The new leader of the Mormon Church has insisted the religion is supportive of LGBT rights.
Russell M. Nelson, 93, was appointed head of the 16-million member church after the previous president, Thomas S. Monson died age 90.
Speaking for the first time as its president – a position which makes him a “prophet, seer and revelatory” – he said God loves people regardless of sexuality.
The Church of the Latter Day Saints is opposed to gay relationships and refuses to allow women to be priests.
Asked about LGBT rights, he said there were “challenges with the commandments of God, challenges to be worthy.”
He continued: “God loves his children and we love them and there’s a place for everyone. Regardless of his challenges.”
One of his chosen counsellors, Dallin H. Oaks added: “We’ve got the love of the Lord and the law of the Lord.”
Mr Nelson, a former heart surgeon, also told reporters he wanted to stick to the “traditional teachings” of Mormonism.
A rift has grown in the church over the issue of same-sex marriage in recent years, with members leaving due to its opposition.
Monson refused to let women become priests and excluded LGBT families to the point where many removed themselves from the Church entirely.
Diane Oviatt, who has a gay son, was one of the people who left over its resistance to same-sex marriage.
“You don’t leave Mormonism easily…there is shunning that happens,” she said on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
Diane became an activist to try and change attitudes within the Mormon community, co-founding a support group for mothers of LGBT children which she called Mama Dragons.
While the Church doesn’t condemn same-sex attraction, it does require celibacy from gay people.
(youtube/vicenews)
And in 2016, it introduced a hateful anti-LGBT policy which expelled same-sex couples and prevented their children from getting blessed or baptised until they were 18.
When it comes to members in general though, support for same-sex marriage has steadily risen since it was legalised in the US.
Many Mormons are confronting their crises of faith, with some of those who support LGBT rights seeking new tribes.
John Dehlin, who was excommunicated after raising questions about Mormonism on his podcast for those struggling with their faith, is a long-time supporter of LGBT youth.
He said there will be equality within the Church, but warned that it will take “20 or 30 years.”
Catholic Bishops in the US are behind a new campaign encouraging parents to reject their transgender children.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a letter this week that brands transgender people “deeply troubling” and claims that changing gender is a “false idea”.
There is nothing in the Bible about transgender people or changing gender, but the Bishops have called for parents to refuse to allow kids to transition.
Studies have shown that an unaccepting or stifling environment drastically increases the likelihood that transgender youths will attempt suicide.
The letter says: “Children especially are harmed when they are told that they can ‘change’ their sex or, further, given hormones that will affect their development and possibly render them infertile as adults.
“Parents deserve better guidance on these important decisions, and we urge our medical institutions to honor the basic medical principle of ‘first, do no harm’.
“Gender ideology harms individuals and societies by sowing confusion and self-doubt.
“The state itself has a compelling interest, therefore, in maintaining policies that uphold the scientific fact of human biology and supporting the social institutions and norms that surround it. “
The letter adds: “The movement today to enforce the false idea—that a man can be or become a woman or vice versa—is deeply troubling.
“It compels people to either go against reason—that is, to agree with something that is not true—or face ridicule, marginalization, and other forms of retaliation.
“We desire the health and happiness of all men, women, and children. Therefore, we call for policies that uphold the truth of a person’s sexual identity as male or female, and the privacy and safety of all.
“We hope for renewed appreciation of the beauty of sexual difference in our culture and for authentic support of those who experience conflict with their God-given sexual identity.”
It also says: “We also believe that God created each person male or female; therefore, sexual difference is not an accident or a flaw—it is a gift from God that helps draw us closer to each other and to God. What God has created is good.
“God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
The advice is particularly harmful to families with transgender children, and represents a giant leap by the USCCB to a position that does not appear to be based on any scripture or pre-existing Catholic teaching.
Rev. James Martin, a highly-respected Jesuit priest, is the author of recently-published book Building a Bridge, which sets out a framework for the Catholic Church to begin to engage with the LGBT community with “respect, compassion and sensitivity”.
In the book, the priest draws on the Christian ideals of “respect, compassion, and sensitivity” as a model for how the Catholic Church should relate to the LGBT community, igniting anger from the anti-LGBT lobby which is dominant within the church.
