Lent 10: It Gets Better, cont'd

It turns out that just as I was writing my It Gets Better blog post, NPR was coming out with a lengthy interview / story with Dan Savage that does a fine job of further explaining the project. In an excerpt from the It Gets Better book, Savage makes a very important point about the role of straight people:

By giving ourselves permission to speak directly to LGBT youth, Terry and I gave permission to all LGBT adults everywhere to speak to LGBT youth. It forced straight people — politicians, teachers, preachers, and parents — to decide whose side they were on. Were they going to come to the defense of bullied LGBT teenagers? Or were they going to remain silent and, by so doing, give aid and comfort to the young anti-gay bullies who attack LGBT children in schools and the adult anti-gay bullies at conservative "family" organizations who attack LGBT people for a living?

 In the sermon I preached in October, I said that for too long the church has stood silent, and thereby on the side of the bullies. It is this silence, this complicity, and at times overt bullying by the church and its leaders, that still haunts me as a Christian. It occurs to me that the It Gets Better book needs to be available not only in high schools, but in churches. Churches also must decide whose side they are on, and to remain silent is to side with the bullies, against scared and even terrorized young people.

¹³Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; ¹⁴but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” ¹⁵And he laid his hands on them and went on his way. - Matthew 19:13-15

"Let the little children come to me," not "Let the weird kids suffer alone," or "Let the deviant kids think their life is not worth living." Like Jesus' first disciples, in our faulty judgment we have prevented children from coming to Jesus, from knowing his love, because we've thought there must be something wrong with the way God made these lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender kids. No more.

As the It Gets Better campaign works to send copies of the book to high schools across America, it occurs to me that we should also work to provide copies of the book to churches. Certainly many churches would reject such a gift, but I know many congregations (my own included, I think) who should be willing to stand up at last and side with the kids who have been bullied and harassed because of who they are. To put a copy of this book out on a display table in a narthex could save a life, and certainly would speak volumes as a symbol of support to those questioning their sexuality and so often as well questioning their place in God's eyes. As ELCA churches, we have no reason not to do so; our own Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson is a contributor to the book! So who will buy a copy of this book for Lutheran Church of the Savior?