Coming Out Strong

Lawrence King?s young life tragically ended in his junior high computer lab in Oxnard, California. Larry, who identified as gay and sometimes dressed in a ?feminine? manner, made the mistake of asking his fellow student, Brandon McInerney, to be his valentine. Apparently the idea of this was so abhorrent and shameful to the fourteen year old Brandon that he brought a gun to school, walked into the classroom, and shot Larry directly in the head.

It is tempting to gasp, express dismay, and then convince oneself that this is an isolated incident that is tragic but, thankfully, an anomaly. However, this dismissal ignores the disturbing statistic from the 2005 California Healthy Kids Survey that 28% of gay and lesbian students report being threatened or injured with a weapon, a rate that is five times that of other students and consistent with national findings. In such an environment, it is no wonder that social engagement, educational aspirations and overall academic achievement can suffer. Students who experience harassment because of sexual orientation or gender expression are more likely to skip school, drop out, reject college, suffer from depression and substance abuse, and under perform academically.

Both the Mennonite Church and Church of the Brethren have included language in their sexuality statements that expresses sorrow at the violence and hatred directed towards gay and lesbian people and calls for understanding and even the pursuit of civil rights (note: bisexual and transgender people are not included in the statements ? the obsession is with ?the homosexual.?) Such sentiments, however, have had little impact. This year BMC proposed a booth for the exhibit space at the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference that would focus solely upon providing education related to lgbt hate crimes, job discrimination and housing discrimination. The request was denied, with the committee citing homosexuality as ?an issue which causes passionate divisiveness in our denomination.? It is a telling comment when violence directed towards lgbt people is understood as ?the issue of homosexuality.? Is anti-Semitic violence the ?issue of Judaism??

In practice it is difficult to interpret pious denominational words as little more than an exercise in cheap grace. What efforts have any of the denominations made? What can they point towards in terms of fulfilling this promise? Where have they made a difference? I can think of no instance where the Mennonite Church USA, the Mennonite Church Canada or the Church of the Brethren has spoken out to challenge lgbt directed violence, discrimination or the violation of human or civil rights. Indeed, denominational officials from Mennonite Church Canada were vociferous in their opposition to marriage equality. The courageous congregations and the few pastors who have taken seriously this message of non-violence and understanding have found themselves becoming targets of discipline, derision and hostility.

Lawrence King is dead. May he find a peace that was denied him in life. Brandon McInerney, age 14, will probably spend most of his life in prison. Thousands of young lgbt kids have just gotten the message to be very careful about coming out or displaying any type of gender non-conformity. All are victims of a tragic homophobia that is reinforced by the policies and practices of the Mennonite and Brethren denominations. It is up to each of us to end this shameful complicity. Speak up, come out, talk to your friends, challenge your congregation, demand that your pastor break silence, organize your campus, ask more of the larger church, and get involved in the movement for lgbt justice. For the sake of other young people like Lawrence King and Brandon McInerney, it?s time.

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At this point, it seems somewhat likely that beginning January 21, 2009, a new Democratic administration of the United States will start working to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and beef up Hate Crimes laws. Glad to hear it. What isn’t clear yet is whether the discussion around same-sex marriage/civil unions will be about “what is achievable,” “state’s rights,” “a man’s journey,” or “the separation of Church and State” (all themes from the recent HRC/Logo forum). The Democratic front runners (the Republicans declined the invitation) want us to know that they are all for lgbt equality… as long is it doesn’t interfere with their chances of getting elected by including marriage equality. It is encouraging to hear that in the coming election, the most electable Democratic position is 90% gay friendly (not as good as 100% gay friendly but we will take what we can get for now). We’ve come a long way in the last few years but plenty of work remains.

I don’t have more to say about either Edwards or Richardson for now but I think Clinton should fire whoever came up with those state’s rights talking points. Didn’t we learn anything from the civil rights movement? State’s Rights is code language for “long, painful, tortured journey to someone else’s equality” now just as much as it was forty or fifty years ago. She should know better than that.

What I really want to address is Obama’s call for the separation of Church and State, which, for him, somehow means separate but equal (he, of all people, should know where that gets us). I first heard him go down this road during the CNN/YouTube debates. He didn’t seem to have a very good grasp of his own talking points and he ended up confusing even himself with his tortured explanation. He did quite a bit better in the HRC/Logo forum as he seemed to have prepped with his aides more and at least didn’t confuse himself. When he was done I said to myself “well…that’s almost a good idea.” Read the rest of this entry

So, as it happens, I didn’t manage to keep writing throughout the week at San Jose or even give a report from the San Francisco conference. For that, I am sorry. If you are hoping for regular posts on this blog, I’m afraid I will have a hard time filling that bill on my own. If other voices want to add their two cents, we might get closer to regular posting. Sign up or email me if you want to share - kaleidoscope@bmclgbt.org.

I do want to share one little bit I found interesting during one of the presentations at the Mennonite Conference in San Jose. One of the items that the delegate body voted on was a resolution (pdf) in support of bill in the US Congress to “acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.” Part of the presentation before this vote included some words by Steve Cheramie Risingsun, a Chitimacha Indian who leads Native Mennonite congregations in Louisiana and Alabama. You can read more about it at the Mennonite Weekly Review article.

The thing that I found particularly interesting about this was a comment made by Risingsun. He was talking about the various ways white colonizers mistreated Native Americans and tried to take away their culture and were generally pretty nasty. He said that there was a phrase that was often used by these white folks: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”

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I posted this first bit a little while ago here at young.anabaptistradicals.org but I’m adding more at the end to update the situation.

The US House of Representatives just passed hate crimes legislation that would extend hate crimes protections to be based on gender, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity in addition to current protections for race, religion, color, and national origin. It still has to go through the Senate and then face veto by you know who.

The thing that really blows me away is that people are actually against this, and that those people happen to call themselves Chrisitians. Now, if folks have a problem with the idea of hate crimes protections in general, eh, I would be happy to discuss that. But the idea that some groups of people should get protections while other groups (groups which happen to experience a disproportionate amount of hate crimes) should not is completely ridiculous. As it happens, the religious right is coming out en force against hate crimes protections for lgbt people. I linked this article about this (really, check it out, it’s a good one) in an earlier post.

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