Post by @queering_church.
Source: Papal Meeting With Gay Men | Global Network of Rainbow Catholics
A gay Criristian on Grindr who’s not looking to make you an ex-gay convert? Go figure! (Actually, there are plenty of non-self loathing, well adjusted gay Christians, but that’s another post for another time.)
Openly gay methodist youth minister, Michael James Alexander Szalapski of Clarksville, Tennessee uses the Grindr app to reach out to gay Christians and invite them to his gay-friendly church. Szalapski was recruited to work with youth at his church specifically because he was gay and the church felt the youth of their congregation would benefit from in his insight and experience. Progressive, right?
Filmmaker Christian Hendricks, stumbled upon Szalapski on the mobile app as part of his project “South of Ohio,” in which he travels through the South of United States, documenting things of interest.
Hendricks interviewed Szalapski and discussed his use of the “dating” app as a recruitment tool. That conversation led to some interesting insight into Szalapski’s own journey in his faith.
Check out this clip! (The whole segment is interesting, but skip to around the 3:00 minute mark for the Grindr sound bites.)
– continue reading at Instinct.
The “man-on-street” interview is rarely an insightful exercise in news gathering, but sometimes it can be a revealing window into American culture — like in the video above, where residents of a small Colorado town are asked, “When did you choose to be straight?”
The video features advertising executive and amateur photographer Travis Nuckolls and Buzzfeed Labs’ Chris Baker asking a bunch of straight people about homosexuality. Many of those interviewed say they think being gay “depends on upbringing” and “has a lot to do with development.” But when the question gets flipped and the subjects are asked when they decided to be straight, they struggle to find an answer.
“That’s a good call,” says one man, laughing nervously. “I didn’t choose to be.”
Not all those interviewed say they think being gay is a choice, however. In perhaps the most profound comment in the video, one woman sums up her views about “choosing” to be gay: “If [gay people] were gonna choose a lifestyle, that’s not one they would have chosen. It’s too difficult.”
Disclaimer: This video was actually filmed back in 2008, but it recently came across our radar after Upworthy’s Rebecca Eisenberg posted it to the site’s LGBTQQ section. Props to Boing Boing for discovering this back in 2010.
via ‘Hhuffingtonpost
Simon described a rabbi asking his students what is the precise moment when night ends and a new day begins.
“The moment when night ends and a new day begins is the moment when you look into the face of a stranger and see the face of your brother,” Simon said in between long pauses. “Until that moment, no matter what time it is, it’s still night. But at that moment, that’s when the new day begins. I like the sound of that—a new day—and I hope we can all go there together.”
In the often-emotional five-minute speech, Simon described how the gay rights movement began as something separate from the rest of the society. But he argued that the current debate reflects how the homosexual community is urgently seeking to be a part of society’s most-cherished institutions.
“I don’t think we should scorn that. We should embrace it. We should embrace their embrace,” Simon said. “I think slowly as a society we’re going to the realization—some faster than others—those in the GLBT community do not have some condition to be pitied or prayed away. What they have is a God-given orientation, which should be celebrated and welcomed.”
The bill passed 75-59.
via – Hopkins, MN Patch.
Apparently New York has been plagued by nutjob evangelical preachers on their subway trains. They corner people, like little religious hostages, in subway cars, and yell at them about how they’re all going to hell.
Well, one gay New Yorker wasn’t going to take the anti-gay diatribe from the anti-gay bigot evangelical accosting his subway car. He stood up and shouted the man down, and then something wonderful happened. The entire car of NYC commuters applauded the gay man.
“What the hell are you teaching our children?” the evangelical bigot is yelling at the car-full of commuters, in the middle of an anti-gay diatribe.
The unidentified gay man who yelled down the anti-gay evangelical bigot on the NYC subway.
The gay man yells over him, “You are bad and full of hate. You are false. You are a false prophet. Do not listen to this man, he’s scared, he’s full of hatred.”
This goes on for almost two minutes – the preacher screaming, and the gay man talking over him.
“You see, one thing I come to tell you. You can’t put two men together. Man don’t got no breasts, man got penises. Man supposed to be man. Two man got penises.”
At this point, the gay guy had had it. He jumps back up from his seat and says, “I am a man. And I’m a good man. And I’m a gay man. And Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. Jesus…”
At this point, you hear another guy say “yeah!” and the entire train starts applauding the gay man. I actually teared up.
via Americablog.
Minn. State Rep Steve Simon brought the Legislature to a pause this week with these remarks about God and gay life that have gone viral on video.
According to the Associated Press, Simon, a Democrat, spoke out against Republican efforts to set up a vote next year to lock a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution.
In the recording of a Capitol hearing on Monday, the St. Louis Park Democrat asked, “How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?”
That line brings applause and once order is restored, Simon continues to say that, as he sees it, sexuality and sexual orientation are not a choice but an innate “gift from God.”
CAPTIONBy Glen Stubbe, AP
So, if humans are sometimes, as Lady Gaga would say (Simon didn’t) “born this way” — then what? Simon suggests to his colleagues that they go home and think harder on another question:
How many gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether people living their lives as they wish, as long as they don’t harm others, is a Godly and holy and happy and glorious thing…I’m comfortable with a society and a tradition that bends toward justice, fairness, openness and compassion…
Simon concluded that generations in the future will view anti-gay legislation harshly.
– continue reading at USA Today.