We Cannot Run and Hide

I’ve blogged before on my ongoing mental struggle about whether or not we should join anti-gay churches. I’ve concluded (for now) that with so many churches available and so many diverse views among them, we should finding safe havens in our places of worship, allow them to encourage, edify, and renew us rather than sticking around to make a point at the risk of being severely hurt emotionally or spiritually.

However, that is not to say we should run away from our religion altogether.

With the prevelance of religious belief in our country, most of us have grown up with some religious influence. And when a person begins to live in Truth about their sexuality, a great deal of them automatically assume that faith is not complementary and they discard their belief structure in favor of the Truth about who they are. Irony of that aside, gay Christians do it quite a bit as well, though they have a greater struggle and greater liklihood of rejecting their Imago Dei. But when they do ultimately accept their personhood and their faith, they’re going to need the back up.

An article from the UK-based Pink News asks whether gay people should take part in faiths or faith practices that are politically or practically anti-gay (at the extreme), homophobic, or generally non-accepting.

There is something shameful about a person going to Synagogue on the high holy day of Yom Kippur to celebrate the day of atonement and learn how to forgive, and ask forgiveness for, the times that you’ve hurt or offended others or they’ve hurt and offended you, only to be hurt and offended by the service itself.

If you, and other gay Jews, continue to attend this Synagogue and support it with your time, talents and money, then what incentive is there for it to change?

I think part of this falls under the “find a church that edifies” category that I’ve advocated before. There are churches in most major religions that will be more accepting than others, including the more seemingly restrictive ones. However, in the case from this article, Yom Kippur is a sacred religious holy day to the Jewish faith … are Jews simply supposed to ignore it because of their differences of opinion?

And what of marriage? For decades there’s been arguments for and against gay marriage within the gay community. Some will say something to the effect of “why should we want to be like the straights?” or “Our very being is non-traditional, why should we want traditional relationships?” I, myself, believe the adolescence of our community and its inherit rebellion is over and didn’t work out so well. Marriage as our society understands it brings with it the recognition and respect of union and protection and would only be reinforced by equality. Yet in all but one state, we’re not allowed to marry yet … so in the mean time, how do we act in society?

In an interesting blog entry I found today, it seems this gay brother of a Mormon family won’t attend his brother’s wedding because the very ceremony would be too much a slap in the face. I won’t judge his opinion or decision … not knowing to what extent he’ll feel persecuted by his family or church members in attendance, but I will re-question the greater issue.

What do we do here? Do we refuse to take part in our society’s traditions until we’re allowed to partake in their benefits? It sounds like righteous indignance. It sounds like the boycotts of old that led to civil equality. It sounds like a statement!

But to me it sounds pointless. If we don’t attend a wedding, how are the 200 other participants supposed to interpret that? Most of them probably wouldn’t even notice, or there’d be hushed tones of “those gays don’t even care to take part in the ceremonies they supposedly want.”

Generally, I’m in greater support of being even more visible than we are now. Don’t avoid the wedding … arrive a few minutes late and sit in the front row, walking up hand-in-hand with your partner. Don’t make a stink … bring the biggest bouquet. Make lots and lots of cookies and send them to family at Christmas, signed from both of you. Don’t leave your faith entirely … that won’t help anyone … but be in the local ecumencial holiday parade. If one of the strongest messages we gay Christians always want to convey is “I’m the same me,” then we should make sure they see us!

Permanent Link

Filed under Daily-Life
10/09/06 12:02 AM
by The Blogger

yxragqb says (Jan 12, 02:33 AM ):
mgrxGF zqeftkhjrnou, [url=http://aqgiyqilbrfg.com/]aqgiyqilbrfg[/url], [link=http://enhdhipfyffq.com/]enhdhipfyffq[/link], http://edutrtwgvcxu.com/
Dustin Dorsey says (Aug 18, 05:12 PM ):
germanophobe eggplant ragseller inkstain nonveterinary prefix cathars curate
Alpha Epsilon Pi – Upsilon Chapter
http://cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/04/04/kerry.ap/
Zenith Supplies http://jacob-and-sons.tripod.com/dreamcoat.html
RFC 2365 http://www.angelfire.com/pq/LPKDBZ/index.html
San Diego Signings http://www.geocities.com/gamut_mag/hiker.htm

Parents ... Can't live with 'em, Can't shoot 'em All You Need Is ... Love? Commitment? Hope?