Young Evangelicals Are Ditching the Christian Right's Bigoted Agenda

[babylonsister]

Young Evangelicals Are Ditching the Christian Right's Bigoted Agenda

By Pam Chamberlain, The Public Eye. Posted March 6, 2009.

Evangelical students have moved past their elders into more tolerant territory.


Last October a chartered bus rolled deep through the South, its passengers college-aged young people drawing inspiration from the Freedom Riders of the 1960s. The black vinyl advertising plastered on the side broadcast the riders' goals, "Equality Ride 2008: Faith in Action: Social Justice for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People." The bus brought young LGBTQ activists and their allies face to face with students at 15 Christian colleges in an attempt to generate more acceptance of homosexuality at evangelical schools.

2008 was the third year of the Equality Ride, a project of Soulforce Q, the youth arm of Soulforce, an organization Mel White cofounded "to cut off homophobia at its source -- religious bigotry." A former evangelical minister and speechwriter to Jerry Falwell (the founder of the Christian Right group Moral Majority), White was a closeted gay Christian who came out in 1993, left his evangelical ministry, and began work for the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ Christian community. He has made his life's work the reconciliation of evangelical Protestant Christianity and homosexuality. Soulforce recognized that encouraging young people to engage in conversation with their peers who hold conservative views about homosexuality could be transformative for both sides. Since 2006, the riders have visited 50 Christian schools, welcomed by some and arrested for trespassing by others.

The Equality Riders hoped to meet people where they are and engage students in honest discussion -- and, if that avenue is thwarted, protest the school's anti-gay policies with direct action in the tradition of Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. As an added objective, they sought sympathetic media attention. The Ride won good notice in the gay press and stories in the local media in targeted college towns.

Capturing Evangelical College Students' Views

Are the Equality Riders on to something more than a press opportunity? Where are evangelical Protestant students these days? While often characterized as homogeneously conservative, they are more diverse in their religious and political views than one might think. Evangelical college students are an interesting research niche. Despite the wealth of recent polling data about young evangelicals, accurate conclusions are hard to come by. Because current methodologies rely on land phone lines and internet questionnaires, students polled are overwhelmingly White, and what little we know about young evangelicals of color, the fastest growing group, is that they may have differing opinions from their White counterparts. This has been a problem for pollsters and their audience alike, and we will have to wait for research refinements. For the figures quoted here, then, we should assume they reflect younger White evangelicals.

Recently polled younger evangelicals seem more conservative in their theological positions than those polled in the 1980s. At the same time they are more inclined than their parents to support social justice efforts such as environmental stewardship, anti-poverty programs, or HIV/AIDS treatment. While they mostly believe that homosexuality is a sin, at least some of them support employment and housing rights for LGBTQ people.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/story/130066/young_evangelicals_are_ditching_the_christian_right%27s_bigoted_agenda_/?page=entire

[Demeter]

1. Sticking a Toe in the Water of Religious Freedom, Are They?

come on in, the water's fine!

[MedleyMisty]

2. You know, I guess abortion is a deal breaker for me

Because I don't care what else we agree on - if you see me as an uterus slave without any rights or ability to control my own life we can't work together. I get this very primal fight reaction when I see someone wanting to take my autonomy and freedom away from me.

Speaking of that - why can't guys who are all about their guns extrapolate that? Presumably they see gun control as a threat to their freedom. Why can't they think, "If I feel this strongly about my freedom to make my own choices about owning a small piece of metal, how would a woman feel about the freedom to make her own choices about producing little humans that she has to be responsible for and that seriously change her life forever?"

U is a vowel but it feels like that should be "a uterus slave", huh.

[monmouth]

3. I did not personally see this but yesterday there evidently was a three-man

panel on MSNBC discussing abortion! I want vasectomies discussed, by women on MSNBC. This is why the Fairness Doctrine is important, at least to me....

[sweetpotato]

5. Women don't count as people to them

Women are only walking baby factories - who also cook, clean and take care of men's sexual needs.

They don't want to change that. They don't even want to THINK about changing it.

They love their patriarchy. And until all of us women stand up to change the patriarchy, it will never change. There are too many women who have bought into the system.

We need the 70's style consciousness raising again.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. all us women can't even get a post about that 3 MAN panel onto the greatest page

How many people here even SAW that thread?

Take away abortion rights, sentence women to trauma and even death. You won't see histories of the days of criminalized abortion in "regular" bookstores and you won't see protest posters of what REALLY happens to women when our bodies are taken out of our hands--the only discourse that appears in public venues always focuses on issues of privacy and/or personal ideology (for isn't religious ideology, in the end, always a matter of personal belief?).

Privacy issues are crucial, certainly, but whittle away all the ancillary concerns and you are left with this:

anti-choice KILLS WOMEN.

