Religious People Against Homophobia

Recently advice columnist Dan Savage launched the “It Gets Better Project” on youtube in response to the recent deaths of Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown, and Seth Walsh, four teens who committed suicide after being bullied for being gay. The intent of this project is to encourage LGBT youth who may be harassed to perservere into adulthood, where they can find a better life and choose to be around people who could give them the love and respect that they deserve. Over 800 videos have been submitted for this project, and among those who have submitted are Christians, Muslims and Jews who are either gay or lesbian or who want to show support for their LGBT friends. Nicole Neroulias wrote in the October 18, 2010 edition of the Huffington Post of religious figures like Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, Catholic author Gregory Gerard, Muslim student Ibad Shah, and Mormon Natalie Sperry talking about the homophobia within their places of worship and the support they have with those who don’t agree with the teachings of the more intolerant members of their religion. In looking at these youtube videos, I grew very proud of those religious people who have the courage to take a stand against homophobia in their place of worship.

I am particularly sympathetic to this because in the 1990s I attended an evangelical church for a number of years and witnessed certain members of the church express hostile feelings towards gays and lesbians. There were a number of Christians within that church who were either gay, or supported gay rights, or had gay and lesbian friends and family and didn’t like the way their loved ones were treated by their more intolerent church members. The problem was that these Christians didn’t speak up when an individual was harassed by a group or when a group said disparaging remarks against gays and lesbians. They didn’t want to go against the majority of the church. I was glad to have found a blog by evangelical Christian Kathy Baldock who found many Christians who quietly support gay rights:

Yes, I run into closeted Christians all the time. And no, they are not gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. They are straight, like me. But, they love their GLBT friends and family and are coming to a realization that what they’ve been told or thought they understood may not be the heart of God. They see honor, integrity and even Jesus and the Holy Spirit in their GLBT friends. Evidenced in the very same group they have been told cannot possible be Christian because they are queer. In some churches, it is not safe to even ask questions about homosexuality, about any thing. So, how can they dare openly dialogue about this issue, this hot button topic in most Christian congregations?

Because I am so open about my theology and cause for equality, I get lots of comments, mail, and calls about the issue of “coming out” as a straight allies. Pastors wives who are disgusted with the church’s (universal) treatment of the queer community. Friends who have left church over the bigotry against a gay relative. Other people who don’t want to follow a God who hates their Jesus-professing gay friend. I hear from gay twenty-somethings who are closeted and serving in church ministries scared to be honest because they will lose ministry positions and church home. Or a bisexual young woman who was ready to walk away from the faith because of small town anti-gay rhetoric in and out of church. “I don’t want anything to do with that kind of God,” she told me. You may not realize the number of people this affects in the church who, in utter disgust, turn because His followers display clear bigotry towards the GLBT Christian community. I do have a clue as to the number; they talk to me. They feel compassion not intolerance, love, not hate and mercy, not judgment.

Mark Osler, a Professor of Law in the University of St. Thomas, wrote a blog in the Huffington Post about his conversion from an anti-gay bigot to someone who became more tolerant due to getting gay friends in college. He wrote:

I am straight, and though everyone gets made fun of for something, I never faced the relentless teasing, bullying and violence that gay and lesbian kids did and do. In fact, I was a bigot. I didn’t take part in violence, but I probably did bully and tease other kids in school, given my attitude toward gays and lesbians when I was young. I know for certain that I did not do anything to stop others from bullying and in that way was complicit with what happened around me.

These actions and inactions were a failure of my faith, both personally and in the failure of the church to teach me anything else. In short, I thought that gays and lesbians (I doubt I knew about bisexuals or transgendered people) were deviant and to be condemned. My bigotry was consistent with what the culture, the church and my friends thought and said, and it was not countered by those who knew better. When I used the word “gay,” it was pejorative, and if I thought someone was gay, I kept my distance or worse.

But I got better. I’m not perfect, but better.

