Honest question: Has any major church submitted a video for this campaign? I’m assuming no — the last thing the Christian church wants to do is make anything better for the GLBT community — but maybe someone can prove me wrong…
Edit: I should’ve added: I know many individual Christians, including Mike Clawson on this very site, have been incredibly supportive of GLBT rights. The Evangelical Christian world, on the other hand, is anything but a friend to GLBT people. So while I don’t mean to speak of the “church” as one entity, the largest congregations — usually, the black churches and the evangelical megachurches — have not done anything to advance civil rights in this case.
That’s a really cool video. I just got sent a link to Mars Hill Church by my evangelical brother and all it was was a bunch of tidied up hate. Homosexuality was briefly mentioned and over course it was a sin. So much horrible guilt and shamemongering. I think the “It Gets Better Campaign” and the support it just got from Google is truly awesome.
Meredith
I don’t know about the church question, but I found myself crying after that commercial aired. It was just plain awesome.
Philip
I somehow missed “major” in your question. However, it does look like at least some churches have done so…
It wouldn’t surprise me if an Episcopalian group does eventually; they are very pro-gay rights and always have a nice friendly booth set up at the various NorCal prides I’ve been to.
Google ‘unitarian universalist it gets better’… not surprisingly, there are lots of hits.
Kevin S.
Hemant, please don’t refer to The Christian Church as if it’s some type of monolith, especially on this position. You yourself have commented on how fractured their views and interpretations of all sorts of issues are, and it’s pretty well known that many Christian denominations, including a couple of fairly major ones, support LGBT equality. Recent polling indicates a small majority of Americans support full SSM, and I think as recently as 2008, something like 3/4 of Americans identified themselves as Christians. There’s a metric crap-ton of overlap in there, to the tune of nearly a hundred million Americans.
(Hemant says: Kevin, I’m sorry you took it that way. I should’ve been more clear. I added an update to the post to try and clarify what I meant.)
Kevin S.
Hemant, thanks for the clarification. It’s an important distinction that often gets lost in the shuffle.
Here’s an It Gets Better video from Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who holds the highest office in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). Of course doesn’t speak for the whole church, but he was quick to post this video and support the LGBT community 🙂
Bernard J. Ortcutt
They should do these videos for Atheist kids too. “Your parents might terrorize you with Jesus now but it gets better.”
Rob
One thing about the commercial that did make me only slightly sad is that the Marine and cop video, which has hit me the most because it seemed the two men in that video had a lot to lose by putting their video online. In the original version the Marine is wearing his uniform proudly, as he should. In the commercial all the trappings have been erased and his uniform looks like a black frock. I get it, without written permission you can’t wear your uniform in any venture as it can’t be seen that the US supports anything. But c’mon I”ve seen army uniforms in Budweiser commercials. I guess the military uses Firefox.
United Church of Christ is “open and affirming”. My daughter attends First Congregational UCOC in Memphis and they are so gay friendly it’s surprising to this old school (former) Methodist.
There are a lot of great people at that church. They work for social justice, fight for the rights of all people, house runaways and those who are afraid to come out to their families. They are not “christian-lite” as some people call them. They believe Jesus was the Christ and stress love hope and charity over judging other people.
It’s a fairly big denomination. I believe our president attended a UCC church.
JT
I personally hope that no church ever co-opts the “It gets better” campaign. As an emerging gay man, the cognitive dissonance that my god or even the wrong and sinister twistings of his word into a religious institution hated my very existence is what ultimately set me on the path to atheism.
I hope that every struggling LGBT youth sticks with us to adulthood…but I’d hate for them to live their lives a moment longer following a wrong minded superstition simply because someone met them halfway with the insulting concession that it’s “okay” that they exist.
the captain
I’d seen some of the clips before, like the Dan Savage video, but that little bit of Woody from Toy Story nearly made me cry.
Carrie
Two major protestant denominations, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America have released videos and are considered major, mainstream religions by the press in the United States. The Episcopal Church released a video that was recorded by an openly gay, married synod bishop and the ELCA video was recorded by Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who is the figure head of the ELCA in the United States.
I was Mormon, and in the LDS church, you’ve got to remain celibate and in the closet or leave the church. I have no doubt that religious doctrines against homosexuality implicitly condone the marginalization and mistreatment of LGBTQ youth, resulting in the recent rash of gay teen suicides (and ongoing gay teen suicides that don’t get the same coverage). This is such an important campaign.
Steven
I can honestly say I hate how religions are categorized as being against homosexuality. I’ve been to many Christian churches where members are openly homosexual, and they have families, and they bring they’re family, two fathers and their kids, or two mothers and their kids, and they are loved and accepted there. And I’ve been to a Mormon church as a favor to my friend and they knew I was gay and they accepted me and said I should bring my boyfriend with me next time. Yes, some churches are ignorant, but just as ignorant are the people who throw the whole denomination into the mix.
Edmond
I’m sorry, but WHY can’t we expect Christianity to be monolithic?
If there’s supposedly only ONE god, one son, one message, one book, one “truth”… then is it really SO unreasonable to expect the followers to speak the SAME message, to give the SAME predictions, to reach the SAME interpretations? If they all follow the SAME perfect, infallible, omniscient, omnipotent creator of all time and space, all matter and energy, then shouldn’t the rest of us be able to expect a unified front from ALL Christians, instead of the conflicting, contradictory accounts that we’re always getting?
Rien Finch
It is worth noting that Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, has made a ‘it gets better’ video, which you can watch here. This is a man whose history of public policy/voting records indicates that he does NOT support gay rights. But even he said ‘bullying is wrong, and it gets better’.
That’s incredibly powerful, and I wish the evangelical movement in the US could at least get on board with telling kids not to kill themselves.
Cyndi already said it, but UCC. My experience with them in most states is that they are very pro social justice, amazingly gay friendly, and have more agnostics per member than a typical atheist club. They are a very interesting group…
Kevin S.
“I’m sorry, but WHY can’t we expect Christianity to be monolithic?”
Because… they aren’t? That much is blatantly obvious from any casual perusal of the differences between the various denominations.
Alice H.
Thanks, Hemant, that video made me cry like a little girl.
It is a good community and represents the very best of what religion can be.
Sadly, they are a small minority of Christian churches and even of the ELCA synod.
Troglodyke
I can honestly say I hate how religions are categorized as being against homosexuality.
I can understand your frustration, but after years of arguing that the paucity of condemnations of homosexuality in the bible meant that it really didn’t “go against” Xtianity, I’ve switched focus.
Though there are many people who call themselves Xtian who believe in LGBT rights, the dogma of Xtianity does indeed condemn homosexuality, at least between men.
Don’t agree? Fine. But the majority of Xtians believe that god was against it. And no one is trying very hard to disavow that within the Xtian community. Prominent Xtians, when pressed, will admit that gays should not be bullied or harassed (we’ve come a long way, baby!), but they still manage to slip in that homosexuality is still a sin that people need to be purged of.
Does Xtianity condemn homosexuality, or not? I say it does. And so I say the best way to combat that attitude is to reject Xtianity (which of course has quite a few other flaws).
A world still rife with Xtian belief, even if that belief has somehow in the future accepted homosexuality and does not consider it sinful and in need of purging, is still a world rife with a belief system that ignores evidence, demeans women, and enslaves its adherents to not think for themselves.
Justin Miyundees
Dan Savage is a hero of mankind!!!!! If I were gay, I’d be gay for him!!!
gwen
Justin, I agree 100% This is an awesome idea and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that it was played on a teen themed, highly rated tv show.
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