She writes for Glamour:

Imagine finding someone you love more than anything in the world, who you would risk your life for but couldn’t marry. And you couldn’t have that special day the way your friends do—you know, wear the ring on your finger and have it mean the same thing as everybody else. Just put yourself in that person’s shoes. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.

When I shared a picture of my tattoo on my Twitter page and said, “All LOVE is equal,” a lot of people mocked me—they said, “What happened to you? You used to be a Christian girl!” And I said, “Well, if you were a true Christian, you would have your facts straight. Christianity is about love.” The debate resulted in a lot of threats and hate mail to people who agreed and disagreed with me. At one point I had to say, “Dude, everyone lay off.” Can’t people have friendly debates about sensitive topics without it turning into unnecessary threats?

I believe every American should be allowed the same rights and civil liberties. Without legalized same-sex marriage, most of the time you cannot share the same health benefits, you are not considered next of kin and you are not granted the same securities as a heterosexual couple. How is this different than having someone sit in the back of the bus because of their skin color?

. . .

We all should be tolerant of one another and embrace our differences. My dad [country singer Billy Ray Cyrus], who is a real man’s man, lives on the farm and is as Southern and straight as they come. He loves my gay friends and even supports same-sex marriage. If my father can do it, anyone can.

This is America, the nation of dreams. We’re so proud of that. And yet certain people are excluded. It’s just not right.

Good going, Miley.

Kathy Baldock, Evangelical Christian and fierce ally and advocate for LGBT equality:

I am growing weary of the Christian community saying our faith is being attacked and we are being persecuted. Is there any non-gay, non-trans person in this country that is not free to walk in any church on any Sunday and publicly praise God? No straight person is barred from marrying the person they love or even a person they do not love. No one has ever stopped me from reading my Bible or praying as I walk along a public trail. I am not persecuted.

As unpopular as it is to say, many of those I religiously identify with, have become the persecutors. God specifically tells His people in Isaiah 58 that He is not interested in their external piety and conformity to rules of service, worship and discipline. He tells His people that if they really want to serve Him and have Him listen, they need to “loose the chains of injustice … and set the oppressed free and break every yoke.” He further tells His people to “spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed.”

Injustice means treating people unequally; oppression is exercising authority or power in an unjust manner. Is the glbt community oppressed and treated unjustly? Of course they are.

This country is ruled by a Constitution that guarantees all of us equal treatment. All of us. Being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender is not a choice or a behavior or something that needs to be or can be changed. Gay and trans people are a class of people. When people of faith lead the charge to withhold rights from a class of people, then they have indeed have become the oppressors.

I have nothing more to add, but you should read the entire post from which that quote comes.

Dear Pat:

We know you are teetering on the brink of total irrelevancy and that your mind doesn’t seem to be what it once was [a lateral move, I know], but when you complain that Obama is defending gay people in foreign countries but not defending religious minorities, i.e. persecuted Christians in other countries, you are simply confused. It was already our policy to promote the sorts of human rights you support abroad. We simply are now explicitly including people that make your little soul un-comfy, as well.

Yet again, it bears repeating. Liberals are the actual “pro-life” people in this country, as we support the rights of all people to survive and thrive. Wingnuts like Pat are really only concerned about non-gay, mostly white Christians and, purportedlly, fetus-Americans.

[h/t Joe]

The other day a video from a young kid named Jonah Mowry, where he told the story of the relentless bullying he experiences on a daily basis, went viral. Here’s that video again if you haven’t seen it:

When I posted it, I described Jonah as a specific example of a kid that Linda Harvey and the rest of the Religious Right refuses to protect, and asked what was more valuable: that child, or their dogma?

Christian writer John Shore took that idea a lot further than I did, and he took the gloves off. Quoting it almost in its entirety, because John likes me and won’t get mad:

Tell me that your belief system didn’t help put the hot tears on this kid’s cheeks. Tell me that the bullies who torment this kid aren’t in any way encouraged or empowered by your tacit approval of their actions. Tell me that the shame this kid feels about himself has nothing to do with the shame that you believe all gay people should feel for themselves.
Tell me that you can’t comprehend the connection between your conviction that God finds homosexuals repulsive, and the fact that this kid finds himself so repulsive that he habitually cuts his own flesh.

Tell me, please, how you love this kid. Tell me how you understand his pain. Tell me how when he cries, you cry.

Tell me how you want to do everything in your power to make sure that no one, ever again, feels free to in any way victimize a young gay person.

A Christian myself, I am pleading with you to be honest with me about this.

Tell me, please, how none of this kid’s anguish has anything to do with you.

I’m listening. I really am.

We all are.

All ears. You first, Linda Harvey. Then Tony Perkins. And then we can go alphabetically through America’s bigot leaders after that. Explain how your bigotry is worth more than this or any other child’s suffering.

