The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Midland gave me permission to speak on their behalf in the below article, which you can also read online, published in the Midland Reporter Telegram June 17, 2016.
The church, working with local LGBTQ community leaders and other clergy, led a vigil on June 16th.
You can see press coverage of the vigil here (hover over the below text to click and be sent to the link):
NewsWest9’s interview with Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon before the vigil
Rev. Wright-Magoon’s interview with Spanish station Univision before the vigil
The Midland Reporter Telegram’s article after the Vigil.
The Midland Reporter Telegram’s gallery of photos from the vigil.
NewsWest9’s video coverage at the vigil, including interviews with organizers.
Article:
Hate is strong. Love is stronger. The terrorism in Orlando was part of the violent, divisive hate we are witnessing far too often in our country and the world. But what we know in our hearts – with faith – is that Love is stronger.
We Unitarian Universalists join with faithful people of many other traditions in our belief that love is the most powerful force. Love is our spiritual practice. We believe that hell is not a place in the afterlife where sinners are punished, but hell is what we create here on Earth when our pain and fear cause us to create division in our hearts and communities.
Dostoevsky said that hell is the “suffering of being unable to love.” At the root of an inability to love is usually pain. Whether we are aware of it or not, our own pain too often leaves us fearful, self-protective, numb, angry, or close-minded. And most of the pain in our lives comes from division – from seeing ourselves as separate from one another: liberal, conservative, rich, poor, black, Hispanic, white, male, female, gay, straight, Catholic, Muslim, atheist…
Being human in this world is hard enough without these divisions. Loved ones die, illnesses come, relationships challenge us… The walls between us make it even harder to traverse the beautiful but difficult journey of life.
For those who believe the Orlando terrorist’s hate was nurtured solely or mostly by radical Islam, we must remember that radical Islam does not speak for most Muslims in the same way that the Ku Klux Klan does not speak for most Christians. Responding to this attack with increased Islamophobia will only add hate to a world already burning. And it will distract us from the ways the terrorist’s hate was bred in an environment to which we all contribute.
The Orlando terrorist targeted a gay club on Latino night. He did not act alone.
He acted from within a larger environment of rhetoric, behavior, and legislation that is homophobic, transphobic, racist, and pro-violence.
Orlando was recently ranked as the second-most anti-transgender location in America. LGBTQ* people of color are disproportionately affected by discrimination and violence.
True: the Orlando terrorist pulled the trigger, but the hate in his heart was nurtured by the saying, “Love the sinner; hate the sin.”
His hate was nurtured by people saying, “That’s so gay” when they mean that’s so weird.
His hate was nurtured by people not wanting to see gay people holding hands in public.
His hate was nurtured by proponents of legislative actions that don’t allow trans people a safe place to go to the bathroom, that don’t allow gay men to give blood to their partner who is dying, that allow bosses to fire gay people because they are gay, and more.
Ninety percent of those killed in Orlando were Latino.
His hate was nurtured by anti-Hispanic, anti-Latino racism that often abides even within the LGBTQ community itself.
The Orlando terrorist attack occurred in a sanctuary. Pulse nightclub was a sanctuary.
Many times gay clubs are the only places where LGBTQ people can feel safe to be who they are: to dance, to hold their loved one’s hand, to dress the way they like, to breathe a sigh of relief. Many times straight women find gay clubs to be a sanctuary because they find there a reprieve from the hyper-masculine, often predatory environment of “regular” clubs and bars. Gay clubs often remain open on Thanksgiving because so many gay youth are kicked out of their homes when they come out. Gay clubs are a sanctuary because everywhere else in their lives, even sometimes in their own minds (so affected as they understandably are by the psychological effects of our culture’s homophobia), LGBTQ people often have to hide who they are.
Can you imagine the toll this would take?
Are you as awed as I am by their courage, their resiliency, their hope?
If you are reading this and you are a person who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning, please know that you have allies.
I am bisexual, but, as a cisgender** woman married to a cisgender man, I can experience the cultural privileges of passing as “straight.”
We – your allies – may not know what you are feeling right now, but we are here, committed to standing on the side of love with you, committed to doing what it takes to transform our own hearts and behaviors, our culture and politics, until you are not only tolerated, but welcomed with radical hospitality as the child of God, the beloved person, who you are.
If you are reading this and you are an ally, or becoming an ally, know that you have the power to make change, in ways large and small.
While some people in our world preach division and fear, we must have the courage to stand for a faith that celebrates difference, a faith that preaches love in the face of hate, a faith that holds out hope even for those we might understandably at first despise.
The Unitarian Universalist message, which we share with some practitioners of every faith, is this: All are deeply loved, no matter how different they feel, no matter the pain they have endured, no matter the pain they have caused.
Love is always available to us. Love is more powerful than we can imagine. Love tells us we all belong.
Unitarian Universalists stand on the side of love.
– Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon
* LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning
** cisgender: a person whose self-identity conforms with the gender that corresponds to their biological sex