Perfect enemies.

January 5, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Do you remember the expression, “The Perfect is the enemy of the Good”?  People will never get Good stuff done if they are only satisfied with Perfect. The lust for Perfection makes us unsatisfied, even angry with what is Good.

I have seen this in people’s lives — in the search for that Perfect boyfriend or husband material, in endless shopping sprees, in home improvement projects that went 200% over budget, you name it.  Most of all I see it in how people treat people.

This seems to be an endemic trait with gay men, especially. The image I have of the “best little boy in the world” is someone who grew up trying to be Perfect in order to be loved and accepted.  Even before we could understand why we wouldn’t be loved, why we might be rejected, we intuitively started striving to be Perfect.

And as we got older and began to suspect “it” at the deepest levels of our consciousness, we hoped maybe that if we were Perfect in every other way, somehow our variant sexuality could be overlooked or condoned.

(I use the term variant sexuality because it is non-judgmental.  I have spent too many years deflecting criticism of what others defined as deviant sexuality.  The denotation of “variant” and “deviant” is practically the same — meaning something that varies or deviates from a “norm.”  But the word “various” does not have the same connotation as “devious.”  But, hey!  Am I just searching for the Perfect adjective because of a lifelong habit of not being satisfied with a Good adjective?).

At some point maybe a dozen years back I began to try to unload this Perfectionism.  Was it an acquaintance who told me I was a Perfectionist?  And I argued, Perfectly of course, that I am not a Perfectionist.  It’s just that other people are all such slackers!  But like heavy baggage with no handles or wheels, I began to set down this Perfectionism.  I have just as much right to breathe the air on this planet as all other living beings.  I do not have to earn my right to be a live and be myself anymore than I have to “earn” God’s grace (which after all is defined as a “gift”).

As the years go by, of course, I’ve never gotten completely free of Perfectionism, mine or others’ stifling desire to be better, superior, ultimate.  As a friend recently said of the gay people in his congregation, “it’s never done until it’s overdone.”  I’ve gotten sucked into projects or jobs with other people who are obsessed with Perfectionism, and will bring the Good to a grinding halt if it can’t be Perfect.
Perfectionism seeps into relationships, I have found, when I do something Good (a good deed, a good job, a good time, or a good look) but my friend or spouse or co-worker almost subconsciously points out that it might have, or could have, or should have been done better.  And the words of a wise counselor of years ago come back to me:  Don’t “should” on people!

The Perfect devalues the Good. And the Perfect guy looks down his nose on Good guys. But since none of us is actually Perfect —not in God’s sight and not in one another’s finely -tuned tastes and sensibilities—we keep up a pretense of Perfection, or the pursuit of Perfection, which deep down is eating away at our humanity, eroding our self-esteem, and poisoning our friendships, intimate relationships and loyalties.

But shouldn’t we always strive to be “better” human beings?  I think that’s the Calvinist Sunday School lesson which so many little gay boys internalized like homophobia (and as gay men wind up pouring out of their memories on therapists’ couches).  Well, perhaps.  But maybe being a “better” human being would actually mean to better accept people for who they are (think:  Serenity Prayer), to better know my own limitations, and to make the world a better place just by getting Good stuff done in my life rather than being blocked by a desire for the Perfect.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Sex, Homophobia, Living by Grace, PRAYERS, Recovery, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Pray for the Bobbies of this world.

January 3, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I met Leroy Aarons over 13 years ago at a book signing put on by one of those downtown L.A. gay/lesbian mixers.  Aarons, an award-winning journalist and playwright, had produced a remarkable book that looks at a fundamentalist Christian family with compassion and sympathy.  Bobby Griffith was a nice clean-cut American boy who discovered, much to his mother’s horror, that he was homosexual.  She tried desperately to change him, shame, him, pray him, force him into repenting of this terrible sin — as she saw it from the perspective of her religious stronghold, a very conservative suburban Califiornia church.  (And you thought only fringy-kooky liberals inhabit the Golden State?)

Bobby did two notable things which made Leroy Aaron’s book possible, and his Mother’s transformation imperative.  First, he kept a journal, a diary, of his pain, progress and setbacks in trying to understand himself and God.  And second, he took his own life.

Prayers for Bobby has just come out as a Lifetime Networks/Once Upon a Time Films production starring Sigourney Weaver, and is being screened at the Gindi Auditorium of the American Jewish University, on Tuesday, Januayar 13.    The release poster doesn’t seem to have a website, so I’m posting it here.  You have to call for reservations by January 12.  Don’t miss it.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Doctrine, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, PRAYERS, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

The real gift of Christmas, oh my!

December 25, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’m still trying to get out a decoration or two at this hour — why bother, except that we are expecting a couple of dinner guests, lonely hearts who had no other place to go. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take time to blog on Christmas Day.

But after a rich and rewarding Christmas Eve service last night, I am still thinking about those who have no other place to go or to be on this day, to give and receive some love.

Fortunately, we had enough gifts come in last night so that I will be able once again (our fifth year) to take our annual gift cards to the 24 young people at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center in Hollywood. This is a residential program for runaways, throw-aways, kids who are trying to get back up after a hopeless descent into drugs or other addictions, even street prostitution or crime. Their stories would break my hart, except for the tangible love and spectacular results that the Center gets in helping youth get the life skills and job applications it takes for them to be self-sufficient and self-respecting.

But there are so many others out there. The Jeff Griffith program only has 24 beds, and the number of homeless street kids in Hollywood and Los Angeles is fearful — by some estimates in the thousands.

And I am thinking about the tens of thousands of LGBT people (and those for whom the four initials do not describe their life experience and self-understanding) who may be alone at Christmas simply because they have no one who listens, no one who understands or wants to understand, their hearts and the psyches.

The trouble with Christmas as many people see it is as the ultimate family holiday — where people who fit nicely into conventional families get to celebrate their normalcy and belonging, to the exclusion of those who don’t fit or don’t even have family.