In the wake of the book’s publication, hardline opponents of LGBT equality within the Church began a campaign targeting Rev. Martin – successfully convincing a string of global Catholic organisations to cancel planned events where he had been due to speak about unrelated subjects.
The Theological College in Washington DC, where the priest was due to give a lecture about the Bible, abruptly cancelled the event last week, after conservatives raised issues with Rev. Martin’s beliefs on LGBT issues.
The Order of the Holy Sepulchre in New York also cancelled a lecture by Rev. Martin, confirming that his invite “was in fact rescinded”.
Rev. Martin had also been set to travel to London to deliver the 2017 lecture for Cafod, the overseas aid agency of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
After the backlash the event was shelved entirely, with Martin confirming that “cancellation of the 2017 Cafod lecture, scheduled for October, was out of fears of the backlash to my book”.
In a statement to PinkNews Cafod claimed that the 2017 lecture was actually just ‘postponed’ until next year for scheduling reasons and that an invitation “still stands” for Rev. Martin to speak in future.
This is somewhat incongruous given Cafod supplied a completely different statement to the Catholic Herald that confirmed it had been “considering” the future of the event due to “strength of feeling [Martin’s book] generated in some quarters”.
In a statement, Rev. Martin said: “I want to say that I bear no ill will whatsoever to Cafod, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre or Theological College. All of them are fine Catholic institutions that serve, in their different ways, the People of God.”
He added: “One of the many sad ironies of this episode has been that in each case the local ordinary was perfectly fine with my speaking – in London, New York and DC.
“Yet those who decided on the cancellations were ultimately influenced more by fear of protests and negative publicity than by the opinions of their ordinaries, in each case a cardinal.
“The situations were so terrifically fraught with fear for these organizations: fear of protests, fear of violence, fear of bad publicity, fear of angry donors, fear of lost donations, fear of offending, and on and on.
“When two of the organizers called me, I could hear the anguish in their voices.”
Addressing the anti-LGBT activists who had waged a campaign against him, he added: “So what do we do?
“Don’t give into them. To me, that’s an important lesson of the past few days. Don’t let them cow you.
“They’re like schoolyard bullies that keep taunting you? Well, you’re not 12 any longer. They can’t hurt you.
“And why let fear run your organization? It’s a sure way to disaster. And the PR from cancelling something is always worse. Don’t let them run things in your organization.”
He added: “If they are angry people, their anger comes from somewhere, which is ultimately sadder for them than for you. If they have a visceral hatred for LGBT people, it probably comes from a discomfort with their own complex sexuality, which is also sadder for them. ‘Hurt people hurt people’, as the saying goes.
“Often these sites or groups or individuals feel that they are being prophetic: i.e.,pointing out your supposed sins, completely contrary to Jesus’s command not to judge.
“Even more often, that prophecy morphs into pure hatred and obvious contempt and endless name calling. It’s called spite. But that doesn’t mean you yourself have to move towards hatred. That would be giving into the Evil Spirit.”
Others have been less forgiving.
Writing in America Magazine, San Diego Bishop Robert W. McElroy lashed out at those who had sought to censor Rev. Martin.
He wrote: “There has arisen both in Catholic journals and on social media a campaign to vilify Father Martin, to distort his work, to label him heterodox, to assassinate his personal character and to annihilate both the ideas and the dialogue that he has initiated.
“This campaign of distortion must be challenged and exposed for what it is—not primarily for Father Martin’s sake but because this cancer of vilification is seeping into the institutional life of the church.
“Already, several major institutions have canceled Father Martin as a speaker. Faced with intense external pressures, these institutions have bought peace, but in doing so they have acceded to and reinforced a tactic and objectives that are deeply injurious to Catholic culture in the United States and to the church’s pastoral care for members of the L.G.B.T. communities.”
Surprisingly, the active censorship of Rev. Martin has not aroused protests from any of the ‘free speech’ campaigners who have sprung up to defend far-right speakers on college campuses.
Steph Larsen, founder of Encircle, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ youth.
Stephenie Larsen is a busy mother of six. When she isn’t wheeling across town, dropping her kids off at school or sports, she runs a support network for gay youth.
