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I would like to see Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963) added to all new Bibles.

I don’t propose this lightly.  Three times in the Bible, in three different places, listeners (and they wouldn’t have been readers) are exhorted not to add to, or take away, from specific books.  One is about Revelation, one is specifically to the Israelites in Deuteronomy to listen to the law, and the other is in Proverbs: “Every word of God is true….do not add to his words, lest you be proved a liar.”  I think it’s safe to say that I won’t propose adding any new words of God to the Bible.  I’m advocating something less radical.  If we can have letters from Paul, we can have letters from Martin.

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WHEN:  Sunday, April 6 at 12:30pm (pizza will be provided)

WHERE:  Fountain Street Church (Chapel)

Are you an LGBT couple affected by the marriage ban? Are you an ally who knows friends who have been affected by the marriage ban?

Join us in this Equality/Justice event. A letter writing campaign with a twist.

We’ll be meeting together to write scenes from “stalled” marriages.  Help show them how the marriage ban is affecting you, your families, and your friends right now.  We believe your scenes will show lawmakers, justices, lawyers and everyone how a ban on marriage hurts a relationship, a family, friendships. These are your stories. We hope that you tell them to make them known, and to make a difference.

We intend to get as many people together as we can on SUNDAY, APRIL 6th, 12:30-2:30pm to craft small written scenes. Pizza will be provided. You don’t have to have a writing background at all. Just a willingness to tell a story, your story.

Author, and Lambda Literary Fellow (2013), Dr. Jerome Stueart, will be facilitating a writing workshop focused on writing scenes from your family, if you are an LGBT person/couple affected by the marriage ban, or, if you are an ally, from the family of someone you know.

Why scenes? Scenes are a powerful writing tool in creating change. We know the best tools, and those that have gone viral, have been “stories” –real stories of LGBT families and individuals who desire marriage.  We want to use those same powerful tools to talk about this period of stalling, the reinstated ban on LGBT marriage.  Show HOW the actions of lawmakers and the Court of Appeals are affecting your family today by showing them actual scenes, like small memoirs, of your family.

At this guided writing workshop, you will write down scenes from these stalled marriages–of yours or your friends. We’ll be using some of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a guide, as well as other writings.  Our hope is to send those scenes to those who can make a difference, but also, maybe, a broader audience. At this time, we have no idea what that would be—but we’re open to suggestions. Getting the word out, getting your scenes out, will move people and show them how waiting and stalling marriages are harming families.

If you’re an ally, or one of the 300 couples married before the ban took effect again, or if you were planning on being married, come join us for a couple of hours, write some scenes with us, help us send your stories to those who can end this ban, and to the world.

Everything is FREE. Lend us some time, and send your “scenes from stalled marriages” to those who are making decisions about your marriages.

FOUNTAIN STREET CHURCH, 24 Fountain Street GRAND RAPIDS MI
SUNDAY, APRIL 6th 12:30-2:30pm Food provided. Paper, pens provided. Facilitation and workshopping provided.

 

 

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Unfortunately, this class did not gather any students.  But I wanted to teach a workshop anyway, and the Michigan LGBT community is facing a huge battle right now. So we’ve designed a FREE class instead, on April 6 Scenes from Stalled Marriages.  Please join us to write about YOUR family under the marriage ban, or your FRIENDS’ families or individuals.  We’ll see you APRIL 6 at Fountain Street Church.

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Please join us in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the weekend before the Festival of Faith and Writing (at Calvin College), for Writing the LGBT Spiritual Journey Workshop, APRIL 5, SATURDAY, 9am–5pm.

