Jim Johnson has just started a blog titled Straight, Not Narrow.
Johnson has attended a GLBT-affirming church for several months, and says he wants to share what he is learning about God’s love and acceptance of all.
He hopes to help the GLBT community by demonstrating that they have straight advocates within the church, and he also hopes to reach straight people who are not as accepting and give them something to think and pray about.
It’s nice to see another Christian blogger who is affirming to all mankind, even to gay people. It really is.
Maybe someday, everyone will be that way.
I’ll just relate an incident from 1960 that turned me off to Christianity. I was 10 years old. It was during the height of the election campaign, Kennedy vs. Nixon. While we were walking from the Sunday school building to the Church, my American Baptist minister mentioned to me that, if Kennedy was elected, he would be little more than an agent for the Vatican. It was obviously an anti-Catholic slur, that I actually did not understand for decades.
Actually, it is in the more Catholic regions of the country that the governmental policies are more gay-positive. Massachusetts. NY. CT. CA. Go figure.
Yeah!
I LOVE finding another straight ally out there!!
I guess I’m in the straight but not narrow category.
Hi raj!
Didja miss me?
I had to chuckle about a little interaction between an ex-gay and a straight.
It seems that ex-gay James Hartline (a kook in San Diego) is all upset about “convicted pedophiles” on the San Diego Pride volunteer group. I know nothing about the two volunteers and their convictions and it seems neither does Hartline (or he isn’t willing to clarify).
Governor A’nold sent out congratulation letters to all of California’s gay pride events. So Hartline called the governator’s office to bitch about it. I loved the response he got: “the governor fully supports gays and lesbians, and does not have time to do background checks on all of the Gay Pride workers.”
https://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/7/112005c.asp
To clarify… I don’t support the pervs and I think it’s stupid to have them involved in any public way… but I did love the dismissive tone the gov’s office gave to this anti-gay activist.
RE: Raj
You’ll find that although the hierarchy of the Catholic church may say one thing, you’ll find that the congregation are alot more progressive.
The problem is, however, there are *many* priest who don’t agree with the direction of the church, but they don’t dare to say anything out loud or publicly – there was a priest in New Zealand that came out in favour of civil unions for same sex couples – he was quickly slammed and bought back into line by the Vatican; it has occured for Jesuit priests who weigh up the percieved evils of contraception vs. the lives that could be saved by using it.
What I do find funny, however, is the number of countries who have church and state glued together via the constitution, seem to have a more progressive gay policy.
You’ll find that although the hierarchy of the Catholic church may say one thing, you’ll find that the congregation are alot more progressive.
The laity.
I live in MA. I know that you are quite correct. It is almost as if the RCC hierarchy is contemptuous of the laity. The fact that the RCC hierarchy in Boston basically told a lay group “Voice of the Faithful” (a lay group that was formed in the wake of the wake of the Boston priest sex abuse scandal) to go away, sealed it for me.
I follow it with some amusement, but I’m not, and never have been RCC. I was raised in the American Baptist Convention. I could tell you stories about the anti-RCC that I observed when I was dragged there as a kid, but I’ll refrain. And some of my best friends were RCC.
I hate “establishments of religion.” I really do.
Thanks for the heads up on Jim’s new blog. I hope he does well. I don’t do many posts on religion but I did have a post Patriarchal Religions and Same Sex Marriage you might find interesting. I thought this was a great insight at the time I wrote it only to find that others before me had discussed the same thing. I’m reminded of when I was a boy and discovered the answer to the riddle “How many angels can dance o the head of a pin?” only to find out years later the people have known the answer for ages. Oh well. BW
Well?
Well?
HOW MANY??? 😉
Jim, I suppose it depends on the size of the head of the pin.
http://www.andrewsullivan.com
He’s keeping a line on Ratzinger, who Sullivan suspects is gearing up to ban gay men from seminary and thus the priesthood.
Regardless of commitment and service, just the orientation will be enough.
What then, about the heterosexual priests who have abused females?
Many of the victims have been female. Some had to either submit to abortions or involuntary adoption or bear their children in shame and unsupported.
The priest was moved away out of reach, the modus operandi of the church, whether the victim was male or female.
If Sullivan is right, the problem won’t be solved, it will place religious bigotry of gay men back where it came from.
But won’t eliminate priest abuse entirely.
Or that of coaches, teachers or other people in positions of support or authority.
Because there is way too much scrutiny and exclusion of gays based on sexuality and not performance, it’s no wonder that the abuse of women and girls goes unreported or un prosecuted.
Heterosexual predators know that they’ll be like a fox in the hen house…literally.