Larsen opened the nonprofit Encircle LGBTQ Family and Youth Resource Center in downtown Provo, Utah, in February. The center aims to be a safe, open environment for LGBTQ people in this deeply religious community, and offers individual therapy and group counseling services, as well as a variety of daily activities.
Larsen, herself a Mormon, says she doesn’t have a gay child and doesn’t identify as LGBTQ ― but over the years, she witnessed the church’s fraught relationship with the gay community affect family after family, until she felt she had to do something.
HuffPost is hitting the road this fall to interview people about their hopes, dreams, fears ― and what it means to be American today.
Studies have shown that LGBTQ youth are at a greater risk of depression, suicide and substance abuse than their heterosexual peers. Kids who are exposed to supportive and accepting communities and families are more likely to thrive, while those who experience rejection and bullying are at greater risk of having problems in school and engaging in risky behavior.
Larsen wants Encircle to bring families of LGBTQ kids closer together and to foster understanding between them and the Mormon community. It’s fitting that Encircle, housed in a historic blue Victorian, is located just down the street from one of Provo’s two Mormon temples, she said.
The Mormon church did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Last year, a representative for the church gave the following statement about Encircle to HuffPost: “It’s good to see this historic property lovingly restored and used to serve people in the LGBT community.”
HuffPost sat down with Larsen to talk about the challenges she faces in her work and how she hopes Encircle will help LGBTQ kids in Provo.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Encircle
The Encircle house sits just down the street from one of Provo’s two Mormon temples.
Tell me about the mission of Encircle. What is its role within the Provo community and the Mormon community?
It’s a safe space for LGBTQ individuals to come and have community, and the whole goal is to keep the youth alive. It’s extremely difficult if their family does not understand, love and respect them for who they are, and it’s even more difficult when they feel like they’re living in a community that doesn’t understand who they are.
We believe that if we can help the family work through when their child comes out as gay, lesbian or transgender, then they can become an affirming family and support this child on their journey. We hope that through the process, we will help change our community. We believe better conversations at Encircle lead to better conversations in the home, churches, schools, neighborhoods.
Our church, the Mormon church, is extremely important in Provo and affects everyone’s life. So instead of pushing against the community, we’re trying to bring the community in and trying to work in their values to help them better understand and love LGBTQ people.
Let’s talk about suicide. Not only are LGBTQ youth at greater risk for suicide, but Utah has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Do the kids who come to Encircle talk about this?
Most of the youth we work with at Encircle talk about suicide and the struggle they’ve had with it. I think that when you feel like your god doesn’t love you, or there’s that shame involved in who you are, and you can’t change ― I can’t imagine how difficult that would be.
Youth on average realize whether they’re gay by the time they’re 12 years old, but they don’t come out till they’re 22. So there is a 10-year period that these kids are just harboring these feelings within themselves, and no one knows what they’re dealing with. And during that time, they’re hearing what their church thinks of gay people, what their mother thinks, what their aunt thinks, what their neighbor thinks, and they are internalizing that.
What are some of the biggest challenges of your work?
The major challenge is probably communicating with our community in a way of love and respect for their values, while also communicating love and respect for the youth and who they are. Trying to bridge that gap and to create understanding. And not to be seen as an enemy, but to be seen as a true value and resource. We’re not here to protest, we’re here to help the youth.
And I think raising money is one of the hard parts of a venture like this ― you know, you’ve gotta have money to make this thing run. Raising money is a constant distraction from trying to help the youth, but it’s got to get done. You have to do both.
What kind of support have you seen from the church? Have you had a positive response so far?
Yes, we really have. We’ve had bishops come to Encircle, where we get to have hands-on conversations with them, hoping that they will respond well to the youth and families when the youth come out, so the bishops won’t say things that will be damaging and hurtful to the kids.
Do you feel Encircle has made a difference in the short time it’s been opened?
Fifty to 60 kids come to the house every day.
Since we’ve opened, our therapists have seen over 250 new clients. People are coming to therapy, they’re staying, and they’re coming multiple times.
We’ve trained over 400 volunteers who work at Encircle, and I think every time we train a volunteer, they become an ally and more empathetic and understanding of these kids’ lives.
According to the staff page on your website, it appears that the people in leadership roles are mostly white. Does Encircle have plans to hire more people of color in the future?
