"Time to speak up, not-all-Christians-are-like-that Christians."

Please, please, please. As someone who's been on the receiving end of this - hardly a unique experience among slog readership, I'm sure - let me say that silent disapproval says loud & clear to the bullied kids: "I may not like it, but I don't care enough to do anything about it." When you already believe (or are struggling not to believe) that you're not worth being protected, it's heartbreaking.

I'm so sick of hearing how "not all Christians...blah, blah, fucking blah." It's a sick fucking religion, no matter who believes it. Just look, LOOK, at it's history including the mass murders over and over and over and mass rape over and over and cover-up, over and over, ad nauseum ad infinitum!

Vince, all I can say to you is I'm sorry. It is inadequate, but I personally can't change the past. All I can do is work within Christianity to change the present and the future.

And one of the ways that starts is denouncing Focus on the Family. Because of the fact that I am the Faith Formation (religious education) chair at my church, members are constantly sticking things in my mailbox they think will be a "good resource for the youth." Most of the time, these are pointless but benign, like the Good Housekeeping Christmas issue from 1979. Every now and then, though, someone puts something from a group like Focus on the Family or the Family Research Council in there. When that happens, I tell them that I will never use a resource from those organizations, because they frankly promote hatred and discrimination, not love and freely-given grace for all, which is what we claim to believe in.

I've found myself in trouble for that on more than one occasion within the congregation (not to mention my stance against having an American flag in the sanctuary - separation of church and state goes both ways), but I'm not going to, as @1 said, be silently disapproving, which is tantamount to approval via apathy.

@ 2, The sins of the father are not passed down to the son. America has a long and sordid history when you just look (, LOOK,) at it. Native Americans? Meh. Slavery? Double meh. And yet we have evolved past these sins (developing new ones, to be sure).

I don't think it's insanity to say that the Christian faith has done the same.

Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.

I don't think my Christ would think much of these Christians.

@4,

Meh? Perhaps you don't understand the implied meaning of that word.

Vince @ 2, Sheryl is making a good point.
Another thing ,if i may. I fully agree with you, religion for the sake of religion is evil.
As a Christian my biggest fear is to ever become a religionist like that asshole Dobson, for example- God forbid!
There is a big difference between religious people and faithful ones, though.

Jesus himself spoke about the former with the greatest disdain, calling them the most wicked, evil, dangerous people.
This is what we witness with FOF. Their position has nothing to do with love, compassion, brotherhood, help, charity and other major tenets of our faith. We- those who love Jesus- have nothing in common with such crazy hatemongers, may i assure you

Trust me, we speak up against religious evils. We get thrown under the bus, blamed,offended ,insulted for being Christians by many, many churchgoing bigots just as you are. Actually, religionists by misuing a certain Biblical verse call us " worse then unbelievers" and hate us more then then hate gays. We are in the same camp with you :)

Religion is the enemy of reason. And despite what some of you say, it teaches hate, both self hate and hate for others. And it has always devolved into disaster.

I've always pointed to the high suicide rates among gay and lesbian teenagers as proof that homosexuality is innate. After all, if gays and lesbians are "choosing" a life of sin as many whackjob conservatives insist, then wouldn't those suicidal kids "choose" to be straight rather than killing themselves?

Disclaimer: I don't think there's any doubt that homosexuality is innate, and I also don't think that it matters.

@9 Vince, I've always been curious. Can I hazard a guess that you were either a) raised in a very conservative religious environment, b) were forced to attend a religious school or seminary, or c) both? I'm not trivializing your statements or beliefs in any way, it's just that whenever I feel that kind of rage toward religion, it's often connected to what I experienced as a youth: the bad things I was indoctrinated to believe and the terrible way that I saw some religious people treated others.

@9: Religion is only the enemy of reason when it discourages the accumulation and evaluation of knowledge.
A good example of religion and reason working together would be the work of Rambam (Maimonides). An excellent quote from his Wikipedia article: "Maimonides answered an inquiry concerning astrology, addressed to him from Marseille. He responded that man should believe only what can be supported either by rational proof, by the evidence of the senses, or by trustworthy authority."
Not all religious philosophers discourage logical or empirical reasoning.

Everything I need to know about Christianity, I learned in the Fourth Crusade.

Can't get in too many faces on this one. It's not a zero-face game, after all.

Christianity isn't Jesus' fault. Jesus didn't found Christianity. He never intended to start a religion or be the object of its devotion. Followers of Jesus took his revolutionary social movement in a direction he never intended. Sadly, what we know today as "Christianity" and "Church" are far removed from the visionary ideas promoted by Jesus two thousand years ago.

Institutional religion is the greatest threat to the modern world. And Christianity, like other faiths, has been the source of much division and exclusion — something completely opposed to the radical inclusivity Jesus advocated. This website hopes to spark a crucial conversation between believers and non-believers alike concerning Christianity's faithfulness to Jesus' message.

Check out more: http://notjesusfault.com/

p.s. I am not affiliated with that web site.

@8 For what it's worth I've e-mailed them. This statement "Cushman's argument has two levels: first, she says anti-bullying efforts wrongly put the focus on the "characteristics of the victim" instead of the "wrong actions of the bullies." is beyond hideous. Not to mention incredibly stupid.

Speaking as an "NACALT" Christian, it's pretty absurd to command us to "speak up" as if we haven't been doing that FOR-FREAKING-EVER.

Some gay-friendly Christians--heck, some gay Christians!--think it's a better use of our time to invest ourselves directly in proactively building positive spaces and queer-affirmative communities for young people rather than trying to shout down the idiots. If this escapes your notice it might be because our activism, while perhaps faith-motivated, isn't about winning souls but saving lives, so we don't make a point of shouting our religious affiliations left and right.

