Monthly Archives: October 2008

And The Children Shall Lead Them

Posted on
Reply

My partner Tina came home from the school where teaches today with the results of the Youth Leadership Initiative’s 2008 Mock Election.  Both her school and my son Zack’s school are in the same Independent School District here in Texas (Keller ISD in Tarrant County) and both of their classes voted along with the rest of the schools a week or so ago. The three of us sat down with the results over dinner tonight.

The National Totals gave our household the most to smile about as Barack Obama grabbed 60% of the youth vote to McCain’s 35%.   Obama also won Texas! Yes, you read that correctly! Barack Obama won the youth vote in Texas 55% to 42% over McCain and Obama won in my partner Tina’s school 539 votes to 450 votes. My son was bummed out that McCain won his school 497 votes to 379 votes, but Tina’s school is racially and economically diverse while my son’s school is much less so and I’d wager my son’s school being richer and whiter has at least a bit to do McCain’s victory there.  McCain also won our school district in north Texas 60% to 40% which is over the polling average (12 points) in McCain’s favor for the state.

There’s a lot to be hopeful about if you’re an Obama supporter with the results of this national mock student election.  Young people have been drawn to Obama since the beginning of the campaign.  School aged young people, tend to reflect their parent’s politics and thus mock vote the way their parents do – this isn’t always true, but it is a generality you can apply with some measure of safety the younger the person.  The sample is large and conducted by a legitimate source.

The Youth Leadership Initiative’s Mock Election is conducted by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.  This year, according to their web posted news release three million votes were cast by students in grades one through twelve from across the country, Guam and Department of Defense Schools.  The YLI is careful to point out that the mock election is not a scientific survey, but an academic exercise designed to teach students about the democratic process.  That said however, one need only look at the mock student election held each year by Scholastic. Although much smaller than the YLI mock election, Scholastic’s election with 250,000 votes this year has quite a record of matching the actual outcome of the real election. Failing only in 1948 and 1960.  The YLI uses a bigger sample and is conducted by a political educational insitution.  I’m feeling safer with their results being a mirror than Scholastic and Scholastic has been on target almost every time.

Another interesting item about the YLI mock election is that it asked students what they though the most important issue facing the country is at this time.  The economy was the national choice, our state choice in Texas, and our school district’s choice.

It’s said that the only poll that really counts is the one taken at the ballot box and although their votes aren’t counted because they are under age, our children have spoken.  I pray we follow their lead.

An election eve sermon from a passing saint

Posted on
Reply

The lastest issue of The Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist QUEST has reprinted an election sermon from Forrest Church, one of the UUA’s living saints, called Hope and Fear: An Election Day Sermon. The sermon is from October of 1992, but could be from this week as the themes it hits are about hope, fear and the need for unity and the need for a pastoral, human president:

I want to talk about us. Who we are and who we can be. If the United States of America is about anything it is about that. E pluribus unum. Not one for many, but out of many, one. It is finally far less important that the trains run on time than it is that the passengers are willing to take responsibility for one another’s welfare.

We won’t ever get it right; that’s not the goal. In passing judgment, the early Puritan preachers too often forgot the importance of forgiveness. Of loving kindness. Of self-acceptance. Of honest doubts. But they did remind us that we are accountable — that despite our failings we are accountable, not someone else.

So I’m going to make this election sermon a little more personal than usual. My subject is hope and fear.

First to define fear. Hate is not the opposite of love, fear is. When we are frightened, by others, by life itself, we cannot love. We can hide. We can fight. But we cannot love. Conversely, love casts out fear.

We are good at fear. That’s why politicians play on our fears. Fear gives power to others, and inspires us to try to take power away from them. Fear divides and then conquers us. It feeds on our weakness and envy and jealousy. It leads us to follow those who tell us we are victims. It closes hearts and poisons minds.

….

I don’t want my president to ask me to believe in him. I simply won’t. And I don’t want her to play on my fears of others. Believe me, I have such fears, I surely do. And I don’t want him to crush my hope by setting up an impossible dream, any more than I want to succumb to the cynics who have lost their ability to dream.

Instead I want my president to inspire hope. I want her to give me faith. And I certainly want him to encourage me to open my heart to love.

I know it is a lot to ask, but that is what I ask of my president. I ask a lot. Not belief, certainty and fear, but faith, hope and love.

It’s a religious request. I know that. But, after all, this is a religious nation, an experiment in religious freedom, founded in the spirit, not the letter of the scriptures. On Election Eve, I am no more ashamed of making a religious request than my forebears were when they fulminated for hours in just as sincere a desire that everything, somehow, would turn out right.

I ask a lot, because our founders and early leaders asked a lot of us. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The question is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on the side of God.”

Read or listen to the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

On not becoming the Monster

Posted on
Reply

Election day is Tuesday, less than a week away.  The subdivision where I live is one of those places with a HOA or Home Owners Association and part of the HOA agreement is no political signs.  But about a week and half ago the McCain/Palin lawn signs popped up all over my neighborhood as if it were harvest time; as if they were all planted together a certain number of weeks back and all popped through the soil together at the same time.  I promptly waterproofed the cardboard Obama sign I had and secured to the front of house.  It wasn’t so much an act of tit for tat, as it was a reminder that I am not part of the McSameness.

As the campaign has drawn nearer to a close, it has disturbed me greatly.  Stories of McCain/Palin rallies that incite supporters to think of Obama as a terrorist with catcalls to kill him, had little to do with issues and raised up for me images of  totalitarian and fascist regimes that demonize “the other” to gain and maintain power.  Then I heard the story of Sarah Palin being hanged in effigy as a halloween decoration and almost didn’t want to believe it.  That’s what “they” do. “Redneck women” hang black men in effigy, not the other way around.  But for all the shouts of “kill him” and “terrorists” and  the Obama in a noose, for which students were suspended from a college in Oregon, – one Palin in effigy ( a halloween decoration), equalizes the field of weeks of what amounts to hate inspired and sanctioned rallies.  What’s sad is that a Halloween decoration in poor taste is the media equalizer for weeks of behavior that borders on race-baiting at mass rallies.

Even Gandhi couldn’t keep India from killing itself over religious differences once they had used non-violence to gain independence from British rule.  Engaging with the other is an incredibly difficult task, made especially more difficult when it’s part of the nature of one of a pair of interlocutors to be open to diversity and that nature of the other to be suspect of people who are different.

It’s so easy, so human, to be reactionary and our politics so often comes from such a place from both the left and the right.  We feel that when our world view is threatened, we need to defend it to the metaphorical death without pausing to think how this so often and too easily leads to defending it to the literal death.  We get fearful of the other, so afraid of the other and the worst qualities either real or imagined of our enemies that we end up adopting these qualities or behaviors that we deplore.  It’s a defense mechanism.

Where I grew up
There weren’t many trees
Where there was we’d tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

It’s already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won’t get hurt

- U2, Peace on Earth

I’m amazed, quite frankly that the Obama campaign and the vast majority of its supporters has managed to stay above the fray, in my opinion, during this campaign. Yet in the closing week, I’ve seen the actuality dawn on the Republican side that they are going to lose and the fear in that realization is coming out in the tenor of both the campaign and its supporters.  Faced with that, it is starting to be matched by Obama supporters, not at the level of racial epithets or inciting to racism (which those rallies amount to in my opinion) but in the energy and emphasis of argument and the willingness to just go for the jugluar or reach into hyperbole in discussion.  I noticed it for the first time in myself yesterday after weeks of advising others about it.

It comes out in many ways, in conversation, in the blogosphere, in the yard sign wars. The intensity of the moment brings it out.  People who are otherwise friendly just can’t see how otherwise good people can possibly think that way (in the way that is in oppossion from their own thinking).  How can any reasonable person not draw my conclusion?  We ask ourselves, and are left to ponder.

As a minister I can not and do not endorse any candidate or party from the pulpit or as a reprentative or my congregation or the UUA.  But I cannot be nuetral in this election as an individual. It is too important.  Anyone who knows me, knows that as an individual I am supporting Barack Obama.  I think he’s the best choice at this time and this place in our history. I am not a party idealogue, however.  Politically, I am actually to left, far to the left of Barack Obama.  I’d like to see him have the guts to come right out and  advocate for national health care and gay marriage among other things.   I’ve actually run for office as a member of the Green Party and yet I’ve also voted for Republican candidates because they were the best person running for the job. And not just for dog catcher,  I’ve voted for Republicans for as high an office as Governor.   I vote my conscience on the issues and not just the person, and on the balance of issues and character and time in history, Obama is my choice this time.  That being said, I, like anyone else, look around me sometimes and wonder, how? why? I look up and down my street and ask myself “are any of these people making more than $250,000 a year? Do they want to afford health care? How many more people need to die in a war started by lies while the criminal who killed thousands of our fellow citizens is still on the loose? And then I remember everyone is not me.  It can be very hard at times.  Especially at election times. Especially when you live in a place where your world view is not only not the norn, but the “other.”

