A new Gallup poll shows that support for gay marriage is moving closer to 50%, but more people than not still think we're immoral.
The generational divide is clearly in our favor, however: 75% of 18-to-34-year-olds think that homosexuality is "an acceptable alternative lifestyle" vs. only 45% of those 55 and older.
But much more work remains to be done among churchgoers: Of those who attend church weekly, only 33% consider homosexuality to be acceptable vs. 74% of those who rarely or never attend services. Note to ACT-UP style activists: chanting "Bigot, bigot go away" isn't going to change that number. Supporting Soulforce, and those working for change within their own denominations, might.
23 Comments for “Pulse of the Nation”
posted by Casey on
I love that you keep giving props to SoulForce – not only are they taking on some of the hardest challenges out there, doing work that really needs to be done, but they do a great job of bringing in the next generation of activists as up and coming leadership. All around, an organization worth noting.
posted by Brian Miller on
Note to ACT-UP style activists: chanting “Bigot, bigot go away” isn’t going to change that number. Supporting Soulforce, and those working for change within their own denominations, might.
Yes, it might.
What will?
Encouraging free thought and abandonment of bizarre notions that a “loving God” encourages you to hate and harm those who are different from you.
posted by Alex on
Moving away from the “easy answers” of literal religion (radical fundementalism of any strip) to something requiring a little more thought and energy.
posted by Brian on
What will help? Recognizing that, more often than not, Christian church-goers are good people genuinely wanting to do what is right. And then helping them to realize that what is right is to accept the humanity of each of us. At least that’s what I have seen in my experience.
posted by Timothy on
Note to ACT-UP style activists: chanting “Bigot, bigot go away” isn’t going to change that number. Supporting Soulforce, and those working for change within their own denominations, might.
Yes, it might.
What will?
I think this will be a matter of time. Already I can see changes in the face of protestant christianity. With voices within the emergent church movement starting to question the old interpretations of scripture. With “radical” but influential voices like Jay Bakker gaining visibility. With even Jerry Falwell saying in 2005 that gay people deserve civil rights.
As the younger generation grows, they will be the preachers and the priests and the pastors. And they don’t start with the base assumptions that their parents had.
I believe that within 25 years there will be virtually no protestant churches preaching about the evils of The Gays. And when the voices in the pulpit change, so will the beliefs of those in the pews.
I think this is inevitable.
posted by Lori Heine on
“As the younger generation grows, they will be the preachers and the priests and the pastors. And they don’t start with the base assumptions that their parents had.”
Timothy is right on here. Change is happening — just not fast enough to suit everybody. But real, lasting and meaningful change always happens slowly and gradually.
We have it far, far better than did any previous generation of gay Americans or gay Christians. There can be no denying this. Thank God those who came before us didn’t take the attitude all too common among anti-Christian gays today. They didn’t give up, they did make a difference. And so can we — if we’re willing to be patient.
posted by Brian Miller on
We have it far, far better than did any previous generation of gay Americans or gay Christians. There can be no denying this. Thank God those who came before us didn’t take the attitude all too common among anti-Christian gays today.
Actually, if anything, they were far more radically opposed to church power. The idea of “gay Christians” is a 1990s concept, at the earliest.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Actually, if anything, they were far more radically opposed to church power. The idea of “gay Christians” is a 1990s concept, at the earliest.”
Which many reasonable people will rightly see as yet further proof of how much progress we have made.
Anybody who believes that sitting around howling about mean all those awful Christians are is actually doing something about the situation is entitled to their opinion.
They can go right on howling, and those of us in the church will go right on fighting for the birthright we refuse to surrender.
It’s easier to refuse to let something be stolen in the first place than to try and get it back after it’s gone.
posted by Lori Heine on
It should have been “HOW mean those awful Christians are.” This itty-bitty typing space makes it very hard to keep track of any words you might have left out while you were posting.
posted by dalea on
Actually there were quite a few gay Christian groups in the 70’s. MCC was organized in the 1950’s. Thirty five years ago almost every known denomination had a gay caucus of some sort. Most of these are gone.
The were either assimilated into the whole church, as with Episcopalians and the UCC. Or they were successfully driven out, as with Dignity, the Pentecostals and the Southern Baptists.
Dignity was an especially sad story. A RC group with thousands of members, driven out of the church on the Pope’s order. It barely exists today.
And then there are the many paths the gay Christians themselves have taken. Check out the biographies of the authors at White Crane Journal. Most began as conventional Christians. Almost none of them can be called that today.
There are always lots of young evangelical gay Christians around. There are virtually no older ones. Somehow, being both gay and Christian is an unstable identity. Something gives, and usually it is the Christianity.
posted by Casey on
“There are always lots of young evangelical gay Christians around. There are virtually no older ones. Somehow, being both gay and Christian is an unstable identity. Something gives, and usually it is the Christianity.”
