Homophobia

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Sheryll Townsend <s_ings at y...> wrote:
 Having been the 'token'
> straight person in a GLBT organisation for the past 4
> years....
 
Hey, there, Sheryll!  I know where you're coming from.  My husband 
and I are fighting GLBT stereotyping on two fronts.  First, we are 
working to convince people in the general population that there are 
people of faith that support GLBT rights, and second, we are trying 
to convince GLBT people (admittedly jaded) that not all people of 
faith hate them.  It's a balancing act.

But while my husband and I get strange looks (as well as frequent and 
loud applause!) for marching in the Pride Parade with our kids and 
other church members, including our minister (carrying our church 
banner prominently, for all to see!) it is mostly hetero folks who 
don't understand why we work for the civil rights of a group that 
doesn't include us.  (I try to remind them of all of the folks who 
were not black who rode on the buses to go down south during the 
sixties, but THAT'S DIFFERENT in their minds).  Evidently, you are 
only ever supposed to stand up for your own rights, not the rights of 
other marginalized people.  This makes us inexplicable weirdos.  
Added to this is the fact that we are doing this within the religious 
community.  We grew very, very tired over the years of news coverage 
of GLBT issues always pitting the 'godless' gays against the 
religious community, and finally stood up to say that there are many 
people of faith from many religious traditions who wholeheartedly 
support GLBT rights, and in fact feel that our diverse religious 
tenets MANDATE that we do so!

My husband and I now run a non-profit with almost 100 local clergy, 
congregations and religious organizations on the letterhead (and over 
425 on the mailing list) who are there to show their support for GLBT 
rights, reproductive freedom and separation of church and state.  
When there was a battle in our city council for a Domestic 
Partnership ordinance that would give many rights to same-gender 
couples already enjoyed by married mixed-gender couples, I called in 
every favor I had with the local clergy, and in the end, 13 out of 
the 15 clergy who testified for the legislation were there because of 
the calls I made.  ONLY THREE CLERGY WERE THERE FROM THE OTHER SIDE!  
They were so confident that they'd win, they didn't try to get many 
folks there.  In the end, we prevailed, but it was a nail-biter.

The first two weddings we took our children to were both same-gender 
ceremonies!  They never even saw a wedding with a man and a woman 
until we went to my husband's cousin's wedding last year!  It's so 
hard to raise one's children to be unbiased in a culture which wants 
everything to be structured according to gender, from the color 
schemes that the toy companies use for products aimed at boys vs. 
girls to the fact that J.K. Rowling was told to use her initials so 
that boys wouldn't know she was a woman.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the work we're doing, 
the name of the organization is the Interfaith Working Group, and our 
website is 

http://www.iwgonline.org

I'm just waiting for religious right loonies to crop up again 
claiming that HP slash is further proof of why kids shouldn't read 
Harry Potter.  Soon my two hobbies may merge, and I'll be writing 
letters on IWG stationery to publications about Harry Potter slash...

Life is weird.

--Barb