My task isn’t to wonder about the “others” on my street, my friends who don’t share my political beliefs, or the people shouting “kill him” and “terrorist.”  My first task is to wonder about me.  How will I not become the monster?  How will I not turn into a monster, however small or however terrible, that dismissed another person because they disagree with me, vote differently than I do, see the world differently than I do.  Because once I close off, I have become a fundamentalist and that is incompatible with avoiding monsterhood and incompatible with being a Unitarian Universalist.

The left has its monsters as does the right.  That lesson must not go unlearned.

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist has a great review up of Marty Beckerman’s new book Dumbocracy, in which Beckerman takes a look at the fringes of American politics on both the right and the left.

Mehta says

It’s a book marketed to liberals, but I think conservatives could find a lot of value in it. We’d be better off if we listened to what the other side had to say without getting into a shouting match. There’s power in civilized dialogue. And when you see how idiotic both sides look when the extremists get the attention, you can understand why compromise is so difficult and why we’re rarely able to make progress on the issues that matter to everyone.

The hate-Driven, fear-driven, ignorance-driven life of Rick Warren

Posted on
Reply

Either way, it’s all in the same homophobic place. And it’s not helpful.  Evangelical, pastor of Saddleback Church in CA and author of the The Purpose Driven Life and the The Purpose Driven Church, Pastor Rick Warren came out (pun intended) this past week in support of California’s proposition 8, banning gay marriage:

For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion — not just Christianity — has defined marriage as a contract between men and women. There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2% of our population. This is one issue that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have publicly opposed the redefinition of marriage to include so-called ‘gay marriage.’ Even some gay leaders, like Al Rantel of KABC oppose watering down the definition of marriage.

Of course, my longtime opposition is well known. This is not a political issue, it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about. There is no doubt where we should stand on this issue.

This will be a close contest, maybe even decided by a few thousand votes. I urge you to VOTE YES on Proposition 8 — to preserve the biblical definition of marriage. Don’t forget to vote!

The good news here (yes, more punning) is that members of his own religious community are calling him to task for it :

And if we needed further warrant for this, the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under law” codified that into the Constitution itself.

Many Americans, myself included, understand the California supreme court’s decision (and similar rulings in other jurisdictions) as an expression of that principle, an expansion of civil rights to those who have been denied equality for a very long time. It’s not at all at odds with fundamental Baptist principles of liberty and protection from a majoritarian ethic that imposes its standards on the minority.

I challenge Rick Warren, my friend and fellow evangelical, to reconsider his support for Proposition 8. Warren and all people of faith have every right to hold to their religious views about homosexuality. But to insist that those standards must be observed by everyone in a pluralistic society is — well, it’s not Baptist.

Rick Warren knows better.

Yes, Rick Warren should know better.  He’s been one of a group of Evangelical leaders trying to get evangelicals to work on issues such as the AIDS crisis and the environment, but something like this makes me question why? I don’t like questioning people’s motives for such work, and I believe Warren has good intentions, but I wonder what what he thinks about people with AIDS? Still sinners who he love in spite of their sin? I think his statement on Proposition 8 is more of a true colors statement about his theology, some people  have more dignity and worth than others; some people view the world and who’s acceptable differently than Rich Warren and that’s not acceptable. Having such views is called bigotry. Bigotry is born of ignorance and fear, together they breed hatred and violence.  It’s sad and damaging to see someone with Warren’s profile contributing to this in a season where political rallies are calling for the death of candidate for president of the United States under what amounts to thinly veiled racism.  Right now we need tolerance and acceptance, not bigotry, fear and hate driven lives. I do hope there’s room for that in Warren’s ministry.

I'm a Mac, I'm pro Gay rights, I'm No on 8 in CA

Posted on
Reply

I’m a Mac user and I was delighted to learn that Apple has come out very publicly in support of Equal Marriage in California. They publicly posted this on their hot Apple news feeds on Oct. 24.