But the Christmas Gospels tell a story which doesn’t support this, and tugs at our hearts to be open to those who aren’t in “conventional” families. (Of course, what is conventional nowadays, when more than half of all marriages end in divorces?) The Christmas Gospel tales touch on all the things that “nice” people want to forget or avoid, especially at the holidays.

• Mary and Joseph weren’t married. Were it not for Joseph’s willingness to swallow his pride and to avoid his legal rights to have Mary severely punished, Jesus would have been illegitimate.
• There was no room for them. The night Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were far from home and actually homeless.
• Where were their friends? Where was Mary’s mother, for Christ’s sake? The story implies the two of them had to deal with the birth themselves, in a dirty stable. Obviously, they were not economically prepared for this birth, the sudden travel, the lack of accommodations, the dirty conditions.
• Within a short time (weeks?) the “Holy Family” had to flee for their lives. They became political refugees in a foreign land, in order to avoid the genocidal and evil King Herod, who had all the infants of Bethlehem murdered out of jealousy of a potential rival.
• Most of all, they had to trust their own visions and dreams — their own discernment that God was working a great deed and a wonderful miracle through their faithfulness. That is the Christmas Gospel in a nutshell.

None of us knows 100% if God is working through us, either, unless we trust our own discernment. I haven’t been sure since launching this blog—primarily to reach out to LGBT Christians and others—that it is a god thing to do, or worth the effort. But then I checked the web statistics, and see there have been over 29,000 unique visits. That totally humbles me. It sort of worries me that I must personally probe more deeply, asa gay Christian, to discern what God is already doing that I should be a part of.But today God is doing what we understand so beautifully: God is coming to us again, and it is a gift of pure grace. If we can only discern this grace (Christ is a gift, life is a gift, we are God’s gifts to others), we can turn the world upside down. And we can find the home, family, warmth and welcome, that so many people do not have today. Quoting Mother Teresa—which I saw not in some pious book but painted on the wall of a nearby restaurant on Vermont just a block from our church—”Noone can help everybody, but everybody can help some one.”

We can be God’s gift to another person—to listen, to understand, to welcome, to uphold when lonely and confusing times in her or his life seem overwhelming. Forget the stuff and the gift wrap and the tinsel. Be the gift someone is longing to receive.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Hollywood, Faith, Living by Grace, Spirituality, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

Obama, the Whirlwind and the Serenity Prayer

December 22, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Rick Warren to give an invocation on the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a.k.a., Inauguration Day. But I am just as mystified as the next gay.

Wayne Besen (www.truthwinsout.org), who is usually insightful and on target, has ventured that maybe Obama is smarter than the rest of us, since he is well known already as turning conventional wisdom on its head and succeeding. “This olive branch to evangelical Christians, who largely supported John McCain,” writes Besen, “felt more like poison ivy to gay and lesbian voters, who overwhelmingly cast ballots for Obama.” (”The Rick Warren Whirlwind“.)

Typically, I ignore mega-churches as personality cults on steroids, if I don’t vilify them entirely. Mega churches also seem to blossom in the rich soil of America’s obsession with success —the suburban accumulation of wealth, power and prestige. The mega churches with which I am familiar are all rooted in upwardly mobile suburbs, or in places where the people who passionately desire that lifestyle can get to them.

Yes, wealth, power, prestige and mega-anything are all matters of lifestyle. No wonder the religious right uses that term on us. The very word must be on their lips all the time.

In October, I sat down at the same table with some evangelical Christian leaders —all representing independent Christian ministries (beware those who label themselves “non-denominational.” Read: not accountable to any larger entity), and some heterosexual non-judgmental types. They are exploring the building of bridges between the evangelical churches on the right and the welcoming/reconciling churches on the left.

I am still trying to be sympathetic to their reconciling offer, but the days after the November 4 “Yes on 8″ victory, I was sorely tempted to cut off any conversation. What was especially bitter is that a representative of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Country Club was in on the first meeting I attended. If she hadn’t been such a sweet young pastor’s wife I might have gotten testy on the spot.

It is clear that Warren’s Club is “the Unwelcome Place”, as this blog quotes/summarizes for you:

Finally, a word about being judgmental. It’s not judgmental to say that what the Bible calls a sin is a sin, that’s just telling the truth. Not being willing to talk to someone caught up in sin, or not believing that they can be forgiven, or thinking that you are not just as much in need of Jesus as they are … that’s being judgmental.Because membership in a church is an outgrowth of accepting the Lordship and leadership of Jesus in one’s life, someone unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted at a member at Saddleback Church. That does not mean they cannot attend church – we hope they do! God’s Word has the power to change our lives.

Well, yes, Rick, it does have the power to change our lives. God’s Word has changed my life enormously over the years. But God’s Word, like worrying, has not changed a lot of things that I used to sincerely pray about. God’s word has not made me one inch taller (Matthew 6:27) for example, nor one point straighter on Alfred Kinsey’s scale. I am frequently in conversation with God about my shortcomings, my failures, my limitations and the darkness that sometimes lurks in my psyche. With the power of God, I think I am gradually becoming a better human being, but I am not so foolish as to suppose that whatever I do I am somehow able to shine it on with God. In fact, my conversation with God have led me more each day to realize that I am on God’s good side purely and only by reason of grace. Not self-denial, not abstention, not self-hatred, not spiritual warfare, not loneliness or lovelessness.The truth is, being lesbian or gay or transgender or any of a thousand other measures of human variety and distinctiveness, seem to be the work of a diverse and creative God who is not nearly as upset about our human variations as fundagelicals are. If I were to take on another prayer campaign with even greater confidence in the power of God’s word, I would have to use the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

If I were a little more mean-spirited, I would ask Mr. Obama if he had ever tried praying away his black skin. After all, the power of God’s word can change our lives, right? But maybe Mr. Warren can make that suggestion to Mr. Obama in person.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Fundamentalism, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Living by Grace, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

Wrong Choice, Right Choice and Privilege

December 20, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’ve been doing some more thinking about whether LGBT people “choose” their sexuality, and I’ve concluded that when others make that accusation, it’s not even about us, it’s about them.  Here is the entry I’ve added to gaycatechism.net.

