Archive for the ‘Bullying’ Category

Perspective is everything.

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

I am always browsing the internet for graphics and photos to use in illustrating articles, web sites and this blog. But this one I took myself last week. I haven’t seen this particular vehicle before or since, but its owner certainly has a different perspective on things than I.

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And I can’t help wondering what level of frustration, anger or rage against the cosmos would drive a person to further deface his/her/probably his own vehicle as an editorial on one’s own life. Everything is a pretty inclusive word, after all, and no one person’s perspective is quite so vast. Okay, I know, it’s rhetorical. But we’re looking at a mental case, folks, and this driver needs help.

A second equally plausible explanation: the painter of the message is not the owner of the car.  That opens up another entire set of assumptions and conclusions.

How are things for you? Is this your car?  Is this your life? Feel free to comment.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Doctrine, Go figure!, Public Affairs, Violence, wingnuts | No Comments »

Privilege behind the curtain.

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

   We’ve long known about those folks who think they are spiritual but don’t like “organized religion.” Now add the group of political conservatives who say they want what is best for the people but don’t want organized labor. In fact, many of the same conservatives have relentlessly ridiculed the sitting President for, among other things, having been a community organizer.

Iran and Libya don’t want organized opposition. Scott Walker has now coerced the Wisconsin legislature to deny the right of state workers to collective bargaining. (If unions are outlawed, only outlaws will have unions?) It has become clear that the effort to break the back of organized labor is itself highly organized and well-funded.

What these things have in common is fear and loathing for anything organized. Better, they think, if everything which threatens their status quo remains disorganized.

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But curiously, one organization that doesn’t seem to suffer the same criticism, at least from the people on the proverbial right, are corporations. Highly organized, armed with extraordinary international clout, fluid money and shadowy subsidiaries, a very controlled hierarchy and playing for high stakes, corporations are running my life from behind the velvet drapes of the Wizard of Oz. “Pay no attention to the corporation behind the curtain,” says the corporation behind the curtain.

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Is there any doubt that Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker intended to keep a curtain drawn over his own prejudices until he was exposed by a prank caller? Is there any doubt that Hosni Mubarek or Moammar Gadhafi want to keep control shielded by a curtain of absolute authority from all public accountability. Is it any wonder that British Petroleum corporately winced at the exposure of its avarice and manipulation that contributed to that catastrophic Gulf oil spill?

It amazes me that the mental coprolites who think there is a conspiracy behind everything don’t want to look behind the curtain of their own privilege, made possible by the simple act of hurting and destroying other people.

This is not naivete here. I am well aware, for example, that the California Prison Guards Union is screwing both the inmates in California prisons and the people of California. In little more than a decade, the cost of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, which runs 33 state prisons, has jumped from $3.5 billion to $11 billion.

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But by and large it is not the union lobbyists who are bankrupting state governments. It is not the corporate lobbyists either—at least on the surface. It is greed which is behind the curtain. Lobbyists make their living on funding politicians behind the curtain. Where is the public accountability if the public thinks it is really more comfortable and privileged as a result of corporations?

On my recent “vacation” to Florida, where the land is flat enough to be completely erased from the map by a high tide, people are in complete denial about global warming, for example. The ground of their denial is not that the science of permanent climate change is still hugely theoretical, but linked to the denial that anything could possible wash out their entitlement to a life of privilege, ease, comfort and high standard of living.

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Probably more than anything, it is privilege which is behind the curtain: masculine privilege, white privilege, American (native-born not immigrant legal or otherwise) privilege. For all the conservative ranting about entitlements, our nation, our culture, our wonderful America is turned our national entitlement into a god at whose altar anyone, any minority, any cause, any just thing, many be slaughtered and sacrificed. We have met the enemy, says Pogo, and it is us.

—Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Environment, Go figure!, Public Affairs, Uncategorized, Violence, wingnuts | No Comments »

Religious Terror: What can I do?

Friday, February 25th, 2011

This last link (“not in Iran“) from the previous blog, February 24, 2011, is a very thoughtful piece from 2007 that analyzes the complex forces with Iranian and other Islamic societies. I had not read all of it when I posted the link, but now I have.  Its author, Martin Beck Matustik, who came of age intellectually in then-Czechoslovakia, compares contemporary Islamist Iran to the sheer force of Soviet power in the 1980s, which also tried to hold back every change with all force.

It should be no secret that I stand against violence in all forms, and cannot support the death penalty. More basic, I oppose all forms of religious terror, whether sanctioned by civil law, fundamentalist law, schoolyard bullying, or the pathetic but relentless terror inflicted by Fred Phelps and his mentally deranged ilk.

