Homophobia

[Ex-COG]

Hi Ex-COG, Just came across this parallel version of the Tao Te Ching. Just passing it on.

 

http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.html

 

-CC in MA

Thanks!

[currentchristian]

Thank you for this primer. I love to read about religion/philosophy, but I enjoy it even more to learn from an adherent of an viewpoint. Taoism, like philosophical Buddhism and Confucianism, offer so much goodness. If we could get our minds and lives around their precepts, we'd be much better off!

 

There's a book out called The Tao of Jesus in which the authors compare the precepts of the Tao Te Ching with the words of Jesus. I have not read it, but will add it to my mile-long amazon.com wish list!

 

Thank again.

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

Today's NYT.

 

**

 

February 17, 2007

 

Anglican Prelates Snub Head of U.S. Church Over Gay Issues

By SHARON LaFRANIERE and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

 

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Feb. 16 — Seven archbishops who say they represent more than 30 million Anglicans worldwide refused to take Communion here on Friday with the new head of the American Episcopal Church, to protest her support of gay clergy members and blessings for same-sex unions.

 

Their action demonstrated the deep gulf between conservative and liberal wings of the Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest Christian denomination, with 77 million members. Conflict over the American branch’s acceptance of an openly gay bishop and same-sex unions has dominated a high-level Anglican meeting here.

 

A statement posted on the Web site of Nigeria’s Anglican Church said seven archbishops, five of whom represent African countries, felt that it would be a violation of Scripture to celebrate the Eucharist with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who was elected in June as head of the 2.3 million Episcopalians in the United States. The statement quoted a passage from the Book of Common Prayer calling for sinners to repent.

 

Their protest undercut efforts by other church leaders striving to present the church as united. But it is not unprecedented. At the last such meeting, in Northern Ireland two years ago, at least a dozen Anglican leaders refused to celebrate the Eucharist with Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, Bishop Jefferts Schori’s predecessor, for the same reason.

 

“This is an expression of what has been going on,” Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia said at a news briefing here. “Some people believe that relations have been fractured or broken with the Episcopal Church.”

 

A spokesman for Bishop Jefferts Schori said she was abiding by the church’s request not to speak to reporters until the meeting ended Monday.

 

The Anglican Church has steadily pressed the Episcopal Church to modify its stance on homosexuality since the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a gay priest living with his partner, was consecrated as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 .

 

The American church agreed in June to refrain from consecrating more openly gay bishops. But it has made no such move to discourage church blessings of same-sex unions, prompting renewed criticism here.

 

A draft covenant presented at the conclave on Friday could step up the pressure. Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, who was chairman of the drafting committee, said Friday that once approved, the covenant would provide a way to hold wayward churches in check.

 

He estimated that 9 of the 38 Anglican provinces worldwide had broken relations with the Episcopal Church because of its stance on homosexuality, including those who refused to take Communion with Bishop Jefferts Schori. Another half dozen, including his own church, have declared that relations were “impaired,” while a dozen or so more have taken no public stance, he said.

 

By Friday, conservative Anglicans said they were starting to despair that the meeting here would produce neither of their goals: a condemnation and marginalizing of the Episcopal Church, or a new church structure for American conservatives who want to leave the Episcopal Church but remain within the Anglican Communion.

 

“Conservatives are very disappointed,” said Timothy Shah, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in Washington. “They have the feeling that the policy of the archbishop of Canterbury and the leadership of the Episcopal Church is one of indefinite delay in the hopes that aging conservative primates will retire and eventually be replaced by people who are more open to a negotiated settlement.”

 

Liberal Episcopalians, on the other hand, were encouraged that the number of primates — the term for the leaders of Anglican provinces — who refused to take Communion at this meeting was only seven, about half the number who refused two years ago.

 

Sharon LaFraniere reported from Dar es Salaam, and Laurie Goodstein from New York.

[Ex-COG]

So, are the Episcopalians under the control/guidance/direction of the Anglican Church? Can't they just split off if they disagree (as if that's anything new to Christianity...)?

