Post by Mira on Nov 7, 2009 19:27:03 GMT -5
So, bit of backstory, for years my mom's been best friends with the wife of our church's pastor's(and gets on well with the pastor as well.) Well, not too long ago our pastor was promoted to the state minister of Illinois. Now she's gotten a broader perspective of the church as a whole and the state of things. She also now has a bit of influence, and told me her two missions to improve the church.
1) We have found out that the church is heavily segregated. We have black churches and white churches throughout the state. The two communities go to different conventions and do different activities. Most people don't even realise that this stark segregation is happening. My mother is going to visit one of the black churches that she met two members of. She hopes to help the two congregations blend to learn from eachother and to hopefully start the process of integration.
2) She hopes to make everything more LGBT-friendly. This was sparked by two incidents. First of all, obviously one was the whole 'her daughter is queer' thing. The other incident was less personal, but very shocking. She is one of the leaders of the church youth group and she has these two boys who are close buddies (same age as me.) They'll lightheartedly joke around about how they're like a couple. Well, someone posted a picture on facebook where one of them is kissing the other on the cheek (as far as I can say it was joking around, I don't know if either of them are actually gay.) Word got around and one of the kid's parents found out. They apparently went ballistic over the thing. They questioned him about being gay, and wouldn't accept that he was messing around at the time. It became an issue again when the mother came home as the boys came upstairs from the basement. She of course assumed that they were making out and they got into another argument about it.
My mom thinks that is definitely far from the right way the issue should be dealt with, and that it shouldn't be a subject of conflict at all. She's going to talk to some people and try to sway them to be more LGBT-friendly as well as showing them how the anti-gay sentiment can be extremely hurtful.
Anyway, I was proud of her and felt like I needed to share.
1) We have found out that the church is heavily segregated. We have black churches and white churches throughout the state. The two communities go to different conventions and do different activities. Most people don't even realise that this stark segregation is happening. My mother is going to visit one of the black churches that she met two members of. She hopes to help the two congregations blend to learn from eachother and to hopefully start the process of integration.
2) She hopes to make everything more LGBT-friendly. This was sparked by two incidents. First of all, obviously one was the whole 'her daughter is queer' thing. The other incident was less personal, but very shocking. She is one of the leaders of the church youth group and she has these two boys who are close buddies (same age as me.) They'll lightheartedly joke around about how they're like a couple. Well, someone posted a picture on facebook where one of them is kissing the other on the cheek (as far as I can say it was joking around, I don't know if either of them are actually gay.) Word got around and one of the kid's parents found out. They apparently went ballistic over the thing. They questioned him about being gay, and wouldn't accept that he was messing around at the time. It became an issue again when the mother came home as the boys came upstairs from the basement. She of course assumed that they were making out and they got into another argument about it.
My mom thinks that is definitely far from the right way the issue should be dealt with, and that it shouldn't be a subject of conflict at all. She's going to talk to some people and try to sway them to be more LGBT-friendly as well as showing them how the anti-gay sentiment can be extremely hurtful.
Anyway, I was proud of her and felt like I needed to share.