Whether being a sexual minority is a choice is going to continue to captivate the public policy debates, the “culture wars” and the anxiety in the churches. For right-wing Christians, “choice” equates with “sin.” To be lesbian or gay or transgender is the “wrong choice.” And to be bisexual seems to prove their point (even if it is a gross misunderstanding of bisexuality).

We should remember that mainstream, conservative rejection of us is not isolated from mainstream conservative rejection of many other things in our changing society.

Fundamental to the persuasion that we have a choice (in this case, about our sexual orientation) is that the supremacist/racist/heterosexist and upwardly-achieving class is that they have made all the right choices in life, which explains and justifies their positions of privilege. It is about them and the superiority of their achievement, lifestyle, ethnic purity, education, marriage and nuclear family. It is “all about them,” and the god they have invented to bless them for making all the good choices.

Seen in that harsh light ~ yes, it is a harsh critique ~ LGBT people are only one category of human beings on which the right wing is inclined to look down. Heterosexual privilege is closely linked with economic privilege and class, with white privilege, conservative Christian privilege, and ultimately political privilege. The key thing for you and I to understand is that we should not have to defend ourselves against the view that we have made a “wrong choice” in our innate sexuality.

Quite the opposite, those who claim all manner of privilege in our society should feel the need to defend their accumulation of privilege. The Bible and the Christian Gospel make it clear that God does not identify with the privileged, but with the poor in spirit, the hungry, and the oppressed.

So says Jesus in the beatitudes which begin his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–12):

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

And so says Mary in her poem of praise to the Almighty when she hears the announcement by the angel that she will bear a son:

. . . “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. . . .

“He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

In our reading of Scripture, we dare to claim the grace and favor of God because we read the Scripture not from the position of privilege, but from the position of oppression. We no longer imagine God to be the Ultimate Control Freak, whose strict moral law tightly controls every aspect of our lives, but the God who rights what is wrong in this world by turning it right-side up: bringing down those people who cling to and rationalize their privilege “in the thoughts of their hearts,” and lifting up those who have been reviled, persecuted and the object of all kinds of evil accusations. 

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Living by Grace | Print | No Comments »

What if it is a choice?

December 18, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

The United Nations General Assembly is hearing a French statement this week about “human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including torture, arbitrary arrest, killings, political, social and economic discrimination and the criminalization of same-sex love.”

Lisa Neff’s cogent and thorough opinion (“The Sins of the Pope”) on 365Gay.com is helpful and clear in trying to get people to see moral issues in a clear light that does not allow hypocrisy to hide.

There are still 86 nations in the world which criminalize sexual behavior between persons of the same sex, and 7of them stipulate the death penalty. But as Neff reasons, the Roman Catholic Church is less concerned about the death penalty for intimate same-sex acts than it is about discrimination against people who discriminate!

“All the European Union members, as well as a number of non-EU countries and Latin American nations, have signed on to the statement to decriminalize homosexuality. The United States, however, has not signed on to the document.

To anyone’s surprise?

And the Vatican has taken a stand against the statement.

To anyone’s surprise?”

Since the Vatican has publicly stated over and over that homosexuality is intrinsically “disordered” it believes that open season for discrimination against us should not be limited.

“In defense of the Vatican’s opposition, Archbishop Celestino Migliore said a statement to decriminalize homosexuality would lead to bias against those who discriminate against gays and lesbians. ‘If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations,’ Migliore told Reuters. ‘For example, states which do not recognize same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.’”

Neff’s point is that the death penalty, which some segments of the Roman Catholic Church have publicly opposed, is apparently less serious a moral violation than two people of the same sex being in love.What’s wrong with this picture? It is all too easy to throw it all at the feet of Roman Catholic teaching (and of course at the feet of the United States of America, which has dragged its feet on virtually everything good and decent from human rights to the Kyoto protocols). There is a lot to throw down there, including the fact that the same Roman Catholic Church which, during the Inquisition five centuries ago, executed heretics and “faggots” by burning them at the stake, has never recanted from it’s medieval evil. The Vatican’s Office of the Inquisition never actually shut down. It is still in existence more than 500 years later, but it was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and, until recently, was headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict, whose papal name means “blessed” apparently sees little internal conflict between being blessed and attacking the right of human beings to live without fear of brutal violence and execution simply for being who they are.Ahh, but here is the rub. The intractable Roman Catholic view is that homosexual behavior is not intrinsic — it’s not about who we are but how we behave. Behavior can be modified, they insist. Human beings can desist from doing evil, and choose the good. Of course they haven’t asked us if any of this fits our life experience. And of course they haven’t explained what is so morally evil about two people, who happen to be of the same biological sex, loving one another. What if it is a choice? What makes it an evil choice in their view?

No, they have simply defined our way of being as a propensity for an evil behavior. And they make clear, over and over, decade after decade, that their moral view for Roman Catholics should prevail over all human beings also.

Sadly, Vatican reasoning is not based on any rational construction of theological teaching. It is based on the irrational and circular reasoning that human beings should not have the human right to just be different. Their irrational point of view is based of course on the idea that homosexuality is not a given in the human personality or human nature, but is a choice. They reject the empirically verifiable evidence that human beings are in deed quite different from one another, in thousands of physical, psychological, and emotional ways. For such Luddites, any variation or difference from the norm which the Vatican has designed is clear evidence of sin, moral error, disorder, or evil.