 

...in the hopes that aging conservative primates will retire....

At last; the church admits that humans are primates!

[garrisonjj]

It took a little time for me to overcome my hatred for homosexuals. After leaving Xianity, I began to question everything in my life, including my stance on gays. It didn't take me long to realize how lopsided my view was, and to see the light of reason pointing towards change.

 

I was always into girl on girl stuff, like most guys. I had no problems, even as a Xian, with women being bisexual or performing bisexual acts. I still love it today. After leaving Xianity, I realized that homosexuality in men makes men no worse than women who bat on both sides of the plate - or women who are lesbian for that matter.

 

Once I allowed myself to dally with this opinion, I found it easy to accept. Eventually, I found a job where a number of gay men and women happened to work, and lo and behold - they were normal folks as I was.

 

It was easy to just accept gays and bisexuals after that. Today, even though the thought of men going at it is still a big turn-off for me, I have no problem with gays, after learning they aren't the abominations the Babble says they are

 

 

I agree completely.

[trashy]

I have never had sex with a woman in my life. The very thought of it repels me. And you know what? I NEVER think about it when I am introduced to a heterosexual couple. Why is that? Why am I capable of not thinking about heterosexual sex when so many heterosexual men seem absolutely obsessed with something they claim to be so repulsed by?

 

I just don’t get it.

I think it probably has to do with how often the average heterosexual male thinks about sex. It is something like 2-3 times a minute, or some such similarly ridiculous number. And it's probably true, especially at a younger age. When you insert even the possibility of male sexual contact into that thought stream it's somewhat jolting. I remember the first time I saw two men holding hands in public. I just stared, thinking "Oh My God! Gay men, right here in the mall!" But it merely confirmed my view of Austin, Texas as a liberal mecca. Strangely enough, I had no violent or angry reaction at all, considering my fundy mindset. There may be other reasons for that, but I'll leave that for another thread.

[robbie]

Well I guess it wasn't that long after I started full-on practicing my family's nominal Catholicism when I was like 12/13 that I realised I was gay. So it never really affected my opinion of gay people, it just meant that I felt for a while that I had told too many people because it's not something to be proud of, and that I (somehow) managed to convince myself that I would be celibate for life. I'm amazed, actually, how long that delusion of self-repression lasted...3 years of puberty planning on going to your grave a virgin is a pretty long time.

[trashy]

The last time a heterosexual woman expressed interest in me I was flattered; I walked on air for about a day; but I sure wasn't interested and I sure didn't get a case of "straight panic" and hit her over the head with a ballbat.

 

-CC in MA

LOL - oh man, I gotta quit reading these threads while drinking coffee. I would die if I spewed on my new MacBook!

 

But your analogy doesn't really work here. A hetero woman flirting with a man would NOT be something outside societal 'norms'. It would be typical, not atypical, thus less surprising. Not that being surprised excuses violence. When I was 16-ish my friend John and I got involved in a discussion about girls and somehow or another ended up in the bathroom in some sort of strange "jack-off" competition -- or something like that. It was as if we were masturbating in front of each other while discussing baseball or something, at least that is my recollection of it. But then he went down on me. Yes, it was surprising, but I just let him. It didn't do anything for me, but it didn't make me angry either. I think we even finished doing our business but I don't recall the details. For years I just thought of this as a strange encounter, but as I type this I'm thinking "Holy Crap! John was gay!" (Yes, I do sometimes have these psychic moments)

 

I must be the straightest man on the planet, but I'll make that another post....

[currentchristian]

I love your blue ribbon, trashy! I think there are four now claiming to have had sexual intercourse with ANS about nine months before her baby was born. It's a sad story in so many ways, isn't it.

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

...

 

I must be the straightest man on the planet, but I'll make that another post....

 

Sexual orientation is a mystery in so many ways. Just yesterday I noticed that Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue was out. I looked at it for a minute and really, really tried to understand what it is that makes women sexually alluring. I could not figure it out. I could not conjure up even an inkling of lust for any of the obviously attractive women.