What changed? That is simple: A handful of brave men and women changed me, people who were willing to challenge my bigotry through leadership, friendship and warmth.

I’ve always had the belief that if a main source of homophobia is religion, then the people within that particular religion should speak out and fight to change things. Bishop Gene Robinson makes this point in a post for the website Center for American Progress:

It is not enough for good people—religious or otherwise—to simply be feeling more positive toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude beats discrimination and abuse by a mile. But it’s not enough. Tolerant people, especially tolerant religious people, need to get over their squeamishness about being vocal advocates and unapologetic supporters of LGBT people. It really is a matter of life and death, as we’ve seen.

I learned this in my dealing with racism. It’s not enough to be tolerant of other races. I benefit from a racist society just by being white. I don’t ever have to use the “n” word, treat any person of color with discourtesy, or even think ill of anyone. But as long as I am not working to dismantle the systemic racism that benefits me, a white man, at the expense of people of color, I am a racist. And my faith calls me to become an anti-racist—pro-active, vocal, and committed.

Some progressive religious groups—the United Church of Christ, Unitarians, Metropolitan Community Church—have long been advocates for LGBT people. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has recently made great strides in welcoming gay clergy. And my own Episcopal Church has put itself at great risk on behalf of full inclusion of LGBT people in electing two openly gay priests to be bishops.

Faced with the evidence of intolerence within their churches, even those Christians who may believe that homosexuality is a sin have had to face the hatred that their beliefs feed into. In an October 26, 2010 post in The Progressive Christian Alliance website, David R. Gillespie wrote:

I disagree with Mohler when it comes to a blanket statement regarding the moral standing of homosexual acts. I do agree that some homosexual acts can be sinful; but then some heterosexual acts can be sinful as well. For me, that sinful status is contextual in nature. But I do agree with Mohler when he writes:

“When gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are wrong. Our concern about the sinfulness of homosexuality is not rooted in fear… Yet, when gay activists accuse conservative Christians of homophobia, they are also right. Much of our response to homosexuality is rooted in ignorance and fear. We speak of homosexuals as a particular class of especially depraved sinners and we lie about homosexuals experience their own struggle….far too many find comfort in their own moralism, consigning homosexuals to a theological or moral category all their own.”

I disagree with Bishop Robinson when he wants to paint that straight line of causality from a particular understanding of the moral nature of homosexual acts to mean-spirited, violence prone and hateful bullies. But I agree with him that “religious voices denouncing LGBT people contribute to the atmosphere in which violence against LGBT people and bullying can flourish.”

I don’t think that guy who wanted to beat the crap out of me in junior high school because of my perceived sexual orientation was religiously motivated. I really don’t think he even went to church at all. He did it because he was mean, because he liked violence, because he liked picking on guys who were smaller or weaker than he was. He did it because he was, in good Christian terms, a sinful being in rebellion against God.

I would argue that contemporary bullying has roots, not in a conservative or evangelical Christianity, but rather, in a culture of violence which we Christians must speak prophetically to and preach/teach about in our churches; it has it deeper roots in the sinful heart of humankind, hearts which are called back to relationship with God in the Gospel we preach. We can do that regardless of our views of homosexuality.

I do not believe that homosexuality is any sort of sin. I’m glad though that even those who do believe so are questioning how their beliefs could contribute to hostility and hatred towards gays and lesbians. I do not know much about Judaism and Islam, but I have a feeling that a similar debate is going on between the more moderate and progressive Jews and Muslims and their more intolerant co-religionists. In the youtube, I found a few Jewish and Muslim speakers talk about against homophobia. In the 1990s, no one in my church was willing to speak out when someone was harassed. I’m glad that now there are religious people of all denominations and religions taking a stand for individuals who can’t fight back.

The Raging Grannies

Last Winter, I went to a rally to support a strong health care reform bill that was going through Congress. While I was there, I encountered three oddly dressed older women who were holding signs and singing songs for single-payer health care reform and against the power of insurance companies. This was my first encounter with the Raging Grannies, an activist group that fights for progressive causes like the ecology, economic justice, and civil rights. They use humor and music to protest for just causes.

