A Family Story: When "Pro-Life" Catholic Trump Voters Confront Sexual Abuse of Minors by a Priest — In Their Own Family Circle

I have a story to tell you this morning. It's a story with a question embedded in it. The question is one with which I am personally struggling. This story is about a specific family and family situation, but it also seems to me a parabolic story, in that this specific family in some ways mirrors many white Christian (to be specific: white Catholic) "pro-life" families who voted for Donald Trump, claiming that he is "pro-life," and who continue stoutly to defend him even as he wishes to rip healthcare coverage from millions of economically challenged citizens.

Attack on LGBTQ People Coupled with Attack on Healthcare Coverage: Double-Whammy Attack Emanating from "Pro-Life" White Christians

THREAD: 1. People choose to end their lives for all sorts of reasons.

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) July 27, 2017

The "Debate" About Transgender People: Don't Buy Framing That It's About Gender

THREAD: 1. Those pushing anti-trans discrimination with religious warrants would like you to think this is all about gender.

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) July 27, 2017

The Current Spectacle of Astonishing Cruelty in U.S. Cheered by White Christians: Jesus Makes Winners, Not Losers!

This is going to the worst day of a lot of people's lives. And for absolutely no reason. Astonishing cruelty.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 26, 2017

Mark Joseph Stern tweeted the tweet above one minute ago.

In Which I Explain Why I'm Responding to This Blog's Latest Troll As I'm Choosing to Do

I asked two ppl close to Trump why he is tormenting Sessions instead of firing him. The answer from both, paraphrased: Because he can.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 25, 2017

I struggle to understand the psychology of someone — in this case, an ordained minister of the Christian gospel, a heterosexually married priest in a non-Catholic church — who occasionally logs in here to voice his contempt for the author of this blog and for everything he writes. What kind of strange masochism compels someone to slum in this way, when there's so much better reading everywhere online — and when, presumably, no one has a gun to the man's head to force him to read the words of someone he characterizes as a failure?

Donald Trump and the Scouts: Feeding Appetite for Disdain of Targeted Minorities (and, No, the Hitler Parallel Is Not Overblown)

Trump tells Boy Scouts he hopes GOP can kill Obamacare (stripping 22M+ of health coverage)

Boy Scouts respond by cheering "USA USA USA" pic.twitter.com/nIprrj5PoX

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) July 24, 2017

Signposts on the way, which we overlook to our great peril:

Tom Roberts on Clergy's Task to Confront Abuse Crisis: A Response Noting Impoverishment of Communitarian Imagination of U.S. Catholic Intellectual Leaders

I am, of course, sympathetic to Tom Roberts' recent essay in National Catholic Reporter calling on Catholic clergy and hierarchical leaders to confront the clericalist base of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. This argument echoes an argument made powerfully by one witness after another confronting the abuse crisis and its cover up.

Trump and the Christian Fascists, and What Trump Election Says About Us

compassion. is the longest emotion there is.

— . (@nayyirahwaheed) July 23, 2017

Speaking-truth-to-power sorts of statements I've read in the past day or so, that I'd like to pass along to you:

What I Learned Growing Up in the South During the Civil Rights Period That Absolutely Applies to Trump and His Voters

Daniel José Camacho on White Evangelicals as "Precarious Firewall for Trump"

As a footnote to my last posting on Trump's presidence and white evangelical and Catholic voters:

Trump's Presidency and White Evangelical and Catholic Voters: "Trumpism Is Basically a Religion at This Point"

Things I've read today that I'd like to share with you:

Doc's a Woman, My Inflatable Doll Is a Lesbian, and It's Never About Misogyny: "Doctor Who" Freakout and Trump-Era Politics

'Doctor' has no gender in English.

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) July 17, 2017

There's a common thread in these tidbits from today's news, I think. Can you spot it? (One hint: it's never about racism, misogyny, or homophobia — even when it's always about racism, misogyny, and homophobia).

In the News: Leaving Southern Baptists, David Gushee's Advice to Eugene Peterson, "Ecumenism of Hate," and Sr. Sally Butler on Abuse Crisis

Things I've read in the past day or so that may interest you, too:

Eugene Peterson Suggests God May Love LGBTQ Human Beings, and White Evangelical Gatekeepers Go Ballistic: Tempest in a Stewpot

As readers who follow religion news, especially insofar as it relates to LGBTQ lives and issues, probably know, there has been an interesting little tempest in the stewpot* of white American evangelicalism in the past day or so. At Religious News Service, Jonathan Merritt has been publishing portions of an interview he has conducted with Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian writer-pastor who is something of a superstar among U.S. white evangelicals. Two days ago, he published a portion of his Peterson interview in which Peterson made some mild statements about how maybe LGBT folks are human beings and if God loves all human beings, maybe She loves LGBT folks, too. After that, all hell broke loose.

Telling My Story (Follow-Up to OUTWORDS Interview) 2

As I think about the interview that OUTWORDS did with me on Saturday, it's impossible to disengage what I said in the interview from the attack my relative made on me on my Facebook page a few days before the interview, in which she said to me, "You queers make me sick," and then went on to talk about Jesus and the bible. As embodied beings, we think within a real-world, social context that involves human relationships, and our thinking is shaped by our interactions within that real-world context.

Telling My Story (Follow-Up to OUTWORDS Interview)

I thought that if I performed brilliantly in school, I could carve out a safe niche for myself in a hostile world, so that when the wrath came, it would not find me in my hidey-hole. I was mistaken.

My Interview with OUTWORDS Project: The Importance of Hearing LGBTQ Stories As Foundation for Defining LGBTQ Humanity

I mentioned here some weeks ago that I had been invited by a national project collecting the stories of LGBTQ leaders (and, in cases like mine, not so much leaders, but ordinary people down in the trenches) in communities around the nation to do an interview for the project. That interview took place yesterday, and I confirmed with the interviewers that I can share more specific information about it now. 

Robert P. Jones on Exorbitant Price White Evangelicals Will Pay for Grand Bargain They've Made with Trump

Robert P. Jones, "Trump Can't Reverse the Decline of White Christian America":

Jamie Manson's Critique of Father James Martin's Bridge-Building Proposal: "Compassion, Respect and Sensitivity Are Not Enough to Bring about a Truly Just Relationship Between Bishops and LGBT Catholics"

Jamie L. Manson responds to Father James Martin's proposal for a bridge to be built between the LGBTQ community and the Catholic hierarchy, in his book Building a Bridge:

As I'm Interviewed by National Project Collecting Stories of LGBTQ Pioneers, Thinking About "Humorless Puzzle" of Hate

I'm to be interviewed tomorrow by folks from a national project collecting stories of what the project calls "LGBTQ pioneers." I will say more about this interview after it takes place. For now, after I filled out a questionnaire sent to me by the interviewers, I've been preparing for the interview by thinking about what I can possibly say about my own minuscule contribution to the national movement to secure rights for LGBTQ human beings.

Twitter Responds to NY Times on Overlooked (White) Conservative Voters in Northern California: "Rural Whites Are the Only Folks Who Matter"

Conservative voters in the northernmost reaches of California feel alienated by the state's liberal urban majority https://t.co/N1McsLwq2x pic.twitter.com/bKSuLnFy8N

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) July 3, 2017

My Twitter feed in the last few days has offered a number of incisive responses to the article New York Times published on 3 July (see the tweet above) about how conservative voters in northern California feel alienated from the state's liberal urban enclaves. As a number of respondents have noted, we've seen an endless stream of such articles in the mainstream media since the 2016 elections — the overlooked white working-class voter, the ignored white working-class unemployed miner in West Virginia, the maligned white working-class gay man for Trump: on and on and on ad nauseam.

A Fourth of July Story for You: "For My Part, I Would Say, Welcome Infidelity! Welcome Atheism! Welcome Anything! in Preference to the Gospel, as Preached by Those Divines!"

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?":

Zoe Williams on Rise of Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, and Dim-Witted Nationalism — And the Choice of Affluent Elderly White Voters to Elect Donald Trump

Zoe Williams writes in today's Guardian, 

Saturday-Afternoon Twitter Thread about Catholic Clericalism and Ministry to LGBTQ Persons

It would be wonderful if the Catholic clericalist understanding of ministry included the notion of mutuality. 1)

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) July 1, 2017

Saturday-Morning Twitter Thread about Gospels, Welcoming Guests, and Catholic Response to LGBTQ Persons

Gospel: How does Jesus treat a Roman centurion? Does he shout "Pagan!" "Sinner!" No, he welcomes him. We should welcome those on the margins pic.twitter.com/0uIELgIEdF

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) July 1, 2017