Who is welcome and who is not?
The question continues to challenge the leadership of our Church, Gay political community, and most recently the Obama Campaign. As GLBT Catholics we believe in the self worth of every human being. We recognize that diversity is a good thing, and that love of neighbor is the only road we can take as Catholic Christians, and in dialogue we seek common ground.
The Church cannot have it both ways it either stands for love and all that it implies, or it is hypocritical. We cannot say we follow Christ if we do not welcome all sinners to our Eucharistic table. In the present Church climate, bigotry is embraced in the name of dogma. The Church hierarchy assigns to GLBT people the same thing the Nazi’s did to the Jews. “He, who fights against the Jews, wrestles with the devil.” Just replace Jews with Gays. Homophobia, racism, and sexism should be unacceptable in Catholic Theology, and at the Eucharistic table.
The GLBT political community recently had to look in the mirror at its own form of hypocrisy. I am talking about ENDA. Last September our political types understood that they did not have the votes to pass an all inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and were willing to sell out the employee rights of Transgender people in order to achieve its passage. We all lose when we take this type of approach to human rights.
The Advocate recently ran a letter from Anne Stockwell, Editor in Chief, basically saying it was necessary to drop the employee rights of Transgender people, in order to get rights for GLB people. Apparently some believe that Transgender people are Johnny come lately in our gay alphabet soup acronym.
Like the Church hierarchy some elements of the GLBT media and political world are willing to rewrite history in order support their uniformed positions. What was Stonewall all about? Trans-gendered people are a part of our movement, and were on the front lines of the Stonewall riots. Thank God I am old enough to remember.
As for Barney Frank he is a politician I did not expect that much out of him, I did however expect more out of the Human Rights Campaign fund. This movement welcomes all who want to be a part of it, acceptable and unacceptable.
Hypocrisy is not limited to religion it is alive and well in the straight political arena. Recently Senator Barack Obama gospel concert was held on Sunday, October 28, in Columbia, South Carolina as the final stage in what the presidential candidate billed as a "Forty Days of Faith and Family" tour of the Palmetto State. Was the senator pandering to anti GLBT Black Homophobia, when he allowed homophobic "ex-gay" preacher-singer Donnie McClurkin to appear at Obama’s event?
There are GLBT Catholics who support Obama’s campaign. My question to them is what actions have you taken in response to this promotion of hatred directed at the GLBT Movement. Appeasement will only enable even more hypocrisy? Our Catholic Social Justice Tradition demands more.
So who belongs and who does not? I think we are all wrestling with this question, but we must never be willing to step on others, accept unethical behavior or listen to the hypocrisy of a big Tent mentality that welcomes bigotry. My prayers are with our political leadership as they grapple with this question.
