The Gay Christian Network

The Gay Christian Network

The Gay Christian Network is an organization dedicated to equality for all sexual preferences in the Christian religion.  Their mission is captured in one short sentence, "Sharing Christ's light and love for all".  There are five key ways in which they do this: promoting spiritual growth, cultivating safe community, supporting family and friends, educating and encouraging the church, and engaging the wider LGBT community and the world.  The organization shares the same core beliefs as all Christian religions, but emphasizes the inclusion of members of the LGBT community, who some Christian sects discriminate against.  Within the Network, there are two main groups: those who believe in celibacy for homosexuals and those who believe God blesses same-sex relationships.  This divide is called "The Great Debate" as it is a focal separation point within the group of Christian LGBT supporters.  The Gay Christian Network holds a yearly conference and provides educational avenues on the subject of homosexuality and the church.  These avenues include films, books, DVDs, radio stations, and even a musical.  Overall, this website provides great insight into being a homosexual in the Christian community and offers support for those in this situation.

I found this site to have a very positive outlook on homosexuality in the church.  I like its short simple saying because it not only applies to homosexuality, but to anything else that people might discriminate against.  The Network basically believes that all people should be welcome in the church and that God loves us all no matter what our sexual orientation may be.  I believe this is a very helpful website with those in the Christian faith struggling with their sexuality.  The Gay Christian Network has many ways to support these people, including chat rooms and Youtube outreach.  I think this website can be very educational particularly because of its plethora of ways to provide information.  As I mentioned before, the website connects viewers to books, films, forums, a radio station, etc. related to homosexuality and Christianity.  Most interestingly, however, is the musical created by leaders within the Network.  The musical, "Straight to Heaven", was first presented at the 2007 annual conference and portrays serious messages in a lighter way, spoofing well-known musicals.  It has been seen almost 20,000 times on Youtube showing the effectiveness of the Network's employment of different educational methods.  I believe this is a great website for all members of the Christian community to educate themselves and provide support for LGBT believers in Christianity.

Revolutionary Changes in Opinions towards Homosexuality

Over the past thirty years, a revolution has occurred in public sentiment towards homosexuality.  In the British Social Attitudes survey, more than half the partakers, 56%, support same-sex marriage.  This is a dramatic change from 1988 when approximately two thirds of the British population believed same-sex relationships were "morally "wrong"", much less same-sex marriages.  Now only about 20% of the British populous shows opposition to same-sex relationships.  This rise in acceptance is even more remarkable knowing that in the 1980s opposition to homosexuality was growing.  A change has also occurred in the public's view of same-sex couples adopting children.  Now opinions are nearly evenly split whereas in the 1980's, about 90% of the population were in opposition to the idea.

As the article said, ""This may be the most dramatic shift of all" in the last thirty years".  Reading this article, I was astounding about how rapidly the public opinion on homosexuality has changed and what it suggests for the future.  While homosexuality is gaining acceptance, there is still a long road towards gay rights becoming commonplace.  Based on this article, I have hope that someday homosexuality will be completely accepted by society, but 20% is still a large part of the population.  However, beliefs and ways of thinking are such integral parts of society that a change this quickly is truly incredible.  For most people, the idea that homosexuals should be banned from any "responsible position in public life" is absurd.  It is shocking to think that only 30 years ago a substantial part of the British population, about 40%, held this view.  The public is taking great strides towards acceptance of homosexuality.  Even over the issue of adoption, where public sentiment is moving with the most relative torpor, 90% opposition to 48% opposition is a truly inspiring leap in open-mindedness.  Overall, this article gave me hope for equality between all sexual orientations one day.

Gay Marriage in the Eyes of Children

In this video, children ages 5-13 are exposed to videos of two gay couples getting engaged.  Most children are surprised and even shocked when they first discover that a man is proposing to another man.  When asked their opinions however, most children were perfectly fine with same sex couples.  One boy simply put it "they're gay, but that's okay".  Some of the kids did not even feel the need to address that a man was proposing to another man, but just wished someone would propose to them like that.  The consensus among the majority of the children said the video made them happy and did not see anything wrong with gay marriage.  Their lack of understanding did not come from members of the same sex falling in love.  What they did not understand is the discrimination against gays in the United States as well as other parts of the world.  For the majority, this issue is the essentially the same as the issue of race that America resolved years ago.

This video gave me hope for the future as these kids are members of the next generation that will run America.  Although the kids seemed to think gay marriage was a little weird at first, they quickly supported it.  Only one of the children remained opposed to the concept of homosexuality, but this young boy did not have a reason why.  The children supporting gay marriage however, had several sensible reasons to support their position.  The rest of the children saw homosexuality being the same issue as race: an issue of equality.  Those of darker skin had less rights than caucasians just as homosexuals are being denied the right of marriage in many states.  For nearly all the children, equality between gay and straight people just made sense.  Many times children have been the messengers of simple truths and I believe that is true in this case.  In the eyes of America's future, that gay marriage should be legalized is a simple truth.