Rev. Thomas Faucher: Regardless of their beliefs, churches must help stop these deaths | Reader's Opinion | Idaho Statesman
Pictures of Tyler were taken by his roommate using a hidden webcam. Tyler was with another male. These pictures were broadcast over the Web. A few days later Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death.
This is only one of many suicides of young people who are gay or perceived to be gay each month. There may be many reasons a young person may take his or her life, but there is a provable connection between suicide and the anguish and pain young people feel for either being gay or being perceived as gay.
Responsibility for the death of Tyler Clementi must be laid at the feet of his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend who did this to him. But it also must be given to school administrators, teachers, other students and all who helped create the atmosphere where being gay or being perceived as gay is cause for depression, despair and suicide.
A major source of this death-causing atmosphere toward young gays is the manner in which religions promote their teaching about homosexuality. There are Christian denominations that openly welcome and accept homosexual people. There are other Christian denominations, including my own Roman Catholic Church, which believe that homosexual sexual behavior is wrong, but also officially teach that there must be pastoral sensitivity toward those who are homosexual.
But even in the churches that officially call for understanding and pastoral sensitivity there are religious leaders (some Roman Catholic) who denounce gay men, women and children in vicious, hateful terms.
Other Christian denominations and some sects of Islam have gone far beyond these religions and speak of homosexual men and women in the most brutal of language, some calling for their deaths. (It is reported that American Christians have promoted a “death for homosexuals law” in Uganda.)
All religions in America must be free to teach what they believe. But the manner in which their teaching is done must be respectful of the rights of all people. My religion, and all religions, must be free to teach what it believes about homosexual activity, just as it is free to teach what it believes about other issues. But no religion is free to teach its doctrine in a manner that causes those who believe differently, such as those who are gay, to sink into depression or commit suicide.
Idaho is a state that likes to think it is conservative. But on some issues — and gay rights is one of them — it is not really conservative, it is close to being bigoted. (For example, including sexual orientation in the anti-discrimination laws cannot even get a hearing in the Idaho Legislature; you can be fired for being gay in Idaho.) We need to become more libertarian.
We have thousands of gay people in Idaho, some of them growing up. They did not choose to be gay; they are gay. They have the right to be gay. If my church or other churches believe that gay sexual behavior as wrong, then it is our responsibility to convince people of that position — but in ways and words that do not lead them toward or force them into depression, despair or suicide.
The day is probably coming, or maybe already has come, when there will be a gay teenage suicide in Idaho. When that day comes, or if it has, the churches of America and Idaho that have preached a stream of intolerance and hatred against gays will be very much responsible. I do not want my church to be numbered in that ignominious group.
The Rev. Thomas Faucher is pastor of Saint Mary’s Church in Boise.
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