  • No on Prop 8

    October 24, 2008

    Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

They are throwing money and their creative brand behind the effort to keep gay marriage legal in that state.  They’ve backed a series of ads based on their “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” televison and internet spots that are quite effective.

and

It ain't no secret: I'm not a fan of The Secret

Posted on
2

I have a bone to pick with The Secret.  A couple of them, actually. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Secret by now. The Secret is really no secret. It’s a marketing ploy by an Australian film maker named Rhonda Byrne  and it’s been very successful.   Being Unitarian Universalists, we have no creed or dogma, but we do have values that support an engagement in a responsible search for truth and meaning and I find The Secret troublesome, bordering on irresponsible spirituality.  I don’t think you can make an argument for The Secret being in line with our principles and purposes. And even though it has been hyped by Oprah (a person I generally like – but see “Oprah’s Ugly’s Secret” from Salon.com) and has given a boost to positive thinking (which is a positive in itself), it’s no secret that I don’t like the Secret.  It’s a shortcut spirituality.  Spiritual practices are work, not wishful thinking.  Spiritual practices responsibly engage you with the world; they don’t let you off the hook from having to worry about others who aren’t attracting enough positiveness.

I have a few big issues with The Secret.  One is its foundation on what Rhonda Byrne calls the “law of attraction.”  She claims this “law” governs the universe.  Well, universal laws are applicable all the time, everywhere, such as the law of gravity, the first law of motion, etc.  I am willing to wager the “law of attraction” can not be proven to be such a law.  The law of attraction says that like attracts like and when you think and feel what you want to attract on the inside the law will use people, circumstances and event to magnetize what you want to you and you to it. Poppycock!  Drop down in the middle of Darfur.  There are a whole lot of people there thinking and feeling with every mote of their being not to be in the middle of a genocide.  But, since the law of attraction isn’t a real law, it still goes on because real human social injustice has real oppositional factors that willfully obstruct good intentions and wishful thinking, which basically is what the Secret is about.  As a Unitarian Universalist minister I can’t go hog wild down The Secret path, because as a Unitarian Universalist I also value Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.  Rushing headlong down Secret Road aims in this direction. Someday the situation in Darfur will improve, but it will not be due to a nonexistent “law of attraction”, which, if it were so powerful and so many people were imploring it for an end to the situation, would have worked this monster of a calamity out years ago.

The second big issue I have with The Secret is that I see it as a prosperity Gospel for the secular world.   I don’t like the Gospel of prosperity that is preached in some Christian churches today. I think it’s a perversion of Jesus’ message and I see the message in The Secret leading to the same kind of thinking.  American culture is already too materialistic for another prosperity Gospel.  One is bad enough.  I  much prefer the Social Gospel.

The social Gospel preached that you are responsible for your brother and sister; that you are your brother’s keeper and your sister’s keeper. The Social Gospel movement aimed to engage people of faith in transforming society be eliminating social ills.  The prosperity Gospel is a misinterpretation of the message of Jesus that allows one to feel comfortable with greed and materialism run rampant, and with turning a blind eye to the social injustices of the world being visited upon other human beings who happen to be our brothers and sisters.  The prosperity Gospel’s attitude is “hey you must not be praying right, or you must not be pleasing to God, so you are aren’t getting blessed with the riches.”  It’s a weak, unfounded, theology, that fails to take into account the many forms of oppression humans foist upon each other that actively keep others from access or equal opportunity.

The prosperity Gospel leaves out the socially constructed component of injustices such as poverty.  So does its secular equivalents such as The Secret.  I’m working with an Interfaith Homeless Coalition where I live.  The Social Gospel would encourage us to look at homelessness as something we all need to be concerned about because it’s our job to look after each other.  The prosperity Gospel says, why should I worry  about people who obviously aren’t right with God or they’d have the blessings I’d have.

This type of thinking is as old as the D writer in the Pentateuch with his overarching theme of retribution theology: Obey God and you’ll be blessed; disobey and you’ll be cursed.  I’m too much of a Unitarian Universalist, emphasis on the Universalist here, to take up this kind of thinking, as I believe everyone is blessed and saved, you don’t have to have the right intentions, or attraction or anything – you’re just in and worthy, period.

This may sound harsh for UU’s out there who are into The Secret, but I worry about it because we are about to enter into tough economic times and those who have are about to have less and those who have less are about to have little or nothing.  I don’t even like thinking about what those who already have little or nothing are going to end up with  as things get rough.  It will be easier in such times to retreat into lazy resignation that there is nothing to do about the growing problems of poverty and homelessness and hunger; that people facing such issues need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps; that such people aren’t attracting enough good fortune their own way, and so on.