For the LGBT person of faith, the journey has not been easy.  Many of us are refugees from mainline denominations that offer faith but only to some, or only with clauses attached.  Some of us have escaped into better, more accepting faiths or denominations–but that journey may not have been easy.  Charting our spiritual journey, though, can help bring focus and fulfillment to our lives as part of the LGBT community.  Writing our spiritual journeys also completes the missing parts of society’s spiritual journey.  In this Workshop we will read LGBT writers of faith, as well as writers of faith in general, to pick up tips and techniques that will help you write about your journey.  If you like discussing spirituality in the context of the LGBT community, with others like yourself, and exploring through writing what your journey has discovered, come join us.  Using writing exercises, games, techniques of professional writers, and your own lives, you will create writing that struggles, overcomes, even heals, as it maps the spiritual journey of your life.  All faiths are welcome.  All struggles are welcome.  Even if your spirituality doesn’t fall neatly in a box, join us.  Boxes aren’t the best places for spirituality anyway.

This class needs a minimum of five people to run.  Some reading will be sent to you via email before the workshop begins. Cost is $80 per person.  Sign up early so we can be sure that the workshop runs, and that you receive readings for the workshop.  Bring a journal, a pen, and the heart of an explorer.

To sign up, follow this link.  For more information,  please contact Fountain Street Church.

Saturday, April 5, 9am-5pm

Fountain Street Church

(616) 459-8386

growthesoul@fountainstreet.org

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As I’m headed to the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan again this year, and Anne Lamott is speaking there, I am reposting how Anne Lamott saved my life.

Talking Dog

Having been raised in churches all my life, having done the double, triple, renewing salvation genuflect that Baptist kids do over their lives, knowing the plan of salvation in scripture form, calling card form, bracelet form, code form— you’d think that I was duly saved.  You don’t really have to do it so many times.

Until your life is at stake.

Coming out to myself really hit me hard.  It threw my sense of what I could believe in the Bible.  Waking up to the idea that I had been misinformed at such a deep level about who I was, and what I was, made me wonder if the Bible (or Christians) could get how God felt about being gay wrong, what else could they get wrong?  It threw me, too, into a world where I felt pretty lost.

But then one day, I found Anne Lamott.  Actually, she was…

View original post 673 more words

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This website has a lot of my story on it–but this is the less than ten minute version of my story with the church.  The Queer Story Archives came up to Whitehorse–Lulu from OnMyPlanet.ca–in July 2013, recording stories of Yukon Queers, and we recorded this right before I was to leave for Dayton, Ohio. I think it’s turning into a positive story so I’m sharing it. Ultimately I’m suggesting that including gay people can save a rapidly diminishing Church population. To do that, I tell my story. Some of you have heard it–either through the Yukon News, or through DNTO. Both sources were good but heavily edited.  It feels better in my own words, complete.

We grow from hard times in our lives and this was a good growth for me. Eventually, I’ve come to retain and re-establish many friendships from the first church. I hope my story still helps others. Thanks to LULU and onmyplanet.ca

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Over on Huffington Post, Gay Voices, is a tragic story of Christian parents who tried very hard to love their gay son.  They prayed, though, that they would not have a gay son….and that prayer came true, in the worst possible way.

I’ve reprinted here only the beginning of this piece—but it is powerful–and the link will take you over to Huff Post for the full column.

For me, this is the tragedy of good Christian parents who aren’t ready to allow their kids to make up their minds about their sexuality. They learn that accepting your sexuality is accepting yourself–and when you aren’t allowed to accept your sexuality, you aren’t allowed to accept who you are—and that can have awful ramifications.  They do understand though—but too late to help their own son.

Read one family’s story:

FOR THE WHOLE ESSAY, Just Because He Breathes, CLICK HERE.

From Linda Robertson:

On the night of Nov. 20, 2001, a conversation held over Instant Messenger changed our lives forever. Our 12-year-old son messaged me in my office from the computer in his bedroom.

Ryan says: can i tell u something

Mom says: Yes I am listening

Ryan says: well i don’t know how to say this really but, well……, i can’t keep lying to you about myself. I have been hiding this for too long and i sorta have to tell u now. By now u probably have an idea of what i am about to say.
Ryan says: I am gay
Ryan says: i can’t believe i just told you

Mom says: Are you joking?