 

Sometimes I wonder what would it be like being heterosexual, having a wife and children, but my mind can't get around that concept. Spending my life with a woman is not even a possibility I can conjure up. How miserable I would be.

 

Dr. Kinsey offered a sliding scale of sexual oreintation from 0 to 6 (Wikipedia):

 

0 = Exclusively heterosexual (trashy, maybe, but I don't know about that after reading his sordid story with his gay friend John!)

 

3 = Equally heterosexual and homosexual

 

6 = Exclusively homosexual

 

I'm a #6, and I recognized that fact at age 7/8.

 

-CC in MA

[trashy]

I love your blue ribbon, trashy! I think there are four now claiming to have had sexual intercourse with ANS about nine months before her baby was born. It's a sad story in so many ways, isn't it.

 

-CC in MA

Don't feel left out! You can get one too!

 

annanicolesmithsbabysdaddy.com

 

I'm sure your friends would get a kick out of that.

[robbie]

Not having children, usually, gay people have more money to play with. Unless you have a sister with three kids, as I do, and you are the uncle who gets to help buy their senior rings, and their flute, and .... you know where I'm going... But I'd not have it any other way. Every family should have one gay uncle or lesbian aunt (or at least a childless aunt or uncle) to help take care of all the kids of all the brothers and sisters in the family!

 

Actually, I read somewhere once (will have to find the reference) that some evolutionary biologists proposed that this was a possible reason for homosexuality existing in human (and other animals') populations. The basic idea was that if you had about 10% of your group who, under normal circumstances (i.e., they weren't forced to get hitched and make babies by some kind of fucked up moral code) didn't reproduce, they could channel their energy into securing resources for the group as a whole and helping with childrearing, so that their nieces and nephews would have a better chance of survival.

 

As they wouldn't be making any babies themselves, their family could get all the benefits of their labor without having to support additional children--while those who were homosexual ensured their genetic fitness through their nieces and nephews, who shared some of their genes and presumably had better chances of passing them on if Uncle or Aunt So-and-So didn't waste any resources on kids of their own.

 

Interesting idea...maybe it could also be explained as a sort of altruism whereby we're not having kids (or not as easily anyway...IVF an whatnot) but helping the rest of the group to have kids. By, say, helping straight people choose decent clothes, telling straight women how to please men in bed and telling straight men what women want.

 

Hmmm...

 

We're selfless heroes really. I don't know how straight people's relationships would work without us.

[trashy]

0 = Exclusively heterosexual (trashy, maybe, but I don't know about that after reading his sordid story with his gay friend John!)

LOL - that was SO WRONG......me, sordid. *Snort!*

 

OK, so this is probably the place to insert this (no pun intended). First, a comment on that school film you mentioned...here's a quote from it: "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick -- a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious--a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex." It's easy to spot the misinformation from here in the enlightened ex-christian 21st century, but I'll bet 95% of the population could see that film in the 50's and not even blink. But now for the precursor to my 'sordid' experience with John.

 

When I was 9 or 10 I lived in BFE west Texas. The nearest chain grocery store was a 70-mile ride. My dad pastored a small Baptist church very near the epicenter of the Permian Basin oil fields. After some sort of regional church meeting or revival the youth/music minister from a nearby town offered to babysit me over the weekend. As it turns out, Benny had quite a bit of experience babysitting. Thus, in the same weekend, I had my first experience driving a car (a Corvair) and my first experience with sex/masturbation. One was a reward for putting up with the other, as well as an enticement to keep the whole weekend to myself. And I wasn't the only kid there either. At one point I remember being one of two or three other kids lying around in my underwear, watching TV. Eventually he was discovered and run out of town.

 

Fortunately, as far as I can tell, this experience did not traumatize me in any way. Benny was nice enough as far as pedophiles go, but it's still kinda creepy when I think of what was running through his mind the whole time. It did, however, open me up to an awareness of my body and sex earlier than I might otherwise have experienced.