A friend of mine in the LGBTQ movement here in Los Angeles (with whom I am long overdue to “do lunch”) raised the issue with me that: our society, which talks the talk of protecting its children from violence and abuse, is doing nothing to free any children from religiously-grounded domestic terrorism and abuse in homophobic families. Truthfully, it is equally as chilling as a hanging in Iran to realize that America tolerates another “deathstyle” for homosexual teenagers: suicide.

What are we doing to stop this wave of death (which fundamentalism seems to find more acceptable than abortion)? What am I doing? What are you doing? How can we do more than weep for those who are dying, and reach out to our own neighbors’ kids to turn them from all self-destructive behaviors, show them the way of life, and the joy of being the persons that God has created us?

Certainly, the volunteers of the Trevor Project, the It Gets Better Project, and other anti-suicide efforts are huge in trying to intercept a life spiraling down to death. But it should be Job One for Christians intercept all messages of hate (including self-hate), rejection, and violence wherever they are coming from — and especially when they are being spewed out by homophobes claiming to love Jesus. Christians are not following Jesus when we simply say, “tsk, tsk, how sad” where spiritual/emotional or physical violence is inflicted on others in the name of God. It is the ultimate misuse of religious faith to resign ourselves to the evils around us which harms countless people, especially the young.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Family, Fundamentalism, Homophobia, International, LGBT Christian, Violence, wingnuts | No Comments »

My life, my movement, my faith.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Associated Press is running an encouraging story today of new activism relating faith to the LGBT communities. Opening tomorrow in Minneapolis, the annual NGLTF conference will include working groups for people of color and people of faith in the movement for understanding and equality. NPR has the (print) story here. Also see: www.thetaskforce.org.

I am heartened to see that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is counted among the progressive denominations where the movement toward inclusivity and diversity means both ethnic/race issues and sexuality issues. As NPR notes, both the ELCA and the Episcopal Church now ordained openly gay pastors. Sadly, it did not mention that the United Church of Christ also does, and was the first protestant denomination to do so. (The ELCA is “in communion” with both the Episcopal Church and the UCC.)

People and cultures move at very different speeds, of course. We are all familiar with friends who grew up in a very conservative Christian environment —Baptist, Church of God or even Pentecostalists—who are resisting all conversations and studies which could lead to a more enlightened understanding of sexuality. the NPR story mentions a black gay activist who grew up in the Pentecostal fold who laments the distance or disconnect between the LGBT movement and the faith communities. Even more remote is the distance to Islam, as the NPR story notes.

At the bottom of this are the underlying assumptions that a life of faith—any faith—must be a life of conformity to a culturally-centered faith or belief system. That is tough even for Christians who primarily allegiance should be to following Jesus, not to following rules or social mores. Was not Jesus, after all, the ultimate role model for religious non-conformity?

I am living only one life, and I don’t have the opportunity to live two of them by different lights or guides and then compare notes. For better or worse, when I came to discern my sexuality, I decided to try to live the “me” I was dealt in life’s great card game, rather than to fake my life, live a lie, or destroy myself by alcohol, drugs or suicide. My life experience, as part of the LGBT movement, has deeply affected my faith. And while heterosexual conformist Christians may shudder at that thought, and where it might lead (the “slippery slope” of personal experiences and subjective theology), I am still faithful to the Christian faith and life.

As with ethnic and racial minorities, sexual minorities, and other marginalized people (think of those who have been bullied to death, for example) who have lived different lives from ours because of what life dealt to them, everyone needs to heard, everyone has a faith experience that, in some way, will enrich the faith of others.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Recovery, Spirituality | No Comments »

Bury their own dead.

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

I read recently with near-horror that the Los Angeles Coroner’s office was about to put the unclaimed ashes of over 1,600 people in a mass grave. The horror comes from the fact that the remains of a homeless woman who basically lived in or around our church for nearly 20 years might be among those ashes.

I quickly called the Coroner’s office and was told that Rosemary’s case had been closed more than a year ago. for nearly two years I’d been trying to prod her homeless boyfriend to do something about her body. She did not want to be cremated, he said. But you can’t just bury a whole body, and nobody had the money to buy a casket, a burial plot and the services required to put the body in it. We had contact her next of kin, in the Midwest, shortly after her death from breast cancer nearly two years ago, and while they were saddened to learn she had died—homeless—in Los Angeles, they had about zero interest in paying for a proper burial.