We’re waiting.

In light of news suggesting that Exodus is discussing its reorganization, Box Turtle Bulletin’s Timothy Kincaid wrote this open letter to its director, Alan Chambers, to “propose a few recommendations.” Highlights:

Surely you would not go about the country telling people about Mount Everest and the success that Sir Edmund Hillary had in conquering the mountain and encourage them to fly right off to Nepal and start climbing. That would be cruel and irresponsible and result in disappointment, wounded bodies and disillusioned spirits.

Yet Exodus has for many years testified of the reported success of some people who have struggled with unwanted same-sex attraction in terms that suggested that this could also be reality for those listening. It has been a cruel and irresponsible behavior and has resulted in disappointment, wounded souls and disillusioned spirits. It needs to stop.

…an increasing number of churches – including conservative evangelical churches – are reaching the conclusion that ones sexual orientation is not, in and of itself sinful or wrong or flawed or even intrinsically disordered.

It’s time for Exodus to join the rest of the world.

It would be ridiculous and offensive to tearfully lament a poor soul “trapped in an Asian American lifestyle.” And you would feel petty for doing so.

It is no less offensive or illogical to talk about being “trapped in a homosexual lifestyle”. There isn’t such a thing. And using language such as “trapped” implies that one can “change” into a heterosexual lifestyle. It shames and demeans a person for what they are. It’s “sissy boy” and “look at that pansy” and “why are you so girly” all over again, just repackaged as “Christian concern”.

When Exodus repeatedly denies the evidence in favor of the biological origins of homosexuality, it places your organization further in enmity to the mind. It build a dichotomy in which objective study, scientific research, and thoughtful analysis are pitted against unsubstantiated dogma and “faith”.

It is unnecessary and even blasphemous to insist that faith – real faith – needs to denounces the senses God gave us and to ignore what is evident. And, ultimately, it isn’t a battle that Exodus can win.

Exodus members should just accept their orientation and get on with finding out what to do about it.

So, in closing, I’d advise you to give Exodus a purpose that is theologically consistent, demonstrably possible, and which celebrates the Exodus member without trashing others.

Somehow the story of Victoria Childress, the Iowan cake baking lady whose cake baking skills play second fiddle to her devotion to her religious bigotry when it comes to baking cakes that might be consumed by gays who are happy, is still going:

“Well, actually I’ve gotten a lot of nasty comments from Christians who don’t think that the stand I’ve taken is right,” she shares. “They need to read the Book of Romans.”

She says if they do, they will fully understand what God thinks of sin — including homosexual sin.

“You know, Christ is very clear. We are either for him or against him; we’re not supposed to be lukewarm; we’re either hot or we’re cold,” she says. “And there was never a question in my mind how I was supposed to handle this, never — because he’s everything to me.”

More than cake! Indeed, in Ms. Childress’s version of Christianity, all the stuff about doing for the least of these and Jesus eating with people the rest of society judged, yadda yadda, is irrelevant. When Jesus did the whole thing with the loaves and fishes, and also when he performed his first miracle, in the famous “we have run out of booze” incident at Cana, he makes clear that NONE of that food and beverage, and I mean NONE of it, went to homos, especially not homos in Iowa.

I’d like to leave you with a verse out of Victoria Childress’s Bible:

Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…NO HOMO!”

Holland, Michigan, a conservative tourist town best known for its popular May tulip festival*, is now gaining a different kind of fame. NPR reports that local pastor Bill Freeman is pushing the city to change its anti-discrimination laws to include protections for LGBT people.

Federal and Michigan laws protect residents from discrimination in housing and employment, but not based on a person’s sexuality or gender identity, and Holland’s city council rejected modifying the local anti-discrimination law with those specifications. Freeman, married and a father of two, has appeared before the council several times since, urging the council to revisit that decision.

“I think the only thing that might get [the council members] to change their mind is national attention. Not the kind of attention that the City of Holland would like to have when holidays come up and Tulip Time comes up,” Freeman says, referring to the city’s annual tulip festival.

I love it: a media-savvy pastor in reddest Michigan who’s on our side. God bless you, Pastor Bill. NPR’s headline calls Freeman and his coalition “Unlikely Advocates,” a sad comment on how no one expects Christians to defend LGBT people (see also our Kristin Chenoweth blog entry). To learn more about actions in Holland, visit Until Love is Equal, a grassroots organization in Western Michigan dedicated to overturning the Holland law.

Let’s give Holland our attention by respectfully e-mailing members of the Holland City Council, encouraging them to reconsider their position on this ordinance. (See the end of this entry** for a list of members’ addresses.) Gently encourage Holland’s city council members to meet and mingle with LGBT people, and remind them that the nation and its many tourists are taking a keen interest in the decisions Holland is making about its citizens.

If that doesn’t work, of course, there’s always the possibility of a boycott. The gay mecca of Saugatuck, Michigan is just down the coast from Holland, and no doubt many people visit both towns, but why should LGBT people and their allies patronize a town that currently treats them as second-class citizens?

* Half a million attendees each year, according to Tulip Time’s offices.

** n.deboer@cityofholland.com, m.trethewey@cityofholland.com, j.peters@cityofholland.com, b.burch@cityofholland.com, b.vandevusse@cityofholland.com, t.whiteman@cityofholland.com, d.hoekstra@cityofholland.com, s.miller@cityofholland.com

And she does it on YouTube! Enjoy, as Kathy is fierce:

Having been raised in the South in a fairly conservative area, and having been raised in a fairly conservative church and, for a time, a conservative Christian school, one would think that most of the people I grew up with are fairly active church-goers. Not the case. In fact, it’s been sort of interesting to see, particularly starting with my generation [I'm an X-er, but barely], how few of them actually have remained active in any sort of “faith” community. The Evangelical Barna Group recently did a study to find out why all the young folks are leaving, many never to return. I’ll excerpt the broad headlines and let you jump over to read their explanations:

1. Churches seem over-protective.

2. Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.

3. Churches come across as antagonistic to science.

4. Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.

5. They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.

6. The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.

Okay, so those are the broad categories. Wingnuts will ignore most of them and focus on number two, arguing that tradishnul Christianity just isn’t wingnutty enough anymore to keep the flock under lock and key [they will phrase that differently, I guess], but a couple of them merit closer examination. Here is Barna’s explanation of number three:

One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.

Shorter version of that: younger people are better educated in science these days, simply because there is far more information out there than there used to be, and it’s becoming harder and harder for them to stick their heads in the sand and deny the reality that science presents when it comes in conflict with the creation myths of ye olde time religion. Or even simpler, it’s hard to look at a young cancer researcher and say, “evolution is a myth,” when they can look back and you and say, “dear sweet moron, I’ve observed it in a lab.”

That’s also related to number four, and Barna’s explanation of their own research leaves something out that’s kind of key, as the Public Religion Research Institute points out:

But buried within Barna’s category of “sex and sexuality” is something quite specific: churches’ stances on gay and lesbian issues. Research from earlier this summer reveals that nearly 7-in-10 (69%) Millennials agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about these issues. Only 37% of seniors agree.

This is also part of the reality-denial thing. It is simply a bridge too far to ask a sentient, educated human being to adhere to the sorts of belief systems advocated by the Matt Barbers and the Bryan Fischers of the world. Kids these days just aren’t that stupid. They have Google at their disposals, as well as their own experiences with gay and lesbian friends and family members to be able to look at the teachings of wingnuts on these issues and say, unequivocally, “what crazy, unhinged liars.” And if their churches are pushing that crap, they’re not likely to stay around.

Granted, there are many religious people who are involved in churches and faith communities which don’t strenuously seek to deny reality at every turn, and I know many of them. If that’s your path, go for it. But I find it encouraging that, at least among the generations who will be handed the torch when it comes to determining public policy and whatnot, we’ve finally reached the point where the insanity of anti-gay, anti-science teachings just don’t resonate. Update your résumés, professional Religious Right hacks.

This is quite good news, from my friend John Shore:

Methodist Group to Perform Gay Weddings

In unprecedented move, network of 800+ bypasses denomination’s ban
to reach out directly to LGBT people

A group of over 900 United Methodists in New York and Connecticut today announced their intention to make weddings available to all people, gay and straight, in spite of their denomination’s ban on gay marriage. The announcement marks the kick-off of a project called We do! Methodists Living Marriage Equality. In an unprecedented move in any major religious denomination, We do! is not only bypassing the formal rules of the church, but also reaching out directly to LGBT groups in New York and Connecticut to let them know about the new network. This morning the group published a list of all its members: clergy members who will perform weddings for gay couples, lay members of the denomination who support them, and congregations who have adopted policies to formally make weddings available to all couples.

[...]

“My ordination vows require me minister to all people in my congregation,” said Rev. Sara Lamar-Sterling, the minister at First and Summerfield United Methodist Church in New Haven, CT. “This is about pastoral care, about welcoming all people, but especially the marginalized and the oppressed, like Jesus did.” Lamar-Sterling and her clergy colleagues are risking their jobs and their careers by taking this stand, but they say their integrity as pastors leaves them no choice but to refuse the church’s mandate to discriminate. Over the years, many individual United Methodist clergy have defied the church’s ban, but the We do! project marks the first time an organized network of clergy has done so, and done so with the support of many hundreds of lay members of the church.

You all really should click over to read John’s interview with Sara Lamar-Sterling, which comes after the full press release, which I excerpted above. Great news.