Reblog: Justin Lee

There have been a few ripples in the blogosphere (once again) over gay Catholics discussing their orientation openly, since Fr. Gary Meier of the Archdiocese of St. Louis came out of the closet. This is something of a pet peeve of mine, as I've often mentioned before, because of the lack of intelligent sympathy with which most Christians approach the issue -- not that most of the Christians I've ever known intend to be jerks, but that they are trying to do too many things at once: show love to people (uh, usually), convert non-Christians, win a kulturkampf, practice chastity themselves, and maintain orthodoxy. Combine that with a history of bad blood and with not understanding the experiences of LGBT people from within, and you have a dangerous exposure to FIMS (Foot-In-Mouth Syndrome).

Justin Lee, author of the excellent book Torn and founder of the Gay Christian Network, wrote this essay recently when Jason Collins came out, and it addresses certain of the problems in the dialogue between Christianity at large and LGBT folks.