Bulletproof Faith

An excellent book that I recently finished is by United Church of Christ pastor and LGBT activist Candace Chellew-Hodge (Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008). I'll post a few reflections on the book but in this first one I'd like to first include an important point that the author makes about the "debate" about LGBT rights:

"For years, the media have attempted to 'balance' the 'homosexual issue' with voices from the 'other side.' That 'other side' has traditionally been voices from religion, specifically the Christian religion...[However,] [r]eligion is not the 'other side' of the 'homosexual issue' any more than people who believe in a flat earth are the 'other side' of the global warming issue or any more than the Ku Klux Klan is the 'other side' of the black civil rights movement. Despite the media's relentless search for the 'other side,' for some issues, there simply isn't a viable 'other side.' This issue is one of them" (x).

I think this is an especially important point as sometimes the media's coverage of LGBT issues makes it seem like both "sides" of the issue are equally sincere and have just as much potential truth on their respective sides. However, as in other struggles for justice such as the civil rights movement and others, eventually there comes a time where the other "side" simply has to be abandoned as incorrect. As in the 1960s when Americans finally drew toward a consensus that discriminatory laws were simply no longer acceptable I believe that we're moving toward a time when it will just no longer be tenable to keep standing in the way of full civil equality for LGBT people

Peace,
Padre Chuck