Comment: The Church should beg society’s forgiveness for its treatment of gay people

[WillParkinson]

In 1992, when I was 17, two years before Attitude magazine was started, a vicar came to give a talk on sexual morality to our small Christian Union lunchtime club at my school in South London.

I went along with my only gay friend – a chap in the year below me who had turned up at the dodgy local youth group run in a man’s bedsit, a few months after me. We weren’t out at school (we didn’t want to have our heads kicked in), so we acted as if we were just interested in theological debate. At the end my friend asked what the Church would say to young people who were gay.

“We’d recommend they have counselling”, was the reply. As we stormed out to the tuck shop, my friend dropped his disguise by yelping, “Can you believe that?! He said we should have counselling!”

Well, irony of ironies, that vicar was right. Both my friend and I have ended up having counselling in the years since – not to try to turn us straight as was suggested, but to deal with the aftermath of the horrific messages that we, and every LGBT person of our generation, were bombarded with as we grew up. You know, the usual: it’s unnatural, immoral, evil, causes AIDS, would mean we would be lonely and could never have relationships, etc. All that nice stuff.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/04/04/comment-the-church-should-beg-societys-forgiveness-for-its-treatment-of-gay-people/

[MarianJack]

1. They should,...

...but they won't.

I'm sorry for the BS that they put you and your friend, as well as so many other LGBT young men and women, through.

As my late mom always used to say, "Be Happy".

PEACE!

[Bluenorthwest]

2. As should all the people who so calmly announce that they AND God see us as unworthy

of rights, who mutter than only straights are Sanctified and all of that crap. The impunity with which these hate mongers monger their hate is getting old. Old. Old.

[Iggo]

3. Goddam right they should.

Then maybe I won't have to fly the bird every time I walk past St. Bruno's.

[Plantaganet]

4. It's a good piece...

..but the church will never apologize.

The pious enjoy their own reality, where religion is only a force for good and never evil. Homophobia materialized seemingly at random. Gay people have only been accepted in recent years and what we know of Native Americans, ancient Greece and African Two-Spirits doesn't count for anything. The Pope may have said that marriage is under attack, but he didn't actually mean it. Gay teenagers kill themselves for no apparent reason. What? Leviticus? No. That's simply a matter of interpretation. Context. Proof texting. Phone banks. Some of my best friends.

It's a bit like 1984. We've always been at war with Eastasia. We've never been at war with Eastasia. Reality is twisted inside out and back again.

It's best to just move on. Our community is too precious to waste time on such frippery.