Monday, February 11, 2008

Creating Change Conference of NGLTF

I haven't created many postings lately because I've been busy attending and volunteering for the Creating Change Conference put on by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force held at the Renaissance Center in Detroit.

I got involved last summer because the host committee was looking for volunteers. I attended a few of the host committee meetings but most of my effort was through the Spiritual Needs Subcommittee. More on this below. I also volunteered as a workshop room monitor (count attendees, make sure presenter has all he needs).

Since I volunteered for the SNS committee I could attend the rest of the conference for free. I may not have attended much otherwise because it is billed as a training ground for gay activists leaders and I don't consider myself in that category. I would not have attended or volunteered if it wasn't held in my "backyard." Since it was nearby and free I managed to attend a few workshops of interest and the plenary sessions were quite good.

Those plenary sessions were when the whole conference of 1500 attendees and about 500 volunteers met together. There were several awards given out (one per session) and both the presenter and recipient took time to speak. Each session also had a keynote speaker and lesbian comedienne Kate Clinton served as Mistress of Ceremonies. Kate's current tour is titled "Hillarity Clinton."

Some of Clinton's jokes: "We now know the name of Senator Larry Craig's drag queen persona. It is 'Miss Construe.'" As a leatherman came up to present an award she said, "Don't worry, all you PETA people. His entire outfit is made from roadkill." "I've been named an honorary bear. That makes me a lesbruin."

The Thursday evening keynote speaker was Julian Bond of NAACP. He spoke plainly about his work in black civil rights, then clearly linked that effort with gay civil rights. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was more than 50 years ago, the Civil Rights Act and ML King's death was more than 40 years ago. The fate of blacks has changed significantly in that time (though problems persist). The time is now to extend the same protections to gays.

Matt Foreman of NGLTF (the organization sponsoring the conference) spoke on Friday afternoon. He showed how much the gay movement has accomplished since Stonewall and even what we've done in the last year. He talked at length about the ENDA fiasco a few months ago, pointing out what our "friends" the Democrats did. The only person who had actually counted votes for the trans-inclusive was Tammy Baldwin, who had counted accurately for the hate-crimes act (I think it was). Barney Frank said transgender protections were being removed to forestall GOP trickery, but no such tricks had been threatened. Why worry about your enemies when your friends will do the dirty work for them? Alas, to get ENDA passed we must still work with Frank and Pelosi.

Saturday's plenary speaker was Bishop Gene Robinson. His central message was that discrimination against us is mostly a religious issue and must be resolved through religious organizations. Thus, gay activist organizations must seek out gay-friendly churches and support them in their work. In the same way, gay-friendly churches should partner with gay organizations to avoid duplication of effort. Robinson also told us about a good definition of racism (and heterosexism, sexism, ageism, ableism and the rest) is not only someone who is a bigot, but also societal structures and rules that favor the bigot. A white man may treat a black man as a member of his own family, but if that white man isn't actively working to destroy the structures and rules that favor himself at the expense of the black man he is still racist.

As Robinson left the stage, Kate Clinton said, "Scientists have been searching for the gay gene. Look no more. He's right here."

I attended an all-day institute on Thursday titled, "Empowering and Working With People of Faith." The morning session included several speakers. The first was Rev. Steve Clapp of Christian Community. He and his organization has done extensive research into the "moveable middle." He explicitly excluded both churches who were gay-friendly and those who were on record as being anti-gay. A website of the books that resulted from his research is here.

Clapp said the issue with the churches in his study is they simply aren't aware of the plight and issues of gays and others who don't fit into gender norms. They have no idea what "LGBT" means. For example, when you ask these pastors if there are any gay kids in their youth groups 18% say yes. If you ask the kids (and not by talking to them with their parents standing there, but sending them a questionnaire [with parental permission] in which the youth fills out and mails in secret) then 100% of the youth groups have gay kids, averaging 7% of the males and 5% of the females. Now those pastors have incentive to provide a haven for the gay youth.

Clapp ended by saying many pastors are silent because they know the risks of speaking out. But these pastors don't know what they lose by not speaking out. He gave us the top 10 reasons (out of a great many) why the church needs LGBT members. Alas, I don't remember all 10 and haven't yet ordered the book. At the top of the list: If you don't welcome gay youth you will lose a large number of all youth when they become young adults. Outsiders see the gay issue as a litmus test. If a church will welcome gays it is a church that will welcome them too. Growth in a church isn't because of its theology. The congregations that are growing range from conservative to liberal. What they have in common is expansive hospitality and welcoming gays demonstrates that.

Another speaker was Rev. Debra Haffner, Director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality. We are sexual beings, she said. To demonstrate her point she said the first thing God says to man in Genesis 1 is "Be fruitful and multiply," meaning "have sex!" The same thing is said in Genesis 2, but without the command to use it for procreation, so "have fun having sex!" Much of Genesis 2 is about finding a suitable companion for Adam. God brings all the animals to Adam and Adam names them, but doesn't find the right companion. Don't worry about Adam and Steve. It could have been Adam and Mr. Ed! The sin isn't sex but sex exploitation.

The afternoon session was led by Rev. Tiffany Steinwert. She talked about how telling personal stories about an issue is a more effective way to discuss it. Bigotry is about heart and talking points are about head. Personal stories make the bridge and share values. We spent much of the time practicing telling stories that fit a particular talking point, expanding from me to us to contrasting now with a vision of the future. The simple plot of a story, usually 2 minutes long is to present a challenge, a choice to be made, and an outcome. Stories keep the conversation going, but we must have grace to allow the process to continue. There is a simple way to counteract the person who says, "But the Bible says…" Respond with: "I'm glad you said that. I love Scripture too. I'm sure we are each going to interpret it in our own way. Shall we take a look at the 32,174 other verses that talk about love, welcome, inclusion, and acceptance?"

I missed a Friday morning workshop. I had a rough night and morning came too soon.

The Friday afternoon workshop was on the LARA method of non-violent communication. When a person is challenged with verbal violence, "How could you possibly be advocating for gay rights? Don't you know what they do to kids?" the best way to prevent further verbal violence is to "Listen, Affirm, Respond, Add-on." Listening means trying to use the eyes, ears, and heart to discern the underlying feelings, values, principles, and life experiences that prompted the challenge. Affirm means to acknowledge with those feelings and values without agreeing, apologizing, or placating. It may be necessary to ask questions to sort through to the underlying issues and affirm them properly. An affirmation to the above statement might be, "I see you are a good parent concerned about the welfare of your children." The amount of affirmation depends on the depth of emotion in the other person. Then respond to the question or statement in a calm manner using terms of your affirmation. "I'm also concerned about the welfare of kids, including the gay kids." Once the basic answer is given, more could be supplied, if appropriate, for the benefit of the other person or for people who might be listening. What the other person will remember is not so much the words of the response but the feelings of resonance of the affirmation.

I spent most of Saturday in the academy session "Doing the Work of Spiritual Reclamation" led by Chantelle Fisher-Borne of OpenSource Leadership Strategies. We spent the day in exercises to talk about our reactions to the church's position on gays and how that has affected us. The session is geared towards training those who routinely deal with people who have been wounded by the church.

I did not attend Sunday sessions because I needed to be ready by noon to take part in an afternoon concert. I did have time to attend services at my own church.

The SNS had 6 steady members when I joined them last July. We had the responsibility to create a Tranquility Room (a quiet place to meditate during a busy conference), a names ceremony to remember those in the community who died over the last year, a Shabbat service, and an interfaith (not just interdenominational) service. Though we didn't spend much effort in planning, I believe pastors in the group also led an Ash Wednesday Service during the first day of the conference (which I didn't attend) and a Sunday morning service.

Turns out the few names I gathered for the names ceremony (which was all of 5 minutes) didn't get used. Even so, I was struck by the number of transgender murders in my list. The Shabbat service was turned over to a group from an area synagogue, which was a relief to us, because none of us are Jewish. Our Buddhist handled the Tranquility room, taking care to also make it interfaith. He did a good job decorating it and supplying a variety of spiritual items. It helped that it has a marvelous view, being on the 64th floor of the hotel.

That left us with the interfaith service. We settled on a theme of light, figuring that was universal. We proposed several readings about light from a wide variety of sources. I read 7 of these at various parts of the service. Our conference choir from local gay choruses alas only numbered 15. They sang such things as "This little light of mine" and "We are marching in the light of God." A 5 woman troupe of liturgical dancers did a fine job. We had a few songs for the congregation to sing and a couple dialogues between two readers and between readers and attendees. A powerpoint of photos didn't pan out because our leader managed to accidentally swap thumb drives with someone. We ended with something distinctly from Detroit, a Gospel choir.

Alas, that didn't work so well. The communication chain had at least two links in it and the choir director didn't get the memo that this was an interfaith service. She chose songs that seemed to stress the superiority of Christianity, which didn't sit well with the gay people who felt shunned by Christianity, though those who managed to stay Christian were thoroughly enjoying the choir's energy and message.

Yeah, this is a lot to read and I thank you if you made it this far. Writing this summary has helped me to process all I've learned. Now back to the rest of my life.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks. I wanted to attend, but had scheduled surgery instead.

    NancyP

    ReplyDelete