Our movement has spent decades trying to explain, convince and defend the point of view that the homosexual orientation is not a matter of choice but is a given for a minority of the population – a minority which remains pretty consistent across the centuries and the cultures of the world. The Vatican point of view simply rejects this—and 40 years worth of psychological research and studies—because it is foundational for their entire system of prejudice. To admit that human beings do not choose, but discern, their sexual orientation would collapse even quasi-rational theological and legal arguments to defend prejudice.

In his first book, Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama, summarizes the internal dissonance he began to feel as a child when he first became aware of prejudice and racism, and I think his description fits our experience of irrational homophobia equally well. He explains his reaction to seeing a Life magazine photograph of a black man who had tried to peel off his own skin:

I suspect I was one of the luckier ones, having been given a stretch of childhood free from self-doubt. . . . But that one photograph had told me something else: that there was a hidden enemy out there, one that could reach me without anyone’s knowledge, not even my own. When I got home that night . . . I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror with all my senses and limbs seemingly intact, looking as I had always looked, and wondering if something was wrong with me. The alternative seemed no less frightening— that the adults around me lived in the midst of madness. [New York, Three Rivers Press, 1995, 2004, pp. 51-52.]

With the election of Obama as President we might comfort ourselves that the racism which fueled terrible violations of human rights, including cruelty, violence and the death penalty for centuries against people who are of a different color, is on the wane. But don’t look for the defenders of systemic homophobia, such as 86 nations of the world and the Roman Catholic Church, to change any time soon.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Homophobia, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

Help, my eyeballs can’t stop rolling!

December 10, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Hearing recently on MSNBC that Pat Boone had become completely unbalanced (not the same as unbiased) in comparing the terrible Mumbai terrorist massacres with the demonstrators in the streets of California who hope to overturn Proposition 8, I think my eyeballs have become permanently stuck—rolled as far back as they can roll!

Leave it to Joe’s blog to link this to a previous column on “World Nut Daily” in which Boone does suggest that the pro-gay marriage forces are juhadists. After trying to link Obama with the 9/11 terrorists, the Christian folk singer/wingnut says, “The jihadists in these organized, hugely funded attacks on our morality and virtue are not Middle Eastern – they’re homegrown Americans who actually believe they’re promoting a better America by destroying the foundations on which this nation was built!”

Joe, whose profile can be found on MySpace, claims to be a 49 year old biological male in New York, and does as credible job of covering anti-gay religious news.

Help! We’re oppressed!  After years of psychological advances in which individuals and classes of people have tried to stop whining about being victims (and therefore being co-dependent with their victimizers or oppressors), now the fundamentalist Christians seem to be taking over this role.  The Moral Majority of Ronald Reagan’s days has become the Oppressed Majority because demonstrators have taken to the streets to say “Shame!”

The context of Boone’s wacky remarks are the street demonstrations of people who are furious about Proposition 8 squeaking into law. I’ve attended these street demonstrations here in Los Angeles – a spontaneous combination of webanatics, liberals or libertarians, old-style gay activists, you name it. But “organized, hugely funded attacks on our morality and virtue” they are not.

Especially the “hugely funded” part. We spent our wad on the “No on 8″ campaign. Who has anything left?

Isn’t there a place for senile Christian class-B folk song singers to go when their capacity for reason has atrophied? Apparently Pat is too far gone to realize that the extremism of his rants and ludicrous accusations actually help our side. In the long haul, what do we have to fear if there are only moneyed Mormons and nitwit fundagelicals like that foul-mouthed “babdist” preacher form Topeka on the other side?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Dangerous new activists write mission statement

December 4, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Last night I attended the back half of a long meeting of Act Up Now (morphing from Unite the Fight), as they continued to organize themselves into a new movement for direct action for equal rights for lesbian and gay people. Specifically: marriage rights, but they may not stop there. The meeting, involving about 25 women and men, was primarily a double committee meeting gearing up for the next big thing:

Next Thursday, their first Town Hall meeting will be held December 11, 7:30 p.m. (at Hollywood Lutheran Church, 1733 N. New Hampshire Avenue, Los Angeles 90027, the No On 8 Church).

What was interesting to watch was the dynamics of a new movement being born, and the temper of today’s activists. This group in Los Angeles (”Son of Act Up”) has a new mission; these are new times, and they are finding new energy.

Although it might seem that “direct action” is highly confrontational or angry or violent, this group of thirty-somethings and older were hardly any of that. They have careers after all, even SAG cards. And they peaceably used their basic knowledge of Roberts Rules of Order to make and second motions, allow for discussion and then vote, for example, on their mission statement. Some were concerned that “direct action” tends to sound violent to the media, and in its coverage of recent street marches, we were portrayed as angry (correct) and dangerous (not correct). “Carry candles,” I whispered. “You always look peaceful carrying candles.”

Another snag was whether to speak for the rights of Queer people, or should that be Queer folk? Or Lesbian and gay people?  Or gay and Lesbian people?  What words are inclusive, specific, not too cumbersome, not alienating? Passed over were acronyms like LGBTQ.

The man next to me wondered what “Q” meant in that string. “Questioning,” I whispered, temporarily feeling like I am very much “in the know,” enchufado. Truthfully, where has he been?

But why use the word “questioning” as part of the beneficiaries of direct action to secure equal marriage rights? Would a “questioning” person have to propose to another “questioning” person in order to enter a same-gender marriage?  The group more or less reached consensus that they are ready to fight for equal marriage rights for Lesbian and gay people because those are the people who have lost their equal rights with the ballot “victory” of Proposition 8 one month ago.

Not that bisexual and transgender, queer and questioning people haven’t also been set back by ballot box bigotry. The folks on the other side, who pretend they are protecting or preserving traditional marriage are still the same people who wanted and have fought hard for two decades to deprive all of us of all of our rights: the right of a gay/lesbian person to teach in California schools (the Briggs initiative), the right to secure housing and employment.  They could hardly have used a “preserving traditional employment” argument, for example. When Anita Bryant mounted her successful campaign in Dade County Florida more than 30 years ago to rescind the rights of Lesbian and gay people, it was to deprive them of their inherent right to work. “Homosexuals will wear dresses to work,” she cried with her sweet Florida orange juice smile, as if that should be self-evident to all decent people.