Ryan says: no
Ryan says: i thought you would understand because of uncle don

Mom says: of course I would
Mom says: but what makes you think you are?

Ryan says: i know i am
Ryan says: i don’t like hannah
Ryan says: it’s just a cover-up

Mom says: but that doesn’t make you gay…

Ryan says: i know
Ryan says: but u don’t understand
Ryan says: i am gay

Mom says: tell me more

Ryan says: it’s just the way i am and it’s something i know
Ryan says: u r not a lesbian and u know that. it is the same thing

Mom says: what do you mean?

Ryan says: i am just gay
Ryan says: i am that

Mom says: I love you no matter what

Ryan says: i am white not black
Ryan says: i know
Ryan says: i am a boy not a girl
Ryan says: i am attracted to boys not girls
Ryan says: u know that about yourself and i know this

Mom says: what about what God thinks about acting on these desires?

Ryan says: i know

Mom says: thank you for telling me

Ryan says: and i am very confused about that right now

Mom says: I love you more for being honest

Ryan says: i know
Ryan says: thanx

We were completely shocked. Not that we didn’t know and love gay people; my only brother had come out to us several years before, and we adored him. But Ryan? He was unafraid of anything, tough as nails and all boy. We had not seen this coming, and the emotion that overwhelmed us, kept us awake at night and, sadly, influenced all our reactions over the next six years was fear.

We said all the things that we thought loving Christian parents who believed the Bible, the Word of God, should say:

We love you. We will always love you. And this is hard. Really hard. But we know what God says about this, so you are going to have to make some really difficult choices.

We love you. We couldn’t love you more. But there are other men who have faced this same struggle, and God has worked in them to change their desires. We’ll get you their books; you can listen to their testimonies. And we will trust God with this.

We love you. We are so glad you are our son. But you are young, and your sexual orientation is still developing. The feelings you’ve had for other guys don’t make you gay. So please don’t tell anyone that you are gay. You don’t know who you are yet. Your identity is not that you are gay; it is that you are a child of God.

We love you. Nothing will change that. But if you are going to follow Jesus, holiness is your only option. You are going to have to choose to follow Jesus, no matter what. And since you know what the Bible says, and since you want to follow God, embracing your sexuality is not an option.

We thought we understood the magnitude of the sacrifice that we — and God — were asking for. And this sacrifice, we knew, would lead to an abundant life, perfect peace and eternal rewards. Ryan had always felt intensely drawn to spiritual things; He desired to please God above all else. So, for the first six years, he tried to choose Jesus. Like so many others before him, he pleaded with God to help him be attracted to girls. He memorized Scripture, met with his youth pastor weekly, enthusiastically participated in all the church youth group events and Bible Studies and got baptized. He read all the books that claimed to know where his gay feelings came from, dove into counseling to further discover the whys of his unwanted attraction to other guys, worked through painful conflict resolution with my husband and me and built strong friendships with other guys — straight guys — just like the reparative therapy experts advised. He even came out to his entire youth group, giving his testimony of how God had rescued him from the traps of the enemy, and sharing, by memory, verse after verse that God had used to draw Ryan to Him.

For the rest of the essay, please follow this link.

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The Supreme Court of the United States issued two huge rulings on gay rights Wednesday morning, June 26.  They overturned a key component of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), Section #3 which tried to define marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. This spells the end of DOMA; which will probably be repealed quickly since it’s been declared, in essence, unconstitutional, as it stands now.  Also, in a separate case, Hollingsworth vs. Perry, the fight over Proposition 8, the law passed in California banning gay marriage (which Judge Walker of the Ninth Circuit Court declared unconstitutional, but which Prop 8 proponents brought to the Supreme Court on appeal), those wishing to appeal Walker’s decision did not have standing.  So Walker’s decision stands and marriages can happen again in California.  Yay!  All seems right in the world.