So that matter languished, until I read the LA Times article about the mass burial. I knew that the County has, at any one time, thousands of unclaimed bodies and/or “cremains.” But somehow it seemed like the ultimate insult to an elderly woman who had lived a harsh, cold and hopeless life for many years to simply see her ashes, in a plastic sack, dropped in a big hole.

The County’s administrative office referred me back to the Morgue. More phone calls, more tracing of a closed case. But finally I was told that Rosemary’s cremains would not be buried that week—only the ashes of people cremated more than 3 years ago.

The next step—if prodding her boyfriend (or as he describes the relationship, common-law husband)—is successful, is to go to the Superior Court with an “Ex Parte Petition for

Court Order to Release the Remains of a Decedent” filled out, pay whatever court fees, probably pay for the cremation, and wait for a court date. Is it any wonder so many bodies go unclaimed?

Of course I am thinking of what our society says about the value of a human life. At least the government was planning to bury these ashes with dignity. Somewhere a computer at least has their names and dates of death on record. And is “society” responsible to show respect for individuals whose own families for whatever reason do not claim what is left? One of the most ancient aspects of civilization anywhere is the great respect and care which the living gave to the remains of the dead. Are we becoming far less civilized now?

Maybe the dignity and respect given to each and every human being is not inherently hard-wired into any society or community, but must be secured on a case-by-case basis. In Rosemary’s case, there is a dignified resting place for her cremains here in the church, in a compartment inside the “high” Altar, where three other containers also reside. Two were former church members, and the third one is a total mystery: no one here knows who she was or how the ashes got to this church.

But I reflect on the millions of people who died prematurely of HIV/AIDS. In America we have a wonderful national Memorial Quilt, but what about the human beings, created in God’s image, who died elsewhere in the world.

And what about the teens who have taken their lives because they were bullied, harassed and shamed repeatedly for being effeminate or gay? Their families, I think, have treated them with respect in the sad reality of their deaths, but what of a society that tolerates, even encourages disrespect to gay teens who are living?

The irony of Jesus’ words (Matthew 8:22) of course, is that the dead cannot bury their own dead. But if we are not alive to the reality of people’s lives being discounted, disrespected, or destroyed by the neglect or hatred of others, then we may as well be dead. Those who are truly living value the lives of others as much as their own.

—Pastor Dan

Posted in Bullying, Public Affairs | No Comments »

Stop excusing cruelty.

Sunday, December 26th, 2010

Sometimes things just come to me – thoughts that won’t let me go until I have thought them through. This hit me hard on Christmas night.

Like a cup or bucket that cannot hold another drop with overflowing, or (more pertinent in Southern California) like a rain-saturated hillside that cannot take one more tenth of an inch of rainfall before it gives way to a mudslide, I have reached my lifetime saturation point on some things.

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One of them is cruelty. Whether it be cruelty to animals or children, or women—or cruelty to POWs, children and animals in Iraq (it just goes on and on), or the atrocities of Darfur, or bullying of gay-appearing teenagers, or all the genocides of the 20th century, some of which I have lived contemporaneously with and others were only lessons I learned as a student (the Jewish Holocaust had ended before I was born)— I am beyond wearying of cruelty.

These days I find myself not wanting to read a news headline if my cruelty meter begins to beep. Individual acts of psychopathic behavior or cruelty, or the utter madness of foreclosures upon the elderly and a marshal escorting someone from their own home because of missed payments, the bottom line is that our society still tolerates, if not legalizes, many forms of cruelty.

Like many other things, cruelty is concealed under different terms. Society accepts the unacceptable because it re-labels things to appear less odious, less inhuman, less cruel. When it comes to the tragic gay bullying of recent months that led to a wave of teen suicides, for example, how many of us heard “boys will be boys” as the standard excuse, a deflection of the evil. Braced as I was for the tragedy of it, I still got weepy watching a live production of The Laramie Project earlier this year in Pasadena, telling the chilling story of mixed reactions to the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard in1998. Cruelty is perpetrated by overpowering the weaker party. Masculinity is constantly measured and defined by the ancient contest to prove who has weakness, as if weakness then is justification for contest, for warfare, for cruelty.

When I was in college, our Drama Department produced “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, a defining work that views the 17th century Salem witch trials through a moral lense. Although there was no visible violence, what took place in those trials was also cruelty, disguised and re-packed as religious righteousness, and the slowly-grinding wheels of justice to conceal fear and superstition. But like masculinity in another context, justice and righteousness cloak the redefinition of cruelty so that it seems somehow necessary in the service of a higher good.

Nonsense!

One can always explain evil things that happen, but explanations cannot excuse them. For one human being to condemn another to death, or to torture another to death, is cruelty. Cruel is defined as willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to another. Wikipedia’s article on psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder is long and complex, but disturbing. For example, “Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.”

I would love to talk this over with a mental health professional in terms of religious convictions. Is there a corporate psychopathology that is easily cloaked with religious rectitude?

Today is St. Stephen’s Day on the Christian calendar. St. Stephen of the Acts of the Apostles (6:8–7:60), the first martyr in fact for the name of Jesus. Stephen was cruelly stoned to death by an angry mob that took offense at his religious views.

It is probably not wise to make any comparisons of that act with the actions of Muslims who defend their faith by taking umbrage whenever the Prophet is demeaned in a cartoon, etc. Christians have perpetrated perhaps as much or more cruelty than others to defend what they suppose is “the Christian faith.” Think the Crusades, the Inquisition. Think of burning gay people alive at the stake. Think of a flawed moral theology, pushed onto the faithful, which expects them to tolerate and accept unbearable burdens.

For example, “God never expects us to bear burdens which we cannot bear,” according to an old saying. You can find various wordings of this cliche on Answer Bag. Such a cliche is just as much heresy as anything else ever said. It is not God who lays unbearable burdens on us, but other Christians who load those burdens, completely lacking a “sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.” There you have theological psychopathology.

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One thinks of that outrageous preacher from Topeka who preaches hatred at the front door of funerals. He thinks he is morally and theologically “right” as if that justifies cruelty and the complete absence of compassion. No wonder that “followers” of Jesus give him a bad name!

But Mr. Phelps is only the most publicly odious of the under-scum of our society which tolerates and excuses cruelty. It is time that decent people stop condoning hatred and cruelty no matter how it is labeled.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Bullying, History, Public Affairs, Violence, wingnuts | No Comments »

We asked, and we got what we asked for.

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

This was never my fight, but it is emblematic of the struggle for all to be treated equally. According to the Human Rights Campaign this morning, the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law has passed the U.S. Senate. It had passed the House already.

Breaking news: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal has just cleared its last congressional hurdle.

This discriminatory law will be relegated to the dustbin of history. This stain on our nation will be lifted forever. . . .

Today, America lived up to its highest ideals of freedom and equality. Today, our federal government recognized that ALL men and women have the right to openly serve the country they believe in. That it doesn’t matter who you are, or who you love – you are not a second-class citizen.

Think of the kids out there tonight, watching this on the news – kids who are bullied for being different, who live in fear daily that their parents will hate them if they find out the truth… Think of the relief, the empowerment, the sense of possibility they’ll feel, knowing that the U.S. military has said: if you’re lesbian or gay, you are worthy. We want you to join us, side by side, as equals.

Well HRC is a bit triumphalistic here. and it of course ties the “breaking news” to the same fund-raising appeal you find in every e-mail. But the true still sinks in. After the procedural, majority-only vote later this weekend, President Obama will sign the repeal bill into law.

This is sadly overdue for a nation which believes in due process and equal protection. Yes, there are shrill voices in the Marines, etc., that don’t want “open” homosexuals in their ranks. According to a chum who used to be a military chaplain, it is not true a quarter of the U.S. Marines are really gay. It’s much closer to half, he told me. Is our nation any safer, or is morale any higher, when people are secretive? We have been over this ground many times, of the dangers and inherent climate of catastrophe that develops when people are deeply closeted and then don’t develop the self-respect or good judgment to avoid “slipping.” Men and women who are out to themselves and others, and have learned to feel self-esteem, are better judges of how to behave that the closeted and fearful who have never developed the friendships or done the emotional and mental homework of working through their sexuality.

I don’t know where to track this quote originally, but a couple of months ago it was none other than Lady Gaga who commented that cohesion and morale in the military would improve not by kicking out the gay and lesbian people but by kicking out the homophobes! She’s pretty much on target there.

If you are a letter-writer or e-mail writer, send your representatives in congress a big thank-you for their courageous votes (if they voted courageously). If your senator or congressman voted against repeal, please act accordingly.

— Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Coming Out, Homophobia, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs | No Comments »

We have met the enemy.

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

After watching the emotionally-wrenching “It Gets Better” video from Oral Roberts’ grandson, Randy Roberts Potts, no one could deny that LGBT people have their most formidable “enemy” in the right-wing Christian church. In the video, Randy reads a letter he has written to his gay Uncle Ronnie, who took his own life on June 10, 1982.

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(Full disclosure: I am not a member of a right-wing Christian church, but of a church which has struggled with all the issues in the contemporary sexuality wars and come out to a place which welcomes and affirms LGBT people.)