As if to illustrate what “decent people” (my term) might mean to activists in 2008, the term “all sexual minorities” was also rejected by consensus. Why? Because, as one person ventured, that could imply we were fighting for all kinds of sexual fetishes. Others nodded in recognition of a dangerous semantic opening for our enemies to slam us again.

There are a lot of fringe people out there, like the men of NAMBLA who want to legalize “inter-generational” sex (sex with underage kids), or who simply pursue sexual expression through fantasies and acts that I can’t fully imagine let alone want to describe (including heterosexual ones). Is this avoidance of such fringe populations another sign that an oppressed minority in willing to step on other oppressed minorities below them in order to climb higher?

Hardly. For years in this so-called culture war, our detractors have successfully been able to portray all Lesbian and gay ~ and bisexual and transgender people (although those categories are hardly on their radar) ~ as twisted sexual perverts who want to carry on all kinds of really depraved sexual acts. Well, today’s activism for marriage is not an effort to decriminalize the statutory rape of minors, or to legalize sex acts in public parks and restrooms (sorry, Senator).

Activism for marriage is a movement toward accepting responsibilities for another person and seeking equal civil rights to protect one’s own relationship from the harsh realities of the world.  We aren’t trying to protect marriage in general, in the abstract (and not in the imagination of Christian conservatives).  Marriage can take care of itself. This movement is fighting to protect our own commitments with the equality to which we are entitled under the law.

As to these other groups? If they have serious civil rights issues, they will have to light their own candles.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Sex, Hollywood, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

A new “front line” in the “culture wars”

November 24, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I am still working slowly on the materials for an extended Gay Catechism, which I announced last spring. But since that time, the amazing window of light opened for same-gender marriage, and the election, with all its promise and problems, slammed down upon us. Obama is ready to change America (read: undo most of what Bush had done?), but now Proposition 8 has to be fought all over again in the court and the culture.

But the need for the Gay Catechism still tugs at me. I continue to meet people who are surprised that I am a church pastor and openly gay. Last week we got an extended “hate message” on the church answering service, although the lady who recorded her anti-gay sermon into the telephone probably didn’t think she was being hateful. Every time an LGBT person gets slammed with such stunning and ignorant rejection, however, it is harder to believe that there is anything redeeming about the Christian faith.

What disturbs me most is that the culture war, and the legal war, have very few “front lines.” The lawyers, ours and theirs, prepare their briefs. People sign onto Amicus briefs without ever meeting the authors. Funds are raised by the tens of millions on both sides of them marriage issue, and the demagogues like Dobson and Robertson continue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from sourpuss Christians who think that we are trying to destroy their faith and their nation, and must be stopped. (As if these two guys in their late 70s are going to save America from homosexuality.)

But on our side, now the blogs and start-up web sites are mounting a powerful campaign to overturn Proposition 8. Even if the California Supreme Court doesn’t see it our way when it finally hears the consolidated cases in March 2009, the battle will be on to reverse Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot. But either date is a long time to wait to have my marriage recognized.

Where would the “front lines” be? Direct one-on-one conversation with those who disagree. Carl’s work friend who lives in a conservative neighborhood did march across the street to talk to a neighbor with a “Yes on 8″ yard sign, and talked him in to understanding our point of view. That’s a front line. But the lady who left the cranky, self-righteous phone message is no warrior. She didn’t give a name or number because she doesn’t want to listen to our side of the argument. Oh, well.

But now my work on the Gay Catechism has slowed (you can check out some of these materials at www.gaycatechism.net), in part because I have too much passion to fight on all fronts. The sudden movement to stop/block/overturn/invalidate Proposition 8 fired me up again last week to launch the site www.NoOn8Church.org (or www.NoOnH8Church.org). There I am trying to assembly all things godly and strategic in the righteous battle to get ride of this discriminatory law. The site is brand-new, but you will find things like God Talk, Why Yes Won, What’s Next, Money|Politics, Headlines, and Issues & Ideas, including Can I Still Get Married?, Legal Issues, Stop “Protecting” Marriage, etc.

I guess for now the web site is my own, and our church’s, “front line.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Why “Yes” won and the welcoming churches were quiet.

November 21, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’ve been reflecting a lot ever since November 4 about why the “Yes on Proposition 8″ side won, and the whole thing has gotten me upset enough to launch a web site, “NoOn8Church.”  There are many factors, which I examine there (see the Why Yes Won page), but here I am concentrating on the “liberal” churches–those that openly welcome LGBT people but who haven’t done much of anything to speak on behalf of marriage equality.

Unknown to many LGBT people who aren’t religious (or who used to be but were burned), the Christian churches are all over the spectrum on the issues regarding human sexuality. We see the headlines that one or another denomination is engaged in a big fight over gay ministers or gay marriage, etc. What we may not realize is that the struggles within churches means that churches are not uniformly hateful and rejecting.

For more than 30 years, many denominations have been actively working in Christian coalitions and congregations. What began as closeted support groups for lesbians and gay men who were deeply conflicted over being homosexual has grown into a movement to identify, educate, advocate and link thousands of congregations who are opening their doors, their arms and their minds to sexual minorities.

Among Lutherans, the Reconciling in Christ movement of Lutherans Concerned/North America dates back to the 1970s. Over four hundred Lutheran congregations have adopted an “Affirmation of Welcome” to explicitly and publicly say that LGBT people are entirely welcome. They have been joined by entire Synods and institutions of the national church. Our national Conference of Bishops and Church Council have said the same. There are Christian churches in most major cities which have not only invited us inside but have stood with us in the streets. Bishops have been arrested for demonstrating against their own church bodies’ negative policies, and it is only a matter of time before those policies are junked once and for all.

