LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: A personal moment of prayer for Joey Heath, a Master of Divinity student at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. There was a time it seemed very unlikely he would be where he is today, a time when he was praying for God to make him whole, make him so he wasn’t gay.
JOEY HEATH: At the time I believe that it was something I needed to be healed from, and so I would pray every day that God would just heal me of this, this evil part of me, and that this would be just removed and I would be cleansed and made whole again.
SEVERSON: Today, Joey says he feels whole, but he’s still gay and still facing the kind of condemnation he faced in his United Methodist church when he first came out.
HEATH: I was involved somewhat in the leadership of the campus ministry, and then my campus minister said I can no longer speak on behalf of the ministry because it’d be an endorsement of my lifestyle, which for me was devastating.
SEVERSON: Pastor Heidi Neumark says that condemnation has led to outright discrimination. She says too many churches have created an environment where it’s okay to bash gays or lesbians or bisexuals or transgenders, known collectively as LGBTs.
PASTOR HEIDI NEUMARK (Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan): Churches have played a huge role, probably the largest roll in fostering homophobia. The church encourages these young people to be viewed as less than human, dehumanized and even demonized, and it creates an atmosphere where it’s okay to be verbally abusive, be physically abusive. So these young people, many of them, suffer profoundly, physically, psychically, spiritually.
SEVERSON: During the day, Pastor Neumark runs a school for young children at her New York City church, which is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. At night she operates a shelter for LGBT kids, because she says since churches have been a big part of the problem, they should be part of the solution. Jonathan Sawyer, who sleeps in the church basement every night, represents an alarming statistic. Nationwide, 20 to 30 percent of homeless kids are LGBT. In New York City it is one in three, according to Zak Rittenhouse, who works in a homeless shelter for gay and straight youths.
Read more/video:http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/february-19-2010/churches-and-gay-youth/5722/
by Elizabeth Meyer, Ph.D. – September 30, 2010
Psychology Today
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/10/homophobia-suicide-wake-up-call-for.html
'We hope our tragedy will serve as a call for empathy': Parents of sex film student who killed himself break their silence – October 2, 2010
Mail Online
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-hope-our-tragedy-will-serve-as-call.html
Suicide - Gay Teenager - New Jersey Gov. Christie Says Rutgers Suicide 'Unspeakable Tragedy
ABC News
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/10/suicide-gay-teenager-new-jersey-gov.html
Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's final days before suicide emerge in online posts
by Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/tyler_clementis_death_is_mourn.html
Private Moment Made Public, Then a Fatal Jump
By Lisa W. Foderaro, September 29, 2010
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30suicide.html
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/10/unidentified-internalized-homophobia.html
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse “cover-ups” ordered by Benedict XVI to avoid public outrage & criminal charges - falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?
No “Checks and Balances”
A major problem with the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church is that there are no “checks and balances.” When the necessary “checks and balances” are not in place to protect any organization, it leaves “not making waves” the rule that governs the hierarchy and opens the way to many devastating mistakes harmful to everyone and allows corruption to grow.
The following statements are harsh statements, but unfortunately they are heavily documented. (1) Benedict XVI and his hierarchy failed to protect children from child sexual abuse for decades. (2) They mistreated and intimidated the victims and their families who came to report the child sexual abuse, in order to cover up publicity of any child sexual abuse. (3) They failed to protect children by repeatedly reassigning the child sexual abusers to assignments where children would be present. (4) When the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children became public, globally, in 2002 they shifted the blame wrongfully onto gay priests.
(5) By falsely, against known research to the contrary, blaming gay priests they implicated the entire LGBT community and how they are fighting against Marriage Equality. When the scientific facts known for decades about human sexuality have been discounted with no substantiated facts given to explain why, it causes many questions whether Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s fight against Marriage Equality is more a fight to maintained the cover-up of the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children? Benedict XVI and his hierarchy need to clearly offer substantiated reasons why they are against Marriage Equality. This statement needs to be spelled out in great detail and follow Pope John Paul II’s test of truth of not separating science and religion. (6) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous public propaganda against homosexuality encourages public intolerance towards LGBTQ&I adults and children. They continue to do this even though this summer 2 major Christian denominations approved LGBT singled and partnered people for all forms of ordained ministries. (7) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous promulgation of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings that are harmful to children in their early childhood psychological developmental years, harm that is crippling throughout their lives. They have continued this even after the beginning of the year, 2009, the Family Acceptance Project research studies had shown the negative effects caused to youths, when their sexual orientation is not accepted, having health problems, suicidal ideation, etc. They ignore all the major medical, psychiatric, psychological and social workers national and international professional associations regarding their findings regarding human sexuality and sexual orientation. WHEN DO WE START PROTECTING CHILDREN?!?!
Written by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/03/rc-hierarchy-child-sexual-abuse-cover_21.html
John Nienstedt's anti-gay marriage crusade draws another protest
by Hart Van Denburg,
September 29, 2010 - Minneapolis City Pages
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/john-nienstedts-anti-gay-marriage.html
by Geoffrey R. Stone - Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oped-0808-stone-20100808,0,2223308.story
Geoffrey R. Stone is a law professor at the University of Chicago.
Same-Sex Marriage: A Selective Bibliography of the Legal Literature
by Paul Axel-Lute
Rutgers School of Law–Newark
http://law-library.rutgers.edu/SSM.html
By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/threats-silence-harm-and-disposal-of_18.html
Gay Marriage - WITCH HUNTS ->
The Crucible (1996) -> McCarthyism 1940’s -1950’s, -> Benedict XVI 2005 http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/witch-hurts-crucible-1996-mccarthyism.html
Gay Marriage & Galileo: Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-galileo-pope-described-as.html Prayers for Bobby (2009) (TV)
…Prayers for Bobby is the amazing true story of a mother torn between her loyalties, challenged by her faith, and moved by a tragedy that would change her life, and the lives of others, forever.
Bobby Griffith (Ryan Kelly, Smallville) was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of much less understood Bobby finally came out to his family. Despite the tentative support of his father, two sisters, and older brother, Bobby's mother, Mary (three time Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Sigourney Weaver, Avatar, Working Girl), turned to the fundamentalist teachings of her church to rescue her son from what she felt was an irredeemable sin. As Mary came closer to the realization that Bobby could not be "healed," she rejected him, denying him a mother's unconditional love, and driving her favorite son to suicide. 
Anguished over Bobby's death, Mary finds little solace in her son's poignant diaries, revelations of a troubled boy fighting for the love of his mother and God. Finding it difficult to reconcile her feelings of guilt, her conflicted emotions over religious teachings, and her struggles with understanding her son's orientation, Mary finally, and unexpectedly, reaches out to the gay community as a source of inspiration and consolation. For Mary Griffith, it's the beginning of a long and emotional journey that extended beyond acceptance to her viable role a vocal advocate for gay and lesbian youth. In 1996, twelve years after Bobby's death, she was invited to address the Congress of the United States, establishing her as a major force in the fight for human rights.'
Read more:http://www.prayersforbobby.com/synopsis.php
Watch video clip:
http://www.prayersforbobby.com/
“Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.”
Erik Erikson
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