For sure. It’s very important ― we’re trying to reach out to the Latino community. And to work on that. We reflect our community in our lack of diversity. I love it that you noticed that.
You don’t identify as LGBTQ, but do you have people from that community leading the day-to-day activities of Encircle?
The people who run the house are from the LGBTQ community. Every night we have an event, and the people who run those programs are always LGBTQ. They’re gaining leadership experience, they’re getting to design the program the way they think is most helpful for people with their life experience.
What has surprised you most about this project?
When you walk in this space, it’s always laughter and happiness. People aren’t just talking about how difficult it is to be gay, they’re talking about the good things in life. And I think that’s a really nice part of it ― that they’re just getting to celebrate life and friendship, and just be normal people there.
Anything else you want people to know?
Kids who have the courage to come out in this community ― they’re very brave, and they’re going to change the world. I hope that we can make it easier for gay kids to thrive in America ― that all of us can. I definitely believe they are born this way, and this is not by mistake. They should be honored and loved for who they are.
Trinity Academy, a private Christian high school in Wichita, Kansas, came under fire this week for its policy allowing the school to reserve the right to deny admission or expel students who have an LGBT family member or live in a household that promotes LGBT equality.
The school’s Statement of Understanding and Agreement for Parent and Student, initially made public on the blog Friendly Atheist, lays out some of the school’s foundational principles: the Bible is inerrant, families must be active members of a local church, students will refrain from alcohol, drugs, or premarital sex. It’s the final clause, however, that has garnered attention.
Given the debate and confusion in our society about marriage and human sexuality it is vital that Trinity families agree with and support the school’s traditional, Christian understanding of those issues. Therefore, when the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home is counter to the school’s understanding of a biblical lifestyle, including the practice or promotion of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) lifestyle or alternative gender identity, the school should have the right, in its sole discretion, to deny the admission of an applicant or discontinue enrollment of a current student.
The form requires the signature of the mother, father, and student (nontraditional families need not apply it seems).
Dustin Deckard, a former Trinity student who has since come out as gay, told local news station KSN that upon learning about the policy, “the message I received loud and clear from that is that we don’t want you here.”
Trinity officials did not respond to KSN’s requests for an on-camera interview, but emailed a statement clarifying the school’s position. “Trinity Academy holds biblical views on human sexuality and gay marriage and we want prospective families to understand that,” the statement read. “We feel that this is only fair given the disagreement and discord in our society over such issues.”
The school’s response continued by refuting a very narrow example posed by critics: whether a current or prospective student had a gay sibling. “Trinity would not and has not denied admission to a student simply because they have a sibling who is gay. Neither would we necessarily deny admission to a student with same sex attraction.”
The response doesn’t address other scenarios, such parents who are gay or who merely support LGBT equality in the home. Nor does it completely rule out denying admission or expelling a student who happens to be attracted to the same sex. While Trinity, as a private school, has some latitude to set criteria for admission, the extreme nature of this particular policy surprised even Deckard.
“This is as forward as I’ve seen them take this particular agenda,” he told KSN.
Currently, there are roughly 320 students enrolled at Trinity Academy. Earlier this year, the school announced that it plans to expand its campus, adding a school for kindergarten through eighth grade by the fall of 2017. Tuition is $10,000 a year for high school students.
Pope Francis has claimed that teaching kids about safe sex “promotes narcissism” – and that transgender teens should be taught to “accept their own body as it was created”.
Elsewhere in the document, he rallies against sex education focussing on safe sex and teaching about condoms.
He wrote: “Frequently, sex education deals primarily with ‘protection’ through the practice of ‘safe sex’
“Such expressions convey a negative attitude towards the natural procreative finality of sexuality, as if an eventual child were an enemy to be protected against.
“This way of thinking promotes narcissism and aggressively in place of acceptance. It is always irresponsible to invite adolescents to toy with their bodies and their desires, as if they possessed the maturity, values, mutual commitment and goals proper to marriage.”
He added that sex education should be focussed on “modesty”. He added that schools must teach “respect and appreciation for differences” – but this doesn’t appear to extend to trans people
He said: “The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation.
“An appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment.”
He added: “Only by losing the fear of being different, can we be freed of self-centredness and self-absorption.”
“Sex education should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it”.
The Catholic leader wrote: “In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.
