Another Straight Ally "Comes Out"

Betty Greene Salwak has been married to her husband for 30 years, is a Sunday School cirriculum director, and wrote a guest post for The Bilerico Project taking up the cause of GLBT equality. Here's an excerpt of her story:

Just a few short years ago. I came to realize that it was time for me to step up and stand against what I knew was a gross injustice. I was seeing people who claimed to be Christians spewing hateful invective in the name of God against people who were gay. Those malevolent tirades are far and away the loudest shouts being heard by the LGBT community. The only other voice nearly as loud says there is no God.

Those people have nothing to do with the loving God I know, the One whose grace and unconditional love is for all people, just as they are, just as he made them to be. Unfortunately, the voices with that message have been a mere whisper in the wind. It was time to stand and be heard. But how could I get anyone to heed me? I had a lot to learn.

I have learned of the anguish of rejection and the stinging betrayal experienced by those raised in churches which call them "objectively disordered," sinners, even abominations. I've read far too many times of self-destructiveness and even suicides by young people who could not reconcile their faith with the person God made them to be. This has to stop.

I am convinced that the vast majority of straight Christians are ignorant of the terrible impact of their silence, that they would speak up about their support if they knew it would literally save lives. I am doing everything in my power to tell them that this is the time. It is my fervent hope that the civil victory that is imminent will eventually be shared by most churches during my lifetime.

Ignorance is the most effective weapon of the Christian right-wing that seeks to block GLBT equality. Knowledge and understanding is like kryptonite to their ignorance. That's where straight allies come in. I'm glad to be working for the same cause as someone like Betty Greene Salwak.

You can read the rest of her Bilerico Project essay here.