Wrong again, Dalea – though given your hostility, I’m not surprised older folks aren’t that open about their faith with you, or that you don’t travel in circles that include older evangelicals of any stripe. They’re out there, and often better adjusted than a lot of gay folk of their age. (No fault of their own to those who aren’t well adjusted… honestly, I believe its the faith of these older gay Christians that got them through the very hard times that previous generations of gays all went through, and their faith that healed them, to an extent).
Yes, it is hard to be both gay and Christian, and has been harder than it is today – but while I am saddened to think of all of those who walked or were driven away, I don’t think the identity itself is unstable… I think people are just human, and someday the easy path is just too tempting to turn away from. GK Chesterton put it well – “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” For gay Christians, much of that ideal requires forgiving and praying for those who hate us, and loving Christ despite the Christians – something many people find just too hard. It’s only grace that lets me do it at all.
posted by Lori Heine on
Casey is absolutely right. It isn’t easy to keep on forgiving, or to overcome our hurt feelings and stick around when it would be so much easier just to leave.
The problem is that getting hurt feelings and leaving IS EXACTLY WHAT OUR ADVERSARIES WANT US TO DO.
Do you think the Fitzes of this world shed any tears when we take our business elsewhere? They WANT us to leave the church. Casey knows this, as do NDT and a few of the other brave and determined folks who stand up here for their faith.
Those who fail to understand this keep up their bitter, shrieking chorus of “self-hater!” and “Uncle Tom!” and “fundy housewife!” because they’re too caught up in their own misery to recognize the truth.
It’s one thing to reject a faith because you personally have determined it is wrong. Sorry, but I have my doubts about the anti-Christers here at IGF who scream at gay Christians ’til they’re blue in the face — but say nothing when somebody like Fitz comes along peddling his ignorance and poison.
Were somebody to come along with an ulterior motive — say, to drive gay Christians to despair — it would hardly be somebody who (like Casey, NDT or me) tells them that they CAN, indeed, be self-affirmingly gay and Christian. It would be somebody (like Gay Species) who quotes the standard “clobber” passages from Scripture that are so often ignorantly twisted to be used against us.
I strongly suspect that the anti-gay-Christian rage stems from the fact that some folks simply haven’t come to terms yet with the “clobber” passages and the hate. They can’t get it out of their system. When I suggest they may want to seek help for this, I’m not trying to be spiteful. I say it in all sincerity.
It would certainly be better than raving at people like some homicidal stalker and threatening to do them harm because they have committed the apparently-unpardonable crime of being simultaneously gay, Christian and happy.
posted by daveyChuck on
Don’t forget that the figures referring to “people who attend church” are self-reported. Actual church attendance statistics show that …well…people over-estimate their church attendance. LOL
posted by Timothy on
A new Gallup poll shows that support for gay marriage is moving closer to 50%, but more people than not still think we’re immoral.
Oddly enough, this really isn’t a conflict. People can often find someone immoral, or stupid, or think their faith is a cult, or think they are a repulsive person and STILL believe in fairness.
posted by Brian Miller on
Do you think the Fitzes of this world shed any tears when we take our business elsewhere?
Oh, they don’t in the beginning.
But eventually they do. If you want proof, just have a look at the anti-gay churches of Western Europe for proof.
They railed against gays, against immigrants, against other religions, against modern life in general — and now they’re dying off.
Ultimately, driving out “the gays” might provide the bigots who run major denominations with temporary satisfaction, but they’re also planting and watering the seeds of their own destruction — an end that, if they don’t change their ways, will result in a Southern Baptist Convention similar to the English Anglican Church. . . 8 or 9 old people who attend mass in a big empty church.
Either way, the market will decide, and right now, the market is distinctly against exclusionary and irrational people attempting to economically and politically carve off important segments of society based on dubious contentions.
Either those contentions change, or the institutions making them go the way of Wang Laboratories and other organizations that lost touch with reality.
posted by Timothy on
dalea,
a minor correction
Actually, Troy D. Perry founded the Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles on October 6, 1968.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Perry
There are always lots of young evangelical gay Christians around. There are virtually no older ones. Somehow, being both gay and Christian is an unstable identity. Something gives, and usually it is the Christianity.
I think I see the point you are trying to make. It is true that there are few conservative evangelical gay Christians (Evangelicals Concerned has some as do some MCC or other gay churches). And this is because too often the conservative branch of Christianity has said, “you cannot be gay and be a Christian”.
In fact, you can no longer be a church that believes it acceptable to have a gay member (whether you actually have a gay member or not) and remain part of the North Carolina Southern Babtists.
The gay evangelical Christian is then given a choice – be gay or be a Christian. And since orientation is not a choice, he really only has one, to reject his faith.
