The country has been wracked with grief since Sunday, when an ISIS-affiliated gunman stormed a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and murdered 49 people with a hail of bullets. Among those mourning the deaths are a number of faith communities, with clergy and laypeople from across the religious spectrum participating in vigils for the fallen in cities all over the U.S.
But coupled with the the chorus of prayers is a deep level of soul-searching among traditionally conservative faith leaders, as several are now speaking out against the role homophobia played in inspiring the gunman — and even examining the role religious communities play in marginalizing LGBT people.
On Monday, the Catholic Bishop of St. Petersburg, Florida Robert Lynch posted an unusually frank blog post in response to the shooting. He expressed his shock at the massacre and acknowledged that a root cause was anti-LGBT sentiment embedded in many faith communities — including the Catholic Church.
Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people.
“…Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people,” he wrote. “Attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence. Those women and men who were mowed down early yesterday morning were all made in the image and likeness of God. We teach that. We should believe that. We must stand for that … Singling out people for victimization because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their nationality must be offensive to God’s ears. It has to stop also.”
The statement was atypical for its bold admission of the Catholic Church’s role in propagating anti-gay positions, which includes firing church workers and schoolteachers for being openly gay and refusing to change the Catechism’s assertion that “homosexual tendencies” are “objectively disordered.”
But while the Vatican’s response to the shooting didn’t even acknowledge that the victims were gay, a statement from Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich — who was appointed by Pope Francis — did, calling the dead “gay and lesbian brothers and sisters” and urging “in response to intolerance, tolerance.” San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, another Francis appointee, was even more forthright in his admission that the Church needs to do more to combat homophobia, saying, “This tragedy is a call for us as Catholics to combat ever more vigorously the anti-gay prejudice which exists in our Catholic community and in our country.”
This somber shift into self-examination was also evident in conservative evangelical circles as well, where leaders have long been vocal opponents of LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage. Writing for the Religion News Service, evangelical theologian David Gushee — who publicly embraced an LGBT-affirming position in 2014 — urged his fellow conservative Christians to join him in rejecting anti-LGBT theology. His editorial focused on reports that the gunman had frequented the nightclub he terrorized, and suggested that the impetus for the shooting might have been religiously inspired self-hatred.
It might end up making the motivation of the horrifying Orlando massacre look more like: I want you. God says I can’t want you. So I must kill you.
“It might end up making the motivation of the horrifying Orlando massacre look more like: I want you. God says I can’t want you. So I must kill you,” he wrote. “So to America’s traditionalist religious leaders, I again ask: Is the consistent, acute, totally predictable psychological distress caused to these young adults by your understanding of God’s moral rules a relevant consideration for your teaching and pastoring? In light of this suffering and what is now known about human sexuality, do you still believe that this is what the God you are trying to serve really requires? Might it be that some aspects of your understanding of sexual ethics are revisable religious traditions rather than the eternal will of God?”
Muslim communities — who are more supportive of same-sex marriage than white evangelicals but still oppose it overall — are also taking a deeper look at their relationship to LGBT people in the aftermath of Orlando. On Tuesday, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, published an impassioned article on Time.com arguing that “homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and Islamophobia are all interconnected systems of oppression.” The piece did not acknowledge the vocal community of queer Muslims who continue to demand recognition among their religious brethren, but did insist that the LGBT and Islamic communities share a goal of liberation.
“For years, the LGBTQIA community stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Muslim community as we have faced hate crimes, bigotry, marginalization and discrimination,” Awad wrote. “Today, we stand firmly and resolutely to declare that this support goes both ways; that we are there for all communities who are the victims of violence and persecution in our country.”
“The liberation of the American Muslim community is inextricably linked with the liberation of all minority groups — Black, Latino, Gay, Jewish, Trans and every other community that has faced discrimination and oppression in this country. We cannot fight injustice against some groups, and not against others,” he added.
Is it possible that we United Methodists with such a negative attitude and position against LGBTQI persons contribute to such a crime?
Not all faith leaders who issued prayers for the victims are as eager to claim culpability for America’s ongoing struggle with homophobia, of course. Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, published a heartfelt call for LGBT people and evangelicals to “weep together,” but did not mention any anti-LGBT bigotry within his own tradition and noted “We don’t have to agree on the meaning of marriage and sexuality.” Some, such as ThinkProgress’ own Zack Ford, found such calls offensive and disingenuous, noting that Moore and others such as the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson are effectively doubling down on anti-LGBT positions, and that “sympathy without affirmation rings hollow; it is unworthy of our gratitude.”
Yet the attack does seem to be having an impact on religious groups mired in indecision over LGBT rights, reawakening conversations that helped LGBT advocates push several Christian denominations to shift their positions on sexuality in recent years. The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ (UCC) and others now ordain LGBT people and officiate same-sex weddings, and the UCC even filed the lawsuit that ultimately legalized marriage equality in North Carolina.
While liberal-leaning faith traditions such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Union for Reform Judaism were predictably quick to reaffirm their commitment to combating anti-LGBT bigotry in the wake of the disaster, others such as the United Methodist Church (UMC) — which is currently locked in a heated debate over same-sex marriage and LGBT ordination — struggled to muster a response. Shortly after the attack, UMC Bishop Minerva Carcaño published a reflection asking her fellow Methodists to meditate on whether or not their own tradition was somehow complicit, however distantly, in the Orlando terror attack.
“Is it possible that we United Methodists with such a negative attitude and position against LGBTQI persons contribute to such a crime?” she wrote. “When we say that those who are of a homosexual gender identity are living lives that are incompatible with Christian teaching … are we not contributing to the kind of thinking that promotes doing harm to these our brothers and sisters, our children, the sacred children of God?”
When asked about the church’s culpability, UMC Council of Bishops president Bruce Ough initially called the assertion “overreach,” but admitted that the denomination must work to avoid adding fire to anti-LGBT discussions.
“I certainly understand the pain and frustration, and I believe much of the pain and frustration is heightened when The United Methodist Church falls silent or appears to be compliant in some way with the narrative that seems to be going on in our country,” Ought said. “There’s a narrative of violence and fear and anger and bigotry that appears to be resonating with a large number of people in our country right now. I think it does create a certain atmosphere.”