Skip to main content
#
Welcome to St John's Huntington

JUNE IS LGBTQ+ PRIDE HERITAGE MONTH

Since we began writing about the designated Heritage Months, they have been about the several, mostly ethnic, groups who came here and made America their home. If you have been reading our articles, you know that each group met with incredible intolerance, rejection and outright hatred. This month celebrates the LGBTQ+ community. It should not be surprising that they also face much of the same and more. Although homosexuality in particular (and to a lesser degree, lesbianism) have been embraced in some cultures, in general they have been ostracized since olden times, including in the so-called “seven gay Biblical passages” that frequently are cited by Christians and non-Christians alike who otherwise would reject outright the notion of the Bible’s authority in other matters. 

So, why a Gay/LGBTQ Heritage Month, sometimes called Gay/LGBTQ Pride Heritage Month? Celebrated in the U.S as well as Australia, Berlin, Canada, Cuba, Finland, Hungary, Italy, N. Ireland, Scotland, the United Kingdom and Wales, it was inspired here initially by the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. Named for the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village, a gay club and refuge for many in the LGBTQ community, a routine raid by the New York City police on June 28, 1969 sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents with the police involving hundreds of people and leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar on Christopher Street, in neighboring streets and in nearby Christopher Park. To contextualize the event, during the 1960's, people had become more aware of the culture of discrimination and intolerance that surrounded gays. The African-American civil rights movement was at its height and the Vietnam War dragged on despite its increasing unpopularity. Civil resistance exhibited by African-Americans and those who protested the Vietnam War encouraged many to become more outspoken, creating a rich political climate that empowered people whose marginalized voices needed to be heard to stand up for their rights A year later on June 28, thousands of people marched from the Stonewall Inn to Central Park in what was then called “Christopher Street Liberation Day”, marking what is now recognized as the nation’s first gay pride parade. Since 1970, LGBTQ people and allies have continued to gather together in June to march and demonstrate for equal rights, organize parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts. The number of participants has grown steadily and in more recent years these events have attracted millions of people around the world. The stated purpose of the heritage month designation is to recognize the impact that LGBTQ individuals have had on society locally, nationally and internationally and raise awareness of, and combat prejudice against, them. Viewed from another perspective, they represent yet another group of people in whom we have singled one trait and demonized their entire personhood, worth and community based on it, but even worse, as a pretext for our own biased and downright prejudiced attitude toward the group.

 As an aside, PRIDE, an acronym for “Personal Rights in Defense and Education”, was a separate organization formed in Los Angeles in 1966 which, from its inception, was much more radical than the earlier gay rights groups. The two seemed to have merged along the way with June having been officially designated as Gay and Lesbian Pride Heritage Month by President Bill Clinton in 2000. President Barack Obama expanded the observance in 2011 to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTQ) Pride Month. Slogans like “Gay and Proud”, however, suggest a departure from the original meaning. 

Explaining the history and significance behind this heritage month, University of Central Florida’s Professor Martha Brenckle reminds us that everybody is worthy of respect; everybody is worthy of kindness; everybody is worthy of rights to everyday basic things like employment, education, the right to marry whom they please and to raise a family.

All well and good! But, for us as Christians, how does this celebration fit into our world view? Jesus is the answer. In setting things right through the cross and resurrection, he had to turn a lot that had been taken for granted in society then and now upside down. That is what makes his teaching, preaching and personal example of the power of love so radical in recognizing everyone as a child of God, treating others with dignity and respect and encouraging us to see the face of God in everyone. Nowhere does he say: “everyone, except ________”, (feel free to fill in the blank), in this instance, those who are LGBTQ. 

>>>CLICK HERE TO READ JEAN SIDEBOTTOM’S “BEING A GAY CHRISTIAN”

Jean Sidebottom, the writer of this month’s article, is a friend of Fr. Duncan’s and, as you’ll see when you read her story, she shares all of our human longings, hopes and dreams. Her greatest desire has been the love of Jesus and acceptance by his followers who call themselves Christian. Can we be open to that radical love? It is one of the biggest challenges of Christians throughout all ages and places. But, as Tim Keller reminds us in his delightful book, Hidden Christmas, Mathew’s gospel gives us a surprising picture of Jesus, providing us with powerful evidence of what matters to God and what doesn’t. His lineage, includes not one but five women, although women were not mentioned in ancient genealogies at all, and most of them were from nations thought by the ancient Jews to be unclean and not allowed in the temple to worship, and the stories of these women were also among the most sordid and immoral ones in the Bible. In addition, his family line included the likes of King David who lusted over the wife of Uriah, his friend and one of his protectors against King Saul, and David arranged to have Uriah killed to seduce and then marry his wife, Bathsheba. So, not just a thoroughly dysfunctional family, but deeply flawed men and women, adulterers and adulteresses, incestuous relationships, prostitutes, all excluded by the Law of Moses from the presence of God and yet, here they are publicly acknowledged as the ancestors of Jesus. In his own lifetime, Jesus also consorted with society’s outcasts, prostitutes and tax collectors; and he promised salvation to a felon crucified next to him. So, Jesus definitely turns the world’s values upside down. Pedigree doesn’t matter, what you have done doesn’t matter, killing people doesn’t matter; if you repent and believe in him, the grace of Jesus Christ can cover your sins and unite you with him. As Keller put it, His holiness and goodness cannot be contaminated by contact with us. Instead, his holiness infects us by our contact with him. In Jesus, prostitute and king, male and female, one race and another race, moral and immoral, those of a conventional sexual orientation and gender identity and those that are not – all sit down as equals. Equally sinful and lost, equally accepted and loved.

One last thought: several months ago, I heard a commercial whose message resonated with me and was brought to mind in the wisdom of the UCF professor quoted above. It said: “In a world where you can be anything, be kind”. Don’t ask me to name the product or its maker, but what a powerful message! Kindness implies goodness, caring and genuine respect, nothing short of the love of neighbor that God commands. So, if love of a person who happens to be LGBTQ seems to be too difficult a challenge or one that goes a step too far for us, perhaps we can start by being kind.  

Heather G. Kress
for the Racial Reconciliation and Social Justice Ministry

St. John's Episcopal Church
12 Prospect St. | Huntington, NY 11743 | PH: (631) 427-1752
Sunday Services at 8 AM and 10 AM
site powered by CHURCHSQUARE