 

So maybe that's why I didn't freak out on John, or maybe I'm just laid-back.

 

OK, I think I've said enough for now....

[I Broke Free]

...

 

I must be the straightest man on the planet, but I'll make that another post....

 

Sexual orientation is a mystery in so many ways. Just yesterday I noticed that Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue was out. I looked at it for a minute and really, really tried to understand what it is that makes women sexually alluring. I could not figure it out. I could not conjure up even an inkling of lust for any of the obviously attractive women.

 

Sometimes I wonder what would it be like being heterosexual, having a wife and children, but my mind can't get around that concept. Spending my life with a woman is not even a possibility I can conjure up. How miserable I would be.

 

Dr. Kinsey offered a sliding scale of sexual oreintation from 0 to 6 (Wikipedia):

 

0 = Exclusively heterosexual (trashy, maybe, but I don't know about that after reading his sordid story with his gay friend John!)

 

3 = Equally heterosexual and homosexual

 

6 = Exclusively homosexual

 

I'm a #6, and I recognized that fact at age 7/8.

 

-CC in MA

 

I could have written this too CC, I’m a 6 in the Kinsey Scale also. I can recall in my youth (Aged 11-14) when my friends were just discovering the opposite sex and discussing their sexually alluring physical attributes. I just didn’t “get it” at all. This was especially the case for breasts; two huge mounds of soft tissue that looked uncomfortable, impractical, and to be honest, kinda icky. Yet one of the most common refrains I would hear from my friends was, “Did you see the rack on her?” I always lied; I see women from the neck up, always have, and always will.

 

IBF

[Jella]

...

 

I must be the straightest man on the planet, but I'll make that another post....

 

Sexual orientation is a mystery in so many ways. Just yesterday I noticed that Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue was out. I looked at it for a minute and really, really tried to understand what it is that makes women sexually alluring. I could not figure it out. I could not conjure up even an inkling of lust for any of the obviously attractive women.

 

Sometimes I wonder what would it be like being heterosexual, having a wife and children, but my mind can't get around that concept. Spending my life with a woman is not even a possibility I can conjure up. How miserable I would be.

 

Dr. Kinsey offered a sliding scale of sexual oreintation from 0 to 6 (Wikipedia):

 

0 = Exclusively heterosexual (trashy, maybe, but I don't know about that after reading his sordid story with his gay friend John!)

 

3 = Equally heterosexual and homosexual

 

6 = Exclusively homosexual

 

I'm a #6, and I recognized that fact at age 7/8.

 

-CC in MA

 

I could have written this too CC, I’m a 6 in the Kinsey Scale also. I can recall in my youth (Aged 11-14) when my friends were just discovering the opposite sex and discussing their sexually alluring physical attributes. I just didn’t “get it” at all. This was especially the case for breasts; two huge mounds of soft tissue that looked uncomfortable, impractical, and to be honest, kinda icky. Yet one of the most common refrains I would hear from my friends was, “Did you see the rack on her?” I always lied; I see women from the neck up, always have, and always will.

 

IBF

 

lol IBF, I had girlfriends, and I enjoyed breast on girls, although never really saw them as anything sexual. They just looked right on a gal. I always felt they were perfect when they fit the body, ( think Heather Locklear) I was a ass man. I thought a gal that could wear a bikini bottom without it shakin or baggin out the sides had a smokin hot ass. I just didn't find them sexual, but found the beauty in the female form.

 

We went to a lot of festivals and concerts in my youth, and when the guys said look at her, I would just say.... nice, of course I was either looking at dude walking by, or chicky's boyfriend. It was so easy. Can't say enough about mirrored sunglasses.

[currentchristian]

Hi trashy.

 

I was never sexually abused in any way by any one, but from what I have read and learned, sexual abuse can be devastating for the child. I'm happy this experience did not traumatize you.

 

Have you been watching any of the "Dateline NBC" episodes on Internet predators? I'm surprised at the number out there and how easily they are baited along.

 

What do we do about this--as a nation--and how do we protect our children?

