Cruelty in the name of God and Bible
MY CONVERSION TO gay activism — on behalf of family values, as it were — took place more than 20 years ago. But the experience has taken on new poignancy in light of today’s passionate objections to gay equality on purported moral and religious grounds.
On October 11, 1987 — a date now annually commemorated as National Coming Out Day — I took part in the national gay and lesbian march on Washington. My daughter had come out as lesbian a few months earlier, and since we live in the Washington metro area, her mother (my ex-wife) and I decided to attend, mainly out of curiosity.
We were astonished to find ourselves part of a sea of some 600,000 demonstrators, nestled in a relatively small delegation of about 150 parents. But some of the parents were from as far away as California, Colorado and Washington State, and many carried signs reading, “We love our gay and lesbian children.”
We were profoundly touched by the ovation — but even more by the tear-streaked faces of many of those cheering us. Dozens of young men and women rushed out sobbing to hug us and thank us for, in effect, serving as stand-ins for their own, less accepting parents.
IT WAS THAT powerful response, borne of a senseless rending of the young people’s own family ties, that triggered my personal commitment to combating parental ignorance, primarily via participation with PFLAG
Much has improved for our GLBT kids in the two decades since that day. But the passion of the remaining bigotry seems, if anything, even more heated, stoked primarily by religious fundamentalists who loudly insist that they are the ones protecting the sanctity of the family and of marriage.
But I wonder how in God’s name, as it were, my own family and my current second marriage of nearly 30 years are somehow “protected” by denying legal rights to my daughter and millions of other innocent citizens.
TYPICALLY, COMMON SENSE tells us just the opposite of what many, in the name of religion and family values, would have us believe.
full article
On October 11, 1987 — a date now annually commemorated as National Coming Out Day — I took part in the national gay and lesbian march on Washington. My daughter had come out as lesbian a few months earlier, and since we live in the Washington metro area, her mother (my ex-wife) and I decided to attend, mainly out of curiosity.
We were astonished to find ourselves part of a sea of some 600,000 demonstrators, nestled in a relatively small delegation of about 150 parents. But some of the parents were from as far away as California, Colorado and Washington State, and many carried signs reading, “We love our gay and lesbian children.”
We were profoundly touched by the ovation — but even more by the tear-streaked faces of many of those cheering us. Dozens of young men and women rushed out sobbing to hug us and thank us for, in effect, serving as stand-ins for their own, less accepting parents.
IT WAS THAT powerful response, borne of a senseless rending of the young people’s own family ties, that triggered my personal commitment to combating parental ignorance, primarily via participation with PFLAG
Much has improved for our GLBT kids in the two decades since that day. But the passion of the remaining bigotry seems, if anything, even more heated, stoked primarily by religious fundamentalists who loudly insist that they are the ones protecting the sanctity of the family and of marriage.
But I wonder how in God’s name, as it were, my own family and my current second marriage of nearly 30 years are somehow “protected” by denying legal rights to my daughter and millions of other innocent citizens.
TYPICALLY, COMMON SENSE tells us just the opposite of what many, in the name of religion and family values, would have us believe.
full article
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