Christian persecution in the 21st century: A call of conscience to defend the lives of LGBT people worldwide

Two weeks ago the United Methodist General Conference reaffirmed 40 years of anti-gay prejudice, voting to continue to bar lesbian and gay people from ministry and marriage while faithful gay United Methodists had to endure speeches accusing them of bestiality, calling them drug dealers, and worse. In April, a North Carolina minister used his pulpit to urge parents to beat their young children if they showed any signs they might be gay. In March, the Kansas House approved a bill allowing people to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people based on their religious beliefs. And last year, Christians in Michigan fought to include an exemption from Michigan’s anti-bullying law for people with “a sincerely held religious belief.” In their view, it is OK to torment kids as long as you believe God wants you to.

Christians, I am very sad to say, are at the forefront of oppressing LGBT people all over the country.

But scapegoating LGBT people in the U.S. is not enough for some Christians. They have begun an export business – peddling homophobia and suggestions on how to further criminalize gay people to legislatures all over the world, from Russia to Africa. “Homophobia is being imported to the [African] continent by neocolonialists with an agenda to spread U.S. culture wars worldwide,” Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma recently wrote in an analysis in the American Prospect. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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3 Comments » | May 16th, 2012
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Why a native North Carolinian African American retired pastor supports same sex marriage

Gil Caldwell in foreground marching with Martin Luther King, Jr.

78 years ago, I was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. My birth and my life in North Carolina were circumscribed by the history, culture and legalities of racial segregation. My place of birth, the community in which I lived, the church where I was baptized, the restaurants, stores, movie theaters, parks, barber shops, busses and trains I rode, taxi cabs in which I could ride, all of this and much more were designed or existed because of racial segregation. I left North Carolina to attend seminary in Boston, because I was refused admission to the Methodist seminary of my denomination in North Carolina because it did not admit blacks.

I share all of this as a prelude to my expressing great concern about the ballot initiative in North Carolina that would include in the state Constitution, language that limits marriage to one man and one woman. Thus, denying marriage equality to same sex couples. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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No Comments » | May 5th, 2012
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Gil to all who were crushed and angered by the inaction and action of the UMC

Protestors Communion in response to the General Conference vote to maintain the church's anti-gay stance. (Photo by Love Your Neighbor Common Witness Coalition)

The United Methodist legislative body voted today to keep the incompatibility language ("homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching") in the church's Book of Discipline and thus retain church-sanctioned discrimination. The vote was roughly 60% to maintain, 40% to change, percentages that have held steady for at least 12 years. The General Conference, as in years past, also rejected a compromise resolution that would have at least added that "we are not of one mind" on this issue. These votes are an indicator that the rest of the anti-LGBTQ language and laws about ordination and same-sex marriage will likely remain. Those votes come tomorrow, May 4, the closing day of the conference.

Today is yet ANOTHER sad day for those who have fought so hard to create change and those who look to the church for hope in their struggle to reconcile their faith and sexuality. The following is an open letter from Gil.

To: My LGBTQ sisters and brothers, The Love Your Neighbor Common Witness Coalition, and to all of us who were crushed and angered and disappointed by the inaction and action of The General Conference,"Grace and peace to US, from God the Creator and Jesus the Liberator."

At the 2000 General Conference in Cleveland

Even though I am an "elder brother" who in the Civil Rights Movement and at General Conferences have "been there and done that" (Protested, picketed and got arrested in Cleveland), I cannot in good conscience tell you, "this too will pass away", and therefore you should be patient and wait to fight another day. Bonhoeffer wrote of "cheap grace". Acceptance of what some said would be inevitable and a too easy reconciliation can be "cheap" as well. Each and every day of the new Quadrennium, there should be some remembrance of what happened in Tampa! "WHAT HAPPENED IN TAMPA SHOULD NOT STAY IN TAMPA". Read the rest of this entry »

 
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2 Comments » | May 3rd, 2012
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Chicago Windy City Times on Gil and Marilyn: Two very different people following UMC

See Side Bar article on Windy City Times (scroll down to end of first article). Great piece on the United Methodist insider Gil and church outsider Marilyn about our views on the UMC legislative body meeting now in Tampa. Will the delegates step up and do the right thing and get rid of anti-LGBTQ policies?

Two very different people following UMC

Check out Gil's ongoing blog about the United Methodist General Conference while the UMC legislative body meets in Tampa April 24-May 4.

 
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No Comments » | April 26th, 2012
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Gil’s “musings” on the 2012 United Methodist legislative gathering, April 24-May 4

MUSINGS OF “AN OLD MAN”

The followings "Musings", numbered in anticipation of my writing many of them during General Conference, have a bit of Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He wrote a public letter to two United Methodist Bishops and 6 other clergymen who wanted him to "get out of Birmingham" in order for him to cease "stirring up" the Birmingham community.