As if anybody would have doubted this, there is a smoking gun that now tries to connect the alarming rate of gay/teen suicides and the homophobia of right-wing Christian churches. The Public Religion Research Institute (based in Washington D.C.) has recently published this: “Two-thirds see connections between messages coming from America’s places of worship and higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.”

Over a thousand people were asked their opinions about church and homosexuality, but only five questions were asked. The Institute summarized their findings:

“A plurality (43%) of Americans say the messages coming from places of worship are negative, and 4-in-10 Americans believe that these messages contribute “a lot” to negative perceptions of gay and lesbian people. One-third (33%) of the public also believe that messages from religious bodies are contributing “a lot” to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth, and another third (32%) say these message contribute “a little;” only 21% say they do not contribute at all.”The PRRI partnered with Religious News Service to survey American attitudes. As with any other issue, there is a spectrum of opinion. In the survey results, however, the questions asked allowed for a lot of ambiguity in assessing the answers given. For example although 43% believe that negative messages are coming out of “places of worship”— churches— this may include people who firmly believe that negative messages should be coming, in other words, that words of judgment ought to be preached from Christian pulpits.The third question was: “If you had to grade your own place of worship on how it is handling the issue of homosexuality? Would you give it an ‘A’, a ‘B’ a ‘C’, a ‘D’ or an ‘F’?” As worded, of course, this doesn’t tell you if respondents’ churches were preaching judgment or understanding. Twenty-eight percent, the largest group, gave their own churches an “A” in its “handling of homosexuality.” But this may include right-wing fundamentalists who like judgmental preaching about homosexuality and therefore give their church and its preacher high marks for scolding or damning homosexuals.Similarly, 24% percent gave their own church an “F” for its handling of homosexuality. But which “side” are these respondents on? A full 44% of the respondents believe that same-gender sexual relations are sinful.The questions could have been asked to filter the grading of America’s churches more intelligently. But at least there is no doubt from this study that many churches are broadcasting negative messages.It takes only a small link in one’s brain—like a simple circuit being switched on—to realize that if America’s churches are publicly proclaiming negative messages about homosexuality, there are young people in the pews hearing and heeding those messages.If you are a straight young kid, and you hear negativity being preached, you may (a) think it doesn’t apply to you, (b) like what you hear because you already dislike homosexuals, (c) be inspired to express hatred or homophobic violence because you see and hear Christian role models doing the same.

But if you are a young person trying to discern and understand your own sexuality, and coming to the realization that you are indeed homosexual, the choices are entirely different. You may: (a) try to convince yourself you are not really gay; (b) begin to think that God and the church don’t want you around and look for the nearest exit; (c) feel deeply shamed and conflicted; (d) hate yourself enough to think of a “final solution”—taking your own life. Don’t!!!

Clearly, there is no one Christian message about human sexuality these days. The worst thing churches do is to speak forcefully and authoritatively when they haven’t done their homework and haven’t listened to the personal stories and testimony of the people they’re talking about. The personal coming out stories of individuals to their families, friends and fellow-church members is the single most powerful tool for changing public attitudes.

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When Rev. Jim Swilley of Church in the Now in Conyers, Georgia came out to his congregation as a gay man last month—at enormous risk to himself and his mega-church to be sure—he nonetheless contributed to changing social attitudes. Some people in the “bishop’s” church got up and walked out, apparently during his sensitive, honest coming out speech (over an hour long). Others, including many from all of the country, applauded his courage and honesty.

But the bottom line is that integrity and honesty demand us to take the risks we take in telling our stories. Those who can handle the truth remain our friends and maintain our family ties. But parents, siblings and friends who can’t handle it are choosing to destroy important relationships that don’t conform to their expectations.

For me, the bottom line is not a scorecard on how American houses of worship are handling homosexuality, but how they handle the truth.

(a) We’re here, we’re queer. Get used to it.

(b) God loves the whole world. No exceptions.

(c) The Bible is a book of God’s gracious promises, not a weapon.

(d) Human beings don’t “choose” our sexual orientation, but discover it.

(e) In spite of everything, many LGBT love God and remain faithful to the Christian faith.

(f) All of the above.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in "The Closet", Bullying, Coming Out, ELCA, Faith, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, Public Affairs, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Is it any wonder?

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

All of us are still stunned but energized by the wave of gay suicides in the last two months. (I am trying to get access to a camera to tape my own “It Gets Better” story.) But is it any wonder that young LGBT people, even in the year 2010, have a hard time preserving their own self-esteem and walking confidently in this world when there are hate-mongers out there trying to pass as Christian?

In his weekly column, Wayne Besen (Truth Wins Out) reports on another month-old issue, that Andrew Shirvell has been fired from his position as Assistant Attorney General for Michigan. Besen describes Shirvell as a nutjob and sicko–probably overstepping the line in his speculation that Shirvell may be a closeted homosexual, too—but there is evidence that the former AAG obsessed about a 21-year old college student (and University of Michigan Student Body President) Chris Armstrong, even stalking his residence in the middle of the night and attempting to defame him online. According to MSNBC, “Shirvell’s boss, Attorney General Mike Cox, said the firing came after a state investigation revealed that Shirvell ‘repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior and inappropriately used state resources.’”

What continues to amaze and distress me is why individuals who, for whatever reason, don’t like or approve of homosexuality don’t just avoid it. There are plenty of things I don’t like, don’t approve of and wish would go away (for example, gratuitous violence in society and in the movies), but my disapproval usually stops with my brief rants at the dinner table or watching the evening news.

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What sets people like Shirvell apart is that he can’t give it a rest. In fact, he uses his so-called Christian faith as justification for going on a mission to defame or hurt gay people. According to material quoted by Besen, “In a September CNN interview, Shirvell used religion and the constitution to defend his bullying. ‘I’m a Christian citizen exercising my First Amendment rights,’ he told Anderson Cooper. ‘I have no problem with the fact that Chris is a homosexual. I have a problem with the fact that he’s advancing a radical homosexual agenda.’”

But Shirvell’s supposed motivation for his weird behavior doesn’t set him apart at all. He is just one more public figure who has spouted the predictable rhetoric of reactionary hatred. A key part of this predictable rhetoric is denouncing the so-called “homosexual agenda.”

Let’s tell the truth. There is a “homosexual agenda.” But it is hardly radical. Sexual minorities want to live their lives like everybody else, and to be treated with the same respect that any person alive deserves. For Shirvell, or anybody else, to appeal to or claim “First Amendment rights,” for example, is also claiming a right to respect. When someone’s right to free speech is disregarded or silenced, it is major disrespect — a way of saying, “no you’re not entitled to be heard in the larger community.” Well, Mr. Shirvell, my homosexual agenda is closely allied to my First Amendment rights. And as a Christian, I am exercising them, too, by saying that I deserve respect in the public forum, not only because the U. S. Constitution affirms those rights and that respect, but because our Creator and Lord have affirmed them.  So I hereby claim as a personal truth this promise: “I will give you words and a wisdom,” says Jesus in Luke 21:15, “that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” Can your views, and your screwball stalking behavior, meet this test, Mr. Shirvell?

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Coming Out, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, wingnuts | No Comments »

Lutheran bishop speaks out prayerfully, because “our silence causes you pain.”

Friday, October 29th, 2010

I am glad to receive word that even our national Lutheran bishop has joined the “It Gets Better” project. This just came in from Lutherans Concerned/North America:

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Dear Members and Friends of Lutherans Concerned/North America:

The recent wave of media reports of teen suicides as an apparent result of anti-gay bullying has brought national attention to a matter which has affected LGBT people for generations. Video messages from cultural celebrities such as Lady Gaga, from governmental leaders such as President Obama and Secretary Clinton, and from the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA have provided crucial words of support and hope for millions of vulnerable youth. While anti-LGBT bullying has taken center stage of late, anyone who is perceived as “not like us” can and do become targets of both physical and verbal bullying. It’s vitally important that parents, teachers, elected leaders, and clergy reassure all young people that they are loved and cared for just as they are.

In his video message, Bishop Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, speaks of the “pain and shock” of hearing of young people bullied “for being the people God created them to be.” He says that he knows of the hurt that had been inflicted by the words of some Christian brothers and sisters and also that “our silence” had the power to hurt as well. He reminds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people that they are “beloved children of God,” for whom there is a place in this world and in this church.

To see the video, go to: http://lutheransconcerned.blogspot.com/2010/10/rev-mark-hanson-and-it-gets-better.html

or http://tinyurl.com/BpHanson-on-bullying

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, Bullying, Doctrine, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, PRAYERS, Violence | No Comments »

This bullying thing, writ large.

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Once our society becomes more aware of the extend of personal bullying and its role in violence and criminal behavior, things would have to get better in this country, right?

I wish that were true.  Many naysayers are found of using the term “slippery slope” to describe moral points of no return. We are afraid of legalizing marijuana, for example, because it may/will lead to harder drugs, etc. Chief William Bratton, when serving the New York Police Department, subscribed to the “broken windows theory” that ignoring trivial things like broken windows in the city leads to the deterioration of entire neighborhoods: vandalism first, then, bigger crimes against property and against people.  In other words, “it gets worse.”

Why, then, do we allow child and adolescent bullying to go unchecked? Is it not a slippery slope for adult aggression, violence and crime?

There is a lot of conversation now about the bullying which has led to the self-hatred on the part of lesbian or gay teenagers which led to them taking their own lives. Another slippery slope that should be corrected, right?

As President Obama says in his It Gets Better Project video: “It breaks my heart. It’s something that just shouldn’t happen in this country. And we’ve got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal right of passage.”

Bullying is a sign of a deeply-rooted psychology of violence. School bullies often go on to become violent criminals as adults. If they are sufficiently motivated not deflect their own rage, it can often come out in resentment, hatred, racism, and those odd and dangerous political views that hold other people in suspicion and try to deprive them of equal rights and equal opportunity in our society.

If bullying were a “right of passage”—or something Jamie Nabozny was told by his high school principal, “boys will be boys”—then theoretically bullies would “grow out if it.” Instead, many “grow into it” and become more violent in their lives.

The story of Jamie Nabozny has just been released: “Bullied” premiered in Washington three weeks ago. Nabozny was a gay teen in small-town Wisconsin who was harassed relentlessly, attacked and even urinated on in the school bathroom. He tried running away from home, attempted suicide, and finally sued his school district and won a $900,000 settlement.

Ironically there is an anti-bullying law in California which has been on the books for seven years, but it has no teeth: no definitions of either bullying or of protected classes of people, and no penalties against schools or educational executives who decline to stop the harassment and violence in their schools. Nabozny’s successful lawsuit should have made a forceful point to all of America’s educational system that one school bully is like a “broken window” in a community, and it will almost always lead to a meaner, less civil, more violent society.

It is interesting to see the letter published in the Ashland, Wisconsin paper this week that shows some progress in local thinking there. Kaylie McCarthy, a 10-th grader there wrote, “Now, I ask the Ashland School Board this: do you choose to accept the mistakes made in the past, to help move on for the future and prove not only to us students, but the entire community, that leadership comes from acceptance? Or do we cover up the mistakes, and halt the progressions that’s been made thus far? As a proud Ashland High School student, all I know is that I look forward to seeing the documentary for myself.”

Looking at the larger society, In my view, the present political climate in America is a form of bullying on steroids—when inexperienced political wannabees think they can buy an election through forceful negative advertising and saturation of our TV channels; when a minority caucus or segment of elected officials think they can demand to have their way or shut the government down in retaliation. And is not war itself the ultimate form of bullying? —when one nation thinks that by intimidation, sheer force and aggression, violence and bloodshed, it can have its way in the world.

We live in a big city, and the bullying that takes place on our streets and highways has also reached a serious, fevered level. I have personally followed drivers in traffic, for example, who barely slowed down in slipping through stop sign after stop sign on the same route. Twice I have had a driver of a truck stop and get out of his vehicle and threaten me verbally for something he didn’t like. (One of those times I was a pedestrian who had yelled out “slow down!”) The slippery slope created by the dangerous, aggressive driver is convincing others to say “everybody does it.”

I doubt, however, that the civic discourse in this country will take that direction in reacting to the tragic suicides of recent weeks, because to see bullying as pervasive in our society would cause a great deal of social self-examination. America is no longer very good at self-examination. Like the playground or locker-room bully, our society tends to blame everything external for our own character flaws. It is always somebody else’s fault: socialists, communists, jihadists, the poor, the wealthy, illegal immigrants, people of color, the homosexuals and their “agenda,” etc.

If any good comes out of the tragic deaths of at least six gay teens this fall, it would be to trigger a serious self-examination of the American way of aggression.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs, Uncategorized, Violence | No Comments »

Change. For the better.

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

I am hopeful that America is not going to let this fall’s tragic rush of gay teen suicides just slide into the past without a deeper understanding of the pain and anguish that LGBT teens are facing. All of us need to do something about it, whether or not we have teen children.

Now this past week, we learn of the suicide of 19-year old Corey Jackson. This is becoming a national emergency.

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But I am encouraged by two resources on the web. The one is the “It Gets Better Project“ on Youtube, launched by gay columnist Dan Savage, which features the voices of literally hundreds of Americans who offer their stories and their encouragement to LGBT teens. As of this week, even President Obama has posted his offering. The Human Rights Campaign’s Religion & Faith News” contained a link for Susan Russell’s video (on her personal blog). Rev. Canon Russell is the senior associate priest on the staff of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

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The other is the Make It Better Project, which I just learned about in an e-mail from Robin McGehee, Director of Get Equal, “President Obama, you can make it better,” which was posted yesterday. In it, McGehee shares the letter from Tammy Aaberg, whose son Justin Aaberg took his own life because of bullying. The Make It Better Project is produced by the GSA Network, where you can see young gay/lesbian people offering their experience and encouragement.

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On that site, you can watch several video segments, including a 5:00 minute trailer for a new documentary “It’s Elementary” from Ground Spark there are other excellent-looking resources on their site about gender, bullying, family diversity, etc.

Personally, I was moved by the amateur videos on It Gets Better to write my own script, with a little bit of my personal story, but as yet I don’t have the camera to go visual. Work with me, people, and I may wind up on Youtube.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Coming Out, Family, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Violence | No Comments »

A Sad Season for Teens

Monday, October 11th, 2010

Today is National Coming Out Day, and it’s no reason to celebrate this year. Gay teens are dying, and it would have been better by far if they could not be out until they were older and a little better to defend themselves or get away from the hostility of their teen peers or hateful parents.

The suicides of several gay youth in the last several weeks, because of relentless bullying they experience, causes me dismay and deep sadness.

It never seems to end. Fifteen years ago Leroy Aarons published his book Prayers for Bobby about a gay teen —harassed by his own fundamentalist mother about his sinfulness until he jumped off a freeway overpass to his death.

A few years ago, in the film The Bible Tells Me So, which traces the stories of five families trying to cope with the coming out of a gay child, one mother must also cope with the fact that her lack of acceptance of her daughter led to her daughter’s suicide.

If you’re really young and you know you are a sexual minority, where can you hide from the evil, the physical abuse, the taunting and bullying? When public schools have become such dangerous places, where can you run to? Is the church a refuge, where a lesbian or gay teen can feel safe? Not yet.

In the Washington Post recently Debra Haffner, the Executive Director of the Religious Institute, reported a startling figure about gay teens:

“All of us have teens and young adults who are gay or lesbian in our congregations, many who are suffering in silence and are at risk. A study done by my colleagues at the Christian Community, found that 14% of teens in religious communities identify as something other than heterosexual. Almost nine in ten of them have not been open about their sexuality with clergy or other adult leaders in their faith communities. Almost half have not disclosed their sexual orientation to their parents. And nonheterosexual teens who regularly attend religious services were twice as likely as heterosexual teens to have seriously considered suicide. Our young people are dying because we are not speaking out for them.”The 14% figure startled me but doesn’t surprise me, since so many young people, who begin to discern they are “different” or “don’t fit in” with their peers—coming up in Christian households and churches—may be drawn to the genuine message of love and acceptance which the Christian faith has always proclaimed. Gay kids may be more likely to “stick around” seeking that love and acceptance when their heterosexual peers grow bored with the message because they don’t have the same self-doubt or self-esteem issues.Or maybe they used to. When I grew up, the Lutheran Church was so repressed that nobody talked about sex at all, period. I didn’t hear negative messages or positive ones, so I didn’t internalize any homophobia from my church. But today, it seems every evangelical pastor (not really, but it seems so) continually rants about homosexuality, and so the message of love and acceptance has qualifications, “fine print” that clearly excludes the teens who are bright enough to figure themselves out at an early age.Seth Walsh, 13, hung himself. Asher Brown shot himself in the head. Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge into the Hudson. Tyler’s suicide cannot be attributed to bullying, even cyber-bullying, which figured into the tragic deaths of four other teens. Tyler was publicly shamed. But from the dark days decades back when homosexuals were considered a security risk because of the likelihood of blackmail—playing on the same dynamic of shame—bullying, intimidation, blackmail and shame have been almost one continuous spectrum from gray to black. For the love God, this must stop.The church of Jesus must stop promoting homophobia, and stop profiting by selling its own self-righteousness by being vehemently anti-gay. I am glad to say that more and more congregations are becoming open-hearted if not open-minded, realizing that while they may still have huge issues with homosexuality, it is not something for which any teenager should be driven to suicide.

However, as the welcoming movement grows in many Protestant denominations, for too many of them it is a very lame and generic welcome that now includes gay and lesbian people as long as there’s no real risk to the congregation. But there is some risk to openly saying that gay teens are welcome —not the least is the sense of “recruiting” the young to “the gay lifestyle.” The only way the church will get past that one is to work harder at educating their own members and the community around them that recruiting is a dangerous and cruel myth.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Bullying, Coming Out, Ex-Gay, Fundamentalism, LGBT Rights, Ministry, Public Affairs | No Comments »