After everything I have fully learned within the last two years regarding the role religion and Church structures play in either helping or harming the LGBTQ+ community, here is the way I identify now on the Catholic-leaning end of Christianity. I’m both Episcopalian and Catholic, but I’m more Episcopalian in the geographical areas where the Catholic Church actively legislates against the gay community in both diocesan policy and civil law. Yes, how the Catholic Church operates and reacts to the LGBTQ+ community is almost all political depending on geographical location. When clergy use “Church teaching” as a guide to act either well or poorly regarding LGBTQ+ people or other minority groups, it’s politically-applied depending where those clergymen serve.
The Episcopal Church nationwide has done a remarkable job of affirming and supporting the gay community since the early 1970s as certain parts of the Catholic Church, and other church bodies are doing today in places like some progressive US states and much of Europe. But I cannot support Catholic Bishops in certain geographical areas who are actively legislating to harm, endanger, and marginalize the LGBTQ+ community which impact diocesan policy, practice, and civil state laws of certain geographical locations. Some of these more conservative Catholic bishops do a lot of good in other areas like immigration justice, reducing gun violence, and advocacy for the poor.
I’ve come to better-understand that many celibate Catholic clergymen and specific laity don’t fully-comprehend what they are doing politically because they are either not fathers and husbands, nor do they have LGBTQ+ children themselves. I understand my own journey to affirmation, so I understand a certain level of misunderstanding. What I see out of Bishops who lean conservatively on LGBTQ+ issues more than anything else are an unwillingness to listen and an inability and unwillingness to understand even when presented with facts and lived experiences.
I must be super-careful about using certain names and even certain dioceses and states which I won’t do, but many Catholics and Episcopalians know exactly who and where I am speaking of, and I think it’s time that the laity is educated and empowered to hold Church leadership to account because it impacts all Americans whether they are religious or not. Political power and influence are involved; that’s what it boils down to. Until clergymen understand how much they are overly involved with the empire and change their ways, lives are going to be significantly either harmed or helped depending on the actions of those who are in power or influence power. And from my end, I specifically speak of Catholic-leaning leadership.
As a progressive person of faith, a mother of multiple LGBTQ+ kids/in-law kids, and someone who has evolved into an LGBTQ+ activist, I have come to a few very sharp conclusions. If doctrine itself or the application of it harms and endangers others, it’s not of God/Jesus. Harmful teaching and harmful application of doctrinal teaching should be eradicated because I don’t ever think Our Lord ever wanted such a thing to begin with. My LGBTQ+ parent activism has nothing to do with sexual activity but the sanctity of life and human dignity. If Catholic clergy refuse to understand this, lives will continue to be lost and harmed at the direct hands of the Catholic Church. Faith is supposed to be life-giving, not life-taking.
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