 

-CC in MA

[currentchristian]

A woman light-years ahead of her time! Died yesterday.

-CC in MA

 

****

 

Barbara Gittings, Gay Pioneer, Dies at 75

Mother of the GLBT Civil Rights Movement

 

PHILADELPHIA—Barbara Gittings, a seminal gay activist, died on Sunday, February 18. She was 75 and resided in Wilmington, Delaware. Her death was announced by her partner of 46 years, Kay Tobin Lahusen.

 

Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of Equality Forum, noted, “Barbara Gittings is the mother of the GLBT civil rights movement. She is our Rosa Parks. Barbara helped organize the first gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations in the face of a tsunami of homophobia. Her courage helped launch the GLBT civil rights movement.”

 

Barbara Gittings began her career in activism in 1958 when she founded the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization. She edited DOB’s national magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966. Describing those years, Gittings said, “There were scarcely 200 of us in the whole United States. It was like a club; we all knew each other.”

 

In 1965, Gittings marched in the first gay picket lines at the White House and other federal sites in Washington, DC to protest discrimination by the federal government. She joined other activists in pioneering annual demonstrations for gay and lesbian civil rights held each July 4 from 1965 to 1969 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. These seminal yearly protests laid the groundwork for the Stonewall rebellion in 1969 and the first New York gay pride parade in 1970. Gittings’ role in these early protests is featured prominently in Equality Forum's documentary, Gay Pioneers.

 

In the 1970s, Gittings campaigned with other activists to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders. She recruited “Dr. H. Anonymous,” a gay psychiatrist who appeared, masked, on a panel at the 1972 APA conference to tell his colleagues why he couldn’t be open in his own profession.

 

Gittings also crusaded to make gay literature available in libraries. Though not a librarian, Gittings found a home in the Gay Task Force of the American Library Association, the first gay caucus in a professional organization. She edited its Gay Bibliography and wrote a history of the group, Gays in Library Land. Her campaign to promote gay materials and eliminate discrimination in libraries was recognized in 2003 by an honorary lifetime membership conferred by the American Library Association.

 

For her lifetime of activist work, Gittings was selected as one of 31 leaders for GLBT History Month in October 2006.

[currentchristian]

This spring, 56 "Freedom Riders" will visit 32 colleges and universities across the country that have policies prohibiting the full inclusion of, as Souforce puts it, "God's gay and lesbian children."

 

Here's a list of the colleges in the East.

Here's a list of the colleges in the West.

 

The hope is that these young people with Soulforce will be able to open a dialogue with students and staff at these colleges about the various policies precluding gay and lesbian students, faculty and alumni from equal participation in the life of the college.

 

Just FYI.

 

-CC

[southdakota2005]

I used to be against homosexuality because the bible told me so. But things didn't make sense. I had a great friend who was a Lesbian and in a stable relationship. She was happy and well adjusted and we got along great. I guess since I was told to be anti-homosexual I was.

It's like a scene from the tv show Simsons. The set up is the Bart is being sent on a student exchang program and is traded with another boy from Albania. During a speech by the Albanian boy to the school assembly he tells that "though I am required to official hate you, deep in my heart I don't"

 

That's it in a nutshell. I was required to hate homosexuals, but in my heart I didn't while I was a Christian. Now that I am free of religion, I find that I think of homosexuals, not as a title anymore, but as people. "Hey there goes Joe and John or Millie and Linda" instead of "hey there goes that gay couple".

[Kryten]

Unfortunately, some cannot think of "gay" without thinking of what they might or might not do sexually. It's a double standard, as we don't usually think about the sexual lives of our heterosexual friends, family, colleagues.

 

First of all, I admit I skipped over the last 12 pages of this thread to address this post-- so I don't know if this has been talked about already.

 

But it's obvious if you call someone by a certain label, you tend to think about that label. If you decided to divide people into lefties and righties, and then, for example, REFER TO SOMEONE as a lefty, it is completely natural to THINK about that person using his left hand rather than his right, even if for only a moment. It is the result of using a label that describes something-- unlike a name that doesn't (like Bob Art Matt John Fred).

