Town hall meeting creates dialogue in Greenville
Community turns out to discuss religion-based bigotry
Approximately 200 Greenville, S.C. residents attended Faith In America's Town Hall meeting last week.
Faith In America has been working over the last three years to create opportunities for fair-minded Americans to let their voices of acceptance and equality be heard and last week at a town hall meeting in Greenville, S.C., those voices spoke with clarity and conviction into a microphone provided by the organization's founder.
The town hall meeting in South Carolina culminated the organization's second "Call to Courage" campaign and more than 200 people from the Greenville community turned out for a discussion on the history of religion-based bigotry and the harm it causes to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.
During a question-answer session following the panel discussion, Faith In America Founder Mitchell Gold held a microphone for all those in the audience who wanted to make a comment or ask a question - despite any differing views on the various topics covered.
The town hall meeting was moderated by Jimmy Creech, Faith In America's executive director, and the panel of speakers included: (Pictured below left to right).
• The Rev. Dr. Bennie Colclough is the Pastor of Providence Christian Church, Manning, S.C. and the Co-chair of The South Carolina Progressive Network..
• The Rev. David R. Gillespie, a local Greenville resident, is an author and director of faith development at the Unitarian Universalistic Church of Spartanburg. His published writings focus on the intersection of faith and sexuality, with a focus on the American South.
• Margie Candler, a local Greenville resident, is the mother of three gay children. She is a former regional director for the national office of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and former president of PFLAG Greenville.
• Ivy Hill, a local Greenville resident, is the President of the Lambda Gay Straight Alliance at Greenville Technical College.
Close to a third of the attendees at the meeting were from conservative area churches, including one conservative pastor and radio talk show host who had organized a seminar the preceding week in response to Faith In America's six-week campaign. Those individuals also had the opportunity to express their viewpoints and a robust discussion with audience members was held during the question-answer period.
Several audience members who spoke after the meeting said it was an educational experience and one that they believed was needed in the Greenville community.
Throughout the six-week campaign, Faith In America received comments from both gay and lesbian citizens as well as straight allies that Greenville, S.C., has a reputation of being somewhat unwelcoming to gay and lesbian citizens. That certainly is understandable considering the Greenville County Council in May 1997 adopted a resolution stating that homosexuality is "incompatible" with the community's standards. The resolution has never been rescinded.
Ten years later, gay and lesbian residents of Greenville speak about the fear of coming out to their family and friends, the threat of losing a job, potential recrimination toward gay or lesbian businesspersons from the business community and being ostracized by churches. In addition to the emotional, psychological and spiritual harm, many speak of their concern over the possibility of physical violence as well.
A tragic example of that physical threat was the death of Sean Kennedy this year, who was killed in Greenville after being struck by a man who reportedly called him a faggot before striking him and causing his death. The Faith In America "Call to Courage" campaign in Greenville was dedicated to the memory of Sean Kennedy.
And while many in the community believe the attack against Kennedy was an isolated incident, it is not at all unreasonable to associate such violence with the message of condemnation and rejection that emanates from certain religious factions in Greenville. Every Friday in downtown Greenville - until the last week of Faith In America's campaign - members of one local church gathered to espouse a shrill message of condemnation toward gay and lesbian citizens. Their signs had such slogans as "God Abhors You."
While members of some of Greenville's mainline denomination churches are quick to disassociate themselves with those who stand in the street shouting that gays and lesbians are condemned, they apparently fail to see how gay and lesbian citizens do not differentiate between a shrill message of condemnation and rejection being belted out from a street corner and one that is delivered in a newspaper opinion article or one presented from the Sunday morning pulpit.
Kevin Boling, a Greenville pastor who has a local radio talk show, organized a seminar on Oct. 10 in which he brought as guest speaker Joe Dallas, who leads an ex-gay ministry. Boling at the seminar told attendees that he was against promoting any type violence toward gay and lesbians but that he believes Christians must take a stand against condoning homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle. He stated he believes the Bible issues a mandate for Christians to take that position.
On Boling's "Calling For Truth" website, a Nov. 13 post stated "On yesterday's program we laid the foundation for our discussion today by looking at the Apostle Paul's statements in Romans chapter one. There Paul lays out the case for man's depravity, which he refers to as "darkness". He then describes a number of sins that openly display the depravity of fallen men. Homosexuality tops the list of sins, which Paul labels as 'vile affections' and 'unnatural'."