That's the real heart of it-- It's a death sentence for us and our daughters.

And you won't see top of the Greatest Page when it comes to this critical issue--- indeed, I haven't yet noticed ANY "women's" issue make it to that hallowed station.

I don't understand it..... if this were whites talking about "what to do with black people"
or straights on a National program talking about "what to do with those misbehaving gays", or any slap in the face to those oppressed groups, the solidarity K&R threads here would be a mile long for the next 2 weeks.

[HillWilliam]

10. They move in little, sly, cat-feet steps

First, they take control of women's bodies. They roll back Affirmative Action. They either deny or take away rights from GLBT people. They whip up hysteria against immigrants and ensure that they never have rights.

Step by step, hysteria by hysteria, they fool the fools into throwing away their own rights or taking away rights from "others" until nobody has any rights left. Only the rich autocrats who are already above the law will have any life or livelihood; the rest of us will be serfs in their kingdom.

As I warn the Prop H8 supporters every chance I get: beware of the sword you wield against someone else in taking rights away. Once the precedent is set for rescinding any existing right from any group of people, that precedent can and will be used against you eventually. Don't sit there all high-and-mighty thinking it won't. It can and will. It gets closer, easier, and faster with every stroke.

I warn anyone who clamors for the removal of any fundamental right from any "other" group. Soon, you will be the "other". Count on it.

This is why I am a strong proponent of women's choice. No man has a right to tell a woman how to make such an intimate decision what to do with her own health and well-being.

Well, unless he suddenly sprouts a uterus and can get pregnant.

But not a moment before.

Denying a woman a choice in her own health decisions would give me no right to ask for marriage. All fundamental rights go hand-in-hand. It's called "being fair" -- something the right wing knows nothing about and don't have the morality to achieve.

[get the red out]

6. "uterus slave"

I like that term! I agree completely. Deal breaker. And the truth is, what these white male evangelical wannabe masters of the universe want is an end to birth control and complete control over their female property.

I tend to hate these fuckers. But only because they think I am some kind of stray dog that needs to be under proper control and ownership. Oh, and with proper discipline administered.

They can't scare women like me with their promises of hell, so they have to try to pass theocratic laws.

[pipi_k]

7. totally off topic...

but I thought it was interesting...

that even though U is a vowel, I think it's perfectly acceptable to say "a uterus" as long as the U sound is more like a "y" than "uh".

Like "uterus". It's pronounced "yoo-ter-us" (which means you can use the "a" before it)

As opposed to "umbrella", where the "u" sounds like "uh" ("uhm-brel-la"). In which case you would use the "an" before it.

A uterus. An umbrella.


Same thing with "H", which isn't a vowel.

An hour. A horse.


er...sorry...don't mind me. I'm just very interested in language

:)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. Enjoy people like Rudy Guiliani then, if that's the only thing that matters. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

4. The headline goes too far

They are trying to find ways to be judgmental without sounding so horrible, but they still oppose equality, as well as a woman's dominion over her own body.
When I hear some bigot saying God told him how I and my partner 'were made' and that our life is a sin, well, to me that IS a bigoted agenda, prejudiced and filled with arrogance. Sorry. As long as they spout off about 'hating the sin' they are talking about hate, and doing so in an extra scriptural manner, for Scripture will not support their hatred, they have to make up verses to back up their own neurotic need to judge others.
These people have done great wrongs for long years, in the name of their religion. They need to stop those wrongs, turn toward better actions, and make up for the harm they have done to others. They have done great harm. Until they accept that, they are lost. They are the source of the suffering of others. The suffering of the least among us, and those of us who can read know that that means in terms of their own so called faith.
This is a generation of Vipers.

[pipi_k]

9. Yeah, that same old shit

"Hate the sin, love the sinner"

or something similar.

personally, I think it's a huge crock of bullshit.

Because they're still putting themselves in the position of judging the behavior of others.



I have a couple of friends I've known for nearly 20 years. They're Catholic but have experimented with other religions, I guess. Whatever...at the core they're Catholic.

Same bullshit. "Hate the sin, love the sinner". And they do see homosexuality as a sin that should be hated. What always makes me want to scream, though, is their constant stories about how this or that one, who is gay or a lesbian, "prayed and prayed" and all of a sudden...POOF!!!! They're not gay anymore!!!

Hot damn!!!!

Now why didn't I think of that???? I want to be thinner...maybe if I pray hard enough, I'll magically lose about 50 lbs. Oh wait...here's a real sticky one for "God"...I want to be 25 again. Go for it, God...do your best.

Oh darn.

"God" doesn't take off 50 lbs overnight and he doesn't allow us to be young again and he won't even grow back amputated limbs.

But he WILL change gay people into heterosexuals.

Gosh, what a guy...


:sarcasm: