Faith In America

By Brent Childers, Executive Director

Lou Dobbs on Friday stated it made him sick to hear Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s so-called hateful words against America coming from a pulpit. 

What’s truly sickening is to see the most blatant attempt yet to interject racial division into the presidential campaign being spoon-fed to Americans under the guise of religion.

That truly is damnable.

Rev. Wright commented that God damns America for immoral acts such as policies that sanctioned apartheid and other foreign policy he says benefit corporate profit rather than humanity. This has received an enormous amount of airtime.

Over and over again, listeners have heard Wright’s words; God damns America. At first it is reasonable to assume most Americans would recoil from such words coming from the pulpit. The particular interest in this pulpit is that a presidential candidate sits in front of it.

Only in recent memory, consider how many times the Religious Right, from its pulpits, has stated that America is damned because of policies aimed at protecting gay and lesbian Americans from hate crimes and discrimination? How long have Americans, former presidential contenders and presidents sat in front of that pulpit?

It is not mere coincidence that this story was brought to our attention by the Fox News network, a media outlet that is perceived by many to carry water for the Religious Right. What is indeed shocking is how the mainstream media seemed blindsided by the story by first trying to ignore it and then falling right in line with Fox News in reporting on this as a story that has grave consequences for Obama and the Democrats.

This shows how far out of touch the mainstream media is with mainstream America. Even more disappointing is how far out of touch the mainstream media is when it comes to confronting the Religious Right’s spin machine and thinly veiled bigotry.

It may also be of no coincidence that the story broke just ahead of the weekend so that there would be a lag in the news analysis on this story. Were there sufficient time to analyze the story, the media may have had time to understand how this story is nothing more than an effort to energize the Religious Right.

How?

First, it is the most brazen attempt yet to interject racial division into the campaign. There is no doubt that a focus group somewhere has shown that nothing reviles the conservative base more than believing an African-American is preaching traitorous things about this great country.

To state that this story isn’t racially charged is utter nonsense. What is also utter nonsense is the manner in which some network commentators appear to recoil from Wright’s statement.

“It makes me sick”, Dobbs said.

How many talking heads are made sick when the Religious Right, day after day, condemns America for its anti-discrimination laws for gay and lesbian Americans or its policy on abortion?

Week after week, right-wing religious organizations work to shore up the Republican Party base and use America’s pulpits to condemn not only America but good, decent patriotic Americans. It’s not just religious leaders spreading a message of religion-based bigotry. Many elected officials and candidates are doing the same.

No one sought to give any context that Wright’s words were spoken from an interpretation of Holy Scripture. Poor presentation of the story, indeed. Even less context.

A nation where corporate greed holds sway over hard-working Americans? A nation that goes to war under false pretense? A nation in which political forces cater to prejudice and racial division? A nation in which gay and lesbian teenagers are being sacrificed on the alter of religion-based bigotry.

Would Wright’s God frown on such practices?

Surely, it would make him sick.

Allowing rejection and condemnation to triumph over hope and aspiration and all under the guise of religious truth.

By Brent Childers, Executive Director
March 5, 2008

What Lawrence King might have grown up to be – a noted philospher like Kwame Anthony Appiah, a talented actor like Richard Chamberlain or a famous singer like Sir Elton John, we will never know.  His hope and aspiration, two of American’s most cherished religious and sociological ideals, were ended by a 14-year-old classmate who saw something threatening in young King because he had announced he was gay.

People of faith hope and aspire to live up to the tenants that form their doctrinal or theological perspectives. As individuals living in a free society, the idea that everyone has the ability to achieve their best is fundamental to the American sociological experience.  But many gay Americans are being denied the right to see these ideals transform their existence because there are also dark and menacing religious and sociological forces that have been allowed to flourish in our society.

Factions within our nation’s faith communities condemn King’s sexual orientation as something to be reviled, that gay and lesbian individuals are part of an evil attempt to capture the innocent minds of children and destroy families.  Young lives are ending as a result. The families of those victims know that religion-based bigotry played a role in the destruction of their family. As director of an organization working to educate Americans about the harm caused by religion-based bigotry against gays and lesbians, I have had the privilege of working with two families that lost sons within a month of each other last year. One lived in Florida, one in South Carolina, and both of their lives ended because they were gay.

And now a third death in California.  All in less than a year.

