He mentions Boyd K. Packer

Quote: "On the one hand, Religious Right hatemongers and crazies are spewing all sorts of venom and condemnation, all in the name of a loving God. The second-highest-ranking Mormon leader, Boyd K. Packer, recently called same-sex attraction "impure and unnatural" in an act of unspeakable insensitivity at the height of this rash of teen suicides. He declared that it can be cured, and that same-sex unions are morally repugnant and "against God's law and nature." -Bishop Gene Robinson




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bishop-gene-robinson/how-religion-is-killing-o_b_764568.html

I wish more religions were like the Episcopal church.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2010 08:18PM by MJ.

We had a chance to hear him speak at a local church and really enjoyed his talk. He doesn't have that pompous, full-of-himself style that is so common in SLC.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church. The thing I remember learning about most was compassion. I was never taught to look down on other religions or to hate other groups.

It was only when I became an adult that I discovered the darkside of religion. In other words, that's when I learned that some religions are very intolerant of anything outside their own box.

>>Religious Right hatemongers and crazies are spewing all sorts of venom and condemnation, all in the name of a loving God. The second-highest-ranking Mormon leader, Boyd K. Packer.....<


Don't you just love how this paragraph begins?

Why the sudden spike in youth suicide about being gay? Is it real or were suicides in the past attributed to other reasons?

The recent attention to bullying and being gay as reasons for suicide seems odd considering awareness of gays and the accompanying problems have been well known for some time now.

In the past, gay related deaths were things that brought shame on a family so the gay cause was never discussed, never mentioned in obits, etc.. In the early 1990's I used to work as a monitor for an annual display of the AIDS quilt on the Queen Marry (No Queen or Marry jokes please ;-) ). One of the things I used to do was find panels that were very poignant for various reasons. The ones that always invoked the strongest emotional response were the blank panels that family had submitted to represent the death, but they left it blank to protect the memory of the person and the surviving family from the shame of that person's homosexuality.

Such an environment meant that gay and lesbian related suicides went completely unreported. Nearly 20 years ago I worked on a gay and lesbian suicide hot line. We knew then that there was a problem but in the social environment prohibited any real research and any efforts to get the message out.

We are finally able to get the message out. Many people are just know finding out the tragedy that I and a few others have known about and change for decades. I am happy that the message is finally getting beyond us few, but totally discussed that it took so long. I get sick when I think of how many deaths may have been prevented if it were not for the ignorance, and intolerance of society in the past.

Here is the is the rather dry official explanation of what the quilt is:

http://www.aidsquilt.org/about.htm

You can scan through blocks of the quilt here (take your time and read what you can):


http://173.165.165.36:591/FMRes/FMPro?-db=search%20the%20quilt.fp5&-format=ztablevw.htm&-lay=large%20display&-sortfield=block%20number&-findall
One of the blocks that has a blank panel:

This block has one of the blank panels I talked about

http://173.165.165.36:591/FMRes/FMPro?-db=search%20the%20quilt.fp5&-sortfield=block%20number&-format=ZFormVw.htm&-lay=Large%20Display&-max=1&-skip=20&-token=25&-find

"It is not enough for good people -- religious or otherwise -- to simply be feeling more positive toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude beats discrimination and abuse by a mile. But it's not enough. Tolerant people, especially tolerant religious people, need to get over their squeamishness about being vocal advocates and unapologetic supporters of LGBT people. It really is a matter of life and death, as we've seen.

I learned this in my dealing with racism. It's not enough to be tolerant of other races. I benefit from a racist society just by being white. I don't ever have to use the "n" word, treat any person of color with discourtesy, or even think ill of anyone. But as long as I am not working to dismantle the systemic racism that benefits me, a white man, at the expense of people of color, I am a racist. And my faith calls me to become an anti-racist -- pro-active, vocal, and committed."

I've never heard anyone explain better why gay really is the new black.

Good for him...call the Mormons on their hatred.