Growing up in Algeria, Shaira had almost everything a young man could wish for. But he also had a big secret.
In a land where homosexuality is still a crime and a sin, he was forced to live a secret life, hiding that he was gay from everyone — even his closest family.
The 26-year-old Shaira, who asked that his last name not be used to protect himself from attacks, went to study in France four years ago and has never gone back to Algeria. His family still has no idea of his sexuality.
Now a gay imam from Algeria is working with a local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender association to counsel and protect Shaira and other young gay Muslims who make their way to the ancient French port city of Marseille. The Le Refuge group says it has helped 26 gays find shelter and start a new life in Marseille last year. Some eventually go back to their families.
Homosexuality is a criminal offense in much of the Middle East — punishable by imprisonment or, in countries like Saudi Arabia, by death. In Algeria, homosexual acts are punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine.
Islam considers homosexuality a sin. Men having sex with each other should be punished, the Quran says, but it doesn’t say how — and it adds that they should be left alone if they repent. The death penalty verdict instead comes from the Hadith, or accounts of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The accounts differ on the method of killing, and some accounts give lesser penalties in some circumstances.
The Islamic State group has taken this to an extreme. Videos the group has released show masked militants dangling allegedly gay men over the sides of buildings by their legs and dropping them head-first or tossing them over the edge.
It is believed that at least three dozen men in Syria and Iraq have been killed by IS over accusations of sodomy.
Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed is an imam born in Algeria who now works in Marseille and runs an association of French Muslims and gays. He has known the discrimination faced by the young people who come to Le Refuge for help.
“Personally I have received quite a lot of threats, but I saw more people come to encourage me … saying you are an embodiment of real Islam,” Zahed said.
The local head of Le Refuge in Marseille, Christophe Chausse, says the group tries to counsel young gays about how to cope with the constant conflict between their sexuality and their religion.
“For them, there is a real dilemma between — ‘I am or I feel homosexual, and I have my religion, my faith which prohibits it, so I cannot live this homosexuality,’” Chausse said.
Shaira cries as he talks about this conflict that he battles every day.
“Everybody is telling me — ‘you are gay, you are Muslim and this is not normal,’” Shaira said. “But I feel that I have the same right to have a religion as everybody else. Even if I’m gay.”
Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee are all scheduled to speak at an Iowa event organized by Pastor Kevin Swanson, who regularlycalls for a return to the “biblical punishment” for homosexuality. Right Wing Watch points us to the press release:
Over 1,600 Christians around the country are gathering for a National Religious Liberties Conference, Freedom 2015, November 6th-7th at the Iowa Events Center. The conference speakers and attendees will celebrate the freedoms God has bestowed on our country, encourage those who have been persecuted or those who may experience persecution in the future and develop strategies for defending religious liberties for Christian business owners, teachers, evangelists, chaplains, employees and churches. The conference is sponsored by over a dozen evangelical organizations including American Family Association, Liberty Institute, Samaritan Ministries and Generations.
Speakers will include presidential candidates Senator Ted Cruz, Governor Mike Huckabee and Governor Bobby Jindal, persecuted Christians David and Jason Benham, Naghmeh Abedini, Richard & Betty Odgaard, SMSgt Phillip Monk, Aaron & Melissa Klein and Randy Pfaff, and religious freedom advocates Kelly Schackelford, Rafael Cruz, James Lansberry, Brigadier General Douglas Lee, USA (ret), Bob Vander Plaats, Bradley Pierce and Chuck Hurley. The conference will address religious liberty in the military, medical care, parenting, education and the workplace. Conference speakers will also highlight the history of religious liberties and religious persecution.
Right Wing Watch has compiled some of Swanson’s more outrageous statements, some of which have appeared here on JMG. People For The American Way, the parent of Right Wing Watch, has issued a formal call for GOP candidates to cancel their speeches:
“We already knew that the Republican Party opposed LGBT rights and women’s equality, but this is taking things to a new level,” said People For the American Way President Michael Keegan. “We can respectfully disagree on matters of public policy, but someone who supports gay people being put to death should have no place in our public discourse, much less be sharing the stage with a major party’s presidential candidates.” “If Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal are serious about wanting to hold the nation’s highest office,” Keegan said, “they should back out of this conference and denounce the extremism of its organizer.”