What captured the young mind of King’s 14-year-old killer? What has destroyed two families? It was not the ideals of love and compassion.  It is clear that the perpetrator’s mind was influenced by the attitudes of rejection, condemnation and misunderstanding that have been allowed to flourish in our society for far too long.

How many more Americans must die before we, as a society, face the underlying cause behind these senseless tragedies?  

Lawrence King might have been governor of California some day. We’ll never know.

His death and the tragic violence perpetrated by his 14-year-old classmate should prompt repentance from those who continue to promote bigotry as religious truth.  The public, the media and elected officials can no longer ignore the root cause of the horrific violence that is being waged against good, decent, wonderful lives simply because the person’s sexual orientation is different.

It may not be mere coincidence that King’s death comes on the heels of certain faith communities in California waging a crusade against teaching understanding and respect of gay and lesbian students in public schools. Certain religious and political organizations teamed up with churches last fall to collect signatures for a referendum overturning an anti-discrimination measure for these students that was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last October.

Those organizations operated under the misleading names of “Save Our Kids” and “Campaign for Children and Families” and they aggressively recruited certain faith communities in their efforts.  Their website called upon 777 California churches to each collect 1,000 signatures to defeat the measure that works to promote understanding and respect for gay and lesbian youth.

In such an environment, a young mind could justify violence against a gay or lesbian person, thinking he or she would be acting to save kids and families.  We should not doubt the role those forces played in ending the life of Lawrence King. Members of his family are suffering and so is the family of the child who committed murder.

Out of this monstrous tragedy, we must begin to build a sense of compassion, respect and understanding in the hearts of Americans because this epidemic of hate must end.  Let us join together with courage and resolve in making sure attitudes of rejection and condemnation toward gay individuals will no longer be allowed to flourish under the guise of religion truth.

By Mitchell Gold
Founder, Faith In America

Yesterday former Vice-President Al Gore made a video clearly expressing his view that gay people should have full and equal rights….and that includes marriage.
 
I would like to ask you to take a moment to concentrate on this letter during your busy day. It literally could help save some lives today and countless others in the future from the fear, isolation and depression that one faces as a young gay first realizing what your sexual orientation is.
 
Al Gore is the guy who more than 30 years ago warned America of the harms of global warming and not enough people took him seriously.   And the press did not do enough investigative journalism to educate the citizenry that this was in fact a serious issue.
 
Al Gore is the guy who just a few years ago warned America that invading Iraq was a horrible mistake.  I was sitting in the front row listening to him deliver this speech in San Francisco.  I was shocked that evening to see how the news portrayed his speech. It was dismissive.  Not enough people took him seriously.  And the press did not do enough investigative journalism to learn the facts about what has turned out to be one of America’s greatest debacles.
 
Once again, Al Gore is a step ahead with his vision of a just world.  I believe Al Gore made this statement because he is just tired of sitting back and seeing people he loves and doesn’t even know be the recipients of the real harm caused by those who have as a priority to marginalize and dehumanize gay Americans.  Al and Tipper Gore know that today, as I write this letter to you, there are untold thousands of teenagers who are desperately struggling with the reality that they are gay.  Will they lose their family if they find out?  Will they lose their friends?  Their church? Will they get beat up at school?  Will they get killed like Sean Kennedy last May?  Who can they talk to?  I know the fear and terror of this isolation.  I know that some will commit suicide.  I know because when I was a teenager I was not just constantly depressed but suicidal.  For the grace of I don’t know what, I am here today. I somehow had the strength to get through it.
 
Imagine if you are a teenager today in Hope, Arkansas.  Child of a Southern Baptist family….maybe your father is a preacher.  Close your eyes and think about the fear and isolation I’ve described.
 
Al Gore gave America another wake up call today. Will you take him seriously and really search to understand what he is talking about?  Do you see his vision?  Marriage is not the issue.  Full and equal rights is the issue.  I want to encourage you and help you investigate what it means to a teenager to be gay today.  You might think it is easy to come out, but it is not.  Where my factory is in rural North Carolina I see and know the religion-based ignorance and fear.
 
I was in Los Angeles yesterday.   A few hours after Al Gore’s announcement, I was at the offices of the Trevor Project listening to phone calls from gays contemplating suicide.  Hopefully, I helped save a life or two. 
 