Religion is still a powerful force in America, but unfortunately it is the conservative, or “fundagelical,” reacitonary church which seems to be growing.  Right-wing leaders are only too happy to tell the media and the public that they speak for all Christians.  Hogwash!  It is time for LGBT people of faith to stand with the open, welcoming, affirming or reconciling churches to strengthen their witness to all Christians.  There is nothing inherently anti-sexual or anti-homosexual in the teachings of Christ, and all open and loving Christians need to keep preaching that message.

The Proposition 8 fight illustrated this all too well. Conservative churches openly lobbied their own members for Yes votes and threw their money generously in favor of homophobia and bigotry.  Liberal churches, with few exceptions, still weren’t so sure they could legally speak out at all.  Conservatives spread the blatant lies that churches could lose their tax exempt status and be forced to marry homosexuals, inviolation of their own beliefs.

Liberal churches did almost nothing. If this brutal campaign accomplishes nothing else, it has to jar liberal and open Christian churches to become involved in public policy issues, speak out on pending legislation, and encourage individual believers to put their money where their faith is. African American churches pushed the first civil rights agenda effectively, and the “moral majority” exploited conservative churches for their agenda. When are the rest of us going to wake up?

I am proud to serv a  congregation which said No on Proposition 8, and still has its signs up to prove it!

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Caught totally off-guard by small-town politics.

November 19, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

 

I serve on the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles—one of almost 100 small and serious councils of ordinary citizens–volunteers all–who vet public issues for their neighbors and attempt to provide a link between citizens and City Hall.  In a city as large as Los Angeles, the GGPNC could represent as many as 30,000–40,000 residents–certainly equivalent to many small towns in America. Although my position representing the religious community is by appointment, most members of the council actually have to stand for election in their districts. Each of these little districts—A, B, C, D and E—have populations as large as Wasilla, Alaska, for what it’s worth.

The view of Los Angeles from Griffith Park, crowns our neighborhood.

A view over Wasilla, Alaska.  Cute.

Last night’s meeting caught me totally by surprise when we came to agenda item #11, put up by a straight man just elected last June:  to adopt a motion against discrimination in any form and to ask the Los Angeles City Council to express opposition to Proposition 8 to the California Supreme Court.

I seconded the motion, but it was immediately fenced in by council members nervous about whether a local neighborhood council had any business telling the State of California what to do (in my experience it is a typical conservative reaction to say “we shouldn’t be talking about this”), and by people who just can’t resist word-smithing somebody else’s prose.

I didn’t speak up at first, because I found it interesting to watch this overwhelmingly heterosexual council toss around my issue and the significance of my life and my marriage. Nearly everybody who spoke was opposed to, embarrassed by, and extremely aggravated by the narrow approval of Proposition 8 by California voters. I was really surprised by their open-mindedness.

Our agendas are usually long and filled with nuts and bolts matters, so the time given to this discussion also amazed me. Eventually the president of the council, an attorney in his day job, temporarily relinquished the chair to one of the V.P.’s and spoke for himself rather passionately about our council’s rightful purview in taking positions on matters of public policy that affect residents and stakeholders in the community.

Finally I raised my hand and was recognized, so this was my moment to come out to the neighborhood council directly. My life and ministry are no secret, since our October 11 marriage had already been published in the November Los Feliz Ledger (buried on page 20), and my spouse was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times last weekend. But in a city as large as Los Angeles, your next-door neighbor may never catch the published news blurb about you.

So in the interests of transparency and full-disclosure, I told the council about officiating over more than a dozen same-sex weddings, and about getting married in October. My main point was to mention that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and two city councilmembers had spoken forcefully against Proposition 8 at last Saturday’s rally on the steps of City Hall, but that our own councilmember, Tom LaBonge, was conspicuous by his absence.

One of his staff, who was seated behind me, immediately assured the whole group that Mr. LaBonge is also opposed to Proposition 8.  Later in the meeting, a deputy for State Assemblymember Paul Krekorian assured me that Krekorian has also weighed in against Proposition 8, a risky business for an Armenian in a substantially Armenian district.

But apparently my revelation was not news:  people had seen the Ledger and Times articles.

If the Greater Griffith Park neighborhood is equivalent to a small town, our neighborhood is decidedly to the left of small towns elsewhere. After the word-smithing was done, the resolution was passed without dissenting voice.

“The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council does not support discrimination of any kind. The passage of Proposition 8 will incorporate discrimination in the constitution of the State of California. We call on all elected officials of the City of Los Angeles to publicly express opposition to Proposition 8 and urge them to take action to overturn Proposition 8.”

It is not in “coming out gay” but in “coming out gay and married” which is truly transforming the day-to-day relationships in our “small town” neighborhood.  I am sure there are others who are uptight about me and my presence in one of the historic religious establishments in Los Feliz, but there seems to be plenty of neighbors who have no problem with it or actually enjoy the idea that there is a gay/married minister in the community.  The man who put up the resolution, by the way, said that many of his gay friends and neighbors had helped to get him elected.  If that isn’t a sign of mainstream politics, what is?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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It has become our business.

November 19, 2008 by PD.

Carl had been telling me of his “water-cooler conversations” with people at work about Proposition 8. One work friend, who lives in the San Gabriel Valley, who had attended our wedding a few days before, had actually marched across the street from his home to talk with a neighbor who had posted a “Yes on 8″ lawn sign, and persuaded the man to change his view.

Another married heterosexual, usually very quiet, became interested enough to question Carl about the effects of Proposition 8, and his perspective broadened as a result. In the last few days, Carl came home with a signed note from work. The man had taken the trouble to write a sincere letter to us:

“I suppose social progress does not come as quickly as we would like. Fear and ignorance still have a hold but its grip is weakening. The strain is starting to show as those stuck in the past hold on for all their might and become more and more desperate. Lies and scare tactics are all they have left. Each passing day the hold weakens just a little and then the day will come when the grip is broken.