Decrying Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley’s “sordid history of virulent homophobic statements and actions,” a gay Jewish group is protesting the Jewish National Fund for plans to bestow a high honor on Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Atlanta and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Stanley, who rose to national prominence in the 1980s with his “In Touch” television series and books that sold millions of copies, “has publicly called AIDS God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality and called homosexuality ‘destructive behavior,’” reads a letter to JNF Southeast region leaders from the Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender and Sexual Diversity (SOJOURN).
“He has said that ‘God does not agree with the lifestyle of the homosexual’ and that accepting gay people is ‘an act of disobedience to God,’” the letter continues.
The controversy reflects the sometimes awkward embrace between American Jews and evangelicals — fervent partners in support of Israel but also outspoken opponents on many domestic social issues, including homosexuality and abortion rights.
Though not known as a culture warrior in the mold of the late Jerry Falwell or televangelist Pat Robertson, Stanley, 82, nonetheless recently joined an amicus brief at the Supreme Court that warned that nationwide legalized gay marriage would result in government actions to “silence religious dissenters who continue to hold to their millennia-old definition of marriage.”
Stanley led the Southern Baptist Convention from 1984 to 1986, and his son, Andy Stanley, leads the 30,000-member North Point Ministries in Alpharetta, Ga., ranked last year as the nation’s largest megachurch.
The award to be given to Stanley at an April 23 breakfast in Atlanta is coming from the group’s Atlanta office, not the JNF’s national headquarters in New York. JNF national spokesman Adam Brill defended the Atlanta chapter’s right to award it and said he has heard from both supporters and opponents.
“Not everybody is going to agree with what we do at all times, but what we do at all times is for the benefit of the people in the land of Israel,” Brill said.
The elder Stanley, who has led First Baptist since 1971, has taken many in his flock to Israel and is frequently a featured speaker at events sponsored by Christians United for Israel.
In a statement provided by Brill, JNF said Stanley “represents one of the largest Christian communities in the South which has always supported the Jewish people in times of peace and conflict.”
Stanley’s ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the statement continued, “when few would travel to Israel, hundreds of congregants from the First Baptist Church Atlanta went to stand united with the people of Israel. For such heroic actions, we honor this esteemed community, our neighbors in love.”
Rebecca Stapel-Wax, executive director of Atlanta-based SOJOURN, said that most of Atlanta’s Jewish community is “incredibly supportive” of LGBT rights and that the JNF’s decision stands in stark contrast to that consensus. More than 50 people have signed the SOJOURN letter, Stapel-Wax said.
At the same Atlanta breakfast in years past, JNF has honored Holocaust survivors and Israeli diplomat Reda Mansour, a Druze who served as consul general in Atlanta.
JNF, in addition to ecological work, sponsors Zionism education programs, promotes tourism and helps build Jewish communities in Israel. Some pro-Palestinian groups say JNF has been complicit in Israeli appropriation of Palestinian lands, a charge JNF has denied, pointing to conservation projects with Israeli Arabs.
The Pentecostal minister did not talk much about the Bible and homosexuality.
What he did was sell his house and move into an apartment above a garage next to a residence for homeless people with AIDS. The home was started by his church at a time when fear of a disease associated with homosexuality was rampant.
“We feel this is where Christ would be involved,” he told me as he took a break from finishing up a back room at the Houston residence. Rapping one hand on the wood he had been sawing, he continued, “It’s hard not to have pride (on a Sunday) to look out and see two pews of HIV people.”
Move forward 20 years: Last weekend, I was at a Catholic Mass in West Hartford, Conn., where the priest over and over brought home the theme,
“All are welcome in this place.”
The two incidents illustrate perhaps Lesson No. 1 in my experiences in a quarter century of reporting on issues of religion and homosexuality: It is difficult to stereotype. Individual congregations, not denominations, ultimately decide how they will respond to gay and lesbian worshippers.
But until recently, there had been relatively little research on the responses of religious communities. New studies by researchers such as Andrew Whitehead, reported in the latest issue of the Review of Religious Research, and Gary Adler, who shared his findings in the journal Social Problems, are providing insights into which congregations are more likely to be welcoming to gays and lesbians, and what this means for the future. The studies analyze data from the 2006-2007 National Congregations Study, which asked a series of questions about how welcoming communities are to gays and lesbians in committed relationships.
