Fries with that Phobia?

[revtj]

http://www.sovo.com/2006/3-31/news/l...ws/antigay.cfm

I had written a long rant but an accidental delete saved you all from it! Please click the link above and read the article. Thanks.

Short version of my rant: Religious homophobia requires a religious response. No religious community is effectively speaking out about this in GA. (How about your state?) I feel all alone! My church, my conference, my association? It's like they're bound & gagged. (God Ain't Still-Speakin' About THIS!) Other gay-affirming groups? They preach to the choir.

I realize it's a delicate subject because it involves both homphobia and race. But, please,God, I pray, send us a prophet with courage who will speak!

photo by Budnick

[keltic63]

OMG

[Zerbie]

Lou Sheldon runs the Traditional Values Coalition, which is nothing more than a hate group. It is that simple. Go to their main page (just google the name of the group) and look around - check out their urban myths about homosexuals page. It looks exactly like the kind of garbage that was once spouted off about German Jews a few generations ago. Ie: hate propaganda.

What is highly disturbing is the fact that Sheldon (? himself? apparently, via connections to the government?) is siphoning off money to promote homophobia in black churches by giving these vitriolic homophobic churches cash handouts in the form of faith-based initiatives. Don't get me started.

I'm not even going to address teh scandalous remarks about black men being so highly sexed that black women need to keep spreading their legs because the WOMEN have caused men to be gay. As if discovering your beloved husband is gay isn't enough of a heartbreak to begin with, to have your pastor tell you that you made him that way?!? It's beyond unethical. It's immoral.

Treat the TVC as a hate group. They are.

[Daniel]

[QUOTE=revtj]But, please,God, I pray, send us a prophet with courage who will speak!

A Gay Gandhi. This is how I see everyone on the Equality Ride.

I'm not being funny here (though some humor is always a good thing).

The sometime writer/editor (you wouldn't know it by the lack of proof-reading in my posts) thinks that 'The Gay Gandh's Guide"' or "Gay Gandhi" by it self is a great book title and would be one prescpription for dealing with the issue you raise.

Those who know better do better.

[revtj]

because the WOMEN have caused men to be gay.

Zerbie, I was so outraged at the homophobia and political manipulation that I almost missed the misogyny.

Those who know better do better.

Daniel, if this is true, then where is the responsive rhetoric from the churches? They can do better but they don't. I, too, admire Soulforce & the Equality Riders, but when is Average Joe/Jane Mainline Christian going to get off his/her pew and stand up to this cr*p?

How dare Sheldon have the taxpayers cooperate with this baloney! It should not go unchallenged! Yet it does...<puff of steam whistles out of the top of my head>

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by revtj

Daniel, if this is true, then where is the responsive rhetoric from the churches? They can do better but they don't. I, too, admire Soulforce & the Equality Riders, but when is Average Joe/Jane Mainline Christian going to get off his/her pew and stand up to this cr*p?

I meant that those of us who are Gay Gandhi material are stepping up to the plate. That's why a tool like a book could be a great thing.

My experience: my family is not very demonstrative- didn't say I love you or anything or the sort. When I "knew better", is when I realized that I had to give them what I wanted to hear. I was the one who started telling them I loved them at the end of phone conversations. Things changed after that.

How about this?

Those who know go first.

[Dash]

Originally Posted by Daniel

My experience: my family is not very demonstrative- didn't say I love you or anything or the sort. When I "knew better", is when I realized that I had to give them what I wanted to hear. I was the one who started telling them I loved them at the end of phone conversations. Things changed after that.

How about this?

Those who know go first.

Very interesting! Similar with my parents. They themselves had sucky parents...well...worse that that really. They never got the loving expressions and had no idea how to give it to us kids. I don't think they realized how much they wanted it from us too. Made a decision sometime in college that I was one who had to take the initiative. Changed us. Very powerful.

[Zerbie]

Check out No Longer Silent. Dot org, I think - I'm too lazy to verify that right now, but they're googleable. The full name is No Longer Silent Clergy for Justice.

As far as I know they are so far only an Arizona group, but I was profoundly moved just knowing they were out there.

Love how y'all keep mentioning Gandhi. I remember being about 6 or 7 when I figured out what homosexuals were. I remember that I somehow immediately knew exactly what was going on society-wise regarding gay people and the exact thought was, "Oh. We need a Gandhi to solve this mess." I remember wondering when and where such a person would come from.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by revtj

I feel all alone!

I missed this three word sentence the first time. Apologies. I know you want action rather than a shoulder to cry on in this matter, but I hear those words loud and clear.

Sometimes, when you're out front, it's hard to see that there are a lot of people behind you.

You may be way ahead of everyone in your area, but everyone here is right behind you.

[themattperry]

Also,

You are never alone when accompanied by the truth of love. Sometimes when confronted by bigotry, insensitivity and ignorance, I remember that good people cannot act out these tragedies without betraying their own natures -- without essentially lying to themselves about who, at core, they were created to be.