This is my way of "being present", although I am not in Tampa. I expect a "United Methodist Pentecost" in Tampa. This is my way of adding my voice to the voices in Tampa that will make possible the gifts of "listening, hearing, understanding and acting". Speaking in tongues is a gift that some have. My hope is that more of us will have the "gift of hearing" (maybe for the first time) and then acting. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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No Comments » | April 24th, 2012
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GC Musings: Is there ground for unity?

MORE MUSINGS
6. We sing, "Oh, how I love Jesus". How I wish that the 2 coalition Caucuses (should it be "Cauci?), "Love your Neighbor" and "Renewal and Reform", could find some "ground of unity" despite their differences. The Renewal and Reform Caucus in a statement has said; "Homosexuality is not the most important issue before the Church, but it is the most divisive." Could they stand together on a "ground of unity" that has them uttering a collective "yes" to United Methodist clergy being allowed by the denomination to perform unions and marriages of same sex couples? If the two persons who are partnered as a same sex couples are "persons of sacred worth" as we say in our Book of Discipline, why as the old folk say, must they "live in sin" because United Methodist clergy are not allowed officially to perform their unions or marriages? More and more of our sons and daughters, our grand kids and our nieces and nephews are being "turned off" by their Church because it limits complete ministry to/for them, or for their friends. How, in the name of God can our denomination that is concerned about membership loss in the USA, limit our ministry in those states and the District of Columbia where same sex unions or marriages are legal? Read the rest of this entry »

 
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No Comments » | April 24th, 2012
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GC MUSINGS: Has the issue of homosexuality ripped the church apart?

One of the groups at the gathering of United Methodists from throughout the world for their legislative meeting in Tampa, April 24-May 4 is the Renewal and Reform Coalition.They oppose any change in the United Methodist language and legislation –such as "The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching," and United Methodist clergy are prohibited from performing union or marriage services for same sex couples. The group released a statement on April 13 that was titled "Should United Methodists agree to disagree on homosexuality?" They are opposed to any official acknowledgement that there are different opinions among United Methodists on gay rights and marriage equality. Their statement includes these words:

"Homosexuality is not the most important issue before the church, but it is the most divisive, and the one that can rip apart the United Methodist Church, just as it has The United Church of Christ, The Episcopal Church in the U.S., The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and most recently, The Presbyterian Church (USA).” Read the rest of this entry »

 
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No Comments » | April 24th, 2012
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GC MUSINGS: Are all people of sacred worth?

"The issue is not whether our writing (or speaking, statements, resolutions) will be political. If we are silent, our silence is political. If we write our writing is political."

From Patricia Schneider, of Amherst, Massachusetts, a former Methodist/United Methodist. A well-known writer and teacher of writers.

I'm returning to my numbered musings:

11. Many of us in our prayer lives have remembered the death of Trayvon Martin and his family and George Zimmerman and his family, as different as the last few weeks have been for them. I am certain that UMC Bishops and the General Conference, particularly because of their meeting in Florida, will speak in public ways, pastorally and prophetically, about how what took place in Sanford, touches all of us. How can any of us avoid addressing the implications for the so-called "Stand Your Ground" legislation as it can affect the lives of all of us, no matter where we live? And, The United Methodist Church, more so than any other Church body, can interpret why the shooting of Trayvon Martin had such a particularly painful and negative impact upon African Americans; as parents, as men and boys, as families and as a community.

We are not in a "post-racial time" because the memories of verbal and physical violence, past and present, directed at black males, young and old, are, or ought be, very present in all of us. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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No Comments » | April 24th, 2012
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NOM strategy: drive a wedge into the black community

Rev. James Reeb Memorial in Selma


NOM’s wedge strategy is out of an old anti-civil rights playbook

To those distressed by the revelation that the National Organization for Marriage has a deliberate "game plan" to enlist blacks in their efforts to prevent marriage equality:

I remember comparable efforts during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Then, there were those who sought to enlist blacks to support efforts to prevent racial integration. And when I read of the desire of NOM "to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key Democratic constituencies." (New York Times, 3/27/12), I thought of what it would mean if they were successful in doing that. We who are black were being urged by NOM to separate ourselves from Bayard Rustin, Barbara Jordan, James Baldwin, Wanda Sykes, Rev. Yvette Flunder, Don Lemon, Sheryl Swoopes, Countee Cullen, Johnny Mathis, and many, many other black lesbians and gay men, living and dead. The contradiction of any group that seeks to drive a wedge in the "family" of a group of people who share a common racial history and heritage is beyond belief. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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1 Comment » | April 2nd, 2012
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American Sons: President Obama and Trayvon Martin


"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." -President Barack Obama

"What the president said is disgraceful. It's not a question of what the young man looked like. At some point we need to talk about being Americans." - Newt Gingrich

"I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly, not to let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodies are as responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as much as George Zimmerman was." - Geraldo Rivera

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Our President, because he is African American, acknowledged the rich and visual racial diversity of our nation, by mentioning the similarities of Trayvon Martin's appearance to his own. Newt Gingrich suggests there is something un-American about his doing that. Apparently to be "American" in the mind of Mr. Gingrich is to ignore the particularity of one's racial features and biological history. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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3 Comments » | March 24th, 2012
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