 

When you refer to a person using their sexual orientation, you force the listener to think about that person's sexual orientation.

[currentchristian]

...

 

When you refer to a person using their sexual orientation, you force the listener to think about that person's sexual orientation.

The point is interesting, Kryten, and in fact I have gotten away from, as much as possible, identifying myself as "gay." Instead, I'll make a reference to "my partner" and how "he and I" went out to eat, etc. -- just as one might make reference to his wife. Still, I think that it is more likely that the person with a same-sex partner will be sexualized than it is that the person with an opposite-sex partner will be. No matter what sort of descriptor one uses to clarify one's homo-emotionalism.

 

-CC

[currentchristian]

Today's NYT. -CC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

March 27, 2007

For Some Black Pastors, Accepting Gay Members Means Losing Others

By NEELA BANERJEE

 

ATLANTA — When the Rev. Dennis Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church here began preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians a few years ago, he attracted some gay people who were on the brink of suicide and some who had left the Baptist faith of their childhoods but wanted badly to return.

 

At the same time, Tabernacle Baptist, an African-American congregation, lost many of its most loyal, generous parishioners, who could not accept a message that contradicted what they saw as the Bible’s condemnation of same-sex relations. Over the last three years, Tabernacle’s Sunday attendance shrank to 800, from 1,100.

 

The debate about homosexuality that has roiled predominantly white mainline churches for years has gradually seeped into African-American congregations, threatening their unity, finances and, in some cases, their existence.

 

In St. Paul, the Rev. Oliver White, senior minister of Grace Community Church, lost nearly all his 70 congregants after he voted in 2005 to support the blessing of same-sex unions in his denomination, the United Church of Christ.

 

In the Atlanta area, a hub of African-American life, only a few black churches have preached acceptance of gay men and lesbians, Mr. Meredith said. At one of those congregations, Victory Church in Stone Mountain, attendance on Sundays has fallen to 3,000 people, from about 6,000 four or five years ago, said the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, the senior pastor.

 

Some black ministers, like their white counterparts, said they had been moved to reconsider biblical passages about same-sex relations by personal events, like finding out that a friend or relative is gay. Some members of the clergy contend that because of the antipathy to gay men and lesbians, black churches have done little to address the high rate of H.I.V. infection among African-Americans.

 

“The church has to come to a point when it has to embrace all the people Jesus embraced, and that means the people in the margins,” Dr. Samuel said. “It really bothered my congregation when I said that as people of color who have been ostracized, marginalized, how can we turn around now and oppress other people?”

 

It is hard to know how many ministers who lead the country’s tens of thousands of African-American congregations are preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians. Some leading African-American religious thinkers and leaders — like Cornel West, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes and the Rev. Michael Eric Dyson — have called for inclusion of gay men and lesbians. But other leaders are convinced that the Bible condemns homosexuality and that tolerance of gay men and lesbians is a yet another dangerous force buffeting the already fragile black family.

 

“It is one of several factors that are taking away the interest in traditional marriage in the African-American community,” said Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., the president of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, a black conservative Christian group. “I see the growing gay movement in the black community and our culture as almost evangelistic in nature, with what’s on television, with their legal agenda, all those things that have made homosexuality more acceptable.”

 

In the 13 years Mr. Meredith has led Tabernacle Baptist, he has presided over cycles of fraying and mending, this last time because of his preaching “love and acceptance,” he said. When he arrived in 1994, the congregation at Tabernacle had dwindled from several thousand members to about 110.

 

A compelling orator with the voice and showmanship of a stadium-rock star, Mr. Meredith quickly began to draw more new members. He preached against homosexuality. Then, five years ago, his middle son, Micah, told him that he is gay. Mr. Meredith and his wife began to read liberal theologians like Mr. Gomes and to look at Scripture again. What matters most in the Bible, Mr. Meredith said, was Jesus’ injunction to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that includes gay men and lesbians.

