-Gay couples can now use their married names on their passports.
-A Catholic priest speaks out against the Vatican’s anti-gay teachings.
-Anti-gay marriage petitioners in Maine may be collecting signatures under false pretenses.
-Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively cites and defends anti-gay ‘researcher’ Paul Cameron.
-Delaware adds sexual orientation to its list of protected classes.
-Ireland establishes civil partnership rights.
Even better, Lively gives XGW a shout out in his new book, bottom of page 46.
Although my favorite part is his fantasizing that all lesbian femmes are ultra-submissive bisexual sluts at the bottom of page 55.
The Massresistance website has the whole thing in pdf (yet another SPLC-designated hate group…)
I encourage many of you to write a letter to HRC and support their efforts in combating the anti-gay campaign in Maine. While I was living in California, I saw how deceitful the anti-gay movement is. First, they would be outside Vons or other grocery stores and ask people to sign a petition. They would never say it was for the passing of Prop 8 or that it was against gay marriage, no – they would use bold face lies and say it was a petition to protect children, or for children’s healthcare, or other lies just to lure in people to sign. I urge people in Maine to not sign any petitions outside a grocery store (or wherever these people will be begging for signatures).
These people are dangerous as they use false pretenses to obtain signatures. If anything, I hope the people in Maine learn from the mistakes of California. The anti-gay movement is all about deceit. The religious fanatics in these groups truly believe we LGBTs are of the devil, so for them, as one said to a friend of mine, “It is perfectly righteous to lie to the children of the Prince of Lies.”
Even when we win the entire country over to live up to its constitution in stating that “all are created equal” by finally being granted the right we already hold but are legally denied – to marry the one we love, we cannot rest on our laurels. California proved the following – We live in the land of the free, where some have the freedom to take away the freedoms of others.
ABout the Catholic Priest:
As the Episcopal Church is splitting up over the issue of homosexuality, I pray that the same will happen in the RC church, but that the split be because of the illtreatment of RC LGBT parishoners.
I pray more priests (like the one in the article) will have the courage to stand up for what is right. There are many priests who know what the Vatican is doing is wrong, but they do not have the courage to stand up and speak out. I know it is not easy for everyone to be a “Norma Ray” where they work, and priests are no exception, but given the track record the RC has had with regards to the LGBT community, it is high time these priests, who know the evils the Roman church has inflicted on all its members, gay or straight, speak out.
I used to be of the belief that the splitting of the Christian Church was a bad thing. Now I realize why it is needed. As a gay man I need to know upfront when I walk into a church if I am walking into a congregation that loves and accepts me as Christ intended, or am I walking into an exclusive private, straight-members only country club parading as a church.
As a gay Catholic myself, I don’t want to see the RC Church split, discontented as I am (to put it mildly) with many aspects of it, not least its unenlightened attitude to gay people and their relationships. Many years ago the Anglican clergyman and scholar R.H. Charles wrote:
If you disagree with the Church’s stance, don’t attack your parish priest on the matter: even if he agrees with you, open dissent would be very perilous for him, owing to the rigidly authoritarian structure of the RC hierarchy. Express your views directly to those at the top, i.e. to the Vatican. I wrote twice to Pope Benedict, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger and Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, telling him exactly what I thought. I never received any reply, but if every gay/lesbian Catholic were to write to him, it just might expedite progress.
William is right. Just look at history to see what happens when a denomination splits – the conservatives become even more conservative become the newly split denomination loses its retractors and becomes a sounding board. The same is happening to the Republican party right now.
@Alan – That’s fine, but speak for yourself. As a transgender Christian, I don’t need to know. If you do need to know, only attend places with a rainbow on the sign or where another lgbt person has recommended. The rest of us will risk it and fight it – not for ourselves, but for all lgbt Christians, especially those in the closet in those churches.
Ephilei … of course I am speaking for myself, but I also am speaking as a member of the Christian communion. If you have no need to know whether or not a church is open to the LGBT community, that’s great. But a growing number of people of the LGBT community want to know before hand whether or not a church is accepting and open. Many of us do NOT want to sit in the pew and fight with the priests, ministers, or fellow parishoners over this issue for a vast variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that many of us have been damaged by Church in our journey to reconcile our faith with our sexuality. Not all of us are wanting to enter a church with the attitude that we are going to fight for our right to worship.
Yes, there are many who are closeted and attend a church that negates who they are. From my experience and from many whom I have come to know, that eventually gets old, and eventually one is confronted with either leaving that form of church entirely (and perhaps leaving religion as a whole behind), or moving on to a more welcoming community.
That I support a split in the RC church is MY opinion, and, as with any opinion, it is neither right nor wrong, but merely an opinion. As I see it, the history of Christianity has been strengthened by such splits because it forces both sides to examine their true identity and faith. Had not Luther nailed his thesis to the church door, we might still be buying chicken bones as sacred relics to get a “Get Out of Purgatory” free card as well as supporting the buildings in the Vatican. The RC Church had to examine its own practices and make adjustments as did those who broke away.
