The recent media attention to bullying, specifically anti-gay bullying, has had me thinking. I've specifically been trying to come up with a way to justify how a Christian can justify not wanting to stop their kid from doing that. I've been on both sides of that issue. I started out thinking that homosexuality was a sin. Even as a teenager, however, I recognized harassing someone because they aren't chaste according to your world view is wrong.
Oh yeah, I said it. Harassing someone because they aren't chaste according to your world view is wrong. Yes. This is a chastity issue. (If you're not familiar with the term, chastity refers to morality with respect to sexual relations.) It isn't a subculture issue at war with Christianity issue. It's a chastity issue. Why? A lot of the people in this so called subculture are also Christians. Just because you're trying to kick them out of the church because you don't want to be associated with them does not invalidate their baptisms. Be glad about that, on my worse days I want to invalidate some folks' baptisms myself. It goes both ways.
I want to know what in God's name people hope to accomplish by claiming that telling kids it's wrong to harass their classmates is undermining Christianity. Specifically, I want to know what is wrong with James Dobson. Focus on the Family is apparently at it again.
I think that's what it comes down to. If you see it and you don't stop it, you help make it happen. If you don't stand up and say no, you help make it happen. If you teach your children that someone else is less than human, you make it happen. If you teach your children that someone is intrinsically damned for who they are attracted to, this is your fault. Because God isn't like that. God saw his creation and called it good. God loves everyone---even you, you twisted up unhappy people who seek to continue the pain of others. God sees us, all of us, everything about us and loves us. All of us. He doesn't love us anyway. He loves us.
Teaching children to hate murders souls. Their souls. Their souls and the souls of the people they torment. You don't have an excuse for this. If you want them to grow up to be decent people, you have to teach them that absolutely no one is an acceptable target for this sort of thing. No one is less than human. No one is less than.
It doesn't matter what you think about their sexuality. It doesn't matter what you think about their religion. It doesn't matter what you think about their size. It doesn't matter what you think about their ethnicity. It doesn't matter. Humanity is made in the image of God. All of us. Not just you. If you hate another human being, you hate a part of God.
So get a grip. This needs to stop. It has to stop. Unless you want to give up being called a Christian. If you want that, you need to remember that every single human being you meet bears the image of Christ. They deserve your respect if you aren't able to give them your love.
Thank you! I am a school teacher and I am a Sikh here in good old Enid, Oklahoma at Enid High. This is quite atypical in itself! :) We have been implementing an anticyber-bullying program here, but it seems that gay bashing always gets swept under the rug when we talk about anti-bullying. Some kids approached me about being faculty sponsor for Gay-Straight Alliance, and I whole heartedly agreed. Someone has to start. I do agree very much with everything that you wrote. If we ignore the problem then we support it and we allow it to continue. I laughed when I read "who would Jesus push down the stairs." The visual is ludicrous, for the reason that Jesus would never do that. I quote Yogi Bhajan who said, "If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all."
ReplyDeleteI went to Enid High School.... and you're right, dear, you being there at all is bordering on a miracle. :) The reason I made the comment about pushing people down the stairs is that it happened to my best friend. She never reported it. She never even told me until years later because she was afraid to tell me she wasn't straight because I was a Christian. (Naturally, when I learned this in college, I was horrified, but that was AFTER I'd come to my senses on that end and turned into a bit of a fag hag.) Good luck getting people to talk about the elephant in the room. When I was subbing there about five years ago the kids looked at me like I was an alien for telling them that when I was in the room, 'you're so gay' wasn't an acceptable insult.
ReplyDeleteEspecially since, you know, they thought I was "the cool sub".