| February 22, 2008 |
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Integrity Uganda calls upon the Mothers' Union to "Think About Our LGBTI Children" David Kato, Integrity Uganda
Integrity is "a witness of God's inclusive love to the Episcopal Church and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community"
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David Kato, Secretary of Integrity Uganda, left, with Steve Parelli, Executive Director of Other Sheep. Kampala, Uganda, August 19, 2007.
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The Children Are Free
by Rev. Jeff Miner and John Tylor Connoley
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THE BLUE BOOK  |
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Last July and August (2007), in Nairobi, Kenya, Other Sheep used The Blue Book with parents and friends of LGBT people. The Blue Book is a powerful tool for helping parents of LGBT children.
The Blue Book is a publication of the Presbyterian Church, Mt. Kisco, New York
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| Emmanuel Kamau (pictured below) is Other Sheep co-Coordinator for Africa. East Africa is part of his region. Jose Ortiz is also co-Coordinator and serves primarily the non-English speaking countries of Africa. |
emmanuelkamau@yahoo.co.uk | |
This news release was submitted to Other Sheep by an email dated February 21, 2008, from David Kato (pictured at left) of Integrity Uganda.
What follows is the first part of the document. To view the document in full click here.
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Note: The Mothers' Union is a Christian organization with more than 3.6 million members in 78 countries worldwide. The backbone of the Mothers' Union is its worldwide network of grassroots volunteers. Mothers' Union is known for its "Christian care for families." |
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Think About Our LGBTI Children
A plea to Mothers' Union from Integrity/UFI Uganda
Looking back over the years at the work that the Mothers' Union (MU) has done, we cannot help but acknowledge the great steps taken and achievements made by the MU to save lives and empowering the mothers of the world. The work of MU has transformed many mothers and empowered them to be effective teachers and positive role models. It is, however, on this note that we wish to focus on the MU's commitment - as a subscriber - to the United Nations declaration of making 2001-2010 a decade for a culture of peace, non-violence for the children of the world, and to request that the MU joins with us in addressing loopholes in the church's response and application of the said 2001-2010 declaration.
All children come into the world at the engineering of a mother and a father but they also come into the world as children of God. This therefore means that mothers, as God ordained nurturer, should remain sensitive and responsive to their children's hardships, regardless of the labels the world may place on some of the children or the choices the children themselves may make along life's way. Special focus goes to LGBTI children and the noted failure on the mothers' side to have dialogue with their LGBTI children. In this, we dare say, mothers have not taken as a divine appointment their responsibility towards their LGBTI children. Fear of a stained reputation for having a gay or lesbian child has made many mothers neglect their LGBTI children and stay silent when the children are driven out of the home, been victims of curative rape by relatives, dismissed from schools in the name of Religion, and refused a place in the house of the very God that created them the way they are and gave them life. This lack of reception, lack of a willingness to understand and to dialogue, particularly by mothers has forced LGBTI children - most of whom are young and still confused about the dynamics of their sexuality - into abject poverty because they are thrown out of homes, work places, school, and church in the name of Religion. They are social victims of curative rape by relatives and the mothers choose to keep quiet about it, they are denied access to medical care, health education, clean water and sanitation because they have no decent shelter, and they have been denied a share of their family inheritance and are estranged from a safe environment suitable for a child's survival as well as preservation of human dignity. This attitude towards LGBTI children has also been a major factor in fuelling HIV infection as behind the scenes, LGBTI children resort to wild and desperate life styles, which expose both them and non-LGBTI children and people at risk of contracting HIV and other life-threatening diseases.
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Two Christian Mothers - One Kenyan, the other American - each with a gay son
A personal remark about my mother from the Other Sheep Executive Director
I was born in 1953 in the United States and grew up in an evangelical home. My mother, herself a committed Christian and always extremely sheltered, never knew that homosexuality even existed until the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. I was in my 30s then and had known since the age of 13 (1966) that I was gay. When I came out to my parents in my 40s (1990s), they were unequipped to handle my disclosure. The only resource they fell back upon was certain texts from the Bible. I pled with them to avail themselves of such resources as PFLAG and materials similar to The Blue Book (see "The Blue Book" at left). They would not, or should I say, could not. They were, and still are, incapable of moving - even the slightest degree - in a direction of examining a different ("unbiblical") view point. To this day, they both refuse to speak with me and have completely cut me off from all contact. This was the mother who when I was a young person read the Bible to me on a daily basis.
Last July and August (2007), while ministering in Kenya and Uganda with Other Sheep, one of my greatest joys was when, over lunch, my partner and I spoke with the Christian mother of a distinguished gay Kenyan. The comfort and encouragement we brought her by answering her questions about gay men was an overwhelming experience. I was a continent and an ocean away from my own mother, ministering in Nairobi to this seeking mother of Kenya. I hope and pray for the day when my loving Christian mother might, like this dear Kenyan mother, open her heart to someone with the questions she too needs to ask about her gay son.
According to Miranda K. Hassett, in her recent book Anglican Communion in Crisis (c2007), the Anglican church in Uganda is essentially evangelical (pages 26-27). She writes: "The [Anglican] Church of Uganda was founded [in 1877] on evangelical theology . . . The evangelicalism of the nascent Church of Uganda was strengthened by the East African Revival of the 1930s and 1940s, which began in Rwanda and rapidly spread into Uganda . . . East African Revival spirituality [evangelicalism] has by now thoroughly permeated the Church of Uganda as well as the Rwandan church." David Kato's letter is a call to all mothers -- and to evangelical mothers not the least. To this day, it is still an impossible task for my American evangelical mother to see her gay son other than a "sodomite" condemned of God and therefore someone from whom she must separate. May the mothers of Uganda and all of East Africa learn to approach their LGBT children differently than my own mother by taking to heart the call David Kato gives in his letter to the Mothers' Union.
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 (Rev.*) Steve Parelli, MDivOther Sheep Executive Director
*Defrocked by a local Baptist congregation for entering into a same-sex relationship
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| Articles from the Other Sheep 2008 Winter Report:
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