Thoughts on Love Won Out

Today's vigil (or protest, depending upon what you'd like to call it) was surprisingly well organized and, thankfully, positive in tone.

At this point, I don't have a final count of attendees.  The plan was to have a presence in the morning during registration and the afternoon, when the conference concluded.  I would estimate around 400 people (though the local news put the figure at "dozens", since they covered the evening presence).  The picture doesn't show it, but the building is very large, and the line of people wrapped around the perimeter.  As promised, some thoughts.

Personally, the experience was what I would call "healing"--I saw several faces I knew driving into the lot.  Included among them were faculty and students from my old seminary, and my college counselor,  who I went to in some of my original efforts to go straight.  The latter individual I was quite pleased to see--his particular method of counseling is different than reparative therapy, and he did help me start to work through some familial issues.  Still, being on the "other side" today clinched my sense of where I want to be. 

The reaction of those driving by varied from person to person.  A few folks pointedly stared forward, as if willing us to disappear.  One woman burst out crying--my guess is that her son or daugher is happily gay, and our presence reminded her of that fact.  Several drivers smiled and waved, or struck up conversations while waiting for the police to wave them on.  The only chants our contingency were shouting included "Jesus Loves You" and "Jesus Loves Gays."  Despite what Alan Chambers said about our vigil, I thought that we succeeded in being quite positive:

"Anonymous defamation from any party is offensive, but the public protest planned by the gay community is particularly disturbing," he said. "Contempt for those of us who have chosen to leave homosexuality behind is not an action consistent with the call for tolerance and diversity."

What Chambers doesn't seem to understand is that none of us have "contempt" for the attendees (at least no one I spoke with).  We felt badly for the young kids in the backseats of SUVs, looking down guiltily as they saw us--were their parents taking them to the event in the hopes of a "cure"?  I know I felt badly for the parents hoping for a cure, and blaming themselves.

I personally know two married women who had same-sex relationships and are now contentedly partnered with men.  One of them has a young child.  Of course, I also know many women who were previously partnered with men and are now living with women.  Sexuality, as I've discussed here before, is complex.  It's for that reason that I don't argue with anyone who wants to pursue change--it's their spiritual journey.  However, I would (and do) offer other reading materials, both psychological and spiritual.  The possibility of self-induced reversal of sexual orientation is slim to none; and since I don't believe homosexuality or bisexuality are invalid spiritual paths, why burden yourself with more guilt and shame?

Ultimately, our vigil today won't necessarily advance the cause of equal rights in this country, make the discussion less polarized, or comfort that tearful woman in her car.  Those who want to view us as aggressive, hateful homosexual activists will always find ways to do so.  But when those struggling with themselves have a moment of self-reflection, perhaps they'll remember the smiling faces waving to them this morning.  And maybe, just maybe, they'll think we offer something worth examining.

Comments

[Pushpak]

"Ultimately, our vigil today won't necessarily advance the cause of equal rights in this country'"

I whole-heartedly disagree. Committment and following thru is how things are advanced. There are thousands of Civil Rights era protests, marches, boycotts, defiances that you've never heard or will ever hear about but they were/are the foundations of all movements.

You guys are magnificent!!

[Peterson Toscano]

Thank you for sharing so much of this event with us. The sort of energy and grace it takes to be a thoughtful and honest witness to these events (without exploding) is so great.

Hope you are finding ways to refresh and renew yourselves after such hard work.
Peterson

[Christine]

I agree with both Pushpak and Peterson. Colleen, I always love reading your well-reasoned and grace-filled writing.

[ck]

Thanks, guys. Believe me, that means a lot.

[NancyP]

Another vigil attendee here. This event was like Pride with a wind chill of 5 above zero. People were incredibly cheerful, despite the 30 degree weather with winds up to 30 mph. Also the hour - we wanted big turnout when people were coming and going from the conference. Consequently, some 500 people showed up at the 6:30 AM rally on a Saturday morning on Mardi Gras weekend, a fine turnout. The afternoon (4:00PM) session was less well attended, with perhaps 150 at the peak, and weather was still tough. I think it must have been obvious that we were having a good time, waving at passersby and conference attendees. At least two teens in the conference managed to take "long bathroom breaks" or some such, and snuck outside and talked with the teen and college student contingent we had, and I saw a number of teens, in back seats of cars driven by parents, who gave us the thumbs up when entering or leaving the conference. There were also the confused or polite attendees who waved back when we waved at them, the attendees who scowled and hurriedly rolled up their windows or accellerated onto the road when we waved and smiled, and the stony-faced. The cops were pretty happy with us - we set up liason people well in advance, provided our own foot-traffic control/ security folks, and cleaned up after ourselves, obeyed the rules, and tried to keep the noise down - and the event provided them extra overtime time-and-a-half that is probably hard to get in the glossy and dull suburb. Perhaps one of the most unusual moments was when one of the homeowners across the street pulled out some extra gloves and coats and loaned them to us for the day.

I feel proud of our community for pulling together this peaceful, cheerful event in the course of 10 days, dropping everything and squeezing a few more hours into the days to get the preparatory work done. I was "sign queen", and we had several dozen people stop by one of the three sign-making sessions, contributing their creativity and generally having a good time. People opened their facilities to us - the local lgbt coffeehouse owner, a UCC with a lesbian pastor, Eden Seminary (UCC). The security people trained. The parking people lined up local churches willing to let us use their lots for the day, attendants for the lots, and shuttle busses. The liason person talked to all the pertinent police and city officials beforehand. The media folks lined up experts and interviews with local media, and our own pediatrician-of-the-air, whose usual on-air topic is something on the order of "what to do when your child has diarrhea", put on his activist hat and gave several radio, tv, and newspaper interviews, as did several ministers. Everybody did publicity within the community, to get turnout.

This was a movement-building event, engaging not only the usual suspects (political mavens), but community members who never participated in such an action before. In my opinion, FOTF/Exodus did us a favor. And I hope they have an opposition-research person reading this blog, to find out this.

[Ventus]

I am SO GLAD I am no longer Christian (or rather what has developed into Christianity, especially the American Poison version of it).

It's great to see how my entire family has become so Spiritual and dropped the religious Christian bull years ago, only now when I look back do I see what destruction it was causing. The spiritual path I found, my own, is about 10 Gazillion Billion times bigger than a ridiculous fear based religion called Christianity, gosh I am sure even good ol Jesus would be disgusted at what they have Called "Christian" !