And then Sunday comes.

Sunday, the Court of Religion meets.  And those Judges (for they aren’t Justices) have the power to perpetuate the source of hate and discrimination against the LGBT community–or they have the power to cut off that source of hate and discrimination.  It’s a make or break Sunday.

No matter what the Supreme Court decides, the public has to enact those changes.  The Court cannot legislate morality—and in some cases, those who are opposed to gay rights have found new fervor to rail against gay people.  Now we can marry!  In 13 states.  Now the Court said that gay couples can receive benefits! On our tax forms.  But if we’ve made some progress through the Supreme Court–a hard fought case–we could regress in the Court of Religion—a court that has more power over Americans than any Judicial body created by the Constitution.

Without question, most congregants will listen to their pastors.  Without question they will believe what those pastors tell them. If those pastors tell them that America is sliding downhill into the Apocalypse because loving gay couples can marry–then they will believe that.  And they will go out and hate gay people for moving them one step closer to oblivion.  (Actually, they should be thrilled–one step closer to the Apocalypse is one step closer to Heaven for them! I know my Revelation!)  Still, this Sunday has the potential to stir the hearts of good Christians even deeper against the LGBT community–or stir them deeper to love LGBT people.

Christians do not realize how potent a sermon can be—but Pastors do.  One sermon can re-enforce ages of bad dogma–or change it; it can change a weak mind, for or against; it can reassure a doubting congregant.  If you don’t know what you think about the Supreme Court helping to end discrimination against gay people (we’re a long ways from that end), you might by the end of Sunday’s sermon.

Churches have a moment to RETHINK

Imagine if Pastors took this moment to re-enforce the humanity of LGBT people, their interest in pairing up in Marriage, their love for each other–and to see the movement across the US to help LGBT people find equality under the law, and in churches everywhere.  That sermon could propel folks to think about Jesus’ work with the oppressed—and that they too, as Christians, can help the oppressed.  It could do more to help the healing: THIS Sunday.

THIS Sunday, Churches have a chance to do the most good for their congregations.  Because inside every congregation are a few gay people trying to hide, fearful of coming out.  Inside every congregation is a parent of a gay son or lesbian daughter or folks whose lives are touched by LGBT people every day.  They are not isolated from gay people.  And promoting healing through the news that LGBT people deserve better treatment under the law might promote the same kind of healing in the church between members who have been hurt.  Certainly it will make things more welcoming to those people who have LGBT family members, or friends.  Our churches must be welcoming above everything.  This is the second commandment–to love your neighbor as yourself.  And if churches aren’t welcoming–people won’t stay and hear the Good News.

Read Jim Wallis from the Huffington Post on how churches can help find “Equal Justice Under the Law”

This Sunday more healing, or more damage, can be made in Churches across North America.

It is not the Justices who change the Churches, but the Churches who can change the Justice. 

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I opened my Indigo/Chapters bookstore Father’s Day mailer today.  It’s nice to have something from a bookstore in the mail.  One look at their selections for Fathers, though, and I sighed.

The male stereotype for Father’s day in advertising is probably the most narrowly defined, rigid, straight-jacket men have.

This bookstore chain, with a plethora of things they could have offered in this flyer to buy Dad, offered me, instead, books and accessories on beer, grilling, headphones, and a choice of novels about Olympic rowing, a western, a 100 year old man, spies, and the Beatles.  Wow, I could have played a game of Macho Matcho.  (while an asterisked note says you can find more on their website, I’m interested in what made it to the Main Flyer.)

Surely a marketing team somewhere was saying, “Come on! How can you go wrong with the Beatles? Beer? Grills? Westerns?”  And yet, somehow, a bookstore managed to reinforce male stereotypes through the “enshrined” male hobbies and interests merely to try and hit what they perceived as a norm.

