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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Well said! Hopefully the optimism of the majority of us will overcome this…hatred of change that seems to be a dominating force in certain states.
Thanks for this, Chuck. Your sentiments are true and beautifully written.
A big reason why views have become more polarized and extreme is physical sorting into regions and neighborhoods of people who think and live similarly, exacerbated by online virtual engagement replacing real interpersonal contact, which was further exacerbated from the pandemic. Part of this can’t be helped, but we all owe it to ourselves and our nation to try to get out of our comfort zones and talk to people, especially if they don’t think like us.
But, another thing that makes the right wing so powerful is the organization and activity of their base and their elites. I vote in every election, and I desperately hope that everyone else does too. I also serve as an election officer, and I participate in get out the vote efforts. But voting isn’t enough. We need to organize, to coordinate, to spread effective messaging.
I am more than willing to help in that effect, but I don’t know where to start. I can offer skills in writing/psychology/research/data analysis. If anyone knows good avenues I am all ears.
Stay strong everyone, and Happy Pride!
Well stated Chuck, that was a gift to read; thank you. 🙂
Chuck, you nailed a thought that’s been going through my head endlessly over the last few, polarized years.
We need to remember that we are a “we”. In the sense that there’s no “they”. Whatever I do to hurt a brother or a sister on this Earth, only bring more pain to the world, which in turn hurts me back. Whatever I do to respect, love, or support a brother or sister creates a tiny bit more light, more love and more compassion.
The people who are turning us against each other are doing so for their own power, and we the people will not benefit in any way. We should show them love while not falling into their trap, try to show them the error of their ways with stern compassion.
Excellent article Chuck! I’m afraid darker times still lie ahead (Clarence Thomas openly called for reversing Obergefell, for instance, and I can’t help but wonder where all that hate in his heart comes from). But the long game is winning with the tools of love and respect, not grievance and dehumanization.
Thank you so much for writing this piece. This is a point of view that is not represented nearly often enough. There are many Christians who are, sadly, on the side of rejection and judgment. But there are many others, and I count myself among them, who are on the side of love. Always love. In whatever form it comes. Thank you for representing us at Pride.
I, too, have faced the folks with the megaphones at gatherings proclaiming that Black Lives Matter and that women have rights, at vigils mourning the election of the 45th president, and once, memorably, at a U2 concert. My niece wrote a lovely piece about that, to which I will attach a link. I hope that you will be able to read it, as she discusses her personal journey from a judgmental world view to an open and loving one. She also manages to show more understanding of the “judges” than I can manage, but don’t let the title fool you. She is on our side.
https://popculturepilgrim.com/2018/06/09/please-stop-telling-christians-not-to-hate-people/
Thanks for sharing this, ltc. Definitely worth the read. (And I know Justin — we’ve met a couple of times — so that was a fun connection to make.)
Boy, I needed to read this. It made clear a foggy thought I had but couldn’t quite put together. The right wing supports authoritarianism even though authoritarians killed their savior. Do they not see the contradiction? Two thousand years ago, would they have sided with the Romans?
Thank you for this article and for running the booth and for doing what you do. As a middle-aged, straight, white, guy (in other words, boring) I can’t wait until all other straight, white people realize nothing about that makes them special. That whole “content of their character” might. Maybe they should work on that.
Thanks, friend. You may be middle-aged, straight and white, but I think there’s a whole bunch of us who would challenge that “boring” description (even if said self-deprecatingly).
Middle-aged, straight, white woman here. And you are absolutely right. Nothing special about that, except that in the South that makes me pretty much arrest and violence (in public, anyway) proof. I have used that in demonstrations a few times, getting between people and defusing situations just by my presence. If their cultural upbringing doesn’t allow them to hit me or curse me, they usually just wander away in confusion.
A little backstory about this article:
Chuck emailed and asked in his usual considerate manner if this was something that we wanted to put out there. I thought about it for about a half a second, and said “go for it.”
I will sometimes get mail from people suggesting that we should publish content more like SG does. Already today, I’ve had a few messages that question the appropriateness of this particular piece, at this particular site.
