistent and significant contributions to the LGBT community and is seen as a role model to others, will be presented to the pastor of the Providence Christian Church, Manning, South Carolina.

····The Reverend Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Interfaith Alliance, Washington D.C. While ministering to churches with a message of inclusion, Welton emerged as a leader among progressive and moderate Baptists. Among his many leadership roles, he is the immediate past President of the Alliance of Baptists and is a twenty-year member of the Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance. His past leadership roles include serving as a member of the General Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, President of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Chair of the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance.

¨But moving from New York to North Carolina in the 1980s, I discovered just how pervasive and deep anti-gay sentiment is beyond our urban centers. As I traveled to many areas across our country, it became apparent that the condemning and hateful attitudes and actions could be traced to one source: church teachings.

I spoke to many people who have been victimized by rejection and condemnation. I was burdened most by the young people I had met who had been discarded by their families, churches, communities and lost their own self worth from the onslaught of anti-gay religious language and actions they experienced. I met mothers and fathers who had lost a son or daughter to suicide — young people who believed they'd be better off dead than growing up gay in America...¨

· read it all, from The Washingtonblade, click HERE

·The Reverend Dr. Welton Gaddy/Day1 is the voice of the mainline Protestant churches on the radio and online, offering life-enriching sermons, community, and other resources to help you grow in faith.¨ click HERE

·The Rt. Reverend Robinson is widely known for being the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate. His sexual orientation was privately acknowledged in the 1970s, when he studied in seminary, was ordained, married, and started a family.¨ click HERE

· Going Head to Head with the Religious Right, An Interview with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum.¨ read it all click HERE

· The Reverend Dr. Colclough has given much time and effort working as an advocate and straight ally for the South Carolina Equality Coalition (SCEC), the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement (SCGLPM), Faith In America and HRC. A native of Sumter, S.C., Colclough served in the United States Marine Corps for six years with a tour of duty in Vietnam, and is a graduate of Yale University Divinity School. click HERE

·Thanks to The Washingtonblade
·Thanks to Jewish Currents
·Thanks to Wikipedia
·Thanks to Day1 (voice of mainline Protestant churches)
·Thanks to Truth Wins Out
·Thanks to Faith in America
·Thanks to Mitchell Gold
·Thanks to The Human Rights Campaign Carolina´s
·Thanks to Wayne Besen
·Thanks to Matt Comer