As Guys, we learn early that we need to like beer, grill meat, be into rock & roll, sports, cowboys and spies.  We learn that it doesn’t matter if you really like these things or not–they are the “vocabulary of men.”  To be a real man in Western society you must be able to speak Grill, Beer, Cars, Sports, and Babes (as opposed to speaking Women which would be an improvement).  If a guy likes something else, you don’t say it.  Otherwise, you take a chance that other guys will make fun of you.  The pack is important.  It is your society.  So you learn to master the Basics; keep quiet about the nuances. You start with the basics, and advance to Hunting, Fishing, Sailing, and Power Tools.

We learn that these are the Things We’re Supposed to Know because marketing and advertising tell us this.  As young boys we read those ads to find out what our Fathers will love, and possibly, what we can do to earn our Father’s praise—something most young boys desperately want.  So we buy the things that marketers tell us will win their love and admiration, and make them feel like a man.  And in doing so, we deepen the cultural grooves in our own brains to become the kinds of man exemplified in these things–the griller, the sportsman, the beer drinker.

I expect this marketing of places like Home Hardware and Canadian Tire—whose products already appeal to mechanics, sportsmen, and outdoorsmen.  I don’t expect it of a bookstore.

Imagine another flyer:  this one has books on hiking, gardening, travel in Spain; books on spirituality, trains and watches; Star Trek memoirs; books on arctic wildlife, politics, climate change; or OTHER men’s hobbies like chess, remodeling, theatre, computers, comics, a history of Opera.  Novels by Graham Greene, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Garrison Keillor–a wide spectrum of men.  Even, dare I say it, books on parenting, relationships, understanding teens.  Please offer them a Deborah Tannen book.

I expect more from a bookstore; I expect them to lead.  Do they think that women and children do not understand their fathers and husbands so much that they must choose one of the Sacred Seven Subjects on Father’s Day in order to be accepted?  Or couldn’t they show them a greater opportunity to enlarge the idea of masculinity and being a man in the 21st Century?  Could they offer wives and children (or husbands and children) in their main flyer a more representative selection of male interests?  A chance to understand their husbands and fathers deeper, more intimately, thinking not “what do men want?” but “what could men want?”

Reinforcement is a fantastic way to learn.  Guys learn what you keep telling them. If you tell them that real men like drinking, grilling, sailing, brewing, as this flyer does, then they will stay confined to those choices, some of them will break under those choices.  If you show them more choices on how to be men—they will be unafraid to admit that they enjoy these things; they will learn something new; and they will teach their sons that they can be more than a handful of hobbies and interests.  And some of us sons will not strain under the exasperation of our fathers who don’t understand why the Baseball, the Cars, the Women, these few “rites” of manhood, aren’t working.  They will not be frustrated with us.  They will not feel themselves failures. They will know—oh, he likes insects! Oh, he likes baking!  Oh, he likes other men!  And they will look around and see NOT a society that only advocates the Sacred Seven, but instead reinforces every man’s choice to be who he wants to be.

This can enlarge the conversations in the world between men.  It was easy for a man to talk sports, cars, women and grilling–we agreed those were on the Test.  It will be harder to expand the topics, but the men that come from wider exploration of hobbies, interests, passions, won’t just enrich the conversations–these men will enrich the world.

______________

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Yes, thankfully.  Amen.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” says Paul in Romans 8.

We always get stuck on Romans 1, as if that’s the point of Romans–to condemn people.  The point of Romans is to remind those Christians in Romans the great sacrifice Christ made for all of us sinners, and show us the security we have as a believer.  If you are a Christian, there is no condemnation in Christ.  You are not condemned because you are gay, or because you have gay feelings, same-sex feelings or desires.  Just like God won’t condemn you if you have straight feelings or desires.  It would be silly for God to block certain people from his kingdom, as he issued a blanket invitation to the whole world.