Some have hopes that one day the RC church will re-examine its understanding of homosexuality. I am one of those people. But I also know that it took centuries before Rome apologized for Galileo and a host of other evils its has done throughout the centuries. I am certain I will not be alive when Rome even considers to change its stance on condoms and birth control, much less change its views on homosexuality.
In my view, as an ex-Catholic and former member of Dignity, splits permit the extremes to discredit themselves.
Until there is a parting of ways, influential extremists’ activities and motives are glamorized by the presence of people of integrity. Meanwhile efforts by people of integrity to promote grace, charity, and compassion within their churches are constantly undermined and stunted by the extremists. The result, in my view, is unproductive gridlock achieved through a massive expenditure of resources that might better have been spent elsewhere.
This is true not only at the church or denomination level, but also within organizations such as Dignity which mirror the larger churches’ divide:
As with the broader church, some organizations that might otherwise achieve meaningful reform are undermined by wealthy conservatives who, happy with the status quo, obstruct reform and prevent the organization from serving the needs of modern society and future generations.
@Alan – I understand and respect your desire for an accepting church. You need not defend yourself. I readily acknowledge I am in the minority.
As for the Reformation, the 95 Theses didn’t split the Church; it was the rejection of Catholicism by Christians with their feet (and a bunch of politics). No one is arguing we should not speak our objections. But I believe reform happens best within the unity of the Church, not splitting. Luther believed the same thing. Call me naive and idealistic, I am!, I want all Catholicism to be pro-gay and pro-trans. No, it won’t happen in our lifetime but that’s just the way of traditions.
Ephilei:
I think there are more pro-gay Catholic parishoners than most people know. While I was in California, the Episcopal Church I attended began to get rather full on Sundays, mostly from Catholics, gay and straight, who had had enough of Benedict and the boys.
I recently attended and recently joined a Church that is an Old Catholic Church. To my surprise (and delight) it is not all gay. In fact, a lot of parishoners are divorced – remarried straight people.
That is not to say there are not people who are staying in the RC who are in violation of current church teaching, or at least their understanding differs from the doctrines currently taught. My heart goes out to them because they are constantly being bombarded being in a hostile environment. What is the solution? For some, as you mentioned, stay and fight the good fight (because what you are doing DOES have merit). For others, like myself, it’s time to move on to friendlier grounds.
I tend to agree with Ephilei. All churches should welcome LGBT people on equal terms with everyone else. If they don’t, then that’s absolutely disgraceful, but it’s not necessarily a reason to secede and form a schismatic church. Some years ago there were people who would have liked to harass me out of my job because I was gay, but I wouldn’t let them. So why let people like that drive you out of your church?
A fortnight ago when I was in Naples (Campania, not Florida), I saw in the church of S. Paolo Maggiore a notice reminding people to turn off their mobile phones. It read: La chiesa è il luogo dove si cerca Dio, non dove si è cercati dagli uomini – “Church is where one seeks God, not where one is sought by men.”
I think that you could adapt that to LGBT people as follows: “Church is where one comes to be accepted by God, not to be accepted by men.” Yes, you should be accepted in church by men (and women – Italian doesn’t lend itself well to inclusive language), but the former is surely your essential reason for coming to church.
I hope and pray that the Roman Catholic magisterium will eventually correct its unenlightened teaching on LGBT people and their relationships, but I’m not naive enough to imagine that that will happen in my lifetime.
William:
For me personally, work is where I earn my bread and butter whereas church is where I go to worship God as a community, as a family. I do not consider those I work with my “family” whereas those with whom I worship together I consider my family. The whole purpose Christianity to gather together in worship is not for us to worship separate and in isolation, but rather that we are worshipping as a community, as one. While I would have no problem worshipping with others who, for example, do not accept the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, I would have a problem with a church that considers me the most dispicable creature on the planet because I am an openly gay man.
There are ways we can come together despite our theological differences. But when communities are adament about excluded certain people from worshipping with them because of sexual orientation, it makes it a very difficult challenge for those who are at odds with that community.
Yes, Alan S., I see your point, and I certainly wouldn’t regularly attend a church where I knew or believed that everyone else (or most other people) in the congregation regarded me as “the most despicable creature on the planet because I am an openly gay man”, but I haven’t found that to be the case.
Our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in an interview with Attitude magazine a few weeks ago, said when asked about homosexuality:
The reactionary elements in British Catholicism were hopping mad that Blair (a fairly recent convert to the RC faith) should be shooting off his mouth like this and shrieked their disapproval, but my experience, after worshipping for many years in a RC church in pretty conservative (in all senses of the word) town suggests that he was spot on. As for anti-gay pronouncements from the Vatican, I’m very happy simply to ignore them – just as huge numbers of Catholics ignore the magisterium’s pronouncements on birth-control.
Oh yes, there was one female parishioner who seemed to object to my existence and went spreading some defamatory and ridiculous stories behind my back, but since her position as one of the town’s most notorious slanderers and busybodies was already long firmly established, few people, if any, took her seriously.
The Irish civil unions have not yet become law. This is probably a good thing, as they are by no means equivalent to marriage. The general mood at Dublin LGBTQ Pride seemed to be that these civil unions would be a hindrance rather than a help in the struggle for full equality.
TRiG.