Maybe you havent heard it yet but theres a lot of talk about charging Leelah Alcorns parents for murder or, at the very least, with something. I know there was a time when I would have been ready to charge my televangelist grandparents as well for their part in my gay uncles death. No, they didnt support him and no, they didnt help him go to rehab when he asked and yes, they denied his identity even though, by one account, hed told them even in high school he was gay. But, after a few years reflection, I realized that I was trying my family in the courtroom of my heart for all of Christianitys anti-LGBT teachings. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish woman sent to report on a trial held in Israel for a low-level Nazi official, came back and wrote a report that brought death threats on her and almost cost her her job; in that report she said that On trial are his deeds, not the suffering of the Jews, not the German people or mankind, not even anti-Semitism and racism. In the same way, we cant put Leelah Alcorns parents on trial for the sins of an entire community. Its the evangelical community that provides the ammunition when someone like Leelah dies. Its the leaders, not the parents, who are at fault. Leelahs parents, like my grandparents, were simply broken people living in a community that offered no real help, that STILL offers no real help for parents with LGBT teens. Maybe they were ignorant, shortsighted, maybe even cruel, but, last I checked, that describes all of us. Lets continue to push Leelahs community - conservative Christians - to find a better way to love LGBT teens and the parents of LGBT teens who live in their own kind of closet of shame and fear - not just because its the right thing to do but because its the only thing that will help future Leelahs. There will always be conservative Christians, at least in our lifetime, and they will continue having children. Given those two facts, helping them better understand their children is a much more effective way to go than charging them with crimes on account of individual ignorance. Lets charge the community, and press it, and prod it, and do what we can to open doors and continue the conversation with kids like Leelah in mind. To me, thats the best way to make any sense out of her tragic death.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 22:04:49 +0000
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