I know I am not condemned because I am gay and still Christian, and I know that because thousands of other gays are Christian too.  They are all over the world.  We are just as led by the spirit as straight Christians, just as “saved” and “sanctified” and “forgiven” and “covered in the blood of Jesus.”  Amen.  The same transformation happened with me as it did with you: that our minds and desires were transformed from the things of this world, to the things above, and how we can become more like the people God wants us to become.  Straight people don’t lose their sexual desire when they become Christian; neither do gay people.  I was a Christian before I knew I was gay.  And I’m certainly a Christian after I figured out I was gay.

Gay people are just like Straight people in that they can have Faith.  Read this Barna research study about gay spiritual life.  Apparently a lot of gays have strong beliefs, some of these gays are strong Christians.  You can discuss more with them at several of their portal sites on the web like Gay Christian Network and Rainbow Christians.

You have to ask yourself how you measure Christianity in yourself.  Is it [ the amount of times you read the Bible  X  how often you pray  X  how often you go to church  X  how much of the Bible you got memorized ] ?  No, it’s not a math formula or a checklist.  It’s about a personal relationship with God, a supernatural being who created humankind.  It’s also about trying to live a moral life which involves more than sexual mores–it involves kindness, compassion, longsuffering, generosity, hospitality, and a whole lot more.  Christians spend a lot of time on the sexual parts–but really, how we treat other people is more important.  So, if you’re concerned about your Christianity only because you’re thinking you might be gay, stop worrying.  You’re fine.

Christians measure our Christianity personally, on the inside.  It’s not a series of things you do or don’t do.   And if you’re worried about your relationship with God, that’s a good sign that you have one.  People who aren’t Christian probably don’t care if God likes what they are doing or not.

So, what you need to do now is check out the Helpful Resources page.  You probably want to read some scriptures and find out how gay christians interpret the Bible.  We don’t do any hocus pocus on scripture to make it say “gay people are great.”  It just never said what we’ve been taught that it said.  And that page has resources that can show you what the Bible doesn’t say.

There are posts on my website here on famous gay Christians–people of faith who were gay, like Henri Nouwen, Ray Boltz, Jennifer Knapp, Sarah Em, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and even King James (for whom we credit the impetus for putting the most famous version of the Bible together).  This is a small list because gay christians couldn’t be very famous before now—they kind of get excommunicated, or thrown out of their churches.  You’ll find, however, that gay Christians are becoming more and more known, and we’re finding that historically those who have been hidden are being brought out.

If you are christian, and feeling same sex feelings, or know you are gay, it’s okay.  You can be both, gay and Christian.  God expects you to be both, and has a plan for your life just as he always has.  You can’t derail God’s plans for you, no matter who you are attracted to. Chances are, that plan included the fact that you were gay.

PS.  A special message to Jason Collins, NBA basketball player who came out today– “Don’t let anyone take God away from you.  Anyone who says you can’t be Christian and gay has a) never been Christian and gay, and b) hasn’t heard of Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, or all the other denominations that have realized that you can be gay and Christian–all their theologians are a lot smarter than an ESPN correspondent or a few conservatives who listen to too much evangelical TV.  These voices who think they know God’s mind without study are like people who argue with their doctor because they read something on WebMD.  Keep being the wonderful man God created you to be.  Ignore them.  They aren’t the voice of God.”

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This blog post is specifically related to events at Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada in February of 2013.  Since that time, the Pope and the Catholic Church have slightly changed their policies on the treatment of LGBT people.  I also now work at a Catholic University which is not only tolerant of LGBT, but has a group on campus promoting and celebrating LGBT Pride.  Social Justice themes pervade the campus and provide the kind of haven that some LGBT were looking for in a Christian setting.  However, this essay, written in the heat of the controversy in Whitehorse still stands as a culmination of what I learned about asking for what you need in your high school.