As one of those not-all-Christians-are-like-that Christians, I know there is a dilemma about how to deal with this kind of thing. I don't know if there is much point in writing to Focus on the Family and their ilk. They are what they are, and they're not going to change.

I tend to the think the better approach is to be a very public counter example of Christianity. Write to the school boards and principals and show up at meetings to embolden school leaders to stand up to Christianists (Andrew Sullivan's term) who are trying to bully principals and school boards out of doing their job to protect ALL students.

By the way, my church is getting into some heavy duty involvement in marriage equality efforts in our state, which should see some movement on the issue in Q1 of next year. The legislative timing is why that is our #1 LGBT priority right now.

Next on the agenda: anti-bullying efforts for school kids and more internally focused reviews of our practices and activities to make sure we are as welcoming and protective of LGBT individuals and families as we like to think we are.

The not-all-Christians-are-like-that Christians are out there, but we don't draw the attention of the Christianists. To me, that is the a MAJOR problem. We are definitely not as well funded, and we clearly don't have the media savvy. I'm not sure what the answer is to that.

I've never been silent about this and never will be, but sometimes bullies are looking for attention. I'm not sure that getting FotF's website more hits is really the answer.

Instead, maybe we should throw some public support behind GLBT-affirming religious figures and groups, who just don't seem to get the attention they deserve. Certainly Bishop John Shelby Spong has been a strong supporter for GLBT equality and affirmation, as well as Marcus Borg and of course Chris Glaser.

GLBT-affirming religious groups such as The Reconciling Ministries Network (do not confuse with Reconciliation Ministries, please) are working for full equality and acceptance both legally and within the Christian church, and need support.

RMN isn't a group that sits on the sidelines and frowns either; from the RMN website:

Persons with same-gender sexual orientation form families, raise children, worship faithfully, and are a part of God’s diverse creation. Discrimination against lesbian and gay persons is wrong. Exclusion of gay and lesbian persons from our faith family is wrong.

They have some good things to say about bisexuality and transgender persons as well.

Dan: Duly noted. Am currently mobilizing the TCU flying monkey contingent :)

The problem is that getting in the faces of idiots like James Dobson and his merry little band of Bible freaks is that it just strengthens them. Trust me, there is nothing they love more than a sense of being persecuted. You can e-mail them, leave messages, protest outside their doors, and all it's going to do is puff them up even more with their sick self-righteousness. And, of course, once they can claim that they're being persecuted, the money just comes rolling in. These people thrive on opposition. The best thing I've found is to just leave them alone. You'll never win. So, what's the solution? There is no solution, if you're hoping to change their minds. Just be a decent person and keep crusading for full gay equality. I think it's pretty clear at this point that things like gay marriage and gay men and women serving openly in the military are eventually going to happen. In other words, James Dobson will lose. It's just a question of when.

By the way, religion is not the "greatest threat of our time." That's just stupid. The greatest threat of our time is the same thing that's always been the greatest threat of any time: greed, selfishness, hatred, fear, ignorance, callousness, etc...you know, all that stuff that Christianity is supposed to actually be against, and is in its better moments (of which there have been many).

I have to agree with Vince on this one: At its worst, religion teaches judgment, intolerance, and hatred of those who are different, at its mediocre best, it reminds me of a quote by Cathy Ladman: "All religions are the same. Religions are guilt, with different holidays."

I've actually met some cool Christians, including a pastor who got heat for allowing a lesbian couple to join his church and a bisexual guy who works to organize labor. They're out there!

The problem is that no matter how much Not-All-Christians-Are-Like-That Christians speak up and condemn groups like Focus on the Family, we're not going to change any of their minds or the minds of their die hard followers. The very fact that you disagree with them becomes proof to them that you're not a very good Christian and that you've given in to the forces of godless secularism.

Since I decided to use my tiny sphere of influence of my facebook social network to try and change people's minds, I've succeeded in doing nothing other than making 3/4 of my relatives and most of the people I grew up with start wondering what's happened to me. Logic doesn't work, reasoning doesn't work, appeals to compassion don't work, in their minds and using their logic, they are doing the right thing.

When I was a young sissy boy in the deep South, I was bullied every day by older, bigger redneck boys. I was called fag and queer and was pushed around, hit and had my things stolen. Every day. I didn't mind at all, though because I knew they were just expressing their Christian viewpoints. Jesus was on their side.

When hardcore atheists talk about how ALL religion is evil and teaches nothing but judgment, hatred, and intolerance...I'm sorry, but to me, you don't sound any different than those narrow-minded fools at Focus on the Family. Just like them, you haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about.

Moi, right on. But more than just proof that you're not a very good Christian is that it actually makes them feel persecuted, like they're a bunch of martyrs for speaking out against homosexuality in this Godless world, etc., etc...Just last night, Glenn Beck went on about how he word a bullet-proof vest to this his stupid "I AM the dream" rally. It's all about feeding into this false sense that they're some persecuted minority, because that's what brings in the money. Fucked up as it is, the more we argue with them, the richer they get.

@19: If the bible is what you base your claim on, then you're wrong. Jesus started a religion. He consistently speaks of himself as God, and then asserts God is too be praised. He assigned his apostles to go get new followers for God. Jesus was a megalomaniac with borderline tendencies, not some peace loving hippy who never wanted people to praise him maaaan.

@32 - You and I are reading a very different book, I think.

I'm late to the party. I do speak up. I will confess that I focus my efforts on those who are on the fence, not those who thrive on being "persecuted" and have determined that they alone are "right", "correct", or have the "truth". Bashing my head on brick walls achieves little.

As always, I regret the hurt and the pain this causes.

I have another opportunity to speak up on Friday. Wish me luck?