The Raging Grannies began in 1987 in Victoria, British Columbia when a group of white, middle-class, educated women between the age of 52 and 67 began to protest the visit of US Navy warships and submarines in the harbors of Victoria. Many of these women had experience in activism, but were getting tired of being relegated to making coffee in the peace groups that were then in existence. Due to their marginalization in these other groups, these women decided to form the Raging Grannies to implement their own ideas of social protest, and on February 14, 1987 they staged their first protest. The Raging Grannies sent to Pat Crofton, then Chairman of the Defence Committee, a broken heart to signify his lack of commitment and action on nuclear issues. They sang a few satiric songs under an umbrella full of holes, symbolizing the absurdity of sheltering under a nuclear umbrella. Canadians loved the Raging Grannies, and a movement was started.

From the beginning, the Raging Grannies were committed to nonviolent and creative protest that often interlaces humor and imagination. In their website is a description of their protest philosophy:

From then on, they wore disarming smiles, increasingly colourful clothing as a parody of stereotypes of older women, wrote witty satirical songs, brought a good dose of irreverence and a dynamic imagination for creative protests in their challenges to authorities. Divesting themselves of an “artificial notion of decorum and dignity” (Walker, 1998) they “reversed cultural expectations by empowering themselves in a society which belittles their experience and point of view” (Burns, 1992, p. 21). The Granny figure allowed older women to claim a public space. They often confounded authorities with their unpredictability and imagination. They once rode to the base in a horse-drawn carriage and carried flowers when a nuclear submarine was in. An article found in a granny’s file, which had no date or publication name or author, said: “Officials at the base had to confer for quite a time about the request. . . . Finally the word came that the flowers couldn’t be taken onto the base” (”Grannies Ride in Style”). Their actions often created ambiguity: why would inoffensive flowers delivered in an inoffensive horse-drawn carriage be refused when submarines containing nuclear arms were allowed in? Their unpredictability disturbed complacency, challenged routines, roles, and assumptions.

In the San Jose Raging Grannies website it is written”

1987: The Raging Grannies were founded in Victoria, British Columbia by a group of peace activists who wanted to increase their effectiveness and impact.

Prominent among their stated aims were these:

* to be non-violent in all activities

* to court the press

* to shock with their unladylike antics to get attention for their issues
* to be independent of any other organization

* to use street theater, humor, satire and props to get their message across.

A big part of a Raging Grannies’ protest are the songs that they sing during their protests. The subjects of these songs range from corporate personhood, global warming, single payer health care, to the war in Iraq and Afganistan. They have a Raging Grannies website for their songs, listing over 345 protest songs written by various Raging Grannies from across the nation. Here are some sample Raging Granny songs.

Where Have All the Fishes Gone?

Author: Marcy Matasick, Albuquerque Raging Grannies
Tune: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Where have all the fishes gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the fishes gone?
Long time ago?
Where have all the fishes gone?
Killed by oil spills everyone
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Where have all the oceans gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the oceans gone?
Long time ago?
Where have all the oceans gone?
Turned to toxic crude oil dumps
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Where are all the living things?
Long time passing
Where are all the living things?
Long time ago?
Where are all the living things?
Cooked by global warming
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

How will planet earth survive
This destruction?
How will planet earth survive
Such callous greed?
How will planet earth survive?
Profits matter more than lives
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Single Payer Teachers
Author: Casey Garhart
Tune: Nothing Like a Dame

We’ve got single payer teachers
We’ve got single payer cops
We’ve got single payer heroes
who fight fires without stop
We’ve got fancy cars and houses
and wealth without compare
What ain’t we got?
Single Payer Care!

Canadians get good health care
the British get it too
the French, the Dutch the Germans
just to name a few
But we get health for profit
and there’s an awful smell
What don’t we get?
We don’t get well!

