Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: An Outreach This Afternoon

Saturday, October 23, 2010

An Outreach This Afternoon

This afternoon I will be going to a church to talk about discrimination. All you hear in the news are about churches that damn LGBT people, but there are many churches that are affirming. They believe in inclusion, not exclusion. They don’t make the news, only the churches that preach hate are being interviewed on the news channel. An affirming church isn’t controversial and the news stations thrive on controversy so there voices do not get heard. All around the state there are many supportive churches, some hold support groups in their parish house, and some have trans-people on their parish councils, while others open their doors to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation or gender expression.

I know many LGBT people who were thrown out of their churches and became suicidal, only to turn to open and affirming churches and find their way again.

The Manchester pastor asked me to come and talk about the effects of discrimination, and about trying to pass the anti-discrimination legislation. I have met the pastor before when I was at my first year internship and he was helping to pass the legislation. Now today he wants me to talk to a group of kids about my experiences.

I am not a religious person, but I understand and respect the need of religion. I believe in God. I believe in a loving and caring God. Not a hateful and vengeful God.

2 comments:

Kwizgiver10/23/10, 12:37 PM
What an important audience. I'm sure you'll broaden many horizons.
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DJ KathyA10/23/10, 7:27 PM
It is wonderful that you are dedicating time and energy to this cause. As a positive role model, you bring a lot of community service, not just for "Trans", but for anyone who is usually not tolerated by the religious conservatives. As a pagan, I deal with negative stereotypes in the media and socially. Ignorance is not bliss as people may think.
Good luck and best wishes on your sharing and caring.
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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers