Norovirus isn’t the only thing that spreads. Abuse does too. Abusive parents all too often teach their children abusive behavior. Abusive workplace supervisors all too often lead to toxic workplace environments. And abusive clergy invariably lead to toxic churches.
Doubt it?
Attached is a message to me from a twenty-something in the parish. Her family’s well known at Grace. In fact her mother served as a senior lay leader in the parish. Yet in the attached message to me, this church member urges me to commit suicide.
Where did she learn to talk to another human being like that? My bet is at home and at church. People aren’t born hating others. It’s something they learn. And if she didn’t learn it at church, at a minimum church should be a place where this simply feels wrong. Church should be a place where people know it’s wrong to hate.
There’s also the issue of her calling me a “stalker.” If blogging, petitioning, leafleting and otherwise working for positive change makes me a stalker, then all of Change.org is guilty of stalking.
Her crude handle also says something about her and Grace Episcopal Church. This sort of homophobia is just ugly. The fact that Bishop Goff, the diocese, and the parish vestry have not repudiated this sort of hatred is shocking and appalling.
Speech like this is hate speech, pure and simple. It has no place at home. It has no place in church. It has no place in society.
If you agree that hate is wrong, please share this petition. Or chip in a few dollars and help spread the word.
Church should be the one place free from hate. But Grace Episcopal Alexandria is in court, even as we speak, trying to defend this sort of conduct, including former rector Bob Malm’s perjury.
Join me in telling Grace Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia that hate has no home here.
#nohate #justiceformom #episcopal