“There will come a time in the future when children will read in bewilderment how we as a society acted on Tuesday. They will say, “They really did that?” and the teacher will respond with a bit of embarrassment “It was a different time.”

“But here we are today. While I cannot imagine the frustration you and Dan feel that other people made a decision about your private lives, know that Sheri and I share a piece of the frustration as well. It wasn’t even any of our business to vote on your marriage in the first place, but now that this disgraceful addition to the state’s constitution has been made it has become our business. When the voters attacked your marriage they attacked ours as well. We have been weakened knowing that we have a right that has been denied others.

“So while the state of California may not recognize your marriage Sheri and I do.”

In the age of ubiquitous e-mail, I found it touching that both spouses actually signed this letter with a real pen! It kind of makes me think about us putting pen to paper when we signed our application for a marriage license. Thank you, Brad and Sheri, for signing on in this struggle for equal rights and equal dignity under the law!

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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Scientific Distortion and Four Lies

November 14, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

In late October Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out that another researcher has announced that the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) “grossly and deliberately distorted” her research regarding sexual orientation. I have mentioned Besen’s own research and credentials in this blog several times, and his book Anything But Straight here).

Dr. Lisa Diamond, Associate professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah, is interviewed by Besen here (5 minute video).

Diamond also comments in the video interview about so-called “reparative therapy.” “The [reparative] therapists are saying, “We can change your orientation,’when in fact all of the data—all of the data suggest that that’s not the case.” She is also particularly blunt about the willful misuse of published scientific findings by organizations who rely on the public’s gullibility. 

“There are a lot of scientists who would say, ‘you know what? I just produce the data, and then how it’s used is not my problem.’ But I think knowing that we have a culture that actually treats scientific findings very seriously in terms of support for public policy, that would be inappropriate. We have to be very vocal about what constitutes an unscientific use of the data and, that’s why I think it’s important to speak out. … I’m pretty accustomed at this point to the fact that these sorts of distortions will occur. My hope is that by doing something like this we can hopefully have a more scientifically-literate society and consumer culture that will get better at recognizing distortions when they occur, and will not simply take the citation of a scientific paper as evidence that that paper has been appropriately used.”

Besen has another web site which is very helpful, www.respectmyresearch.org, which names the distorters of scientific research. Among them, says Besen, are Dr. James Dobson who heads Focus on the Family (a multi-million dollar power house of right-wing rhetoric) and Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, former president of NARTH. “Nicolosi recently stepped aside after a member of his “Scientific Advisory Board” penned an article for NARTH’s website that justified slavery.”

Alongside the willful distortion of scientific research, NARTH has been known to use pseudo-science to prop up its persuasions. Although entirely discredited for his unscientific science, the views of Dr. Paul Cameron still pop up in NARTH’s archives. For example, Dr. Ross Olson cites a Cameron winner, “Gay Foster Parents More Apt to Molest,” by Paul Cameron, Journal of the Family Research Institute, Vol. 17 No. 7, Nov 2002, ). According to Respect My Research, Cameron “was dropped from the American Psychological Association for his shoddy and anti-gay work, such as claiming mosquitoes spread AIDS and gay people should be exterminated.”

 

Cameron and Nicolosi

(A week ago, NARTH held a convention. For one view of that, see Daniel Gonzales’ article, “Hair You can Straighten, Gays Not So Much” in the Box Turtle Bulletin here.)

It is to easy to suppose that the right wing nuts are simply crazy. There is a chilling consistency to their logic, a consistency for which they keep finding ways to misuse information and scientific studies. The consistency is what I called the Four Lies.

A few years ago I started writing a longer paper—but the longer research required and longer hours at my day job stopped me from finishing it—about the Four Lies I see behind the right-wing manipulation of public attitudes and public policy about homosexuality. The Four Lies are these: that we are child molesters, that we “recruit”, that we “choose the gay life style, and that we can simply change. These are not merely misunderstandings, they are Lies.

Change is the underlying issue, because it implies that there is a “right choice” and a “wrong choice.” Sexual reactionaries have themselves convinced that the chose heterosexuality, and take credit for making the “right choice,” in spite of the fact that credible academic research has yet to find a cause of heterosexuality or homosexuality, and increasingly supports the idea that no one chooses his or her sexual orientation.

The screwball doctrine that people choose be lesbian or gay supports the idea that impressionable young children must be protected from our influence. They encourage the public to fear the “bad influence” we supposed exert on the young so that they will seek to control us. Homosexuality must never be “taught in the schools” for example — which figured prominently in the “Yes on 8″ television ads in California. Conservatives in the African-American community, during the same Proposition 8 battle, insisted that black people do not choose to be black, but that homosexuals choose to be homosexual, and thus ours is not a civil rights issue. For conservatives who buy this Lie, since homosexual behavior is a choice, then we deserve no protected status and no civil rights.

The Lie about child molestation—which has been responsibly refuted over and over—is that any kind of an “experience” between a homosexual and a young person could influence that young person to become homosexual, as if it is such an attractive “lifestyle” that impressionable kids would choose homosexuality the way some kids choose to join a gang or get their navels pierced or their biceps tattooed. The whole thesis of “reparative therapy” is to fix the supposed damage to a young person’s gender identity to keep him from slipping or jumping into “the gay lifestyle.” On the so-called “gay lifestyle,” see my brief article “Two Gay Lifestyles” here.

After a while, I get so tired of arguing for truth over b.s. that like many others I tend to just make jokes about them. For example, the reason that heterosexuals have children is that since they can’t recruit they have to reproduce. But making jokes does not make Lies and misinformed public opinion go away. The Yes on Proposition 8 victory is evidence of that.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, HIV and AIDS, LGBT Rights, Ex-Gay | Print | No Comments »

A Fable About Equality

November 13, 2008 by PD.

This just in by e-mail from Andrea Szeredy:

One day, the Catholics of the world realized that they far outnumbered all the other kinds of Christians.