(solo)
insurance companies and pharmaceuticals govern our policies
(solo)
totally oblivious to our own health care . . .realities

(all)
There is nothing like health care!
Nothing in the world!
All we need is Single Payer
to have re-eally good health care
to have re-eally good health care

Rainbow

Author: Catherine Verrall Regina, Sask grans
Tune: Somewhere, Over The Rainbow

In our land there’s a rainbow
People all
Colours lighter and darker
Gay, straight, short & tall
Muslim, Jew & Christian
Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’i
First People’s & Newcomers
Rainbows in our sky
It matters not how families form
For Love is Love and that’s the norm
Faith’s leading
It matters not what words we say
Creator, Allah, God
Life’s spirit, heeding
In our land there’s a rainbow
No room for strife
Each one respected & valued
Each a gift of life

Recently Pam Walton of Pam Walton Productions created a 30 minute documentary called Raging Grannies about the San Francisco Bay Area Raging Grannies chapter. Walton focuses on the individual Grannies to get to know them better and to see what motivates them to be a Raging Granny. Dana Sawchuk, Associate Professor of Sociology of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA wrote of the documentary:

This thought-provoking look at the Raging Grannies is funny, inspiring, and surprisingly moving. Viewers can gain valuable insight on the workings of one of the movement’s most active chapters, observe a sample of unique Granny protests, and are treated to an incredible series of interviews with individual Grannies. I highly recommend this fascinating documentary for activists and for students at all levels in Sociology, Women’s Studies, Community Organizing, and Gerontology.

Since I last saw the Raging Grannies during the health care reform rally, the local Bay Area Raging Grannies have been busy protesting the privacy issues surrounding Facebook, picketed at various Valero gas stations to voice their opposition to the company’s support of Proposition 23, protested a Google proposal to set up a two tier internet access, and protested to save the beavers of Martines, California. There are 60 Raging Grannies gaggles all over the U.S. and Canada, including British Columbia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Tucscon, Arizona, South Florida, Seattle, Washington, Metro Detroit, Michigan, Madison Wisconsin, Ottawa, and Indiana, with many more.

I’m glad that there are women like the Raging Grannies fighting the good fight for our nation. I end this blog with youtube videos of some of the causes that the Raging Grannies have fought for. Thank you Raging Grannies and keep singing.

THE RAGING GRANNIES PROTEST THE BP OIL SPILL

THE RAGING GRANNIES SING FOR GAY MARRIAGE

THE RAGING GRANNIES SING FOR IMMIGRATION RIGHTS

THE RAGING GRANNIES SING FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

THE RAGING GRANNIES SING AGAINST WAR AND OCCUPATION

THE RAGING GRANNIES FIGHT GOOGLE FOR NET NEUTRALITY

THE RAGING GRANNIES PROTEST PROROGUING THE CANADIAN PARLIAMENT

THE RAGING GRANNIES 20TH ANNIVERSARY

Cartoons For The Tri-City Voice July to September 2010

On April 9, 2008, I began to do cartoons for the Tri-City Voice, a newspaper that covers the Milpitas, Fremont, and Union City areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s been a dream come true for me to be a published cartoonist and I’ve really enjoyed thinking up of cartoons each week. Most of my cartoons are political cartoons, but I occassionally do cartoons of the local Bay Area scene and cartoons for the holidays.

The months of July through September 2010 were dominated by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The area of New Orleans and Louisiana were still recovering from the Katrina hurricane of 5 years ago, and their ecology and environment took another blow from the oil spill. The illegal immigration debate continues in Arizona as SB 1070 takes effect in the state. The American middle class continues its 30 year slide, as the manufacturing and blue collar jobs that created the middle class continue to become either obsolete or out sourced. In New York City, a controversy erupts over a proposed Muslim center a few blocks away from the site of the former Twin Towers, causing a new slate of Islamophobia in the nation.