 

As he preached greater acceptance of gay people, Mr. Meredith saw the face of his congregation change.

 

About three years ago, many older members, those who had hung on through the church’s waning, and who drove in from the suburbs because they had attended Tabernacle as young people, gradually began to leave. They took with them their generous, loyal tithing. The 90-year-old church had money to cover salaries and utilities but had a hard time paying for properties it had bought nearby. In September, Mr. Meredith held a commitment ceremony in the church for two lesbian couples. More people left after that.

 

As attendance dropped, the church cut back to one service on Sunday, from two. On a recent Sunday, the pews were filled with some older people like the deacons and deaconesses, though the head deacon had left recently after telling Mr. Meredith that he had turned Tabernacle into “a sissy church.”

 

Under banners that read “Kindness,” “Peace” and “Love,” there were young families with babies. And there were transgender people like Stacy Jackson and Nikki Brown. There were also lesbian couples like Angela Hutchins and Stephanie Champion, sitting together in the front rows.

 

Mr. Meredith preached about Moses, about the vision God gave him to do the right thing. He told congregants about holding on to that vision, regardless of who they were.

 

“Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it because of your lifestyle, because of your sexuality, because you don’t have an education, because you’ve done time,” he said. “Because God knew you before you were born, when you were still in your mother’s womb. If God loves everybody, who am I not to love everybody?”

 

“Amen,” people called out. “Preach it; preach it.”

 

Afterward, when the sanctuary was mostly empty, Ruth Jinks, a deaconess who has been at Tabernacle since 1969, sat in a pew, cane by her side, waiting for the church van to take her home. Gay men and lesbians do not make her uncomfortable, Ms. Jinks said. They have always been in black churches, under something of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. But she seems to have tired of Mr. Meredith’s mention of them. She hears from acquaintances that she goes to the “gay church.”

 

“I don’t think you need to be speaking about it from the pulpit all the time,” said Ms. Jinks, who is in her early 80s. “I joined this church; I support this church. I didn’t join a minister. I’m planning on staying here and will not let people run me away.”

 

One of the junior pastors is the Rev. Chris Brown, who grew up in a black Pentecostal church in Montgomery, Ala.

 

“My pastor in Alabama said gays had three rights: to redeem themselves, to repent or to die of AIDS,” said Mr. Brown, 32.

 

He added, “The African-American church thinks AIDS is a gay disease, and that everyone who got it deserved to.”

 

DeMarcus Hill, 32, said he admired Mr. Meredith’s “ability to embrace those people who everyone had rejected.” Mr. Hill once attended and worked at Tabernacle Baptist, and he is still friends with the Meredith family. But after reading the Bible closely, Mr. Hill, who is studying to be ordained as a Baptist minister, said he could not stay at Tabernacle because sex outside heterosexual marriage was not countenanced.

 

Mr. Hill said he agreed with Mr. Meredith that God loves everyone, including gay men and lesbians. “But God corrects you because he loves you,” he said, explaining that for gay Christians, such a correction would probably mean lifelong celibacy or eventually being with someone of the opposite sex.

[Evolution_beyond]

Well, I'm bisexual myself - so guess what I think about homophobes (especially christian homophobes) - grrrr!!

[sheilanagig]

I don't think I've ever "hated" gays. I think I didn't understand a lot about them, but I never hated them. Being straight, I had misconceptions about homosexuality, because I wasn't born that way. I didn't know any gay people or black people or foreign people when I was younger. I had misconceptions about all of them, but I didn't hate them. I've gotten to know some people from each of those groups, and I understand a little better now, having talked with them and gotten to know them. I always wondered why christianity was up in a lather over the matter. It's nobody's business but the people so inclined, and it IS religious bigotry that has caused so much hurt and suspicion toward them. I don't think I've ever known a gay christian. They know they're not wanted by the church, and the sentiment is returned by them. I know that I would never think of killing anyone because they were gay, but I've known "christians" who would like to for no other reason. It's poisonous thinking that has torn too many families apart. So much for christian family values.