One of the reasons for starting tnocs.com was to perhaps grow and broaden our horizons a little bit. It’s great to be silly and have fun, but I try to also remember that we do live in the real world. When something like this comes up, I think that it’s incumbent upon us as “thinking“ people to have a dialog. (A recent example would by my piece on the victims in Uvalde. It’s the exception rather than the rule, but it felt disingenuous to not talk about it.)
Sorry for the interruption. Thanks to Chuck, and to all that are participating in this conversation.
I’m grateful we have this forum to talk about a lot of different topics. And I’m definitely not afraid of hearing opinions I may disagree with, especially in a place where the mutual respect is built into our DNA.
Stick with your intuition, mt, and don’t let any naysayers dissuade you from sticking with your vision for this place. I trust you 100%. Keep up the great work, old chap!
Agreed, with a caveat. Viewpoints need to be supported with reason. Repeating what some talking head said on TV isn’t good enough. (No offense to Tina Weymouth, et. al.)
The process of writing about the reasons for your viewpoint will cause you to reconsider that viewpoint. It may make you feel more strongly about it, or it may change your mind entirely when you find that your reasoning is flawed. That’s the beauty of writing.
Keep it thoughtful and civil and all will be well.
Good point! Reason needs to be up there with love, compassion and respect in the foundations of the long game to make this world a better place.
That was my understanding of what tnocs was going to be here – a safe space for respectable conversation and education.
It was pretty evident to my parents from early on I do not listen to what others tell me to think or do – I’ll educate myself and come to my own conclusion. They saw first hand I seemed to be doing a pretty solid job of it, as they would joke to people I was the easiest kid ever, I raised myself! So I thankfully was allowed to continue my personal growth in that manner with just minor input from them along the way if needed.
But I fully acknowledge that’s a lifelong learning process too. There is never a point where anyone should go – right, that’s all I need to know, my way is the only way and screw the world. You have to always grow, always learn, always expand – there are nearly 8 billion unique personalities on this planet, they all are capable of teaching us something new as long as we allow ourselves the opportunity to listen.
While balancing that with the fact that watching an animated 30 second clip of Butthead jumping repeatedly on Beavis’ butt while Beavis is upside down trying to fish a phone out of a port a potty is The Funniest Thing I’ve seen in years. It’s alllll about balance.
If it were possible to give this article 100 hearts, Chuck, I’d do it. ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ (Well, there’s five to get started.)
Gotta laugh to keep from crying:
https://youtu.be/HQb5Ii19vFA
I don’t know if I have posted this before but two stories about this difficult time in our lives.
As I’ve pointed out before, my mother was a RN for 54 years at our local hospital’s maternity ward. She probably delivered over 10,000 babies in her career (ninety percent of my high school class). She was very anti-abortion but she also believed it was a woman’s choice and she would not stand in the way of their decision. My wife had an abortion before we had met and my mother loved her dearly and never held it against her.
“It’s probably the most difficult decision a woman can make and no man should tell her what way to choose.” is what she told her.
I have known about Donald Trump basically all my life (we are about the same age) and if the people who worship at his altar ever take the time to really delve into his life, he is a loser in the nth degree.
Everything he touches turns to stone but those who cling to the past bend a knee to his passing.
The second one is very relevant to this month.
My niece was married seven years ago and it was the last time we were able to get together as a family back East.
My brother’s daughter had been having a tough time and when we got the wedding reception she made a point of asking me to dance with her later.
After the wedding and people were dancing, she approached me and said “Grandpa, will you dance with me?” Of course I said yes.
She replied “This is probably the last time I will get to dance with you as a woman as I’m transitioning to being a man this fall.”
The pain and, yes asking for acceptance, in her voice was heartbreaking!
We shared our dance and she is well on her way to being a he, but with
many obstacles ahead.
I’ve told this story to my LQBT friends and they weep every time.
“Thank you for hearing her /his heart and for understanding what each of us deals with in our everyday lives.”
If only people would listen to their hearts and not their lizard brains.