Speak Compassion

If a child grew up in a home where he was constantly told he is bad, constantly told he was stupid, constantly told he was evil, constantly told he is unhealthy, constantly told he should not be happy, constantly told he was going to die young, constantly told he was rejected by even god, constantly told he was less human than others, constantly harassed by others about these things….what kind of adult will this child become?

This is what Americans for Truth, Stephen Bennett, James Hartline, Alan Chambers, Exodus International, Fred Phelps, Sonja Dalton, Lifesite News, DL Foster, Stacy Harp and dozens of other “anti-gay” activists are doing to gays and lesbian youth. In fact this is what society has been doing to gays and lesbians for decades in this country. Then when those same kids grow older and turn out to be depressed, promiscuous, self-hating and self destructive, they blame sin. The ones they should really blame are themselves for the message of hate and violence they are projecting to GLBT folks. The constant barrage of hate speech is never going to solve the problem, only love can do that. Albert Einstein once pointed out that you cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. I believe that applies completely with GLBT folks today.

Despite these negative messages, most GLBT folks grow up to be successful, creative, loving individuals. They do find god. They do find love. They do find all the things that society programed them to believe they would never get, but imagine if we stopped programing them to hate themselves? What would GLBT people be like? What would the world be like?

UPDATE: December 5, 2006 @ 3:PM.

It seems DL Foster has written a snappy reply to this article.   It is my feeling that his response only strengthens my position on the self-hate and misinformation youth are given about being gay.  Most of that misinformation comes from people just like DL Foster, so his reply is only fitting to show exactly what I was talking about in the first place. 

He also calls this article a “hypothetical” question and it wasn’t.  This is real life.  This is the messages being sent to gay youth and gay adults on a daily basis from people just like DL Foster.   

This post will be short and sweet. There is no such disorder as gay bowel disease. It does not exist. It has never existed and any article about homosexuality that tells you it exists has been written by someone who is writing anti-gay, hate propaganda not facts.

1976, prior to the discovery of AIDS, to describe a series of parasitic disorders caused by oral/anal sexual contact. The term was abandoned by the medical community in the 1980s. The medical problems attributed to “gay bowel syndrome” were

• not specific to people of a specific sexual orientation
• not confined to the bowel
• not the medical definition of a syndrome

This is not a real disease. Please disregard any article found on the net or other that tries to refer to it like it is real. Like this article posted at “Americans for Truth”. The fact they have posted this article which contains such misinformation shows only that they have no regard for the truth. Just anti-gay hate speech that society should stop accepting as “religious”

It seems we have all been mistaken about what the bible says about how to be a good Christian.  I was taught through my 12 years of Christian Private schooling that to be Christian is be active.   To help others and that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and to love others as we love ourselves.  I may no longer believe in Christianity the way I did 15 years ago, but I have never let go of that message.  I don’t believe in sitting around talking about what the bible says.  I would rather live the message that Christ gave us.   Most Christians think that means I am on a direct path to hell. 

Sonja Dalton over at Americans for Truth has written this little piece about her view of the Rick and Kay Warren’s HIV/AIDS Summit they having in their church.  She proclaims that Christians have no business healing the sick or trying to stop HIV/AIDS.  Christians should be evangelizing others and telling them all the sins they believe others are guilty of and then demanding the confess.  Sounds more like the Spanish Inquisition than it does Christ’s real message.   She quotes scripture saying if people are sick go get the elders to pray over them, but I 1) fail to see how that will help them and 2) don’t think that is what I would want for myself and Christ said he greatest commandment was to love others as we love ourselves.  Do unto other….you know it…right?

Ms. Dalton feels and believes that Christians have no business feeding the poor or curing the sick, so Mother Theresa must be in Hell as we speak since she spent much more time helping than evangelizing.  What she fails to realize is that God is isn’t about talking as she writes, God regardless if you call him Jesus, Buddha, Allah or Fred is about action, not words.

Ms. Dalton writes:

If Rick Warren has an interest in saving people from HIV/AIDS, he should speak out against its causes: male homosexual sex, intravenous drug use, promiscuous heterosexual sex. If he wants the help of politicians, he should lobby them for policies that prevent disease by encouraging moral behavior. If he has money to spend fighting HIV/AIDS, he should send missionaries to teach, to convict the conscience, to preach repentance and obedience to God’s design. What is more important: to save lives so that men might go on sinning, or to save souls from hell? He has lost focus on the mission of the church.

Maybe in Ms. Dalton’s mind stopping sin will save people from poverty, disease, and hunger.  In a perfect world, I might agree but this is not a perfect world and not everyone agrees what a sin is or isn’t.    Ms. Dalton slams Rick Warren’s P.E.A.C.E Project which helps to stop Illiteracy, Poverty, Disease, Spiritual Emptiness and Corruption.  I personally find this plan to be well in line with the greatest commandment of do unto others.   I think this is right in line with the Christ’s message to go out and spread the message, but what Ms. Dalton misses completely is that standing on the corner with a bullhorn evangelizing isn’t spreading the message of Christ, it is all talk.  Your life must be an example of the message.  You cannot just talk the talk Sonja, you gotta walk the walk, but Ms. Dalton writes with what I would call a cold heart about God:

Christ did not die to save the world from illiteracy and he did not direct the church to teach people to read.

No Sonja, Christ died to save the world from its own suffering and believe me when I say that poverty, disease, illiteracy, corruption are all forms of violence that lead us to suffer.  Christ didn’t ask us to stand around talking about sin.  He asked us to get off our ass and do something about it.  To let men die while we were too busy talking about saving them through prayer is to break another commandment, thou shalt not kill.

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