Several years ago I spent a weekend at the Gore’s home.  It was just Al and Tipper and myself. I really didn’t know him that well and got the chance to have long conversations (as well as get a one on one of his climate slide presentation that has now become quite famous!!!).  Once I got over the intimidation of being with him and the awe, I decided to really probe on a wide variety of issues that interest me.  From health care to all kinds of questions about foreign countries to poverty and to, of course, gay rights.  After about a day and a half I looked at him at one point and simply said “you know, you are a good Christian.  Why didn’t you use that in your campaign?”
 
Al Gore is a sincere Christian.  Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, James Dobson and on and on are not.  I mean this nicely and sincerely when I say that I challenge you to stop accepting these people using their code words like ‘social conservative’ (aka bigotry) and the like.  Ask them what they really mean by ‘traditional marriage’ or ‘family values’.  They are the ones who are espousing religion-based bigotry.  Let’s call the disease by it’s real name.
 
The economy, war in Iraq, Iran, Lou Gehrig’s disease, universal health care…..these are all incredibly difficult and complicated issues to solve.  Gay teen depression and suicide?  Easy to solve.  You have the responsibility and power to expose the hypocrisy of religion-based discrimination. You have the ability to show that it has been used in the past and was wrong…and evil….and is today as well.
 
Please forgive my passion and if I’ve been too forthcoming to you.  Or if you feel I am being hard on the media.  I just can’t stand to see another day go by where a teenager might be going through what I did.  Let me know however I can help you understand this horrific problem. Gay rights is not just about a middle class couple who might not have visitation rights, or a person being fired from their job or denied housing.  
 

01/17/08

The African-American community should pay close attention to what Sen. Barack Obama has said about equality for gay and lesbian Americans and the correlation of religion-based bigotry and discrimination against African-Americans.

The struggle for justice, equality, and dignity for gay and lesbian Americans continues and Sen. Obama and other leaders have engaged the African-American faith community on this issue.

Are we listening?

As an African-American minister, I many years ago heard the call for change on this issue and it is still my resolve today to be a missionary for justice and equality, to be courageous, true to my faith, and challenge the African-American faith community, to love God with our whole heart and our neighbors as ourselves.

The African-American faith community must defend the human dignity of all people as distinguished leaders in our community are calling us to this task.

Consider Coretta Scott King’s remarks in a 1998 address in which she said that “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”

Just last week it was announced that Julian Bond, an icon in the civil rights movement for nearly 50 years and longtime national chairman of the NAACP, has stepped into a leadership role with the Fairness for All Families Campaign in Florida, a statewide coalition effort working to prevent an effort to write discrimination against gays and lesbians into that state’s constitution.

These leaders recognize the history of religion-based bigotry and discrimination toward our own community. We know that religion was once misused to justify slavery.

Today it is being misused to deny members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community full and equal rights.

The African-American faith community must recognize the perpetrators and injustice, and bring about an end to the hurt that has been caused to so many.

Discrimination is morally wrong and un-Christian. Let me repeat this: Discrimination is morally wrong and un-Christian.

Sen. Barack Obama has said that he strongly disagrees with the views of people like gospel singer Donnie McKlurkin and others who use religion to attack members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. Those of us who are missionaries for justice and equality are hopeful that Senator Barack Obama will be true to his platform for change, and speak out against religious bigotry coming from a select group of African-American evangelical leaders. His appearance Monday night at a presidential debate in Myrtle Beach would be a good opportunity for him to do just that.

While Senator Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States offers hope, let us not forget a facet of society that has had little hope for change the last 20 years. The purpose of our government, first and foremost, is equality under the law, respect for human rights, and protection of all our citizens, whether they are white, black, male, female, disabled, Christian, or gay. We must be about the business of building a beloved community with a foundation of compassion and justice for all.

The Declaration of Independence says: “All people are created equal and endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The Bible says, “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30-31 There are no exceptions about who our neighbors are.

We must be courageous enough on our watch to change our society for the better.

So let us hear the call for change from our leaders and join them in challenging those people who misuse religious teachings to justify attitudes of condemnation and discrimination toward our gay and lesbian friends and neighbors.

Rev. Dr. Bennie Colclough of South Carolina serves as co-chairman for the S.C. Progressive Network and has been a longtime advocate for the LGBT community. He is a contributing writer for Faith In America, an organization that works to help the public better understand the harm caused by religion-based bigotry and discrimination.