Vanier Catholic Secondary School put on their school website in 2013 incendiary comments about LGBT.  “The 25-page policy, freely available on the Vanier website, supports the Catholic Church’s official position on homosexuality numerous times, calling it “intrinsically disordered and contrary to the natural law.” Even unexpressed same-sex urges are considered a disorder and are described as a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.”’ (Yukon News, Feb 27, 2013)

Students, waking up to their school’s blatant accusations about LGBT students, had every right to be afraid.

Canada had JUST passed a law requiring all schools to allow gay-straight alliances, and Vanier’s response was to buck the law on the grounds of Catholic teaching and write it on their school website to justify not complying with the law. This put students at risk.  By calling LGBT students “intrinsic moral evil”–their own students at Vanier—they were promoting hatred towards their students from other students.  I felt as a gay Christian (who happened to live next door to the school) that I had a moral obligation to suggest ways that students could still ask, strongly, for their GSA.  I used the techniques lived out in Martin Luther King’s life and the non-violent resistance techniques he taught others.  Vanier was breaking the law on religious grounds; and they were also condemning their own students on their website.  Herein lies the context for my blogpost.  This does not represent my views about Catholicism today as lived out at University of Dayton, but was certainly relevant for the place and time and Pope we had at that time.  Pope Francis would not make his appearance until March (a few weeks later) and would not promote more tolerance towards LGBT people until many months later. Understand that the Pope and church doctrine still do not accept same-sex marriage, but ask that LGBT people be treated with dignity.

Below is the original post.

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The current mess at Vanier Catholic Secondary School is all of their own making. If students just stay quiet, I’m sure this will all pass and things will go back to normal. There will be a ruling that Vanier designates their document on the school’s website as a religious document. Yukon School policy will be laid beside it to tell gay students that they are great and that Yukon schools are not discriminating. That will “satisfy” the distance Yukon Education wants to have between Catholic dogma and school policy. Unfortunately, the heart of Yukon Education will remain hollow if the Catholic school does not create a gay-straight alliance as they are now required by law to do.

Why is this important?

If the Separation of Documents is the final goal, it leaves gay students (and straight students) vulnerable and in danger.

Anti-gay doctrine remains a part of Catholic teaching. As a Christian myself, I know this doctrine is not representative of Christianity as it is practiced in many major denominations. Lutherans and Presbyterians and Anglicans, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, United Church of Canada all have come to a better translation of the Bible that preserves God’s moral teachings but accepts all people regardless of their sexuality. These denominations are just as faithful to God, have just as much moral integrity, and care just as much about their kids as conservative Catholics do. And I would argue, in this case, that they do that MORE than their conservative Catholic counterparts.

Loving your kid means protecting them from danger. Loving your kid means teaching them how to treat other people. Loving them means passing on your cultural and spiritual beliefs because they are important and lead to a better society.

This is why having a Gay-Straight Alliance inside a Catholic high school is so important. In a place where students cannot escape a religious teaching that demeans them there must be a haven, a safe place. Students are required by law to go to some school. We can’t stop home-schooling parents who have an anti-gay dogma attached to every lesson, but we can help students that are in public and private schools. Vanier is not entirely private since it receives public funding. Therefore the onus is on the government to protect the students.

They did that. With the recent government ruling requiring all schools to have a GSA if students request it, the federal government handed the students a huge shield of protection. Students have to ask for it. Vanier students did and they were not granted that shield. That’s a legal matter. However, if students only try once and are refused, they might not get the government stepping in. Unless they get lawyers involved nothing may happen. Students, you’re going to have to get Vanier to step in.

But wait, let me explain a bit more why this safe haven is important. Religion is not bad. Catholic teaching is not bad. God is not bad. We have some pretty good moral teachings inside the Catholic church and Vanier tries to look at the world through a Christian lens. It doesn’t always see it correctly. But it tries. I think a public school devoid of any spirituality, or the lack of recognition of the role spirituality and faith play in everyone’s daily life, does a disservice to kids too. I think a religious life is a thoughtful one. And one that teaches you how to live in a community.

