Friday, January 13, 2012

Andrew Sullivan on Latest Gay Teen Suicide: The Task of Real Christians Is Alleviating Pain



I have not had the heart to blog about this latest illustration of what unrelenting discrimination (egged on in American culture by many religious groups) does to the human spirit.  And about what it does, in particular, to young gay and lesbian people.



You want to know why so many of us are so impassioned to change the world that effectively killed this human being, made in the image of God? To love and save the Erics of today, and to prevent the laws and culture that reduce him - and all that he is - to the word "faggot." And this is a task real Christians need to be in the vanguard of, rather than adding to the pain and torture that seeps into the lives of so many, so young, and so vulnerable.

Why is that so hard to understand?, Sullivan asks. And yet it appears to be impossible for the Catholic bishops of the U.S. to fathom.  Since, while they keep their mouths sealed adamantly shut about the appalling phenomenon of suicide of gay teens in American society, they have plenty to say about their "right" to discriminate.

Do they ever stop to think about the kind of world they're creating for gay young people to grow up in, I wonder?  Their silence, and what they actually have to say when they do speak about the lives of those who are gay, leads me ineluctably to a conclusion I don't want to reach: 

They want to create a world in which it is not safe for young gay people to grow up with a sense of self-worth and hope for the future.

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