Hello all! Sorry for the major break, but we were on vacation, and now it's summer so my precious babies are here all...day...long...with me, which makes it kind of tough to write. ;o) I have also officially started the last two years of my Bachelor's program, so things have been kinda crazy around here. I missed this though - having an outlet for my outrage, so to speak. And do we have a humdinger today...
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I have been struggling with an incident that was reported on May 30th of this year. I did my usual thing of posting the video on facebook and garnering as many results from educating the public about this heinous act as possible. But then something strange happened... See, many (ok, most) of the things I get upset about from an activist point of view I can eventually let go of rather easily - I get mad, I take what action I can, and then I move on.
If I continued to let every single incidence boil and fester within me, I would be a walking ball of dirty, hairy, monster seethe. And as I have an incredible wife and two beautiful children to take care of, that just wouldn't do. So I let them go after I've done what I could (the incidences, not the wife and kids).
But there's one that I just cannot shake. It still haunts me every day. Maybe it's because I'm a mother and the very thought of filling a child's head with this kind of ignorant vitriol makes me physically ill.
There is a video that has been circulating for almost a month now, of two sweet little boys on stage at a church service, singing their little hearts out. The name of the hymn, you ask? Oh, this was no hymn. The title of this catchy little ditty is "Ain't No Homos Gonna Get Into Heaven". Yup, that's right - the adults at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, IN, took it upon themselves to not only write these foul words for the children's innocent mouths to spew, but also gave them a raucous standing ovation for performing it.
(Click here to see for yourselves, but I warn you - it's deeply disturbing. Also, the link to the full story is here.)
I cannot seem to get that sweet baby's voice out of my head, and I cannot help but think this has to qualify as some sort of child abuse. Teaching children such blatant discrimination and hatred is sick. It's just sick.
Regardless, it has haunted me for almost a month now, and still my inner activist is awake and bubbling over. So I finally decided to send the pastor himself (who is now in hiding) a little message via the church's website.
I did not cuss. I did not spit ugly things at him. There really is no place for that if you want to get someone's attention and get them to actually listen and consider your points as valid arguments, as I believe I have covered before in my Dan Savage post.
I simply stated to this pastor in the best terms I could why his actions and those of his church are unacceptable, not to mention directly contrary to the God they claim to serve.
(If you feel moved to leave a message as well, the direct link to the website is here.)
Basically I centered my message around two key points:
1) I don't seem to recall at any point in the Bible that Jesus got up on stage and sang, "Ain't no tax collectors gonna get into heaven!". In fact, I am certain He did not. What He did instead is to sit and commune with them...to break bread with them...to treat them as human beings - not the punch line in some song. I explained to this pastor that as disappointed as I am in him as a mother and a lesbian, I am more than positive Jesus would be even more so. These are not His ways. These are the divisive and self-serving ways of man. Ever heard of the Pharisees? Moving on...
2) What if a gay man came across the home page of this church, and actually believed the words written there?
"...our doors are open to you regardless of your background or where you are on your spiritual journey"..."
"We are striving to be the kind of church described in the Bible...where there's...compassionate care for those in need."
"You'll find that this is a place where you really matter - because you matter to God.
What if he took these words to heart and put down that razor or that gun he was about to kill himself with, and thought maybe - just maybe - there are people who will accept me and see me as a human being deserving of respect - help me to understand that God still loves me even if I feel no one else does?
And what if this young gay man happened to attend a church service, and it just happened to be the one where the entire congregation gave a standing ovation to these poor children unwittingly placed front and center at their horror show of hatred?
I wrote to the pastor that he never knows who is watching him. Never knows who is trying to find a place to fit in, and who is on the brink of completely giving up and giving over to death in order to try and find some semblance of peace. These kinds of actions and blatant disrespect of human lives are what cause the litany of sorrow for the LGBT community...murder, suicide, beatings, bullying, discrimination, false information...the whole gamut.
But listen, the plain truth is that we can fight all we want for legal recognition as full citizens under the law. And we can fight for marriage equality, and non-discrimination clauses, and everything under the sun to ensure our lives are equal to and as privileged as our straight peers. But that's only law. It's not love.
You cannot legislate someone's heart. You cannot vote in and approve a measure that is going to change their idea of what is and what is not acceptable within our society. It has been many, many years since separatism was deemed illegal, and yet the African-American community still suffers discrimination at the hands of the whites. Now it's just dressed up in a prettier package, is all.
To truly make a difference, and to truly change what needs to be changed so that we can all finally be seen as true equals - not under the law, but under the love we should all have for our fellow men and women who share life's journey with us - there has to be education. Educating the public, getting the right and true and correct information out there, and showing the people who fear us and our 'agenda' that our lives are every bit as boring and normal as theirs is the only way we're going to get the results we need to each live our lives in peace.
I'm going to say that again - educating the public about homosexuality in all its forms is the only way we will ever change what needs to be changed.
Voting is good. Yes, please vote (if you don't, you forfeit your right to bitch, by the way). Keep up with politics - I know it's incredibly boring to some of you, and I understand that. Five minutes of my nightly MSNBC check-in and my wife is drooling and rocking herself on the couch. But it's important, and it does affect your daily lives in ways you can never imagine. So watch. Read. Discuss. Engage. Fill your mind with knowledge and facts and rebuttal points so that when someone comes against you for your views (and someone will, I assure you) you will have a fully stocked arsenal from which to draw, and you might just change a mind if you do it the right way.
And that is the last thing I want to touch on for this post:
We must engage the other side in conversation, not competition.
There is no place for a pissing contest when it comes to civil rights. When that happens, situations simply escalate out of control and both parties walk off more angry and sure that they have all the answers than when they walked in.
To unlock this puzzle, and to find a middle ground there has to be dialog. No screaming, no name-calling, no cursing, no slurs. Just people, discussing a topic, and listening to and acknowledging the other side's views.
What we have to remember is that as strongly as we feel about our beliefs on a topic, the other side feels just as strongly about theirs. So if we want to change their beliefs, we have to first meet them where they are, and then respect them enough to lead them into the light of truth instead of trying to shove them over to our side and tying them down.
Engage people. Talk to people. Use the opportunity of an awkward moment when someone first learns you are LGBT as an educational experience. My go-to phrase has been, "Yes, I am. And I am proud of my family. I know there's a lot of misconceptions out there, so if you ever have any questions - any questions at all - I'm an open book, and I'd be glad to answer them for you."
It is amazing what this approach does. First, you are not backing down from the accusation or treating your orientation as something that needs to be apologized for. And secondly, you are offering them a free tour of gay culture and gay life, because you have opened the floor up for questions. I cannot count the number of people I have said this to, and in the subsequent hours, days, or weeks, they finally come to me and begin to appease their curiosity. And what happens when that time comes is that they begin to understand that we are not different from them at all - the only true difference is the plumbing of our partners!
When we can make an open and honest and respectful world, things like these precious children being made to sing such hateful things and enjoying it because everyone is acting like they're so very proud will be a thing of the past.
Once people's hearts are open, there is no turning back. Or should I say "ain't"?
