Come Out On The Side Of Love
Rev. Abhi Janamanchi
Mr. Marty Pelham
October 11, 2009
OPENING WORDS - Barbara Hamilton Holway, adapted
We gather here ‑ as individual people ‑
young and old;
male and female;
temporarily able and disabled;
gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight people;
theist, atheist, agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, feminist, humanist.
We gather here as a community of people who are more than categories.
We gather here ‑ each ministering to the other, meeting one another's strengths, encouraging wholeness.
We give thanks for this extraordinary blessing ‑ the gathering together of separate, unique individuals as a whole, one body, our religious society.
Here may our minds stretch,
our hearts open,
Here may we acknowledge our brokenness and our journey to wholeness
and be ever stirred by love's infinite possibilities.
Come, let us worship.
Come, stand with us on the side of love.
A COMING-OUT DAY TESTIMONIAL & SPOKEN MEDITATION - Marty Pelham
In our opening words we gave thanks for the gathering together of separate unique individuals as one body. But being honest about our uniqueness isn't always easy. For many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people, hiding behind the masks of society's gender rules is a cold lonely confinement. Coming out can mean great risk for the hope of freedom.
First you come out to yourself. You've been leading two lives - compartmentalizing and calculating everything you think, feel, and say. You finally accept that what makes you different from a majority of your friends and family is essential and unchangeable. You realize no one really knows you and that is a very lonely feeling.
I came out to myself at the age of 19 when I began dating my first boyfriend. I truly believed I was walking away from God; risking my eternal existence to be able to love in the way that felt normal to me. It was ten more years before I came out to my parents. I had moved to the big city, Tampa, where I could live more honestly but I still had to keep the real Marty separate from the family Marty. A new boyfriend asked me how I could ever hope to be an honest partner in a romantic relationship if I couldn't be honest with the people I love most. The only reasonable response I could think of to this question was to come out to my parents.
My father, who embraced the diversity of humanity, told me he loved me and respected my decisions. My mother cried, a lot. She was not really surprised but she was not happy and wished I had kept my private life private. I told her I loved her, that I was happy, that I was the same person I had always been except now I was honest. And I told her I would be happy to discuss any aspect of my life with her. That coming out conversation 22 years ago was the last time my mother and I talked about me being gay. We talk regularly - we always tell each other "I love you" - she has always welcomed my partner into her home. But my mother has no idea how much of my life she has missed because I don't want to upset her.
I have other stories - none of my coming out stories are very dramatic - I understand that whatever suffering I've had is minor compared to others. And good things have come from my experiences. My four nieces and my nephew have always known a world where they have two loving gay uncles, me and my partner, so the next generation in my family accepts and embraces people who are different from them. I have been hated so I try very hard to feel compassion for all people, especially those whose ideas I oppose. I learned that the test of true love is that it casts out fear - but never people. I found Unitarian Universalism where the real Marty is accepted and embraced; where I'm just normal.
When we try to hide from the universe, for whatever reason, we limit our freedom and our potential to love as much as or more than we limit the harm that may come to us. And as a family, whether of blood or spirit, if we refrain from embracing those who are uniquely different from us, we may be limiting our potential to be loved in return.
I invite you to join me in a time of reflection.
We all have moments in our lives when we must choose between freedom and safety, courage and despair.
May we find within ourselves the courage to be who we are.
We all have moments in our lives when we witness another person's struggle to live honestly.
May we know when it is time to listen and when it is time to speak.
May we trust ourselves to find the words that need to be said or to do what needs to be done.
May we trust one another and know there are many ways to go through life.
May we understand that we cannot change some of what life gives to us but we can choose how we deal with what we are given.
We are one body -
We are all connected -
We depend on each other more than we know.
Together we can make justice and love possible.
COME OUT ON THE SIDE OF LOVE - Abhi Janamanchi
Today is National Coming Out Day. National Coming Out Day was founded by Robert Eichberg, his partner William Gamble, and Jean O'Leary in 1978 to celebrate the GLBT March on Washington held the previous year. A 30th Anniversary March by thousands of GLBT people and allies is happening today at noon in our nation's capitol.
UUA President Peter Morales issued a statement emphasizing the aim of the March in which he writes:
Our Unitarian Universalist faith compels us to call for full social and legal recognition for BGLT people, for our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, our friends and neighbors. Full equality under the law is the right of all Americans. BGLT people who want to serve their country in the armed forces, who want to provide loving homes to children in need, who want to join together in marriage, should not be treated as second-class citizens.
National Coming Out Day events are held nationwide and aimed at raising awareness of the GLBT community throughout the country and to undo generations of stigmatization and homophobia. On this day, many avail themselves of the opportunity to come out to family, friends and co-workers. Also on this day, people who have come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people are recognized, honored, and celebrated for living lives of courage, openness, and integrity.
"A shift happens within ourselves when we come out," says Scott Emanuel of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "It is a game changer - an opportunity to say, "Here I am - just as I am." According to Emanuel, regardless of the coming out scenario oftentimes the risk can lead to an even greater reward, including a sense of pride.
"Now there's something worth fighting for," he concludes "Given that coming out is a process that can take some time it is only fitting that we look at it as a daily opportunity to do something amazing yet rather ordinary."
So, today we have an opportunity "to do something amazing yet rather ordinary."
I'd like us all to COME OUT.
Yes, come out whether we are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, or straight.
come out and stand together on the side of justice;
come out and stand together on the side of equality;
come out and stand together on the side of love.
Unitarian Universalism is not a belief-centered religion; we do not require a creedal test in order to belong to our faith. Instead, we are a value-centered religion that emphasizes living out our values in the world. So it's more about where we stand rather than what we believe. It is about putting our faith into action.
Standing, as my colleague Fred Small explains, is not "about a physical posture. Rosa Parks stood on the side of love by remaining seated." Standing, he says, is more of a moral stance that we assume not just in the private recesses of our hearts but witness courageously in our communities, workplaces, schools, families, in our state capitol, and in the halls of Congress.
Taking a moral stance does not mean being self-righteous, presumptuous, or sanctimonious. It means being intentional, committed, and focused. It means staying engaged in a sustained manner until the goal is achieved.[1]
This past June, at the General Assembly in Salt Lake City, the Unitarian Universalist Association launched a Standing on the Side of Love campaign to confront exclusion and violence based on identity, be it sexual orientation, gender presentation, immigration status, race, class, religions, nationality, physical ability, or any other excuse for harassment. It is a call to pursue social change through advocacy, public witness, and speaking out in solidarity with those whose lives are publicly demeaned.
I am happy and thrilled that we are finally turning our main public voice from an attempt to explain who we are or who we are not to one that focuses on our essential purpose, i.e., what we do in and for the world -- stand on the side of love.
As a religious movement, we have stood on the side of love for a long, long time.
When Unitarians and Universalists struggled against slavery, they were standing on the side of love.
When our Unitarian and Universalist forebears - Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Olympia Brown - were marching with other suffragettes for women's rights, we were standing on the side of love.
"When Unitarian Lydia Maria Child defied the prohibition of her time against women speaking in public and demanded freedom for enslaved African-Americans and the vote for women, when she protested the Trail of Tears, the brutal removal of the Cherokee, she was standing on the side of love.
When Unitarian Universalist minister Jim Reeb [and lay person Viola Luizzo] heeded the call of Martin Luther King Jr. to Selma, AL, and [were] bludgeoned to death by racists, [they were] standing on the side of love."[2]
In 1970, when the General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the rights of gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals, calling for educational programs and nondiscriminatory hiring by the Association, we were standing on the side of love.
In 1980, when we called for an end to discrimination against gay and lesbian people in our ministry, we were standing on the side of love.
In 1984, when the UUA went on record supporting same-gender services of union and the right of our ministers to conduct them, we were standing on the side of love.
In 1989, when The Welcoming Congregation program was created through which Unitarian Universalists could examine their individual and collective attitudes and practices toward GLBT persons, we were standing on the side of love.
In 1996, when the UUA General Assembly passed a resolution supporting the legalization of same-gender marriage, we were standing on the side of love.
When Unitarian Universalists were instrumental in the successful drive for legal recognition of same-gender marriage/civil unions in Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey and more recently, Maine, we were standing on the side of love.
When at the height of a heated debate over firing Susan Stanton by the Largo City commission because of her coming out as a transgender person, a large number of us from UUC showed up to support her, we were standing on the side of love.
During last year’s election, when Amendment 2 (the so-called marriage amendment) was on the state ballot and many of us were signing petitions, making phone calls, and rallying people across faiths, we were standing on the side of love.
What does it mean to stand on the side of love?
It means affirming the full humanity of all people.
It means honoring and promoting the inherent worth and dignity, the divine spark (atman) in each and every person.
It means treating each other with respect and compassion, whether we agree or disagree. "You need not think alike," wrote Unitarian forbear Francis David, "to love alike."
It means being more committed to achieving understanding than agreement, being reconciled than to being right. As the apostle Paul said, Love "does not insist on its own way... It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
What would it require to stand on the side of love?
Standing on the side of love doesn't require power. It requires courage. Because courage is power. Just ask any of our GLBT brothers and sisters who have had the courage to come out and be true to who they are and are living lives of integrity and honesty. It takes boldness and courage. But in that courage they have found strength, joy, wholeness, and peace.
I've talked about the 'what,' now let me touch on the 'why.'
Why do we need to come out on the side of love?
Right now, both love and fear are rising up in our nation. There continues to be a rather strong emotional or psychological or even spiritual roadblock among people in their attitudes towards glbt people. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people continue to be targeted uniquely for exclusion and condemnation by religious communities on religious grounds. Their constitutional rights continue to be denied by political forces through the passage of discriminatory laws and constitutional amendments.
In a society where religious and political forces are consistently allied against the rights of GLBT persons, we need welcoming congregations and welcoming religious communities. We need religious communities who will say "yes" to the GLBT persons who come through their doors in search of a spiritual home. It is a "yes" that needs to be spoken in an intentional and affirmative manner. It is a "yes" that recognizes that the presence of GLBT persons strengthens and deepens the quality of religious life for every member of that religious community whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity may be. We need Unitarian Universalist communities such as ours willing to stand up and be a counterpoint to the homophobic and trans-phobic religious voices that are out there.
So when someone asks us what Unitarian Universalists believe, or why we're speaking out on GLBT rights or immigrant rights or disability rights or women's rights or human rights, or why we bother to drag our sorry selves out of bed and down here on Sunday mornings instead of reading the St. Pete Times or doing yard work or going to the beach, let's be bold and proclaim: We are standing on the side of love.
Come out and say it: We are standing on the side of love!
RESOURCES:
Standing on the Side of Love campaign materials (www.standingonthesideoflove.org)
Sermons by Rev. Fred Small & Rev. Thom Belote
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