Why We Need Pride Month

A good reason to celebrate Pride Month is that it makes the religious fundamentalists and social conservatives uncomfortable. Spewing their hatred and judgment, they try to out-shout the out and proud people who march in parades…and they fail. It’s a beautiful thing.

The best reason to celebrate Pride Month is because it is all about hope. It is a witness to LGBTQ persons, especially youth who are fed hatred and bigotry instead of love and acceptance. Consider these chilling facts:

• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24 (Hedegaard, Curtin, and Warner, 2018)—and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth are at significantly increased risk.
• LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers (Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al. 2020).
• The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth (13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the US—and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.
• The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ youth Mental Health found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
• Data show that bisexual youth report higher rates of depressed mood, bullying, sexual assault and physical harm.
• LGBTQ youth of color reported higher rates of attempting suicide than their white peers in the last year (12% white youth, 21% of Native/Indigenous youth, 20% of Middle Eastern/Northern African youth, 19% of black youth, 17% of multiracial youth, 16% of Latinx youth, and 12% of Asian/Pacific Islander youth).
• Black transgender and nonbinary youth report disproportionate rates of suicide risk—with 59% seriously considering suicide and more than 1 in 4 (26) attempting suicide in the last year.

These statistics are from the Trevor Project website. The Trevor Project provides crisis services, advocacy, research public education, and TrevorSpace (a safe international community)

If this has not captured your attention, consider this. Much of what is represented in these statistics is wrapped up in a distorted theology of who God is and what God is about. LGBTQ youth and adults are barraged by the media with messages that God hates them, they are condemned to hell, they must repent, and the like. Every day children are cast out of their homes because their parents have internalized a message of hate about LGBTQ individuals. Research shows that LGBTQ are 120% more likely to experience homelessness and that up to 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ.

To all the Open and Affirming, Welcoming and Affirming, Reconciling Congregations and faithful allies of the LGBTQ community…it takes more than a rainbow flag flying over the front door to get the message of God’s love across to those who have been beaten over the head with a bible by people trying to pray the gay away.

Being a gay friendly community asks something of us. It requires risk. The vast majority of Open and Affirming congregations I encounter in the UCC proudly fly their rainbow flags and proclaim that all are welcome. Their hearts are in the right place, and I celebrate the steps they have taken to be an inclusive community. More, however, is needed.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage for someone who has been traumatized by religion to walk in the door of a church. I don’t care how many rainbow flags festoon the building. I have heard too many stories of members of the LGBTQ community visiting an “open” church only to have no one talk to them, give them anything but a perfunctory welcome, and perhaps stare at their non-conforming attire. Of course we do that with straight people too, so it’s nothing new. But the damage done to someone who has mustered all their courage to walk in the door  is devastating.

What is most tragic, though, is that the heart of the message is never delivered or received. That message is the radical, inclusive, all embracing, joyous love of God who celebrates each and every person just as they are. What is never communicated is that they are truly welcome because this God we worship throws the door open wide to all who hunger and seek, and to all who need healing. The very heart of God is opened with the front door of the church to embrace everyone who walks in the door. The God we worship is a place where one can “unlearn” the hateful, distorted theology they learned that judged and rejected them.

We need Pride Month and we need people of faith to march in gay parades with signs that advertise their church. Straight people need to show they are allies to the gay community. Newspaper editorials and articles are needed to show a loving Christianity that is trying to drown out the voices of hate that are thinly veiled in a distorted view of what faith.

If you’re going to hang a rainbow flag, be prepared to live a rainbow life. Otherwise, don’t bother. The damage you reinforce will be even harder to unlearn.