Stopping Gay Youth Violence: Start with the Churches

I just attended the Human Rights Campaign's annual event on LGBT and society issues. This years' was "Young and Gay in America" talking about the promise and the pain of being young and gay in America.

The four participants could not have been more appropriate. Judy Shepard (Mother of Matthew Shepard), Maya Keyes (Daughter of wacko Alan Keyes[dKos]), Mike Glatze (Editor, Young Gay America), and Chris Medeiros (Episcopal Divinity School professor). All four have extensive personal and professional experience with youth violence, oppression, and shared family pain of LGBT youth.

I was struck by how much religious language was used by the participants in the forum, and how pervasive the religious influence is in both perpetuating and preventing youth hate crimes in today's society.

The discussion began with a question of How to make Progressive churches respond more prominently and aggresively to LGBT issues. Medeiros said that American Christianity (which is his background) has been whitewashed as all anti-gay, as prominence and visibility are hard to attract from this current media that is focused on the Pope and Falwell. In reality, it has three tiers:

• The Religious Right wing (falwell, RCC, SBC)
• The Christian Left liberal churches (UUA, UCC, MCC])
• The huge middle gap of mainline protestant churches (PCUSA, UMC, Episcopal, etc...)

Thus, the primary force of progressive churches should be to expand the infrastructure, and to live into what it really means to be "welcoming." Take loud and proud stances and dont back down. Do more than wave a rainbow flag, and create institutions and infrastructure to deal with all the realities of what it means to be gay, from homelessness to poor to substance abuse and on up. It has to start with the people crying out "I am LGBT and I refuse to choose!!" Maya Keyes agreed, and stated that people aren't gonna know about openness until they target lgbt youth and let them know you are there. Thus, take the challenge of redefining the common concept of Christianity and flip that image, and Christianity can become a force for fighting oppression, not causing it.

The primary points I got from this conversation was that LGBT youth need the following things to truly find safe space, and all of these can be provided or influenced by the Church.

• Build an allies network. Reach out in little or big ways to find your friends in the community, and when the time comes, out yourself and your allies. The more people that can stand together, the more wind it takes to blow them down. Move forward from isolated individualism to community unity.
• Become Role Models. If LGBT culture is just the village people, or the white rich males, then it will lose. Be a role model or find a role model in your community to raise up.
• Break the Isolation. This is not 1993, you have the internet to find out information, and you have much more contacts than any other generation. Use it to break out of your shell.
• Help each other on the ground level. Focus on beds and help for homeless LGBT youth. Share information with other groups. We are all in this together, so coalesce and fight for humanity, not just gay culture.
• Small is Ideal: Small towns are great grassroots places for you to be heard. If you are safe enough and have enough support, out yourself and force a small community to deal with you. Exposure forces confrontation.

All in all, progressive churches need to step up the aggresiveness and the prominence of their witness, which will empower gay youth to break their culture-forced isolation and connect with others. Be loud and proud for homosexuality BECAUSE of your faith, not in spite of it!

What has worked in your community to reach out to gay youth? Discuss.