Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Ignorance, prejudice joined in vile column

I thought your editorial, which tried to juxtapose discriminating “good taste” with the immoral ugliness of discriminating against human beings who discover they are homosexual, was one of the vilest pieces I have ever read. Trying to use the Bible to justify your own prejudice was most un-Christian.

Your encouragement of discrimination against gays and lesbians reminded me of the bumper sticker I saw which said, “Kill a Queer for Christ.”

The thinking shown in the bumper sticker and the position of many churches and their pastors only encourages violence against homosexuals. Your combination of ignorance and prejudice under the guise of morality makes you and your abuse of scripture in this regard morally irresponsible.

My wife and I, which are the parents of two sons (one of which is gay), live under the constant threat of wondering if we will receive the same dreaded phone call that Matthew Shepard’s parents received. Your editorial did nothing to alleviate those fears.

Because of your self-righteousness, you are totally ignorant of the unimaginable suffering that is endured by those who find themselves on the wrong side of sexual orientation. And who is responsible for this suffering?

It is the fault of us all. It’s the fault of any of us who make jokes about gay people, who insult them with the use of demeaning names. It’s the fault of us who are silent when others do these things or when they publish lies about what homosexuality is. And it’s the fault of us who don’t provide a safe place and a caring response to those of homosexual orientation.

Who knows how many hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, to violence, to suicide, to drugs, to promiscuity, to AIDS, to shattered self-esteem, to life forever outside the doors of the church, because we have participated in or by silence been a part of the demeaning and the ostracizing of homosexual people.

In this respect there is blood on the hands of the church. At Judgment Day, we will be asked, “Why were you silent?” Why has the church abandoned these children of God to despair and to death? When people are lost and dying by the millions, you don’t pontificate about sexual morality; you reach out to them, you give them a safe place, you listen, you talk, and you love with the love of Christ.

On the day I read your editorial, I received this e-mail from a man in England. I think it says everything:

Hi Jeff & Patti,

Thank you for your website.

You mention that 1 in 3 teenage suicides is believed to be caused by people feeling unable to accept that they are gay. I know exactly what you mean. For more than 30 years I have felt seriously suicidal, virtually every day of my life. I still do. It never really goes away.

You seem to have worked your way through this situation with the help of your religious beliefs. I wish I could say the same. But I do not feel welcome in my own family or in the church we used to attend. I feel I have rejected the church in the same way it has rejected me. I don’t even want a religious ceremony at my funeral.

But your website has shown me that there are some good people in the world. Even among the Christians. Thank you for that.

I have tried to lead a respectable, worthwhile life. But it has been a lonely journey. And I wish it was over.

Keep up the good work. Take care.

David

Dr. Martin Luther King was constantly frustrated by the unbelievable silence of both the Christian and Jewish religious leaders. He came to the sad conclusion that it’s possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips and deny his existence with your life. His disappointment led him make this statement: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Jeff Ellis

www.familyacceptance.com