“Look,” they said “There’s over 1.1 billion of us. There’s only 16 million Southern Baptists, 12 million Mormons, 5 million Lutherans… Let’s use our numbers to change some things.”

So they used their voting power and passed laws all over. These laws said that only Catholics were allowed to call themselves ‘Christians’. Only the Catholic Bible could call itself ‘the Bible’.

And only Catholics could refer to Jesus by that name. The law required all the other Churches to use different, more generic names. This law was appropriately called the ‘Defense of Christianity Act’.

Of course, this was met with outrage. Non-Catholic Christians around the world rose up in protest, saying “How dare you! We worship the same God, and our Churches are just as good as yours, if not better! We won’t be treated as second-class Christians!”

And the Catholics responded, “But you’re not really Christians at all, don’t you see? We have a tradition that goes back more than 2000 years unbroken right to Jesus. We’re the real Christians. You guys have only been around for a few hundred years, and you’re changing our ancient traditions. You even took some books out of the Old Testament of the Bible! You rip apart the Bible and expect people to call you Christian. You make Jesus sick.”

The others said “But what does this have to do with you? It doesn’t affect your lives. You don’t have to read our Bible or come to our Churches. Our worship has nothing to do with you!”

The Catholics said “Of course it does. When you call yourselves ‘Christian’, it cheapens the word ‘Christian’, and that takes away from us. Why, if you have equal access to the word ‘Christianity’, then our schools will be forced to tell children that it’s just as good to be a Baptist or a Lutheran as a Catholic!”

The others replied “But we ARE Christians! We follow the teachings of Jesus! How is that any different than you?”

The Catholics smiled sadly and shook their heads. “Christ intended there to be one holy apostolic Church, which He Himself founded on Saint Peter. It’s in the Bible. What you have is just not the same. Besides — what’s wrong with the term ‘Middle-Eastern Special Carpenter Followers’? You can still have your ‘Official Religious Storybook’, just don’t call it ‘the Bible’. You get all the same rights as we do. Oh, and by the way — since your marriages aren’t

performed in a real Christian church, we’re dissolving those, too. You’ll have to settle for a civil union.”

The others said “That’s discrimination! You can’t treat us differently just because we have a different religion!”

The Catholics said “Don’t be silly. You have exactly the same rights we do. Just like any person, you have the right to be Baptized Catholic, so that you call call yourselves Christians and get

married. See how it all works? Now stop complaining, or we’ll pass a law against that.” Then the Catholics looked at each other and smiled. “Isn’t it nice to outnumber minorities?” they said to each other.

And they all lived together in their new ‘equality’.

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Ecumenical Issues, LGBT Christian, History, Public Affairs | Print | No Comments »

Transformative Power and Public Drunkenness

November 7, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I see first hand the results of the 12-Step ministry every time I meet someone in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction. As you probably know, Alcoholics Anonymous has been called the most important spiritual movement of the 20^th century. There is enormous transformative power in faith and solidarity to overcome addictions and its derivatives of loneliness, depression and powerlessness.

At the same time, I see first hand the power of addiction to keep addicts in its thrall. We have a man who has been visiting our church for months, who is semi-homeless and alcoholic. He admits he never met a beer he didn’t like, and he has been asking for money from members, and even taking coins out of our fountain, to save up for a quart. One Sunday afternoon he sat on the front porch directly in front of the church doors and got totally wasted.

I am still trying to reflect on the spiritual pain I feel after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, and make sense of why some people remain so rejecting, punitive and hateful toward gay and lesbian people. That’s when this analogy came to me.

Over the years, and especially in these most recent 5 months, I have seen first-hand the transformative power of honesty and love in and with the LGBT community. It begins with Step One: Coming Out to Self and Others. Sometimes, people who come out are summarily rejected, but as the years have gone by, more often I hear the stories of those whose lives took a decided turn for the better, with their families, friends, neighbors and even employers.

Two weeks ago I officiated for a wedding in which one of the grooms had come through a difficult period with his family after coming out. His aging parents at first rejected and disowned him. He is in recovery, by the way, and met his life partner—now husband—at an A.A. meeting.

It took time, but his entire family has come around. The accept him, and his loving relationship with his partner. And they all came from near and far to participate in their wedding ceremony, with his sisters and parents joyfully taking part in the final blessings.

People make enormous spiritual progress through honesty and love. It changes lives. This entire family, now united by marriage, has recaptured love and made enormous strides in spread understanding, goodwill and tolerance because of one son’s integrity and honesty. That is spiritual transformation.

Now we come to the political reality of LGBT people in a society which is wrenching back and forth between rights and no rights. The conservatives hotly and loudly call it a culture war. But I now see it from the positive side — the transformative power to change lives through love, honesty, integrity, patience and reconciliation. Some people — millions of them — “get it.” They have embraced the individuals they know among family, friends, neighbors or co-workers, they have ascended the learning curve about human sexuality, psychology, and civil rights, they have wrestled through the issues that made them uncomfortable, and they have grown spiritually.

But there are millions of others, led by religious power blocks, who think they are fighting a war. What they are fighting is their own addiction to hatred, to power and money, and to control. They are drunk on their own illusions of politics, race, money, marriage, and God. They would rather destroy relationships through estrangement and disowning those who are close them (every family in America is not that far away from someone who is lesbian or gay), than to grow spiritually through listening, patience, understanding, empathy, and love.

It is ironic that those on the reactionary side of things call this a culture war, when it is obviously a spiritual struggle they do not wish to face. I am betting my life on the ultimate triumph of love and reconciliation. And I apply my faith to this struggle, remembering the words of Jesus when people of power and bigotry crucified him: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But in the meantime we have to continue to struggle for rights and for understanding with those who as yet have no interest in the spiritual transformation that could be theirs. Drunk with homophobia, they will not even take the first steps to understand. It is sad when they bring their drunkenness right to the front doors of the church.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Recovery, Spirituality, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »