June 26, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Catholic Church Denounces Move By Cuba To Support LGBT Rights
by The Associated Press

Posted: June 25, 2008 - 8:00 am ET

(Havana) Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church is protesting the communist government’s growing support of gay rights, including a daylong event raising awareness against homophobia and a law allowing sex-change operations.

“Respect for the homosexual person, yes,” said an editorial Tuesday in Palabra Nueva, the monthly magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana. “Promotion of homosexuality, no.”

The editorial signed by magazine director Orlando Marquez referred to activities held May 17 by Cuba’s Sex Education Center, which is directed by Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raul Castro.

The headline for this story from Associated Press caught my eye and freaked me out.

Apparently the Roman Catholic Church —anywhere in the world— is determined to be the last surviving entity which is rabidly anti-homosexual, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that it cannot understand human life, will not grow or change when the Holy Spirit is clearly calling to it, and does not model itself on the compassion and understanding of Jesus.

Isn’t it enough that the Roman Catholic Church in this country has stonewalled virtually every effort to root out clerical abuses, especially child molestation (of both girls and boys), has spent the contents of its offering plates to pay attorneys to defend an indefensible cover-up of corrupt clergy?  Isn’t it enough that Pope Benedict XVI has told all other Christians in the world that they simply aren’t the church (and by implication cannot be saved) because they are not under his personal authority?  Isn’t it enough that the American Catholic Church —one of the more open-minded pockets in the Roman Catholic Church worldwide— has put its energy and money into fighting even the most rudimentary protections for LGBT people under the law?

In another overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the Czech Republic, the right wing is still trying to block or harass all efforts to hold a gay pride parade.  According to 365Gay.Com (read it here) yesterday the government banned anti-gay rallies that ultra-right wing groups were trying to hold simultaneously with a pride march in Brno, Moravia.  While the Czech Republic, released from the iron grip of socialism has gotten quite liberal about gay people, it is safe to say the underlying Catholic hierarchical culture is trying to mobilize against gay rights.  Sadly, hwoever, the churches in Prague are just about as empty as everywhere else in Europe, illustrating how totally out of touch the church is with the 21st century.

What is really appalling/amusing (can those things be said in the same breath?)  is that the Castro regime is itself so backward that it is already fundamentally homophobic.  For years it has only compounded the inherent homophobia/hypocrisy found throughout Latin America.  Yet when it finally decides that it needs to address public policy issues concerning homosexuality in a more honest and just manner, here the Roman Catholic Archdiocese is essentially protesting such justice and in effect calling for continued repression.

In 1981 my spouse and I sponsored four Cuban refugees in this country, three of them gay men.  I learned first-hand of Castro’s anti-gay policies.  And I learned first-hand that Cuban men typically deny being gay as long as they are the so-called “active” sex partner rather than “passive.”  

At the worst of the Marxist repression, Cuban gay men could be imprisoned merely for being effeminate.  One of the four was extremely effeminate and had been in prison before being released by Fidel and kicked out of the country, directly into an American refugee camp.  His boyfriend, who pleaded with us to get him out of the refugee camp, considered himself not to be homosexual because, he said, he was always on top.

No issue, apparently, is too big to prevent denial, hypocrisy or just plain bull!  Alas, the church proves again that it will never willingly step over the line against the surrounding culture.  If Latin America is homophobic, the then church somehow believes it must defend and protect that cultural bigotry. 

Faked picture labeled “Gay Fidel” from this site

But when society has moved on —and I think this gesture on the part of Raul Castro’s regime indicates that even Cuban society is moving on—why does the church have to drag its feet even more?

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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June 24, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

NATIONAL BRIEFING | NEW ENGLAND

Maine: Group Abandons Gay Law Campaign
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2008

A group has abandoned a campaign to overturn a state law protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. The group, the Christian
Civic League of Maine [emphasis added], said it had failed to gain the support needed to continue. The proposal would have repealed protections in employment, housing, public accommodation, credit and education. It would also have affirmed a state law restricting marriages to one man and one woman, ensured that only one unmarried person or one married couple jointly could adopt a person, prohibited clerks from issuing marriage licenses to persons of the same sex, and prohibited municipalities from licensing civil unions.  California and Massachusetts are the only states to legalize same-sex marriage; a handful of others allow civil unions or domestic partnerships among same-sex couples.

I certainly didn’t have to single out the Roman Catholic Church.  After all, it has gotten into bed, as it were, with the Religious Reich. 

But why is it that the Christian Church feels it must not only weigh in on matters deemed to have moral significance, but constantly attempt to play a controlling role in setting public policy?  It seems clear enough that behind many conservative views or even more ultra-conservative voices who back and fund the repeated incursions across the line which seaprates church and state.

I have long felt that the best witness to admirable ethical standards that any Christ can make is to live an ethical life oneself, and let one’s own actions speak louder than words.  This is why I am appalled at the behavior of the Roman Catholic Church in this country in its efforts to deny civil rights to gay people when its own actions have included flouting the law and ignoring the high moral standards in the law which protects children from sexual molestation. 

If you do not believe that abortion is morally acceptable, then don’t have an abortion.  If you feel that homosexuality is immoral, then don’t be homosexual (especially if you insist that homosexuality is a matter of “choice.”).  If same-sex marriage is morally wrong, then don’t marry someone of your gender. 

Every time one of these measures comes up (and thank God that one in Maine is going down again) it claims to be protecting something.  But the homophobia is unmistakable because it usually seeks to shame and punish someone else!  That would be like promoting high academic achievement in schools not by publishing an honor roll but by paddling those who got D’s and F’s on their report card.

Mayor John Baldacci and family.  Hmmm. The homophobia of the Christian Civic League of Maine is scarcely hard to document.  Their web site entry for March 5, 2005 loudly chastises Governor John Baldacci attempts to add [protection for] “sexual orientation” to Maine’s civil rights law, and virtually rants about the “gay agenda”:

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

June 15, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

These twelve [disciples] Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. . . . Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. — Matthew 10 

The closer we get to legal gay marriage in California, the more the fundagelicals will rant and rave. They have already written us off as “lost”—damned for sure, going to spend all eternity in the fires of hell. They will continue to look for clever new ways to pronounce shame on people who are now largely impervious to new shame. Meanwhile, we are getting married, and are finding new ways to feel proud.

It always amuses and annoys me that people who are losing influence talk more and more stridently about the “dire consequences” if the world does not listen to them. The panicked, angry voices of hateful Christians has been too loud for too long in America—and they will continue to insist that we are sick or “of the devil.”

As we get closer to Tuesday’s new marital opportunity, even lesbian and gay people are having some misgivings. The media have been picking up on this more and more, since they’ve run out of steam about queer euphoria. Some same-sex couples have determined to sit this one out at least until the November ballot is over. Others are dusting off retro-thoughts from the 1970s that “marriage is an institution—who wants to live in an institution?”

We ourselves still live with some of the internalized homophobia of the early gay rights movement a half-century ago, fearful that we are somehow sick or lost or pathetic, or don’t deserve to be free and happy and gay. We wonder out loud if we are really fit for marriage, or that the (especially male) gay character is inherently commitment-phobic—that we are tramps to the core. “All men are pigs.”

Well, no, really. Thousands of us can’t wait to pay our $70 for a license to accept responsibility for one another for the rest of our lives.

For those right wing folks (who still pretend they don’t know any of us personally), we will remain society’s lepers. They insist we are not only unworthy of enjoying the rights, privileges and respect of the mainstream, but suited only for living in our pathetic ghettoes (creative neighborhoods and designer-perfect abodes filled with high-end consumer products).

It was easier for prejudice before our sense of pride emerged. We were dangerous social lepers when we skulked around truck stops, tea rooms (now reserved for Republican senators) or elementary schools. We were lepers in our pathetic promiscuity.

We were lepers when HIV and AIDS killed off our young, bright and beautiful. The right-wing fundagelicals enjoyed trying, and were highly successful for a long time, in shaming us with such terms as “sodomites” and “homosexuals.” They could describe us with words of seeming precision to elicit immediate understanding and financial support within their donor base.

And the whole reason that straight, right-end Christians portray us in such terms is their desire to keep us isolated by our shame, because of their fear of contamination (by our good taste? our open-mindedness? our sculpted abs?).

But it will be harder and harder to isolate and condemn us when we are highly visible as out couples, husbands, and wives, and when it becomes clear that California is not being incinerated under God’s wrath or falling into the ocean.

In Matthew 10, Jesus says that on the day of judgment God will look with greater tolerance upon Sodom and Gomorrah that upon other places that do not receive Jesus’ word or turn away Jesus’ offer of peace, who refuse hospitality to those who come in his name. The contrast between the self-righteous Christian and the compassionate Christ couldn’t be more stark. Today we are finding that lesbian and gay people are open to Jesus’ word of compassion, and to our offer of peace in his name. It is the right wing which rants and warns of damnation.

In this same chapter Jesus recognizes that ministry will almost certainly trigger controversy. The wolves out there may try to tear us apart, and we should be prepared.

It will not be any different for those of us in the Christian church who welcome couples who want to marry and to revel in the sense of God’s blessing.

Less than 48 hours from now, it will be legal for two women or two men to tie the knot in California. “Gay marriage” will become the new leprosy to the Religious Right. They are expected to spend at least 10 million dollars by November to fight the Supreme Court’s decision. This will be a summer of great controversy because the religious right is seeding it into our society.

In our congregation, there have been, and there will be many more wedding ceremonies for women and men who love one another against all odds. Our hospitality to the lesbian and gay community will never be more thoroughly tested than it will with the legalizing of marriage. But our doors will remain open to lesbian and gay couples simply because Jesus sends us his disciples to serve the outcasts, the lepers and those rejected or harassed by others, and to offer a word of peace, not dire warning.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Bible & Interpretation, HIV and AIDS, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Coming Out, Public Affairs, LGBT Rights, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

April 7, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

Dedicated to the memory of Marc Anthon Reilly

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. —1 Peter 3:15–16, KJV

In the 1980s, Marc came to our small gatherings in an upper room of a church that was uneasy about our being there.  But we talked and talked, as he asked questions and I scrambled to frame potential answers about faith and sexuality, love and ethics.  We challenged each other, and I especially needed that, to better understand my own struggle to keep faith.

When my friend Marc died of AIDS in 1989, I inherited some of his own books, among them a Bible given to him by his family on his birthday, October 14, years before.  Recently, I needed an open Bible for the main photo for my new site site, www.gaycatechism.net (a soft-covered Bible that would flop open for a pleasing picture), and I picked up Marc’s Bible quite randomly from my bookshelf.  The flyleaf was inscribed:

Dear Marc:

This Book contains the Word of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

Its doctrines are holy, its precepts immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be saved, and practice it to be holy.

It contains Light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.  Christ is its grand object, our good its design, and the Glory of God its end.

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully.  It is given to you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and will be remembered forever!

I met them briefly at the end of Marc’s funeral, knowing from his prior warning that they would likely be judgmental.  Most of us shrug off such momentary meetings at funerals, but I was the preacher for that service, and I had done my best to proclaim pure, unadulterated Gospel to everyone present:  to a congregation that had long since gotten over its antipathy to gay and lesbian people, and had become a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation; and to these parents whom none of the rest of us knew, except that Marc had told us they did not accept his homosexuality and probably believed God was punishing him with AIDS.

So, in reading this inscription page, apparently in Mom’s handwriting, I came face to face with what my friend had felt in his own struggle both to live as a beloved child of God and to die an untimely death comforted by friends but estranged from his parents.

What do we make of stuff like this?  LGBTQ people might blame the church, or would blame the parents for this estrangement.  The parents would blame the sin (”love the sinner, hate the sin.”)  The Church would go on studying the issue for another couple of decades, and blame its lack of resources for dragging this out at a snail’s pace.  But what do we make of this?

Personally, I am absolutely sick of hearing about the latest skirmish in the “culture wars” over homosexuality.  But unlike the right-wing person who is equally sick of it, I cannot close my ears or eyes to an unpleasant, tiresome “issue.”  Because I am gay, I must be ready to defend the hope that is within me, and even more, always be vigilant for the possible violence coming at me (whether physical, verbal, psychological, political or judicial) because of the underlying homophobia and hatred, much of it based on this Book.

I don’t formally disagree with the intentions of what Mom wrote to her son —she must have labored over the prose more than a little — but I see within it the smug and pious language of a faith which considers itself so superior to doubt or unbelief.  Why is it that the Christian hope, the Christian Gospel, cannot be proclaimed without this smug, sharp edge in its voice?

“The doom of sinners, . . . [this Book] will be opened at judgment.”  That is the kind of imagery which fundamentalists crave, but which kills relationships, estranges fathers from sons, and launches culture wars.  Can LGBTQ people find words of life here that aren’t dripping with the blood of apocalyptic warnings?  Can heterosexuals love the Lord without constantly arming themselves for a moral Armageddon?

My friend Marc was one of the lucky ones.  He died faithful to a Gospel which his parents did not fully understand, with a degree of honor and respect from the congregation which undoubtedly surprised them.  Through his battle (and his partner’s battle before him) against HIV and AIDS, he did not desert Jesus Christ in a time when cynicism and bitterness could easily have taken him down long before his death.

And thankfully he is not forgotten.  Marc left a small bequest to Lutherans Concerned/Los Angeles to help us carry on our teaching ministry through periodic lectureships.  And his faithfulness left a mark (a marc?) on me that has impelled me to keep teaching, writing and proclaiming the Gospel, without an edge to it.

Thank you, Marc.  I will always remember the gift you gave me through your faith.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in HIV and AIDS, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Fundamentalism, Faith, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

January 12, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I just learned this morning of the death of someone I’d been trying to get closer to.  He died apparently of a drug overdose after a drug binge—depressed?—that had cost him his job.

This news has triggered a lot of shock in me, and I found myself questioning our mutual friend hard, as if it were not possible, or somehow the news was not true.

He had a lot going for him, which makes this seem like a total failure of hope and grace. He was a Christian, knew his Bible well, was confident and enthusiastic about both his work and his children (although divorced), and knew the 12 Steps of recovery. He had come with a good friend to our Bible studies on numerous occasions, was affable and stable.

Something completely eclipsed my friend’s path to recovery, however, and snatched his life away.

And sadly—as so often happens—he shut others out when he was in his greatest need and hitting bottom in his greatest depression. I have learned that he refused to go into a detox and rehab facility, and was found dead in his home days later.

As a Christian teacher and Pastor, I feel a huge sense of defeat that I never got or found the right opening or opportunity to get closer to this man. Could I have played a role in redemption for him? Would I ever have been the one he might have called when he hit a low point in life?

It strikes me how often religion plays such a feeble role in the recovery and redemption of human life. Yes, he knew the Scriptures and could quote them as well as may lay people. But what happened? Where had the Christian faith let him down so that in successive moments of poor judgement and discouragement evil forces could pull him completely under?

The pull, and the destruction, of addiction is real and powerful. These are the demons of our times, and they are legion. Thanks to the law of supply and demand, they remain quite plentiful and available in our country. Drugs and alcohol are costly but not so prohibitive as to make anyone avoid them because of money. In any big city, drugs are especially easy to get.

What is not easy to come by is an absolutely confidence in God’s redemption and grace. This seems to be in short supply– and those who have it cannot always successfully reach those who long for it or need it the most.

And the recovery process is not for wimps. The Twelve Steps are not twelve wishes. They are hard, even demanding work. They require our attention over the long haul—for an entire lifetime—in order to grow in the spiritual strength that nothing can shake or damage or pull under.

As much as I feel defeat in this dark moment, my defeat tells me not to give up or become cynical. My effort—and all of our effort—is critically needed somewhere out there to chase the evil demons of life away, and to be a steady, reliable, unshakable friend for those who lose their nerve or their way. Probably more than anything, we need “street smarts” to understand the demons and to recognize their power.

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December 6, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The AIDS quilts are coming down today, after being displayed for over a week. Hundreds of people came and viewed them, read their messages, and thought about their significance. On these particular panels, some 24 people who died of AIDS are commemorated.

Our friend Paulette procured them from the Names Project Foundation in Atlanta to display over the period of World AIDS Day and our World AIDS Hollywood Vespers Concert.

The last visitors, last night, were teenagers from the Silverlake Children’s Theatre Group, who were on site for their regular rehearsals. They were very interested, and respectful of what they saw. None of them had been born when most of the individuals whose names appear on the quilts were dying of AIDS.

Alas, AIDS has become a “generational thing” in America. Too many young people have little to no experience of anyone having HIV or AIDS. It is natural for them to think it’s an old people’s disease, or a former disease, or one that will never affect them. Tragically, too many young gay people are having unprotected sex in the mistaken belief that AIDS is not their problem. Their gullibility to this falsehood is increased under the influence of crystal meth, which lowers inhibitions to sexual expression. Looking for “hookups” online is deceptively easy. And people still lie about their status. Yesterday a 365Gay.Com story reports allegations that a Roman Catholic priest and Navy chaplain has been having unprotected sex with other men without disclosing that he is HIV+.

AIDS is still killing people by the thousands, although we do not see it as much in America. America can (just barely) afford the miracle drugs that have kept tens of thousands of people alive during the last 15 years. We know individuals who have been living with AIDS for more than twenty years, so AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence.

I remember our friend Andy, who came to Lutherans Concerned events in the 1980s. Young, cute, blond, buff, pleasant, Andy was a UCLA student. He was, however, not out to his parents. And he was not aware of how easily he could contract HIV. In those days there were no miracle drugs. Andy got sick, very sick, and was diagnosed with the virus. In a matter of days, his parents learned the awful truth: that he was gay, that he was infected, and that he was dying. Andy was dead before most of his friends even knew he had been sick.

But because his death occurred twenty years ago, today’s youth just have no connection with it nor with the hundreds of thousands of people who died in their youth.

After years and years of activism, from “Play Safely” ads in gay magazines to total abstinence programs which Republigelicals have been pushing so hard, too many people have little understanding of AIDS or why it must be stopped globally. “Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise.”

One would think that visualizing AIDS as an enemy to be defeated would inspire a new generation of activists. But I’m not seeing that yet. And I don’t think it’s because people are that complacent about the disease, but they seem to be complacent about life itself.

Americans are the worst of human beings when it comes to denial. We are certainly the epicenter of death-denial and death defiance.. Evel Knievel just died November 30, incidentally, after a 40 year career of doing imaginative, stupid things to get attention. A man in Omaha Wednesday killed eight other people in an Omaha shopping mall before killing himself. He apparently left several suicide notes, including one that said, “Now I will be famous.”

And we are in a state of pathological denial about the causes of death, and will eat, drink, race, have sex, and blow off every form of danger, commit murder and suicide, as if our lives do not matter.

Perhaps our lives do not. There is the thinnest of lines between carelessness and callousness about life. But life is what you make of it. Reverence for life is not inherited, it must be learned, adopted, believed. To honor those whom we have lost —such as we did Sunday with the lighting of candles and reading of the names of 250 people— is to love life itself as a gift of God, and to respect ourselves and our finite existence even more. What is “the meaning of life”? The meaning you give to it, beginning with self-respect.

Remember the dead. Thank God for life. Stop AIDS. Keep the promise.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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December 2, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Posted in LGBT Rights, Faith, Health, Public Affairs, PRAYERS | Print | No Comments »

November 30, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I think we are all suffering from “compassion fatigue.” People don’t care as intensely, or consistently, as we did a few years go, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in this country.

But our “suffering” is slight compared to those living with, and fighting against HIV/AIDS. The suffering of this country is slight, now, compared to the struggle being endured in developing countries. Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, says that the epidemic has globalized and feminized. (Read his statement here.) The face of AIDS today is that of a heterosexual African woman of color. UNAIDS estimates that 95% of those living with HIV/AIDS are in developing nations, where all resources are scarce and costly.

There are countless world-wide and national organizations trying to help, but they too are often short on financial resources. The miracle drugs and “cocktails” which have made the continuation of life possible for thousands of Americans living with HIV/AIDS, are prohibitive elsewhere in the world, where even basic sanitation is spotty and difficult to maintain. Your compassionate response makes a difference.

Originally launched by the World Health Organization, tomorrow is the twentieth annual World AIDS Day, December 1.

This Sunday the Hollywood community will respond with an ecumenical Vespers/Concert in observance of World AIDS Day at Hollywood Lutheran Church, 1733 N. New Hampshire Avenue 90039. “World AIDS Hollywood” is an event to remember, pray and bring light. [Full details can be found at www.worldAIDSHollywood.org. Or call (323) 667-1212].

The event will feature the premier of “The Celestial Veil”, a new musical composition by Christopher A. Flores and Adrian Ravarour; music from Vox Femina and the Hollywood Wind Ensemble and other guest artists. Three 12×12 blocks of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt are on display. A bell will be rung and a votive candle lit for hundreds of names of those whom we have lost in our community. Please join us!

It is my prayer that our compassion fatigue has ended, and that the Hollywood community especially will be awakened again to the urgency of our compassionate response.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 29, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

A member of our congregation called me last week, trying to think quickly of someone to call for help. A friend of his who is 18, really a recent acquaintance, had just come out to his parents, and was kicked out of the house. As of last week, he was sleeping at another friend’s house (what www.doubletongued.org describes as “couch homelessness”).

My first question was whether this young man was depressed or even slightly suicidal. Where to live and how to make up with your parents can come later. The first thing is to preserve his life and remind him that being kicked out is only a temporary disaster.

While I was on the phone, I began looking for other contacts, including—here in Los Angeles—the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center and especially Youth Services (the Jeff Griffith Youth Center. Especially see this page on youth homelessness.

Kids always suspect their parent make stupid decisions. This seems to be the proof of it, when a parent says they love you and want the best for you, and then get hostile and angry when you tell the truth. Remember, parents are human too and they screw up.

Look at it this way: Coming out is a sign of your growing maturity and wisdom. But at least trying to anticipate and understand your parents’ thinking is an equally big sign of maturity and wisdom. If they have already rejected you, you are now facing two very big and important things.

First is your day-to-day survival. Thank God there are some resources out there.

Second is your ability to forgive your parents for failing to understand and kicking you out, — so be prepared to wait awhile for them to come around.

What if parents never come around? Human life is filled with tragedies, and this is one of them.

A few other quick and notable contacts:

1. The Human Rights Campaign has a “Coming Out Project”. You can download this 23-page resource guide.
2. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) also has resources. Visit this short list of hotlines to offer you support.

A Google search for “coming out to parents” generated 16,300,000 hits. If you’re having an emergency, I don’t think you have time to surf all that. But you should find a real live human being you can trust to talk and to support you.  If you’re thinking about coming out, then I do recommend that you plan it, and learn what you’re getting into before you set things in motion. One good resource is Mary V. Borhek’s book, Coming Out to Parents: A Two-Way Survival Guide for Lesbians and Gay Men and Their Parents, which you can get from www.Amazon.com here. It costs $14.04 but they have used copies for less.  Some more quick thoughts:

• Don’t be a loner.
• Ask for respect from others you tell your story to.
• Expect support you can trust.
• Forget “drama” if you are rejected (regret, anger, depression). You will not be rejected by everybody.
• Make new friends if your friends reject you.

If necessary, find new parents! I don’t say this to be funny. I have known many people who adopted other parents that cared for them, people who just understood right away and didn’t reject them. Family relationships are wonderful, if they’re wonderful. But if they are not, the biological family is not the only family there is.  Make a family.  Seek a family. Invest your love and respect and trust in other people until you form a new family.

And don’t leave God out of your family. Like a wise grandparent (when your parent doesn’t understand), God does accept you and loves you as you are. If you don’t believe this, or have heard otherwise, contact me right away.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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October 5, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Yesterday I went to the hospital to see our dear brother Larry, who is close to death. Spiritually he is prepared to surrender his life back to God, trusting always in God’s grace. With other dear friends, we held on to him, prayed with him, and asked him to give us a sign about his desire to continue the invasive treatment that is preserving his fragile hold on life. Finally it was time to say goodbye.

It was with tearful relief that a lady spoke to me, in the elevator when I got on at the 4^th floor. Was I a chaplain or minister? she asked. (Of course, I was dressed in clerical garb with a cross around my neck. You can never hide.)

She was hoping to find a hymn book, she said. Her story tumbled out as we descended the elevator together. On the next floor up, her mother is gravely ill, and has been hospitalized for weeks. Eighty years old, her mother has a favorite hymn, but the daughter cannot remember all the words to it, to comfort her. Mother and daughter are trying very sincerely to remain connected with one another throughout this health trauma, and to stay connected with their spiritual roots. Perhaps they have wandered from the church they once new. It doesn’t matter, really, and I was not going to interrogate her about such things.

I asked her mother’s name. Odette. I offered to bring a spare hymnal to the hospital tomorrow, and also to pray for Odette. I gave her my card, hoping that she will call me, since I didn’t get the room number or the family name.

I am still thinking and praying about these women, and prayer keeps coming up in me. I hope that the daughter does call me. But for now, I am keeping my promise to pray for her mother Odette. And, of course, for our brother Larry, hoping that if it is God’s will to take him, that his death will be like gentle sleep.

We pray to you O Jesus, the divine Healer of the sick and Physician of all souls. We come to you with empty hands but open hearts, asking simply for your mercy and gentle love. You have stood with us and helped us carry the burdens of illness, as we care for our loved ones. Time and time again you have given us the gift of healing.

But now, Lord, we place our worries for our loved ones completely in your hands. We commend to you our brother Larry, and our sister Odette, and humbly ask that you grant these, your servants, the strength and the very breath of life. Assure us, that if this is to be their last hour, is it your will to alleviate their suffering graciously, and that you will receive them into your everlasting arms. Help us to accept your will for them, and for ourselves, with the trust and confidence that you always act for the sake of your great love for all, and that you are with us in our pain, our fear and our sorrow. Amen.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 25, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

This morning’s Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times reviews Rufus Wainwright’s Sunday concert at the Hollywood Bowl.  He re-created the 1961 Judy Garland concert at Carnegie Hall (for the last time, after doing it in New York, Paris and London).  It sounded like great fun—even as the reviewer acknowledged that Wainwright admitted a certain nervousness about it.

I don’t follow showbiz very closely, so paying attention to out gay singer/actor/composer Wainwright wasn’t high on my list.  But Gay.com has an undated interview with Wainwright that set me thinking:

[Interviewer Jack Shamama:] In a recent New York Times article entitled “Rufus Wainwright Journeys to ‘Gay Hell’ and Back,” you chronicle your struggle with drugs, your subsequent mental collapse and a recent trip to rehab.  Has that gotten you into any trouble — with your label, maybe?

Wainwright: No, not trouble with the label. I’m in dangerous territory in terms of the Right using the term “gay hell” as a brand of shampoo for gay people.  I understand that concern.  But I do believe that every gay man knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Anyone who thinks there isn’t a side to gay life that’s not dangerous with a drug culture that sort of forgets about the last 20 years is fooling himself.

Well, no, I’m not fooling myself.  I may have been in a sub-cultural fog not to realize fully that drug abuse has tripped and brought down so many others.  As a guy without an addiction problem, I naively wonder about why everyone who “makes it” in entertainment seems to follow the same downward path, to say nothing of the huge majority of gay men who are so easily seduced into drugs.  Do we need to have one tragedy after another—first HIV, then crystal meth—like a bad two-act play?

Wainwright’s affinity for Judy Garland is unfortunate.  She died in 1969 of a drug overdose after nearly 20 years of drug-induced health problems.   The outline of Wikipedia’s article on Wainwright is literally a 1-2-3 progression:
“1.1 The early years
1.2 Rise to fame
1.3 Addiction.” Uh oh.  From the article:

Wainwright became addicted to crystal meth in the early 2000s and temporarily lost his vision to overuse. [emphasis added.]  His addiction reached its peak in 2002, during what he described as “the most surreal week of his life.”  During that week, he played a drug addict in a cameo role in “Absolutely Fabulous”; spent several nights partying with the president’s daughter, Barbara Bush; enjoyed a “debauched evening” with his mother and Marianne Faithfull; sang with Antony of Antony and the Johnsons for Zaldy’s spring 2003 collection; and, throughout, experienced recurring hallucinations of his father . He decided shortly after that he “was either going to rehab or I was going to live with my father.  I knew I needed an asshole to yell at me, and I felt he fitted the bill”.

Seeking guidance, he telephoned his friend Elton John, who persuaded him to check in to rehab at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota.  He detoxed and underwent therapy at the facility; he has neither confirmed nor denied his current sobriety.

Two years ago, I told our interfaith gay/lesbian clergy association I didn’t know of anyone in my church with a crystal meth problem.  They didn’t believe me. That has now changed, sadly.  As a pastor, I face an overwhelming challenge:  to communicate unconditional love, but at the same time to communicate rejection of crystal meth.  But to admit, or even tout, that I never did have a drinking problem or a drug problem doesn’t win any admirers.  They may even revoke my gay card.

But “temporarily losing his vision to overuse”?  Are people nuts?  If we don’t communicate to our own that crystal meth is evil, it is like watching a war unfold in which all our comrades drop like flies.  It doesn’t take a crystal ball.  What is the point of LGBT rights in a culture where so many people won’t need any civil rights, or culture, because they are killing themselves?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 21, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Two days ago I went to the doctor again, to one of the urology surgical staff. If was the first full follow-up since my laparoscopic radical prostatecomy in late June.

I feel fine, with just a few residual side effects that are fading in to memory, thank God. But let’s cut to the chase. I went yesterday to hear the results of the blood test the week before.

After prostate surgery there is only one thing that’s really important: the PSA blood count. The Prostate Specific Antigen test of a blood sample is the most important number for all men to watch if you’re over 40. Have this checked as part of your blood panel and complete annual physical. In the 18 months before I was diagnosed, this PSA number had risen from 4.3 to 5.8— a smoking gun to a urologist. The PSA count led to a biopsy which led to the cancer diagnosis.

Would there be any further sign of the “smoking gun”? With the cancerous gland removed, the number should be extremely low. If it were not, it might be evidence that not all the cancer had been removed with the gland—that it had already escaped or migrated within the body. It might mean further treatment, such as chemotherapy.

It would be a lie to say I was not worried. I had some advance warning of the seriousness of this number, since the Kaiser Permanente health system did not post it with my other lab results on the web site (online I can log in, make appointments, see lab results, send messages to a doctor, etc.). Yes, the doctor said, a PSA test like an HIV test is not posted online; you have to make an appointment to get the results. He said the test “takes interpretation.” The real reason is that it could be devastating to find this out from a computer, not a human being, if it is bad news.

Thank God the number came back as less than 0.1, the lowest level that the test can detect.

I had said before that all of this—from diagnosis to surgery—is still “sinking in” to my consciousness. As if my own mortality had never really occurred to me before! But there is something else that still needs to “sink in” to my whole mental, psychological and spiritual framework. That is what it really means to thank God. And is that not part of what “living by grace” means?

Instead of a mere cliché or figure of speech, to say “Thank God!” is an expression of joy and hopefulness, gratitude and finitude. We are not congratulating ourselves, after all. We live because God gives us life. Life is a gift. I have little control over how long my life will be. Except for the obvious choices I could make to shorten it (unhealthy practices, addictions, suicide), I have no control over the number of days God is giving me on this earth. Every day I need to say “Thank God!” in a new way that startles and refreshes my own soul. And it needs to “sink in.”

For this day, O God, I thank you. For the grace of my life and my health, for aging and maturing, for hopefulness and uncertainty, for all that life brings, and for its question marks, I thank you God. For the energy I have today, and the promise of tomorrow, thank you, God.

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September 12, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

[Listen to this!]

I just got a phone call from an acquaintance of the church who used to periodically stop by and “look after” the two homeless people who lived in our parking lot. (They are still around our neighborhood, but no longer in the parking lot). She was concerned, because they had disappeared today. I assured her it was temporary. They will be back with the rolling cart within 24 hours.

It prompted a longer conversation, however, for this lady and I to talk about the problems of homeless people in general and this couple in particular. I brought her up to speed on the number of attempts we have made to get this couple into one of the shelters and the programs that stand ready to help them. They just won’t go.

But the situation underscores the truth that these individuals are free and independent human beings. No one can force them to go into a shelter if they are still considered mentally competent to make their own decisions. In truth, they do have mental “issues,” but I think they would be evaluated by any qualified professional as still being able to make their own decisions. The down side is that they make bad decisions. The current bad decision this summer was to pass up offers of shelter and shower in order to remain free and unfettered on the sidewalk.

All manners of life’s problems grow in the soil of bad decisions freely made.  Alcoholism doesn’t usually start as a drinking problem. Alcohol just irrigates life’s many other problems (pre-existing conditions!), rather than washing them away.  Substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors, prostitution, poverty, crime, fraud and racketeering, and downward-spiraling nutrition and health, etc., all come from making bad decisions. Theologian and best-selling author John Bradshaw  (Healing the Shame That Binds You, Homecoming, Bradshaw on the Family) finds shame growing in this soil as well.  Psychologist Nathaniel Brandon (The Disowned Self, Six Pillars of Self-Esteem) knows what poor self-esteem does to contribute to the same list of tragic failures.

Life’s bad decisions play out as both spiritual terrors and physical catastrophes. We cannot separate mind, body and spirit. Is mental illness the cause, or the effect, of so many people living on the streets in Hollywood?

Christians and our churches often fail completely to address these inter-connected problems, whose roots are entangled in everything human.  Christian thought often addresses the “bad decisions” of life with words such as “sin” and “evil.”  But there is great resistance nowadays to hearing these words used to describe realities which are far more complex.  Some of life’s poorest decisions for an individual may properly be labeled as “sinful,” but once those decisions play out, and trigger other unintended consequences, does it matter any more if the cause was sin, or errors in judgment, low self-esteem, victimization, bad breaks, or the prejudices of other people?

As time passes, I find it harder and harder to say that “repentance” is a cure-all for what ails the people of this world. Yet I know that “redemption” continues to describe what God wants for all of us. The answer to life’s bad decisions is God’s good grace, generously poured out.  It is God’s will to love and redeem the world no matter what—the homeless, the addict, those who become trapped in the errors and excesses of sexuality, money, power and other gratifications. God sends us out to bring hope and healing. So get going!

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

This post may also be heard with Windows Media Player here:  audioblog091207.mp3

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September 5, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

[Listen to this!]

Yesterday afternoon, I raced to E.R. in a nearby hospital, to the bedside of a member of the church. They are doing tests to see if he has had a heart attack. He has been living with HIV for a number of years, but now some of the ailments of old age are also too close for comfort.

We prayed. We talked about God’s grace and purpose for his (long) life, about the gift of healing, about the 42 pills he takes every day, and about his community of support – faithful care-givers who have never given up on him, who are also members of our church community. His own life partner died of AIDS two decades ago. Now he relies on the love and care of his friends.

Care-givers teach me something about faith. Christians place our faith in God, or so we say. Sometimes we pray for more faith, greater faith, deeper faith—as if faith were some kind of repellant that, when sufficiently applied, will keep doubts from stinging us.

Maybe faith is better understood through the eyes and hands and feet of Christian care-givers. People who are sometimes family members and quite often not family members, who are there for a person in need. Week after week, year after year. In them I understand faith, because it is the steadfastness of love that will not quit or even count the cost of remaining in the game.

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed . . . for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. . .” — Matthew 25:31–46

Faith is not simply agreeing to a set of mental propositions that have been presented without any proof.  Faith in God, and faith in the goodness of God and the grace of God have ample proof, if we need proof in order to hold to those propositions.  The proof is that there are selfless, caring, generous, steadfast people out there, who have decided on their own (or through the inspiration of the Spirit) that they need to be a care-giver for someone because he or she is in need.The proof of God’s existence, and God’s loving-kindness is found in the countless angels who make that love real for someone in need.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 2, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Does God take a day off nowadays, or was it just that First Sabbath, after God had worked so hard for six days to get creation launched?

Labor is something which we all have to do, and all avoid. I don’t want to clean out the garage, for example. Bp. Paul Egertson once explained the traditional division of duties in his marriage, negotiated at the outset many years ago. Shirley would take care of all the inside stuff, and Paul would take care of the outside. The only thing, he admitted, was that Shirley did all the inside stuff every day, while raising six sons. Paul on the other hand, did all the outside stuff when he “got around to it.”

People today are busier than ever, although at what I’m not sure. For one, with more and more people living alone (divorced, widowed, never married, etc.) there is no division of labor in a family unit. A single parent does it all, all the time. And given the state of our economy and our greed, many people work several jobs in an attempt to scotch-tape a living together from several sources.

Yes, our greed plays a role in our exhaustion. Anthropologists tell us that a human being can work enough to provide for all his/her basic human needs with about 2.5 hours of work per day. Our needs met, we are obsessive/compulsive about acquiring stuff we don’t actually need. Don’t agree? Got to have that Hummer to get to work 43 miles away? Got to have that 54″ wide aspect ratio state-of-the-art television? Absolutely got to have it?

That being said, a sabbath rest is both a gift of God (God invented it, after all, Genesis 1), and a commandment: “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” God knows that, if it weren’t a commandment, everybody would disregard its value as a gift. Gift and commandment belong together as a way of ordering life, of letting the rhythms of life function the way they were intended to care and nurture people and all other creatures the way we were intended.

We sometimes employ day laborers around the house, but I insist that we not do so on Sundays. They, after all, should have their day of rest as well, even if I know that they may just go back to the Home Depot parking lot and wait for someone else to hire them. Is life so desperate, either here or in Latin America where dollars earned here will flow, that the poor attempt to work every day?

We have more than a handful of people in our church who work on Sundays, and very rarely come to worship. It’s very hard to reason with them about this; some defensiveness is bound to come up however politely concealed. “Why can’t you talk to your boss, and tell the boss you are a church-going person?” I will say or at least think. “There are probably others who aren’t Christian that could just as easily work the Sunday shift.”

Yes, I know it’s not that easy. But even to have that conversation begins to move us back to the point of saying—claiming—that a sabbath’s rest is God-given. A day off is not part of the largess of our employers or the huge corporations that now rule the world. It is a God-given perk for being human, and one that in the Scriptures was meant to be practiced even for beasts of burden. I wonder, if we let our machines go idle on the sabbath, and let our horsepowers have the day off, couldn’t we even go a long way to slacking off the global warming and a host of other human-made problems.

I also can’t help wondering, what with this huge conservative Christian base in America that wants to cling to traditional values, why they haven’t clamored for laws to allow people to not work on Sundays, or on the religious sabbath of their choice. The current legal/political climate in our nation makes it harder to unionize, harder to talk back to one’s boss, harder to demand or get a living wage, harder to remain human in defiance of the corporate business machine that will do anything to extract ever-higher returns on its equity (a much greedier objective than merely making profits). As the list of things in society which seldom/never take a day off (global financial markets, for example) grows exponentially, human beings are dying for some rest.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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