Dr Glenville Ash­by

Buoyed by the le­gal recog­ni­tion of same sex mar­riages in a num­ber of states, the Les­bian, Gay, Bi­sex­u­al, and Trans­gen­der (LGBT) com­mu­ni­ty has in­ten­si­fied its strug­gle for greater equal­i­ty and recog­ni­tion with­in the main-line Protes­tant Church­es in the US. The fight, vo­calised through the Chris­t­ian ini­tia­tive, Be­lieve Out Loud, has al­so tak­en the cam­paign to the doorstep of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, which has been a far more daunt­ing task. Sung Park, di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and ad­vance­ment at In­ter­sec­tions, an in­flu­en­tial New York based or­gan­i­sa­tion and un­der­writer of this grow­ing cam­paign, spoke about this de­vel­op­ment.

"We are grad­u­al­ly see­ing that with­in the largest Protes­tant Church­es, there is a shift in per­spec­tive," Park in­di­cat­ed, nam­ing the Unit­ed Methodist, the Evan­gel­i­cal Luther­an Church of Amer­i­ca, the Unit­ed Church of Christ, the Amer­i­can Bap­tist and the An­gli­can Church as some the church­es where the most in roads have been made. This is not en­tire­ly sur­pris­ing as the protes­tant move­ment has been his­tor­i­cal­ly sup­port­ive of gen­der and class dis­crim­i­na­tion, and is­sues re­lat­ed to im­mi­gra­tion and pover­ty. "Right now, the Pres­by­ter­ian and Evan­gel­i­cal Luther­an church­es have ap­proved mar­riage equal­i­ty and the or­di­na­tion of LGBT peo­ple. This is huge step," Park said.

A 2008 re­search study con­duct­ed by Be­lieve Out Loud, showed that 40 per cent of cler­gy "were in the mid­dle" on the is­sue of equal­i­ty for the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty, but had failed to take de­ci­sive ac­tion on its be­half. "We must do more to in­flu­ence that mov­able sec­tor of the cler­gy," Park stat­ed. He iden­ti­fied what he termed, "a mul­ti-tier strat­e­gy" to gal­vanise sup­port for its cause. "We have en­gaged in­di­vid­u­als on a per­son­al lev­el. We al­so have a strong on­line pres­ence, in­ter­ac­tive Web sites, twit­ter feeds, and YouTube videos of tes­ti­mo­ni­als. We al­so have ad­vo­ca­cy groups on the ground which is es­sen­tial."

Park re­ject­ed the com­mon be­lief that the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty as a whole re­jects al­ter­na­tive lifestyles. "We hear the opin­ions of con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians, but there is an­oth­er side, the pro­gres­sive, the mod­er­ate Chris­tians, and we are of­fer­ing a plat­form to that sel­dom­ly heard voice." Park, who is Chris­t­ian and soon to be an en­rolled sem­i­nar­i­an stu­dent, ac­knowl­edged the the­o­log­i­cal de­bates sur­round­ing al­ter­na­tives lifestyles as they re­late to bib­li­cal and quran­ic edicts. How­ev­er, he re­fused to drawn in­to any such dis­cus­sion. "It's all about in­ter­pre­ta­tion, and we all have our views based on our un­der­stand­ing of the holy books. These de­bates can be nev­er-end­ing," he said, as he fo­cused on the core teach­ings of all re­li­gions.

"Many of my friends no longer at­tend church be­cause they are tired of the mes­sages of con­dem­na­tion."

He spoke of his tra­vails in the church that near­ly caused him to fol­low in his friends' foot­steps. "I have been for­tu­nate. When­ev­er I was about to leave, there was al­ways some­one there to bring me back, to af­firm who I am and how I was cre­at­ed by God." Park dis­missed a grow­ing move­ment in Chris­t­ian con­ser­vatism that claims to have changed the sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion of mem­bers of the gay and les­bian com­mu­ni­ty through bib­li­cal coun­selling. "The ex-Gay min­istry is re­al­ly say­ing that there is some­thing wrong with be­ing dif­fer­ent. I don't be­lieve that you could change oth­ers by putting them down, but then again, if one feels ful­filled and hap­py af­ter ther­a­py, that's their per­son­al jour­ney."

He then point­ed to the "Ex Ex- Gay min­istry," mean­ing "those who have tried coun­selling to change but have giv­en up, and fi­nal­ly ac­cept­ed who they are." Be­lieve Out Loud has al­so tak­en its cam­paign of tol­er­ance and equal­i­ty in­to Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties in the US, con­duct­ing a num­ber of sur­veys in the process. Park cit­ed the cu­ri­ous par­al­lel be­tween present day Is­lam and Chris­tian­i­ty 50 years ago. "There is a lot of re­sis­tance in Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties. It is a very taboo sub­ject and peo­ple are re­luc­tant to speak. The Imams are silent and the LGBT Mus­lims are for the most part si­lenced." He spoke of the clan­des­tine na­ture in which fo­cus groups and sur­veys had to be con­duct­ed. "Every­thing was done in a se­cre­tive, in­ter­per­son­al lev­el, us­ing our in­ter­nal net­works with strict con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ments. We could not ad­ver­tise where fo­cus groups were be­ing held for fear of re­tal­i­a­tion."

Nev­er­the­less, the re­cent­ly con­duct­ed re­search had found that de­spite the overt signs of re­sis­tance, there is some mo­men­tum for change and that LGBT's vis­i­bil­i­ty and out­reach pro­grammes can be that cat­a­lyst for Mus­lim ref­or­ma­tion. The Be­lieve Out Loud spokesman strong­ly be­lieved that the grow­ing ac­cep­tance of al­ter­na­tive lifestyles will lead to gen­der equal­i­ty with­in Is­lam. "We have spo­ken to a few Imams, and some are sup­port­ive but are hes­i­tant to speak out. The bot­tom line is that some very re­li­gious Mus­lims are in the clos­et. They are afraid. But the time has come for all Mus­lims to fol­low teach­ings of Prophet Muham­mad which en­cour­aged car­ing for the weak and the out­casts. They must re­al­ly re­flect on these val­ues. The same goes for peo­ple who call them­selves Chris­tians."