On Power- And Honor

Given the unsettling happenings in our nation’s capital last week, there was no better place to be this past weekend than at OutRaleigh, the annual Pride celebration sponsored by the city’s LGBT
Center.

On a sunny summer day, surrounded by thousands of people as well as rainbow-tutu-attired dogs, rainbow-tinted goats and rainbow-hued hedgehogs, our Catholic parish LGBTQ+ ministry encouraged people to take selfies with a Pope Francis cutout. We offered a calendar of events and Mass schedule to anyone who asked us questions. We handed out thousands of rainbow heart stickers and wished folks a good day.

It was impossible to not break out an overdue grin. That grin came because of, not despite, the fact that I knew it couldn’t last.

Our booth was less than 500 feet from a street-corner protest from preachers telling the LGBTQ+ community the only way to salvation was to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus. As I heard their message, I realized that, to a degree, I agreed. Why would I staff a ministry booth unless I, too, believed in Jesus’ saving power?

The difference rests in the details.

I believe a kind, loving Creator made me as I am. I don’t believe there’s any sin in being or loving. The Jesus whose teachings I proclaim ministered through presence, listening and response to human need, pain and sorrow. He was insistently not the “whoever has the most power wins” guy. He died on a cross, killed by the forces of political power.

All of this was on my mind when a man and a woman from the street preacher group came to our booth. They gave me a pamphlet that told me to repent and they spoke of the virtue of chastity. I said I agreed about the virtue of chastity but felt it was a gift to be chosen, not imposed by another party, and that we were not going to agree on this.

I wished them well.

That kind of encounter can be unsettling. No one wants to be in a conversation in which they feel they’re being judged and found wanting. Yet part of the reason for having a ministry booth at a Pride festival is to have conversations. You never know what might come from them.

I feel like that’s where we are as a nation. We’ve spent two years in our own homes, on our own phones and laptops and tablets. We’ve curated not just our social media “friends’ lists” but our lives to those who think, vote, pray, love, live as we do. And for even longer, we turned governance from a conversation and co-responsibility into a sports rivalry of ”my team” vs. “your team.” Or, even worse, a war where whoever has the most power wins. We’ve lost the essence of We the People.

That has gotten us where we are. In the name of protecting the unborn, a Supreme Court majority found that a woman’s decision whether to bear a child can be superseded as a state government sees fit. The same majority found that a state government must overcome a significant challenge before it can prevent individuals from carrying a handgun. Both rulings – generating questions of power, privilege, fear and control – came amid a week of revelations regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Witness after witness testified how the president of the United States knew he had lost the 2020 election and still sought, through whatever means, to hold on to power. The testimony of one in particular, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, caught my attention. A Trump supporter, he testified how he refused to overturn election results and shared an entry he wrote in a journal in December 2020:

“I do not want to be a winner by cheating. I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to.”

That acknowledgement of honor – a value deeper than any party affiliation –reminded me of late 2016, when our family gathered for its annual reunion on Veterans Day weekend. My dad, a staunch Republican, told my brother, sister and me he had something he needed to share. “I voted for the loser,” he said. We were confused, and then he explained that, as a grandfather of two young women, he could not stomach what he heard from the lips of the GOP presidential candidate, bragging to “Access Hollywood” about what he thought was an appropriate greeting.

My dad said he was no fan of Hillary Clinton, but he decided Donald Trump lacked the personal character to lead the nation.

I was never prouder to be his son.

He showed me the importance of putting character first and acting accordingly. Conversely, the revelations of the Jan. 6 witnesses, as well as the actions of the Supreme Court majority, have left me unsettled and frightened. I see people who – in the quest for power and control – will cheat, lie, try to subvert reality and turn to violence. Justices who spoke soberly during their congressional nomination interviews about precedent and judicial restraint jettisoned both to advance their point-of-view.

One, in particular, took aim at my marriage. “Whoever has the most power wins” seems ascendant, and it’s not a perspective I support:

What then to do? Tempted to despair, I realized from OutRaleigh how to engage with it all – the silly and the serious – while keeping my focus on the inclusive. A woman came to our booth and asked us the question we hear more than any other: “Are you really a Catholic church?” Another co-founder, with whom I became friends 23 years ago as we created this ministry, said yes. Our visitor thanked us and began to cry. She explained that she and her husband have a daughter and another on the way, and they just didn’t know any more if there was a place for their family in the Church.

My friend and I choked up ourselves a bit as we assured her there was.

At tnocs.com, we may not love the same songs or genres, but we share our love of music and our respect for one another’s passion.

What if each of us took that same expansive impulse to the rest of our lives – understanding we may never fully agree but asserting that each of us is deserving of respect and what we share is most important?

tnocs.com Contributing Author Chuck Small

There’s a place for all of us. Amid the fear and the uncertainty and the seemingly unending lust for power, we need to remind one another of that.

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