Audience members address the panel.
Boling had stated at the Oct. 10 seminar as well as in an op-ed article in the Greenville News that Faith In America's aim was to silence Christians like himself who do not agree with a message of unconditional acceptance of gay and lesbian individuals. He presented several comments and questions at the town hall meeting, speaking into a microphone which was being held by Faith In America's founder.
Boling presented his comments without interruption except to be asked to limit his comments after taking quite a bit more than the two minutes that was established as a necessity to allow everyone an opportunity to speak.
Later in the meeting, Mitchell Gold responded to Boling's accusation that Faith In America was participating in "church-bashing." Gold said that the entire purpose of the organization was to create dialogue and that at no time had the organization ever denounced any particular church or group of churches.
He said the goal of the organization is to ask people to consider only the message of rejection and condemnation coming from the church in regard to gay and lesbian citizens and how similarly the Bible was once used to support prejudice and discrimination against women and African-Americans. Overall, Gold said the organization hopes churches will stop and consider the harm that is being caused by religion-based bigotry to gay and lesbian citizens
Margie Candler, who served as a panelist for the town hall meeting, spoke passionately and eloquently about the harm religion-based bigotry has caused her family.
Candler stated she was reared in a conservative Baptist church and had been an active member for most of her life and that she had been taught a message of rejection and condemnation toward homosexuality and that it was a message that her young children had also been taught.
It's a message that she said brought pain and suffering to her family when one of her sons at age 15 confided that he was gay.
Because she had been taught that homosexuality was unnatural and immoral, she said her initial reaction to her son's announcement was one in which she could only think of how it would affect her standing in the community and in her church.
"I only thought of myself," she said. "What would others think?"
"I did not think of the courage that it must have taken for my son to tell us about his sexuality. Oh how I ache in my heart for putting my son through what he had to endure. I so regrets that days and weeks that he had to go through while we tried to get him to change.
"How sad it is that he and other gay children go through the agony of trying to learn to accept who they are only to feel the sting of rejection from their own parents."
Candler said her son, Paul, told her that he knew he was different since he was age 6.
With little understanding of sexuality, she said they took their son to psychologist after psychologist hoping to find one that would tell them that they could cure him.
"The four psychologists that we spoke with told us 'your son cannot be changed, it is you that needs to change your attitude'."
She said their son eventually ran away from home at age 15 and that he would later tell them it was the only way he felt he could survive.
"As Southern Baptists who were uneducated about homosexuality we understood only that the word homosexuality meant that it was someone who was different, who didn't fit the norm and who was rejected by society," she said. "When I suddenly realized that the word applied to my son, we had to come face to face with what we had been taught all our lives and the person we knew our son to be."
After educating themselves about sexual orientation and after reconciling what they had been taught by the church with what they had learned and with the person they knew their son to be, Candler said she came to realize she had been wrong. She said her children's sexual orientation no longer matters.
"I love my children," she said "I'm proud if the persons they have become. They are good, kind, thoughtful loving human beings."
Despite a journey to full acceptance, Candler said she and her husband remained silent for almost 12 years but that she came to realize that her silence was hurting their children. After joining the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) organization, she said they decided that they could no longer be silent and that they would begin working to educate others about the discrimination and prejudice that all gay and lesbian citizens face in today's society.
In the beginning, Candler said her faith was a hindrance because of all the misinformation about homosexuality that was instilled in her from the time that she was a child growing up in the Baptist church. But later, she realized it was her strong faith in God that has given her the courage to speak out against bigotry.
"It took 150 years for the Southern Baptists to apologize to the African-American community for their lack of support and acceptance of them as fellow human beings," she said. "Everyone has the right to believe the way they want but don't use it to discriminate. Scripture was used to justify slavery just as it is used today to justify intolerance and hatred toward gays. If we really sought to follow Go's lead, we would follow Jesus' teachings about love, compassion, understanding and acceptance.
Candler said there are many gay people of faith but there are many who have felt the "sting of rejection from the church," the one place she said everyone should all be able to go and feel wanted and accepted.
"The actions of some of those who claim to love homosexuals do not support their claim," she said. "Jerry Falwell was a leader in the Southern Baptist denomination prior to his death. He (Falwell) blamed 911 on our gay kids. Pat Robertson blamed the hurricane in Louisiana on our gay kids and many of our religious leaders have blamed our gay children for the breakdown of the family.
"If this is not religious bigotry then I do not know what else to call it."
Rev. David R. Gillespie told the audience that society must differentiate between particular religious beliefs and what the government adopts as public policy.
With the passage of a constitutional ban on gay marriage last year, Gillespie said his state of South Carolina failed to make that delineation.
"Although I am committed to the notion that faith does influence public policy and that it should influence public policy, I am also committed to the notion that one particular religious view should never be enshrined in public policy and that is what my beloved state of South Carolina has done," said Gillespie.
"It has taken one particular religious view of what we call marriage, one particular religious definition and made it not only the law of the land but part of the very constitution of this state. My state now tells me that unless I buy into their particular religious view then my long-term, loving relationship, healthy, fulfilling relationship doesn't count.
"The wall of separation of church and state has been breached and I and others like me are suffering because of it".
Rev. Colclough said that as someone who grew up in South Carolina he has seen the full circle of religion-based bigotry - from growing up in South Carolina's segregated schools and churches as a boy to working today as a straight ally for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.
"When segregation ended, many churches formed their own schools and universities so that would not have to go to school with me" he said. "I have experienced religion-based bigotry as an African-American."
Colclough said that he still personally experiences the remnants of religion-based bigotry toward people in interracial marriages as he has a niece and nephew in interracial marriages and he experiences how such bigotry still plays a role in parts of society today.
Colclough said he considers religion-based bigotry - in all its expressions - "morally wrong and universally wrong."
"I've also experienced in my work with the least of those in my work with members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. I have seen firsthand how the bible has been misquoted and misused to harm human beings. It is very painful.
"I have spent many a restless night trying to wonder what it is that we can do as church family to make a difference in the lives of all humankind. In my own church in which I am currently serving, I am trying to do my best to teach them about how it is wrong to misuse the Bible.
"I strongly believe that religion-based bigotry is morally wrong and it's mean-spirited and ill-willed and I would love to see the day when we can come together as people of God and really be about the business of loving one another and making that daily difference in how we live."
Ivy Hill told the audience how religion-based bigotry had a negative effect on her as a lesbian. Raised in a conservative church, Hill said that it was the message that came from the church that had caused her the most hurt.
"I've always had a deep desire to have a personal relationship with Jesus," said Hill, who was raised in the Church of Christ. "I was very active in the church and leadership team. I went to Bible camp every summer for 10 years. I had a lot of passion for spirituality. Oddly enough it was during these times in my life when depression played the biggest role.
"I think that has a lot to do with the fact that my spiritual mentors and people who I looked up to for guidance rejected my sexual orientation which was intertwined with my personality as a whole and who I am. That can be a little bit depressing."
Hill said she once was anointed with oil while someone tried to cast "demons of homosexuality" out of her. "I've had people tell me that some people are just meant to be single," she said. "I've had my youth minister go to my friends behind my back and tell them that it was sinful to be associated with homosexuals. I would consider that religion-based bigotry."
Despite the different religious views that Americans may hold about homosexuality, Hill said she believes it is important to remember that America was founded by people seeking to escape religious persecution.
"To deny equal rights to anyone based solely on the Bible is going against everything this country was founded on," Hill said.
Hill concluded her comments by saying she hopes society would be a little more like mayonnaise.
"The two main ingredients in mayonnaise are oil and water which is weird because they do not mix when you put them together. But the cool thing about mayonnaise is that it has eggs in there with it that work as an emulsifier that brings two completely different things together to work in this wonderful mayonnaise. That's what I hope we can be and thanks to Faith In America for being those eggs."
During the meeting, Faith In America recognized the contribution to its campaign by Sean's Last Wish, an organization formed by Sean Kennedy's parents - Elke Kennedy and Jim Parker - to bring awareness to the need for hate crime legislation in South Carolina. Also recognized were Scott Young, the Upstate coordinator for S.C. Equality Coalition who provided instrumental assistance in the campaign as well as Susan Crain with UpstateUnited. During the Greenville campaign, Faith In America also worked with the local Metropolitan Community Church, the local PFLAG chapter as well as several local affirming church congregations.