Now I know that some do find their way to a gay affirming church that teaches at least some of their faith tradition. And I’m sure some adopt another faith tradition. But I suspect most just walk away from God and faith entirely.
I believe that this is a heinous act on the part of those churches and one to which they will have to answer to God. As a Christian, I cannot personally think of anything more offensive to God than driving people away from Him.
posted by Timothy on
Lori
With all due respect, please don’t confuse “keeping their faith” with anti-gay rants. I never object to keeping one’s faith (it would be a bit ironic, really) but I will stand against those who use their faith as an excuse to demonize gay people or to fight against gay equality, protection, and civil rights.
I suspect very few people oppose the faith of anyone else here (though, no doubt some do). I suspect the opposition is either partisan shreiking (which is common here) or is based on an actual objection to policies or ideas.
posted by Lori Heine on
Timothy, as someone who ministers to GLBT people every day, I am all too well aware of “those who use their faith as an excuse to demonize gay people or to fight against gay equality, protection, and civil rights.”
Insults, humiliating treatment, outright threats and even occasional physical assaults are business as usual against people who do what I do. I can assure you I have not spent my life under some moon-rock, blissfully removed from such considerations.
Frequently the assumption on this site seems to be that I don’t know all this stuff happens — that I am somehow magically removed from it. I am therefore informed of it as if it should be news to me.
I am, therefore, under absolutely no confusion of the difference between someone’s keeping faith, on the one hand, and “anti-gay rants,” on the other.
I don’t sleep with a loaded .357 magnum on my nightstand out of any childlike belief that every conservative, heterosexual Christian loves me. Unfortunately, neither must I do so because every member of the GLBT “community” loves me, either.
posted by Carl on
Sadly, it looks like those Christians who so oppose our rights (even oppose us being able to attend their church) may have an ally in the new Surgeon General nominee:
http://www.kentucky.com/454/story/85442.html
posted by Timothy on
Lori,
I’m sorry if you thought that was an attack on your awareness. It was not intended that way.
My point was that some on this site do use their purported faith as an excuse to attack others here. They have demonstrated – and I VERY seldom use the word – real homophobia. Their attacks are against “the gay community” as a whole or anyone anywhere who is gay (with VERY few exceptions) and based solely on stereotypes and, honestly, hatred.
I don’t see you as a person like that. However, it does bother me when you sometimes align yourself with that faction.
It is, to my way of thinking, legitimate to criticize organizations or individuals that have ideologies which you find in error or perform actions that are less than desireable. But it is never acceptable to broadly identify all gay persons as having attributes based on assuptions or stereotypes.
And I do hope that your feeling of kinship with others who may share your sense of faith will not cloud your judgment and cause you to ally yourself with bigotry. It is wrong when it happens from a straight person (causing you to need a gun) and it is every bit as wrong when it happens from a gay person.
Please don’t take this as an attack on you. It isn’t. It’s just an encouragement to realize that there are plenty of us out here who are people of faith and that you need not cling to those whose faith is exhibited by means of hatred or contempt.
posted by dalea on
Thank you Timothy for this wise correction. What I was referring to is that there are almost no conservative gay Christians who have been out for any length of time. Many start out as cC, but most discard that identity fairly quickly.
I base this observation on many years of knowing gay men in religious circumstances. One that especially stands out is an Oimel service (rites of Persephone) in which over one half of the gay men participating had been cC seminarians.
For those interested in further exploration, here are links to actual gay male religious sites. Please note that these are journals that have been around for some time. White Crane began in 1989, RFD in 1973. Further note the biographies of those writing.
http://www.whitecranejournal.com/issueIndex.asp
http://www.rfdmag.org/links.php4
http://whitecrane.typepad.com/journal/2006/07/white_crane_69__1.html
http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/
http://whitecrane.typepad.com/journal/2006/10/white_crane_70__11.html
http://whitecrane.typepad.com/journal/2007/02/wc71_frank_talk.html
posted by Timothy on
dalea,
To be fair, you will have to admit that there are probably more gay people who are still conservative Christians than who are part of some pagan* rite.
I think that a good percentage of the independent gay churchs are probably pretty conservative in their theology. Otherwise they’d be part of a demonination. I can think of several in my area alone (Christ Chapel is a good example).
Nonetheless, the gay conservate Christians are far too few when you consider the number of gay people who grew up with that religious teaching.
* I don’t use this term to be offensive, but I’m not sure what term is inclusive of these alternate religions.
posted by dalea on
Good point Timothy. Yes, there probably are more gay cC’s than gay Pagans. Sometime ago I linked to a marketing survey that showed the distribution of gl religiosity. What struck me was that the single most active group of religious gays were Pagans. The link is here somewhere.
BTW, Pagan is a perfectly acceptable term, but should be capitalized as it is the name of a religion.