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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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Definitely Not the Opera, (DNTO) a CBC Radio One program devoted to the art of storytelling in Canada, asked me to tell my story of coming out to my church for their Nov 3 show “Lost Causes”.

I had pitched the idea to them last year for a different show called “Making Enemies” but withdrew the pitch because a) I don’t think I meant to make enemies, nor do I think I have made enemies; and 2) because I didn’t want to restir a pot that has finally calmed down.

But they remembered my pitch.  And they sought me out.  Which is humbling, and cool.  We recorded on Friday morning and they are editing my lengthy story to 3-4 minutes.  I appreciate Andrew Friesen’s belief that my story was important and needed to be told.  I feel like the story is more appropriate under “Lost Causes” because trying to reason with people who don’t want to listen to you, or discuss with you–and believing that you alone have to spark change–well, it can feel like a “Lost Cause”.  But in the end–and the end hasn’t come yet–who knows if the cause is lost?  I think every person who says the church must look at the evidence, must consider the Christian testimonies of LGBT folks in the discussion, is a step towards change.  We need more people who realize how many people have fallen away from the faith, have decided against Christ, have been repelled from the church, and who, sometimes when there is no hope left, taken their own lives, all because the Church has historically refused to consider the scriptures in an accepting light–and this causes their members to refuse to accept their children in an accepting light.  This splits familes.  My God and my Christ are not what I encounter when I come into a Baptist Church anymore.  I daresay they wouldn’t recognize it.  Churches are not all one defined Mass though–as many churches are beginning to change their minds about LGBT people.  Episcopals, Lutherans, Presbyterians, United Church of Canada–all have begun seeing that this is just the next issue the church has to rethink.  As it did slavery, race, and its treatment of Women.  And divorce.  Change comes when people inside churches decide they can’t hold false doctrine anymore.  Christianity and Faith are not the problem.  Interpretation is.