There's a reason why attitudes toward LGBTs are changing so fast these days. Here are a couple of stories about the young that illustrate exactly why.
The first is the story of a pious single mother and her 15 year old son forced to confront the "gay thing" and coming to a reconciliation. This is one very brave kid, and a mother who finds out that her son is better than she assumed, and so is she.
Here's what happened at a Catholic school in St. Paul, MN when officials of the Archdiocese came to talk to seniors about to graduate (and at voting age) about a proposed ban on same sex marriage before the voters of Minnesota this November. The tone-deafness of the officials trying to sell the Church's endorsement of the legislation to potential voters is astonishing. Even more astonishing is the push back they got from the students, who quickly figured out that they were being manipulated.
Multiply both of those stories by a thousand, and you will see why attitudes about LGBTs are changing so rapidly and dramatically across the country. As Maria Evans wrote on her Facebook page about the first story, we've reached a point where the dam has burst. Gays, lesbians, and even the transgendered, are no longer a strange freakish and menacing abstract Other, but family and friends. Coming out of the closet, and the critical mass it creates, makes all the difference in the world.
Tip of my fedora to IT for the second story.
EXTRA:
Get up! Stand up for your rights! in California (hat tip to JoeMyGod)
MORE EXTRA:
More proof, as though we need any, that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has lost its mind. The "Radicalism of Obedience" indeed, right over the cliff. I think Stalin tried that once. The fanatic's dream come true, a smaller crazier church of the like minded, and anyone who isn't with the program is terrified into frightened acquiescence. "Obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts" said Jacob Bronowski who knew a thing or two about that worst and most destructive of all human cravings, the insatiable desire for certainty in a universe that promises none. This fish is definitely rotting from the head.
The "brave 15 year old" story is almost certainly a fake! No school would send such an assignment home (or give one)! The fact it is about Christianity AND gay stuff makes it almost compleatly unrealistic! Even private schools would be highly unlikely to do this! The original "I'm Christian unless you are gay" story I belive and have no problem with...but the "follow up" is just not credibal (my spelling is terrible and if that means you or any of your readers think that somehow affects my argument, well being dislexic is hard when typing!)
ReplyDeleteThat is your viewpoint, Tristan.
ReplyDeleteIt also happens to be mine, that, if not outright concoction, then a sentimentalized version of events. It sounds too pat.
However, those are our opinions, only, until proven.
In any case, it doesn't change what the underlying message is - that there is change happening, and that things like this do, in fact, happen. It's similar to my own story, though mine was without the "Afterschool Special" feel to it.
Sorry, gentlemen, I've seen too much anti-gay bigotry and too many examples of astonishing bravery, vulnerability and honesty among young people (def. "under 40") to allege that either the letter or the RC assembly is fictional. Roughly 40 percent of the homeless youth in Chicago are gay kids kicked out of their homes by their parent(s). Here's a kid whose mother had a transforming experience, facing her upbringing and its incompatibility with her love for her son. How cool is that, during Holy Week.
ReplyDeletePfalz, chosing to belive a fiction over reality to make you gfeel good certainly fits with "holy week". But Logically and reasonably, the story is almost certainly false and NO cause for joy!
ReplyDeleteI'll say it again. I believe the dam has burst...and I'm going to play devil's advocate here...let's just say any of the stories Doug referenced turned out to be fake, for argument's sake. So, said hypothetical story becomes a parable. My recollection is humankind has learned via teaching by means of parable before.
ReplyDeleteAs I said on my Facebook page, the old boogeymen don't scare people anymore. GLBT's are no longer shadowy child-spoilers. They are people in our lives we love. I just hope I live long enough to see what the lake looks like after the water has finished pouring through the dam, and get to enjoy a picnic by the water's edge!
A word that I may strike from my vocabulary: "certainly." See the blog post above this one.
ReplyDeleteI don't question, pfalz, the veracity of the rabid homophobia - I live in the Deep South, home of Southern Baptist hatred-as-religion.
ReplyDeleteI question the feel-good sudden ending. Oh, joy! I suddenly understand! Oh, joy!
Sorry, not buying it.
However, Tristan's hatred for Christianity and all Christians also blinds him to the fact that a story may illustrate a larger truth, that these attitudes are, indeed, changing, and that alleged-christian fundamentalists have potential to change, as well.
Mark, in this case you are very off base. My oppinion of the lack of truth in this story has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity! T me a story proported to be true that is false loses all postive force when it is a false story! If it were presented as fiction, then it could "teach" or be a parable, but when it is presented as a fact, and is NOT, then it is a LIE! and I do not think uyou can learn good leasons or take hope from a lie!
ReplyDeleteI wish it were a ture story, I wish this sort of thing realy happed all the time, but it does NOT! And spreading a falsehood as truth is NOT a good thing!
I can only answer by quoting you, Tristan:
ReplyDelete"The fact it is about Christianity AND gay stuff makes it almost compleatly unrealistic!"
In any case, we may both believe it untrue, or exaggerated, but that is not proof.