Albany Via Media

December 17, 2011

To the Editor:

I received the Bishop's Christmas Appeal Letter and read through the parts that talked about counseling and retreats, and I was heartsick to think of it. The Bishop is on record opposing gay marriage. I have been given to understand he also believes in ‘pray away the gay.”

For centuries gays have tried to blend in with the rest of society by trying to live a ‘hetero’ life. The result is devastating to everyone that marriage touches. Spouses feel there's something wrong with them — their attempts at intimacy are rebuffed and they feel unloved. Children see there's something different about their parents. Families and friends of the couple know there's something missing, and it hurts them to see people they care about so unhappy. The choice is a life of quiet desperation, marital infidelity, or divorce. Parents have disappeared from their children's lives completely, thinking they are better off without the stigma attached to being the child of a gay, but that results in making the child feel unlovable and scarred for life.

The damage done to spouses and children from a faux marriage is long lasting. I could never, in good conscience, support anyone who promotes ‘curing’ gayness through any means. You can't ‘cure’ gay people. They aren't sick. They're hurt by the way Society sees them. Cure Society.

Promote full acceptance of gays as vital, important members of Society just as God made them. So long as there is a bishop in Albany who does not fully accept gays and does not offer a generous pastoral response to gay people in his diocese, I will not only refuse to send a check for the Christmas Appeal, but I've also tied up my donations to my church so none of it goes to the Diocese. If some kind of canon is passed that would make it impossible to stop any of my money from getting to the Diocese through my parish, I will leave the diocese altogether.

Silence is no answer, so I'm sending this out for whomever wants to read it and asking them to copy it and send it to the Diocese instead of a check; or write your own refusal, stating why. Those of us who favor full inclusion of gays in Episcopal Church life must stand up and be counted.

Kathy Baldwin Keenan
Straight and for Marriage Rights