Including LGBTQ Voices in Interfaith Work

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-stedman/including-lgbtq-voices-in-interfaith-work_b_3274143.html

Chris StedmanAuthor of 'Faitheist', Humanist Chaplain, Atheist and Interfaith Activist

Posted: 05/14/2013 2:22 pm

As an atheist and interfaith activist, much of my work focuses on advocating for the inclusion of nonreligious voices in interfaith dialogue. But a related -- and, for me, equally urgent -- push for inclusion can be found in efforts to welcome LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people into interfaith spaces. I am passionate about LGBTQ acceptance, and I am passionate about interfaith cooperation. In my eyes, these passions are not in tension; they are intimately connected.

In "Faitheist," I write about times that I have experienced exclusion and demonization for being an atheist, and also times I have been attacked for being queer. I included both in order to highlight the reality that fear of the "other" has frequently pushed me, and many others, to the margins of our society -- this includes atheists and agnostics, but also LGBTQ people, Muslims, Sikhs, women and many others. Interfaith work, which brings together people from diverse communities to better understand one another and build inter-community networks that advocate for the dignity of all people, must necessarily welcome all people.

I was reminded of this last month when I sat on a panel of LGBTQ authors who write about religion at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, alongside authors Jeff Chu and Aaron Hartzler. During the panel we were invited to reflect on and discuss the intersection of our queer identities and religion. Issues of power and privilege came up, and as we talked about the ways in which each of us had experienced discrimination because of our identities, I couldn't help but think of the important role interfaith dialogue and cooperation can and does play in challenging normative narratives -- especially the narrative that suggests we cannot be in community with one another despite holding deeply different views and maintaining diverse identities.

Relatedly, interfaith dialogue provides an opportunity to challenge commonly held stereotypes about different groups of people -- stereotypes that frequently serve to reinforce the narrative that we cannot find common ground, that serve as barriers to dialogue and collaboration between various communities. For example, there is a widely held idea that Catholics are necessarily anti-gay. But in 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute found that Catholics are actually more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than Americans overall, and that Catholic support of all rights for gays and lesbians is higher than support among the general public.

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