In local news, the San Jose Mercury News has a series of articles exploring the extent of corporate lobbyist influence on the representatives in the California legislature. This influence extends to writing the bills for many of the representatives, many of whom are too inexperienced due to the term limits set in place in the 1990s which eliminated many long time legislators. The home foreclosure crisis continues to be a drag on both the California and the national economy. The Congress votes to compensate Filipino World War II veterans for their service during the war. In San Francisco, a court ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional and that gay marriage was a constitutional right. This court ruling was immediately appealed, as progressive Christians fight against the homophobia within the Christian Church and clash against conservative Christians. In Fremont, the Vice Mayor proposes to extend the term limits of the City Council to 12 years. In the California Fall ballot is Proposition 23, which would effectively freeze the recent California laws to help ease climate change and decrease our dependency on fossil fuels through the promotion of alternative energy.

To view the cartoons that I’ve done for the Tri-City Voice from July to September 2010, click the dates below. The cartoon is below the crossword puzzle.

The Americans July 6, 2010
Hayward And The Natural Gas Plant July 13, 2010
NATO Contributes To The Illegal Immigration Influx July 20, 2010
Lobbyists and the California Legislature July 27, 2010
The Continuing Home Foreclosure Crisis August 3, 2010
Filipino World War II Veterans Get Compensation August 10, 2010
The Middle Class Continues To Slip August 17, 2010
The Hayward Mural Program August 24, 2010
The Fight Between Progressive and Conservative Christians Over Gay Marriage August 31, 2010
Moderate Muslims Get Harassed By Both Radical Islam and Islamophobia September 7, 2010
Extending Fremonts’ Term Limits September 14, 2010
Proposition 23 September 21, 2010
Conservative and Liberal Nightmares September 28, 2010

Cartoons for the Tri-City Voice April to June 2010

On April 9, 2008, I began to do cartoons for the Tri-City Voice, a newspaper that covers the Milpitas, Fremont, and Union City areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s been a dream come true for me to be a published cartoonist and I’ve really enjoyed thinking up of cartoons each week. Most of my cartoons are political cartoons, but I occassionally do cartoons of the local Bay Area scene and cartoons for the holidays.

The months of April through June 2010 were dominated by news of the economy and the growing influence of the Tea Party in American politics. Republicans continue to oppose most of President Obama’s initiatives, although Republican Scott Brown joined with the Senate Democrats in passing a financial reform bill. The Tea Party continues to feed off of the anger of the general population over bailouts of bankers and Wall Street and fears that the industrial and manufacturing jobs that have been lost during the recession may never come back. In Arizona, SB 1070 passes, igniting a national debate on illegal immigration.

In local news, a proposition passes that commits money to create a football stadium in a section of Santa Clara that is already choke full of traffic. California voters do not pass Proposition 16, which would’ve given PG & E more of a monopoly of California energy. The cities of Newark and Union City propose to combine their fire departments to save money when both cities’ budgets are severely strained. A recent spate of violence occurs in the Bay Area against Asian Americans, causing concern. And the California governor’s race begins, as candidate Meg Whitman wins the Republican nomination and Attorney General Jerry Brown wins the Democratic nomination.

To view the cartoons that I’ve done for the Tri-City Voice from April to June 2010, click the dates below. The cartoon is below the crossword puzzle.

Getting Rid Of The Moderates April 7, 2010
Overwhelmed By Niner Fans April 14, 2010
Newark and Union City Combine Their Fire Departments April 21, 2010
Resentment Over The Bailouts April 27, 2010
Bigotry May 4, 2010
Driving Illegal Immigrants Underground May 11, 2010
The Trouble With Current Energy Dependency May 18, 2010
PG & E and Proposition 16 May 25, 2010
Illegal Immigrants Caught In The Middle Of The War Between Drug Dealers And The Police June 1, 2010
Money And The Elections June 8, 2010
The Road Of The Illegal Immigrant June 15, 2010
The World Cup June 22, 2010
Anti-Japanese American Hysteria In World War II and Islamophobia Today June 29, 2010