Some key indicators of congregational attitudes emerged:
Welcoming Catholics: Catholic teaching opposed to homosexual acts is well-known, but the congregations study showed no differences among mainline Protestant and Catholic congregations in opening membership to gays and lesbians. There were other significant differences by religious tradition:
Evangelical and black Protestants were much less likely to incorporate gays and lesbians into congregational life; mainline Protestant congregations were most likely to be open to gays and lesbians as leaders, Whitehead noted. But the research also showed many congregations within the same religious tradition take different stances, indicating acceptance cannot be measured by denominational affiliation alone.
Politics matter: Political ideology was one of the key predictors of openness. Nearly four in five politically liberal congregations allow people in same-sex relationships to be members and 60 percent allow them to be leaders. In contrast, slightly more than a quarter of politically conservative congregations extend membership privileges to gays and lesbians in committed relationships, and less than 10 percent allow them to be congregational leaders.
Theological divides: Another critical indicator is theology. A theologically liberal congregation is more than eight times as likely to allow membership privileges compared to a theologically conservative congregation, Adler noted.
Gender bias: Congregations with a higher percentage of women are more likely to allow same-sex, committed couples to become members, Whitehead found.
Education: Congregations that have more individuals with bachelor’s degrees were more likely to be welcoming to gays and lesbians. Churches where head clergy have advanced degrees were more likely to allow lesbians and gays in committed relationships to become leaders.
The age factor: Surveys of young Americans in the general population indicate they are highly accepting of homosexuality, but the congregations study showed no significant differences in attitudes among congregations with relatively more members under age 35. Researchers said this likely reflects the much greater ability of conservative churches to retain young adults.
In another finding that may be somewhat surprising, congregations led by older clergy were more likely to open membership to gays and lesbians. “Older clergy may face fewer career consequences of supporting membership openness or they may simply have experience successfully negotiating such controversial issues,” Adler noted.
Outside the lines: Congregations that have worshipped with other congregations from different racial or ethnic backgrounds in the past year are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to be open to membership privileges for gays and lesbians, Adler found.
So what does the future look like regarding the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the pews?
Do not expect rapid changes, analysts state.
“On the whole, congregations in the United States are decidedly against the full inclusion of gay and lesbian couples into congregational life,” Whitehead noted.
But Adler and Whitehead also foresee cultural changes continuing to make their way down into the pews.
“Openness to gays and lesbians among congregations will probably continue to increase amid increasing social tolerance of homosexuality,” according to Adler
Whitehead noted some similarities with the experience of divorced individuals, who were long excluded from full participation in religious groups until major changes in social norms promoted greater acceptance. So, too, may increasing societal acceptance of homosexuality influence congregations.
“It would not be surprising if in 10, 20, or 30 years, the acceptance of lesbians and gays into congregational life undergoes the same change,” he wrote. “In colloquial terms, the rising tide may lift all boats.”
In the meantime, what research affirms, and what experience has taught me, is not to judge a congregation by the sign outside. The people inside will let you know whether this is a congregation where all are welcome. David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.
The Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese is requiring its 200 schoolteachers to sign an agreement affirming that “modern errors” such as contraception, abortion, homosexual marriage and euthanasia are “matters that gravely offend human dignity.”
The move is an effort by Bishop Robert Vasa to delineate specifically what it means for a Catholic-school teacher — whether Catholic or not — to be a “model of Catholic living” and to adhere to Catholic teaching.That means abiding by the Ten Commandments, going to church every Sunday and heeding God’s words in thought, deed and intentions, according to a private church document that is an “addendum” to language in the current teachers’ contract.
In his two years as Santa Rosa’s bishop, Vasa has attempted to bring his strict interpretation of church doctrine to a diocese that historically has had a more tolerant approach.
But some teachers fear the addendum is an invasion of their private lives and a move toward imposing more rigid Catholic doctrine.
“Personally, it’s probably something that I can’t sign,” said a teacher at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa.
John Collins, the diocese superintendent, said the contract language is not an effort to drive certain teachers away or “provoke” them. He said about 25 percent of the teachers are non-Catholic.
The teacher, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions, said he has not made a final decision whether or not to sign the document. “On my high moral days, I feel I absolutely won’t sign,” the teacher said. “And on my days that I think about my job, I think who will it affect if I don’t sign it.”
The teacher said he objects to the “whole idea that they want me to live their morals when it’s my personal life what I do outside of work.”
But Vasa said that very response is why he felt compelled to write the addendum. He questioned whether someone “can teach what the Catholic Church teaches with zeal and enthusiasm while holding, as they say, ‘in the privacy of their heart’ ” views that are contrary to Catholic doctrine.
The issue is similar to one that arose in 2004 while Vasa was the bishop of eastern Oregon. At that time, he asked lay ministers to sign an “affirmation of faith” that called on them to accept the church’s prohibition against contraception, premarital sex, masturbation, fornication, pornography and homosexuality as “gravely evil.”
The contract addendum has been distributed to the 200 educators at 11 Catholic schools who are formally employed by the bishop. These schools, which include Cardinal Newman and St. Vincent de Paul High School in Petaluma, have about 3,100 students. And additional four Catholic schools in the diocese are not under the direct authority of the bishop.
Teachers who have qualms about the document will confront the issue prior to receiving employment contracts in April. Beginning Saturday, teachers have until March 15 to submit their “declarations” of intent to work the following school year.
The diocese, which serves a population of about 150,000 Catholics, covers an area that includes Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Though it is geographically large, its population makes it one of the smallest dioceses in the state.
Cardinal Newman Principal Graham Rutherford said he expects the “vast majority” of teachers to sign the document. He said he hasn’t heard any direct complaints about the document from teachers at Cardinal Newman, which has about 50 educators, though he said some may be keeping their thoughts private.
“I don’t think that they want to lay out their private thoughts to me or you,” he said.
When asked if he thought any teachers might refuse to sign the document, Rutherford said, “It could happen.”
“For people who have been here longer, I think it’s highly unlikely” they would not sign the contract, he said, adding that newer or younger teachers might have “more leeway” in making their decisions.
Asked if he would fire teachers who refuse to sign the contract, Rutherford said teachers “have to choose to sign it. That’s not firing them.”
“If somebody says I’m not going to sign it but I still want my contract, well that would be difficult,” he said, because Vasa wants the teacher to sign the entire contract.
Titled “Bearing Witness,” the addendum asks teachers to “acknowledge” or “recognize” that: They are called to a “life of holiness” and that “this call is the more compelling for me since I have been entrusted, in my vocation as a teacher/administrator in a Catholic school, with the formation of souls.” As a teacher in the Santa Rosa Diocese, “I am, by that fact, also a ministerial agent of the Bishop who is the chief ‘teacher’ of the Diocese.” It also requires all teachers to “agree that it is my duty, to the best of my ability, to believe, teach/administer and live in accord with what the Catholic Church holds and professes.
“I am especially cognizant of the fact that modern errors — including but not limited to matters that gravely offend human dignity and the common good such as contraception, abortion, homosexual ‘marriage’ and euthanasia — while broadly accepted in society, are not consistent with the clear teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Diocese sources, as well as the Cardinal Newman teacher, said that specific language is what some teachers find troubling.
“I know this sounds like a cliche, but some of my very best friends are gay married couples. We have kids here whose parents are gay partners,” the teacher said.
Vasa said he would be “saddened” if teachers decided to quit or not sign a contract because of the addendum. But he said, “I would commend them for their integrity.”
Several teachers or school staff members reached at their homes or on their cellphones would not comment about the addendum. The Cardinal Newman teacher who spoke anonymously said he hasn’t heard anyone say they wouldn’t sign the document, though there are a “couple that are pretty upset about it.”
John Walker, the principal of St. Vincent de Paul High School, refused to comment about the addendum.
Collins, the diocese superintendent, said that Catholic-school teachers and administrators are in some respects “signs of the bishop and the church,” where adherence to church doctrine “goes with the territory.”
“It’s the same way that you’re a sign of McDonald’s if you’re an employee to the point where they’ll put their uniform on you,” he said.
When asked if the diocese was prepared to lose teachers over the addendum, Collins dismissed the question.
“I personally haven’t seen evidence of that,” he said.