The truth is proclaimed -- love will win in the end. We just have to be willing to stand here long enough speaking truth to see that day.

[pnggrad79]

OMG is right! The first thing I noticed was that he blamed black women for not having enough sex with their husbands, so their husbands (through no fault of their own, mind you) are having to get it from other men! Please!!! This misogynistic attitude goes way back to the Middle Ages that hold women responsible for keeping a marriage together because men can't possibly be faithful. How archaic! Everyone is right, this is a hate group and we should put him in the same class as Fred Phelps. In the end, they only alienate the rest of the country, because they are just raving idiots.

Men and women are equally responsible for sexual purity in a marriage or any other relationship. This guy and Fred Phelps are a great pair. Wouldn't that be funny!!!

[revtj]

Everyone is right, this is a hate group and we should put him in the same class as Fred Phelps. In the end, they only alienate the rest of the country, because they are just raving idiots.

This is not what I see, I wish it were. Alienating whom? Some gays and some liberals. What I see is that they are gaining money and momentum at a steady pace. The people in the middle are more attracted to the money and power they have amassed, the homophobia is just sort of the wallpaper.

I missed this three word sentence the first time. Apologies. I know you want action rather than a shoulder to cry on in this matter, but I hear those words loud and clear.

Sometimes, when you're out front, it's hard to see that there are a lot of people behind you.

You may be way ahead of everyone in your area, but everyone here is right behind you.

Purrrrrrrrrrrr....it's what I need to hear and I love this forum & Soulforce for it. But I still want my Conference and my church and a whole lot of others to go on the record against this!

[suzer1013]

Hi RevTJ! I share your frustration. I live in Marietta, work in Atlanta. I recently left the UMC I attended for various reasons, some of which is because of the local/statewide UMC's complete inability to respond to this type of stuff. They'll give it quiet lip service in personal conversations, but no one is brave enough to stand up and do what is right. They are all too scared of the right wing conservatives who are trying to strong arm the church.

How do we counter this stuff when our leaders won't stand up for justice? I really don't know. I went to a general conference "listening session" and gave a short speech, which at least provided a tolerant and liberal voice in opposition to the two or three anti-gay speeches they had. I offered prayers in my church for Beth Stroud and Karen Daaman when they were put on trial by the church because they are lesbians. And even though I went to a supposedly liberal and tolerant church, the mere mention of these things, I think, made some people uncomfortable.

Now, it also made some people very glad that I said something, and they let me know that, but no one else was willing to "stick their neck out" so to speak. My church was very good at paying lip service to various issues -- gay rights, racial diversity, helping the poor, etc. -- but not actually doing anything about it.

We do need a leader and a prophet. We also need our current religious leaders to be brave and fearless and stand up for what is right. Too few seem willing to do that, even in the most liberal churches in Atlanta. I guess they feel like their careers will be over if they stand up for gay rights.

So, now I am church-less. I don't know if I want to go back to church -- any church. The church I grew up in in Massachusetts was very different. Our minister said and did things that were "controversial" and he took the heat that resulted. I respect him beyond measure. I've never been able to find that kind of honest integrity in a minister in the South. I think everything is so fear based here, even in the "liberal" denominations, that pastors are afraid of losing their congregations, losing everything, if they speak up.

Susan

[Zerbie]

Your words make me sad. Both of you. You are both heroically speaking out and living with integrity and compassion and unable to find more of that around you. But look at it this way: you are being what is needed. Yes, right now. You worry about needing the people who stand up and do what is right, who will speak out. There are few such people around you right now, but part of the reason you can't see them is that you *are* them.

Hugs to both of you.

I want to come back to this thread later when I have time; but I have to hurry off right now. There is more I wish to say.

[Zerbie]

TJ - I wanted to address your comment about these actions alienating some gays and some liberals but not the middle. I'm not so certain of that. Granted, I'm at some social and geographical distance from GA so I can't speak to the situation there specifically.

But as far as general nationwide observations go, I believe what is happening nationwide truly IS alienating the middle, the cultural mainstream. Consider all the eligible voters in this country who don't bother to vote because they feel they can't make a difference. To some extent, they are correct. Probably to a great extent. the differences would probably be small, because of the power structure that is in place.

SO what is really frightening about the information you posted is to see gays, women, and especially women of color scapegoated, vilified, by politicians and their 'friends' literally buying those churches and getting those churches/pastors to play in a vast political game that depends upon throwing homophobia around as a smokescreen to keep the cultural mainstream from noticing and being outraged by the rapidly growing economic inequality in this nation. The erosion of the middle class!!! That's what we should all be screaming about! That's what the churches ought to be screaming about - because the war that has been declared on citizens by the power structure is a war on the middle and lower classes. But the powers are so invested in hiding that fact, they declare war on gay people so that the very people who have the most to lose by supporting the current administration, congress, and system as a whole - crusading to stop gays from, er, exchanging rings and getting civil benefits such as health insurance.

Rant over.