We’re called by our faith as Unitarian Universalists to combat social injustice and to use our reason.  I believe in the power of positive thinking, but I don’t believe in marketing gimmicks as spiritual practices or that we should look for ways to get out of responsibility to others with whom we are tied, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  And that’s no secret.

Pastorally, there are individual “blame the victim” issues that are microcosms of the justice issues.  These are outlined well in an article in USA Today:

However, the fear that The Secret will lead to a blame-the-victim mentality is a serious claim of critics.

For example, the book dismisses conditions such as a genetic predisposition to being overweight or a slow thyroid as “disguises for thinking ‘fat thoughts.’” And during times in which massive number of lives were lost, the book says, the “frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event.”

Psychotherapist and lifestyle coach Stacy Kaiser said that after reading The Secret, several patients have worried that it was their fault they were abused, or laid off from their jobs. Others seem to expect everything in their lives to change overnight, she said.

The Los Angeles-based Kaiser joins several other therapists who praised the positive thinking espoused in The Secret, but who question its failure to discuss action.

“People start to think that they don’t have to use their free will, that they don’t have to have power anymore, that they don’t have to make choices,” Kaiser said. “They don’t realize they have to do the work. And that’s the conversation I keep having to have with people.”

Dr. Gail Saltz, an author and psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, pointed out that cognitive behavioral therapy seeks to modify harmful thoughts as a way to improve patients’ feelings.

She said that among people who are ill, those who remain hopeful and have a positive attitude tend to do better. But she was especially upset about a portion of Byrne’s DVD in which a woman claims her breast cancer was cured without radiation or chemotherapy; the woman watched funny movies and had faith that she had already been healed.

Saltz received hundreds of angry e-mails after she talked about her concerns on the Today show. She thinks that some fans of The Secret take it figuratively — they don’t think they’ll get a necklace just by thinking about it, but feel improving their thoughts improves their life. But from the e-mails she received, she said some people do believe it is based in scientific reality.

“Living is difficult. … People want … a solution and an answer. If it were an easy one, like ‘think it’ — that would be even better, right?” she said. “I understand. It’s a wish fulfillment. I really do understand that.”

The Secret has been dealt with in the UU blogosphere before.   Rev. Fred Small, now minister of the First Parish in Cambridge, (MA) Unitarian, published a piece on it UU World titled “The Secrect isn’t Total Bunk” in which he excerpted a sermon on The Secret he preached while still minister in Littleton, MA where he quoted some positive passages from The Secret that he could believe in such as “The feeling of love is the highest frequency you can emit.”  Indeed.  Who could disagree? I couldn’t. Still can’t.

The best rebuttal was from Elizabeth at her Little Blog in a post titled “The Secret is total Bunk” and the crux of her post was that:

while I understand that some good thoughts and ideas can come from The Secret – especially the sense that positive thinking is important, focusing on the negative is not often helpful, that we should “emit” love our lives, I think it is total bunk. Just because some parts of a book or a way of thinking can be isolated and might be helpful, I don’t think that we can, or should, separate out the acceptable parts of thinking such as that espoused in The Secret given what the overall “package” implies – an overall package that people are buying into by the thousands….

Let’s call this what it is. The Secret is bad pseudo-science and has nothing to do with what Unitarian Universalism is about. We can embrace love and positive thinking and hope without contaminating our faith or our lives with the absurd theological and scientific claims of The Secret.

The previously unpublished op-ed essay

Posted on
2

I’ve had a couple of requests for my the essay I submitted to local papers here on National Coming Out Day. Here it is.