So I don’t think gay kids should run from a Catholic school. I do think they have no idea how much power to change their school they have. Students on the inside are far more powerful than those of us on the outside. The school will not change without pressure from within as well as from without.

Gay kids need a safe space away from bad doctrine. If a gay kid is fed that he is “morally evil” as that document written by the bishop on the website said, they will do one of two things: internalize the hatred of themselves or never have a spiritual life or be interested in faith again.

Churches listen up. You’re in a pickle. You are going to run out of new members soon and will die off. Unless you embrace gays. They are your key to salvation. Ironic, isn’t it? For your faith to continue you must accept gays as they are. They will help you spread ye faith. If not, the way you treat them will pull folks to their side and everyone will leave you. They will brand you Westboro and do everything they can against you.

Students, here’s your power: read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”– there’s a link on my website here. I know it’s long but it details a form of nonviolent resistance that you can do inside the walls of your school.

My suggestions for you to get the changes you need to survive–and this just a GSA–are as follows:

1. Form your GSA. Do it at recess or in the halls or at lunch or in the locker room. Do it and don’t listen when adults try to stop you. Form your club.

2. Meet your club inside the school after school hours.

3. They will try to end it. What power do they have when you have the government of Canada behind you? Meet anyway. Be clever. Meet in multiple places. Resist them and be strong in your GSA.

4. Make positive gay posters and put them up. Let all students know that your GSA remains strong. And that gay students are loved and supported by God.

5. Be strong. These posters will be taken down. You will be threatened by the administration. They will try to find the ring leaders. Don’t tell them who’s in your GSA. Maybe everyone. They will suspend some of you. Go to your blogs and write about WHY you were suspended. You were suspended for asking for a GSA. This action is illegal under Canada Law. The school is aiming for trouble.

6. After some of you are suspended, the rest get to do a sit-in. Sit in the main lobby or the admin office. Just sit on the floor in the chairs and ask politely for a GSA. Make your presence known. You have to organise this sit in. You need thirty or forty students and they have to skip class to do it. They have to stay on the office for hours. It’s okay. Make signs, positive gay ones, and ones that ask for your GSA guaranteed under law. This will push them.

7. They will probably suspend a lot of you. Or they will call the cops. But I doubt the cops part. You are not breaking the law and they are. All of you should tweet about it while you are doing it. Create a Facebook page during the sit in. Let EVERYONE IN WHITEHORSE know you are doing it.

8. Vanier does not want continued bad publicity. But your pressure will force them into a decision. Either they will let you form a GSA or every parent in town will put more pressure on them. You will win. You will get your GSA.

9. Beware the half-measure. They might a) promise to consider it if you leave. They just want you gone. Sit still until the school allows the GSA. B) they’ll offer you a false version of GSA– One Heart, or some such crap which is still their dogma covered in a candy coating. Say no. You will call it a GSA and it will have positive messages about being gay. The only way you give in is when they let you have the safe haven. If One Heart is not a safe place for gays, it is not the GSA required by law and not a place where gays can feel proud of who they are. Doesn’t matter what it is called, it must promote pride. You get to write the rules.

10. There is power and safety in numbers. The more who join your cause inside the school the more good you can do. This is why YOUR GSA will actually be an Alliance of students. Because you will have fought together.

Gay students must have a safe place inside a Christian school to be gay. Or else it can kill them. Kill their faith. Kill their concepts of self and God. Eventually kill them. Straight students who get taught that it’s okay to deny students their Canadian rights, or push around a minority, or discriminate based on what they were told God thinks will do those things in society. They will lead workplaces and cities and our country. Schools can’t teach intolerance inside a democracy.

Students you have the right to safety. And you have the right to ask for your GSA and to get it. Now go and get what you need.

Don’t leave the school–transform it.

(postcard image by Joyce Majiski)