America’s Holy Family Values

December 25, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Yesterday it was our privilege, for the fourth year, to carry gifts from our church to the Jeff Griffith Youth Center – gift cards for all 24 young people in the residential program. These kids are tying to get their lives, and life skills, together having come out of abusive homes, or having been thrown out of their homes because of the sexual orientation. The residential counselor, Mr. Joey Aguilar, was quite kind and happy to have something else to put under the tree this morning for these young people. (And they literally do provide a Christmas morning gift-giving experience for all of them!)

As Mr. Aguilar explained some of the circumstances these kids come through before finding the Center’s residential program, I listened attentively to what seems like matter-of-fact circumstances of growing up lesbian or gay –or transgender (about 25 % of those currently in the program). But inside, I was thinking these kids must have been living a horror story: sleeping under bridges or on the street; being abused by street life after having run away from an abusive home life.

What has happened to “home life”? And after all the conservative trumpeting of “family values” for several decades (which not incidentally has made people like Dr. James Dobson and his family values industry quite wealthy), America’s family values are just getting worse.

It further surprised and troubled me when Aguilar told us not only that kids are still being kicked out by the parents, when they come out as gay or are found out, but that not all these kids in the program are refugees from some hyper-conservative “red state” environment. Kids in Los Angeles are still rejected by their own mothers and fathers simply for telling the truth about their sexual orientation. Have I been naive to assume that people here, if not everywhere, have been sufficiently exposed to the truth about sexual orientation so that they would be much more understanding and accepting if their own child turns out to be lesbian or gay.

Or transsexual. Several years ago I saw an amazing documentary titled “Just Call Me Kade” (synopsis; review) about a “typical” suburban family from Tucson, Arizona whose darling little girl, from the age of 3 or 4, was certain that she is a boy not a girl. By the time she reached puberty and began menstruating, she was depressed and almost suicidal. This film compassionately told the story of a very understanding nuclear family that did not reject their child, but helped him transition (with hormonal treatments, etc.) to self-identify as an adolescent boy.

It being Christmas, I cannot but think too of the “Holy Family” — an entire family that was persecuted and had to become refugees in order to protect the Child. Obviously, the murderous King Herod did not care about family values.

Thinking back, I guess I had a perfect childhood in a loving home where I was not abused or neglected, but loved and encouraged. At the time, it didn’t seem perfect, of course, and I was probably as rebellious as an emerging gay boy could have been in the 1950s and 60s. I developed my life skills like everybody in those days. Sitting around the kitchen table, in long talks about everything, I learned about compromise and getting along, love, effort, money, jobs, and dreams for the future — all the ordinary stuff (to me) that seem so elusive to these young people at the Jeff Griffith Youth Center.

If American homes had any real “family values” then parents would value their kids enough to et their lives, and their family life, together to provide for and protect and nurture the kids. They would buck up and find out how to react and to treat and care for a teenager is questioning, or who comes as gay or lesbian or transgender. It is so sad that the big shot public figures who tout family values (Dobson claims that Focus on the Family is “Nurturing and defending families worldwide”!) have done absolutely nothing to equip American parents to lovingly deal with their kids coming out. While Dobson enriches himself, it is ordinary people like the Parents and Friends (PFLAG) who have done the heavy lifting for decades. They have taught countless families what family values really are.  By supporting the Center’s youth program, our church is really supporting family values that were missing at home for these kids.

This is also a plug for the excellent documentary film out this fall, “For the Bible Tells Me So” which tells the story of five families trying to cope with a gay or lesbian child. The film had a limited engagement in West Los Angeles in November, but will be shown at St. Matthew’s Church of Burbank/Glendale on Sunday January 27, 6:00 p.m. There is more information here.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Coming Out, Ministry | Print | No Comments »