Last year, Dan Savage spoke at our campus. It was a great thing. I felt very fortunate to be able to attend.
One of the things he mentioned in his talk was how kids are growing up hearing from pulpits of churches that "God hates fags."
A colleague, who was raised in a religion other than Christian, whispered to me, "Do they say that at your church?" I said, "NO! If they did, I wouldn't be there!"
I was really rather offended. Does the person have no idea who I am, at all? (Actually, probably not, but that's a different story.)
Today I read in Dan Pearce's post "Stoned to Death" about his fear of coming out as bisexual:
...Most of the rocks came in the form of dogmatic religious teachings. Since I was a young child, I was made to sit through countless church sermons and Sunday school lessons which focused on the topic. I was made to attend special events as a teenager where grown men stood before us and insisted that God had declared it… being anything other than straight was a really, really bad sin...
It goes on. If you haven't read it, you should.
Part of my failure of imagination in this matter is that I can't conceive of a church where that would even be mentioned. Right, Episcopal dioceses are splitting up over this issue, but if it has been mentioned from a pulpit in my presence, I was not paying attention.
Makes me wonder what else I have missed.
