Chapter 10 Mobilizing Gays not in the Abrahamic faiths
We need to make the defeat of homophobic Christianity the priority and mobilize allies where possible.
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Chapter 10 Mobilizing Gays not in the Abrahamic faiths
The Abrahamic faiths are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Abrahamic faiths all share the anti-Gay teachings of the Old Testament and for the Christians and Muslims, there are other additional anti-Gay teachings.
However, there are multiple other religions Gays of which Gays are members. There are Buddhist Gays, there are Hindu Gays, and other religions. There are Gays who describe themselves as spiritual. Others consider themselves, Pagans, witches, Druids, and other alternative religions. There are New Agers. There are likely a large group of Gays who are undecided. All these Gays with their different religious background are possible to be mobilized to fight homophobic Christianity. The members of these other religions are very aware of the hostility of Christianity towards them from Christian groups currently denouncing them and from history.
There are a lot of Gays which are undecided or not self-defined. They do know that they don’t like homophobic Christianity which is badgering them for not being Christians and for being Gay.
This effort to oppose homophobic Christianity is not an atheist effort. It is an effort open to everyone who wants to fight homophobic Christianity. Even Gay members of the Abrahamic faiths might have a role to play, though I don’t conceive how. Gay atheists seem like a group that would have a strong interest in fighting homophobic Christianity, but that isn’t confirmed. It might be other segments of the Gay community which will be most interested. The goal is to reach out to all groups that might want to fight homophobic Christianity.
The issues with mobilizing people in these other faiths is that in some cases they seem to be focused on escape. They seem not to be organized or think it is possible. The Gays in alternative religions seem to scarcely known to the general Gay community.
Religious organizations can be supporting. They provide a ready-made social group. They can have social activities. They provide people with a sense of place. They can also provide some emergency support when needed and further they can be a network to find jobs.
At this time for Gays, they either have a choice of a Christian religious community or individualist atheism. There needs to be other choices.
Having organized alternative religious Gay groups could provide institutional support for fighting homophobic Christianity and also be a path to find allies.
The author intends to put some effort to get Gays in these other religions mobilized. It doesn’t matter that the author is agnostic, the author doesn’t need to believe, others need to be believers, he just needs to assist and work on organizing.
At the same time the author wants to mobilize atheists, as a potential group which seems likely to want to fight homophobic Christianity.
The author isn’t dogmatic and the author’s goal is to bring down homophobic Christianity and to defend the Gay community.
Atheists who are hostile to religion, should reflect that their hostility is from dealing with the Abrahamic faiths, often personal experiences involving being the target of hostility by Abrahamic faiths, most often Christianity, or having to go through an emotional experience of leaving the faith they grew up in and which had put homophobic ideas in their head that they had to work through.
They don’t have to endorse non-Abrahamic faiths, but they should realize that they are very different from the Abrahamic faiths. Their hostility towards Christianity is justified, but not justified against faiths which don’t target Gays.
One thing the author has observed about these other groups, Pagan, witches, Druids, is that there isn’t a concept of having specifically Gay groups, and not program or idea of defending the Gay community. They are mostly individualistic who haven’t conceptualized being members of religious communities.
How these communities might be organized hasn’t been conceptualized yet. It is exploratory, but the author is investing time and money into this effort. It might be that an organization will be drawing on those who are called New Agers or other speculative metaphysical groups.
The author has visited the Taoist temple of the Gay God Tu’er in New Taipei City, Taiwan to see what they do. He plans on visiting and seeing what Gays do in Thailand. What organizing that might be done in the United States won’t be to duplicate or be branches of those faiths in the United States. The goal in visiting these religious groups is to learn about general methods by which they are able to function and mobilize and also what different possibilities for religious alternatives might be.
It maybe that organizing persons in alternative religions will be not drawing on existing groups, but draw on new persons who are not part of existing groups.
Even if the net results are a sort of combination New Age and Philosophical society it could provide an important social setting for Gays and also be the basis of opposing homophobic Christianity.
For those who might say think that there is a contradiction in the goals of this book, should understand there is not contradiction. The goal is to mobilize as many different forces and movements as possible to defeat homophobic Christianity.