We pledge that we will never again be silent about the value of each and every life.
We pledge to communicate to our children and the children of the communities that God loves all of us. Without exception, we believe bullying and harassment, making fun of someone for perceived differences, and taunting and harming others is wrong. The Golden Rule is still the rule we want to live by.
We pledge to urge our churches, our individual parishes or offices, our schools and religious establishments to create safe spaces for each and every child of God, without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.
We pledge to be LGBT and straight people of faith standing together for the shared values of decency and civility, compassion and care in all interactions.
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A Grand Rapids Faith Coalition Against Bullying
On October 13, 2010 a petition denouncing bullying was signed by national church leaders across denominational lines: including Reformed Church in America, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Methodists, Unitarian Universalists, and other leaders within the National Council of Churches. What united these diverse faith leaders? The belief that God’s first message to all humanity is Love not Hate. What sparked the need to take a stand and make a statement was the recent and dramatic increase of teen suicides and hate crimes that have their origin in bullying. Those who committed suicide or suffered hate crimes were from varying faiths and races, they came from different regions of the nation. According to the petition and news reports, one thing was found in common, “they were perceived to be gay or lesbian [and] each in their own way faced bullying and harassment or struggled with messages of religion and culture that made them fear the consequences of being who they were.”
Our silence in the face of bullying against gays has given silent support to feed a fatal beast. Too often the silence of faith leaders suggests compliance with the hateful language, taunting, belittling and spiritual condemnation that leads a teen toward a spiral of depression toward suicide. Our silence also supports the bullies whose action can lead to death of those bullied and imprisonment for the bully. The sad fact is that many of those who “bully” believe they are not only justified, they believe they are supported in their ridicule and persecution of perceived gays or lesbians. The bullies usually have been allowed to breed their insults at school, houses of faith, and even at home in the bed of social myths, traditional prejudices, and religious agreements. Bullies whisper their taunts in the hallways, snicker at the odd kid in the classroom, exclude the undesirable boy in the play ground, tease the peculiar child on the bus and walk home.
We must stand up and speak for these kids, show them God’s love. We ask you to join us in supporting the petition of Clergy Against Bullying:
“We, as leaders of faith, write today to say we must hold ourselves accountable, and we must hold our colleagues in the ministry, accountable for the times, whether by our silence or our proclamations, our inaction or our action, we have fueled the kids of beliefs that make it possible for people to justify violence in the name of faith…. There is no excuse for inspiring or condoning violence against any of our human family. We may not all agree on what the Bible says or doesn’t say about sexuality, including homosexuality, but this we do agree on: The Bible says, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them.” Abiding in love—together—is the rule we must all preach, teach and seek to live by….The young people who took their lives a few weeks ago died because the voices of people who believe in the love of God for all the people of God were faint and few in the face of those who did the bullying, harassing and condemning. Today we write to say we will never again be silent about the value of each and every life.
To that end, we pledge to urge our churches, our individual parishes or offices, our schools and religious establishments to create a safe space for each and every child of God, without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. And we ask you to join us in that pledge.
Today we personally pledge to be LGBT and straight people of faith standing together for the shared values of decency and civility, compassion and care in all interactions. We ask you, our colleagues, to join us in this pledge. We want our children and the children of the communities we serve to grow up knowing that God loves all of us and that without exception, bullying and harassment, making fun of someone for perceived differences, and taunting and harming others is wrong. The Golden Rule is still the rule we want to live by.”
We ask you stand up and be heard in the name of God’s Love.
Rev. Todd Farley, PhD
Intentional Interim Senior Pastor
Second Congregational UCC of Grand Rapids
