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Why in Canadian politics is being against Pride/rainbow flags seen as being anti gay?
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15d
There isn't a campaign against Christianity. However, when a Christian comes along equating a Pride flag with Satanism or a Christian comes along trying to force their morality on women and LGBT people, that person will experience considerable pushback.
When Christian churches shun people who come out as gay...
When Christian sects like Hutterites eject people from their communities for being gay...
When Christian women go to their pastor looking for help escaping their abusive husband and are told to keep quiet and submit to his leadership...
When Christian pastors abuse women or youth and the victims are told to keep quiet...
I know these people personally. It happens. Please take a closer look at how your church judges and treats people who it should be treating with care and compassion.
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15d
It happens in southern Manitoba, for sure. I'd like to believe it doesn't. I used to believe it doesn't. But it does.
I'd be careful with blanket statements. Until you engage with the LGBT community, and sit and listen (this is really important! - listen, instead of making pronouncements), you probably won't hear those stories. Those folks disappear and need really safe spaces to talk because they've been told they are evil and sinners and satanic.
This is where I think you could learn a bit of compassion, if you are willing. When you make suggestions that gay people hate the church or intersex people are pushing satanic symbolism, you're contributing to drawing lines of hate. Maybe you don't hate the people but you are making it very clear, perhaps unwittingly, that you are not an ally.
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15d
My experience isn't huge but it may be more than yours: I know gay and trans people. I have volunteered at a number of Pride events. I have done some volunteer work providing support to victims of emotional and verbal abuse. I have a good friend, who was a devout Christian, who was shunned by her church after escaping an abusive husband. I know a fellow who was ejected from his Hutterite community - his only home - for being gay. An incredibly harmful thing to have happen to someone.
So I have experience in these communities, to some degree.
Not one of those people blamed God. They blame the church, and usually the specific church - the earth-bound people in the church who caused the harm. And that harm causes a mistrust in the church. So if you perceive people hating on the church, maybe look at the church, and what it is doing to people who don't perfectly fit in to the dogma.
I think you may have attached yourself to a narrative here that isn't accurate. I'm sorry to hear that, because if you engage with these communities, with an open mind, and with God in your heart, you would find so much love and care.
I certainly would never treat anyone badly because of being gay.
I just want to expand on this thought in two ways.
I appreciate that you feel this way. It is so important.
There are still people, however, who DO treat LGBT people very poorly. Right up to and including murder. This is why Pride and rainbow flags are so necessary - because straight people don't get murdered for being straight.
Go back and take a look at some of your comments and read them as if you are a gay person who has been shunned by family, beat up in school, threatened on the street, and is feeling hurt and scared and rather alone, and see if your words really do align with "I certainly would never treat anyone badly". Because allying yourself with anti-gay rhetoric is kinda treating them badly.
Interesting story of my own: I kinda thought the same way you did, not as Christian motivated, but just "why does this need to be such a big deal?" And then one of my absolute best friends, a women, came out to me as being gay. And she told me about how scary it was to go out with a girlfriend and being afraid of being assaulted in public, or beaten, or raped by men who were going to somehow force them to be straight.
That was a huge eye opener for me. Life changing. Here was someone I loved to bits, would never wish any harm on, and she needed allies in her life to change this awful narrative that gay people are evil.