Randy Thomas over at the Exodus blog has called for prayers for those participating in the National Equality March. His goal is to “generate prayer” by spreading word through the blog. He is praying for the following things:
For True Freedom: That God’s freedom and sovereign love will lead the participants to Him. I have a friend who was in a pride parade and out of the blue, he just knew that he knew God was telling him to leave. So … he did. God is so much bigger than we often give Him credit for. I am praying for truly loving Christians to be sovereignly placed among the crowd to love and serve wherever the door opens to do so. I am praying that the hellfire and brimstone crowd stays home. <–My personal opinion right there
.
Praying for safety: not only from anyone who might try to use this opportunity to attack them because of homophobia, but also from some of the peripheral parties and events that are planned or spring up around these types of events.
Pray for compassion: Some people will be there for the sole purpose of stigmatizing the people in the march and gaining video/photos to that effect. I am not going to debate that as a possible good that some conservatives have said it is and that I should not publicly criticize. Reporting facts is a good thing, stigmatizing people is wrong. I pray when people learn about this they will be moved to compassion even if they disagree with what the event participants are pushing for.
Praying for President Obama: He will be speaking at the HRC black tie dinner Saturday night. The gay activist community is not happy with him because he hasn’t followed through on any of his campaign promises to them. I would imagine he is going to have to answer them at this event and every word will be enshrined so … definitely praying for him and for them.
Praying for those “Coming Out” – Sunday is the annual “Coming Out” day where people across the country will be telling others they have embraced a gay identity. Some will consider this a very happy day and others will be devastated. I will be praying for millions to come home to Christ.
Praying for a new civility for the post-gay reality – I am getting a sense that people are just flat out tired of the old culture war mantras on both sides. I don’t know exactly how this would work or what it would look like but I am praying that dissatisfaction with age old time worn culture war hullabaloo would grow and a push for a new civility would arise. I am not talking about creating false common ground spinning around the same word games with a different “I love you, you love me” brand. I want authentic relationship, respect and dialog.
Randy doesn’t want the “fire and brimstone” crowd (think: Fred Phelps) but he wants “loving” Christians (of the Exodus strain of Christianity) to be placed so they can seize those moments to “serve where the door opens.” He is glad that “gay-identified” people can coexist alongside ex-gay and anti-equality proponents, but is praying that sexually honest people do not “come out” and instead “come home to Christ.” And finally, he caps it off with the claim that he wants “civil dialog” framing the culture war rather than the “tired mantras on both sides.”
Overall it seems that Exodus is praying that the gays come (to their side) quietly, peacefully, and easily. Although they might share certain viewpoints about homosexuality and sin, it’s overall bad publicity for Exodus when people calling themselves Christians
Anti-Gay Protesters Tout Exodus at Philadelphia Pride, 2006
stand at the perimeters screaming into bullhorns and carrying banners emblazoned with “Sodomite” and “Repent.” Unfortunately for Exodus, those types of protesters also do not hesitate to emblazon their signs with the url to the Exodus website. It’s much better for publicity to have ex-gay proponents inconspicuously dotting the pro-gay Equality March crowd, quietly calling for queers to “change” and “find freedom in Jesus Christ” – nevermind what those terms might actually mean. But those same Christians should be prepared to have gays quietly respond in turn with “no thank you,” or even “I’ve already found peace in Christ, at a church that accepts me.”
With all the talk about “compassion” and such, why is it that I’m currently having to remind myself that if I punch my monitor, I’ll only hurt myself and not even get through to Randy in the process?
As a Witch, I would never pray that someone lose their relationship, their identity, their community, their friends, etc. just because the way they live their lives makes me uncomfortable and isn’t what I’d pick. I would consider such a thing to be a curse. And Randy and those who support him can dress it up in pretty words, but that’s what they’re doing. They want LGBT people to lose ourselves and become something else, just so they can be more comfortable. It pisses me off. I’m happy except that there are people who can’t deal with it and work hard to make lives like mine more difficult. Why not pray and work for people who, you know, *need* it?
I hope everyone who went had a good time, made some new contacts, and was safe today.
Oh brother. Could Randy possibly not know the extent to which even many ex-gays find comments like this pathetic? If this were 10 years ago, he might sell this, but now it is simply meaningless dribble. Randy, and Exodus in general, are trying to change their brand somewhat because they know the world is passing them by. But they can’t do that with integrity without fully admitting to the pain they have caused up to now. They have committed colossal wrongs and a new frock won’t erase that. Show people that you know you were wrong, and be specific about it. Otherwise all your whitewash will be seen as self-serving and empty.
The rest of the world is progressing in spite of Exodus, et al, not because of it. I don’t doubt that is rather frightening to them.
30% of gays and lesbians do not identify as Christian and another 16-17% of those who are religious don’t consider their religion to be important in their lives [according to that Barna survey]. I’d say Randy Thomas has a more daunting job ahead of him than he thinks.
Patronizing tripe.
Unless it’s coming from the Exodus website, where we find that their #1 FAQ is: “Is there a connection between homosexuality and predatory behavior, like pedophilia? ”:
The article then goes on to do just that.
And so the anti-gay shtick goes; use the words ‘homosexual’ and ‘pedophile’ in the same sentence/paragraph, as many times as possible, while claiming not to make the connection.
—
That’s even Biblical:
I find his calling to “pray for the gays” to be an exercise in self-righteousness.
Not to mention their “prayer” is something self-serving for them, not for our true well being.
The Bible speaks to that as well:
Patrick, I’ve seen that method with nearly every anti-gay and ex-gay article I’ve been privy to. Randy especially speaks with a double-tongue.
“We can’t really say [x] about gay people. But— let’s not forget that gays and [x+y] and gays [x+z].”
Exodus just becomes less and less relavent. I think that Randy gets that on some level and realizes that it will become more and more difficult for him to convince himself of his own importance.
By the way, when it comes to all this treating others with dignity, not stigmatizing, etc, did I ever hear Exodus, Randy Thomas or Alan Chambers ever apologize for their collusion with anti-gay forces in Uganda to up the ante on anti-gay pogroms and abuses??? I didn’t think so. They must still be so “proud” of the involvement of their Board Member and their Name.
I’m going back to the LAPD after a long medical absence. This morning I reading about two things. All to do with children. One was in the NYTimes, regarding the public costs and health risks with IVF multiple births.
It’s obviously a serious and not uncomplicated intervention of infertility, but the rarity of twins or other kinds of multi births is more and more common.
Causing extraordinary exponential problems. Such as medical expenditures from birth complications, housing, care and financial security for so many children born at the same time.
The other article in the LATimes was about the tragedy of hundreds of children dying in the foster care system. Over 70 died from homicide, others commit suicide and the rest die from neglect of their caregivers, who obviously are not their bio parents.
Many of these kids have siblings scattered all over the county, and tend to be second and third generation children who are the progeny of parents raised in the system, but not by stable or the same parents.
The average is FIVE different homes before high school.
13 yr Lazhanae Harris, one 9 children her mother abandoned to various adults all over the city, was found with her femoral artery slashed in a filthy apartment. Dead at 13 after living in several different homes of people who just didn’t really want or could care for her. Her picture will break you heart. She was a pretty little thing.
Why do I bring this up?
Because these rotten homohaters, who are SO preoccupied with what gay people do, they fail the very children they use anti gay discrimination to defend.
Even as gay people fight to participate in giving these children stable and loving homes, these agents of Christ are less interested in counseling the straight men and women who keep having babies they can’t care for.
Oh right, how many religious factions consider contraception a sin?
How many conflate homosexuality with abortion as the greatest sins, but don’t address the consequences of the millions of UNWANTED children?
Greed, is greed. And greediness for children is at an all time high.
Those who seek IVF are a part of the stigma against adults who can’t conceive ‘naturally’.
Who consider the risks to babies of multiple births worth more to them than none at all.
If the child has serious and permanent defects, it’s still not the parent who is directly living with them.
And some abandon the financial burden of these children to public institutions.
The perpetuation of the species isn’t the problem. But the real deal that the homohaters WON’T say is :perpetuation of MY TRIBE.
If the child who wasn’t aborted or adopted, dies down the road some other time, from the inevitable abandonment, neglect or homicide, well they’ve moved on to the next anti abortion/anti contraceptive/anti gay project.
Child greed is apparently at the peril of the child. It’s indirectly, (but analogous to) those cat hoarders, convinced they love and can take care of the animals they collect.
But in reality, those poor animals actually live in terrible conditions and die of disease and other forms of that which is slow and painful.
Yes, the Religious right especially LIKES to tell us all that being born is a right, but they really MEAN only selectively and unless you belong to the right tribe. They love to publicly declare a concern for children SO GREAT that gay people deserve to be the sacrificial lambs to this high minded aspiration, and yet, what doesn’t it really get children?
This is what you get when you’re told parenthood is THE most special, righteous and liberating thing you can do for God and country. And those terrible people who won’t have children aren’t doing their duty!
The anti gay crowd have convinced themselves and every other knucklehead that denial of gay equality is to protect children. And they certainly want to maintain the stigma that those who don’t procreate are worthless, if not a threat to society.
Disregarding of course just how much taxation and other forms of productivity that come from the child free, benefits everyone’s child directly or indirectly.
Children AREN’T wanted. And the gay community is paying a heavy price for the sincere and compassionate desire to love and support children who have no one else who will.
I don’t have children because I love them and knew that I didn’t and wouldn’t have the means to be the parent they needed.
My instincts were excellent on that.
I have found other ways to do more for children, as have many of us who aren’t parents.
How selfish of us. How utterly selfish.
And can anyone tell me again, why it’s so selfish to NOT have a child? Or why is it selfish for a gay single or couple to give a home to any one of those children mentioned in the LATimes article?
In other words…
Randy Thomas can go pound sand. Some of us are out there REALLY protecting children.
And every time I think of the gay men and women in uniform, whether in the military or law enforcement who are protecting Thomas, his children and every other child with their effort, it makes me want to take Thomas and his self righteous condescension and shove it down his throat!
So many like him love to see themselves as ‘courageous’ and ‘warriors’.
PHFFFT!
It’s harder to be gay in this world and he couldn’t even cut it doing THAT.
He’s the one that needs a clue, prayers….and a pair.
Oh, my gosh. I went all day Sunday without telling a soul that “I have embraced a gay identity”
I suppose that’s because those words don’t actually make sense in English and because I no longer speak Antigay.
If Randy is serious about a new civility, he can start by using the same language as the rest of the country and stop with the patronizing culture-war-based code words designed to “never compromise with sin and evil”.
No, Randy, no one is telling anyone that they have embraced a gay identity. And for as long as you feel compelled to be so condescending and contemptuous that you can’t even call us gay, then I’m not hearing ANY civility out of you.
Until then, Randy, perhaps I should refer to your “lifestyle” as “identifying with anti-gay activists”.
Regan DuCasse…. what you said about children … wow … it is so true … i’m glad you put into words what many of us (at least I can speak for myself) feel. What good is it to reproduce a child if one can’t reproduce the love and care they will need?