National Coming Out Day is for Straight People Too

This year National Coming Out Day comes of age as it celebrates twenty-one years since the The March on October 11, 1987 when GLBT people gathered in Washington, D.C. to demonstrate for their rights and their acceptance in America. National Coming Out Day serves as an annual reminder that many are still not free to be who they are in the land of the free and the home of the brave; that there are some are who are not included in “we the people” because of their sexual orientation. As National Coming Out Day turns twenty-one, the bigotry that stems from fear continues to turn into violence that is all too often aimed at our young people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered.
Growing up should be a safe time and GLBT young people should have safe places and safe people they can go to and confide in as they discover and celebrate who they are. Unfortunately there are still those who promote attitudes of bigotry and hatred towards gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. Our young people see this and as they grow up they realize that if they are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered they face anything from ridicule to physical violence to death for just being themselves.
National Coming Out Day is not only a day for GLBT people to come out and proclaim their authentic selves to family, friends, and the world and take pride in who they are, but it’s also a day for non-gay people, straight allies to come out in support of GLBT family, friends, neighbors and coworkers, thus making our community, our churches, our workplaces and our schools safer.
National Coming Out Day turns twenty-one this year the same weekend we mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one year old University of Wyoming student who was brutally beaten near Laramie on the night of October 6-7, 1998 and died a few days later on October 12. Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Shepard. Their motive: Shepard was gay.
In Swan Lake, NY in October of 2007 two 17-year-olds attacked and beat a 14-year-old boy because he was gay according to local police. The incident was treated as a hate crime.This past February, Larry King, a 15 year-old boy was shot dead by another boy, Brandon McInerney, 14, during the middle of class at Oxnard, California’s E. O. Green Junior High School because Larry had dared to give Brandon a Valentine’s Day card.
Capitol Metro bus number 339 in North Central Austin kept right on moving on September 16, 2008 as Jason Daley was attacked for being gay, beaten so that he sustained a gash above his eye and reported blood and glass in his eye and losing consciousness.
Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. Equality Texas reports that of the 1,862 hate crimes reported in Texas between 2001 and 2006, only 9 have been prosecuted. Suicide rates for gay teens are reported to be four times as high as for nongay teens. The American Psychological Association in a report to the U.S. Senate in 2001 stated that suicide is the leading cause of death for gay teens.
National Coming Out Day is a day to come out against violence, discrimination and bigotry. It’s also a day to come out against hate cloaked as love. Some people claim they are open and accepting, but all they want is an opportunity to speak to queer folk about how much God loves them and how sinful it is to be gay.
It is not sinful to be gay. Gay is just another state of being, like being Black or Asian or having blue eyes or being German or being short. It’s just one of the great many and varied ways human beings are. There is nothing wrong with a person who is gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered. The wrong is in the hatred, discrimination and bigotry aimed at the GLBT community. Clothe it in whatever language you will, give it whatever reason you wish, bigotry is bigotry. Coming Out Day is an opportunity for non-gay people to come out as safe people and for workplaces, churches and schools to come out as safe places.
Put up an equality symbol, such as the yellow on blue equals sign of the Human Rights Campaign or a Rainbow Flag on your window, desk or car. Let people know you are safe and are an ally. Come out as a safe person and a safe place and make coming out easier for those whose true courage and true example to all of us is just in being themselves. Above all, coming out is a way to stand on the side of love. We owe it to our GLBT family, friends and neighbors, we owe it ourselves, and most of all, we owe it to our children.

Rev. Tony Lorenzen
Minister, Pathways Church
Southlake, TX

There's now a bench in Laramie

Posted on
1

Today is National Coming Out Day.  And although the newspaper here in Fort Worth has published letters to the editors calling me out for how dangerous a person I am my support of the GLBT community and some papers are publishing ads that are making me into wingnut enemy number 1, my op-ed on Coming Out Day and the Anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death couldn’t find its way into the local press.

Today there is a bench in Laramie Wyoming, however.  An Associated Press report says:

There wasn’t much in the way of publicly marking the 10-year anniversary of Shepard’s death. A week ago, the university dedicated a bench that had been donated by a foundation set up by Shepard’s parents to help support gay youths.

Understated, reflective and place to sit and reflect on a horror that emphasizes the need for Coming Out, both as GLBT people, and more importantly as safe GLBT allies and making sure our workplaces, our churches and our schools are safe places with visibles signs that there are safe people to come out to around.

The AP story that ran in the Fort Worth Star Telegram this morning quotes a gay U of Wyoming employee named Jim Osborn and the Laramie mayor:

Some of the coverage attempted to blame Laramie for somehow creating the murderers. Osborn recalled seeing one TV report quoting a local man at a bar as saying gay people should expect to be attacked in Wyoming.

“The crime of two people was presented as a crime of the city,” Mayor Klaus Hanson said.

No, Mayor Hanson the crime of two people isn’t the crime of a city, but it does reflect a crime or at least a failing on the part of all of us, not just in Laramie, but around the country.   We create the attitudes that say it’s okay to beat and kill people who are different. Yes, each person is responsible for their own actions, but so is each society and our fundamental flaw as a society is that we don’t own up to our actions as society the way we call individuals to account for their actions.

“Every brother being in chains is my shame. Every longing for freedom which is suppressed, every human right which is violated is a personal defeat for me because we are united in human kind and share one another’s fate.”  –

- Egil Aarvik, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1983, Oslo, December 10, 1983.