I mean… He’s not wrong. I grew up in a fairly relaxed Christian church, where the emphasis was on the part of the Bible where Jesus says “don’t be a douchebag,” and “wait for them to die” was something they actually did.
For context, it wasn’t about anything bad. When I was a kid, the church kept voting on if they wanted to be Open & Affirming (basically just taking an official positive stance on lgbtq folks). The church was already lower case open and affirming - the minister’s son was gay, as was the organist, and everyone was cool with it - but they needed a majority vote to become upper case Open & Affirming. Every year, one bigoted old lady who only came to church on Christmas and Easter would get all of her friends to vote against it, and every year it would get voted down.
The organist got tired of it, and he left. The next year, the minister went too. The year after that, when it got voted down, an old man near the front stood up and called out that he wanted to move to vote on tabling the issue for ten years. His wife quickly seconded, and the council held the vote… Overwhelming yes.
For the next decade, the lgbtq crowd in the congregation actually slowly grew: the church’s official stance was always quietly avoided, and the old lady was never there to make them feel unwelcome… Speaking of whom, her poorly-attended funeral was held about eight years later, and her friends stopped coming to the annual meetings.
When the issue of becoming Open & Affirming was raised again, it passed by a wide margin.
Sorry if I was unclear - he moved to not hold a vote on whether we should become Open & Affirming for ten years, and the vote on that passed.
By tabling it for ten years, they avoided having to put “ALSO, STILL NOT OFFICIALLY COOL WITH GAY PEOPLE” in the annual report every year. No matter how nice and supportive folks actually were, having to reiterate that we weren’t Open & Affirming made us seem… Well, Closed & Disparaging, like the Catholics down the street.
I actually asked the guy about it a few years later, when I was old enough to actually pay attention to the annual meetings - he said he was pretty sure that the old lady didn’t have ten more years left, and he wanted to make sure that it passed the next time that it was voted on.
I mean… He’s not wrong. I grew up in a fairly relaxed Christian church, where the emphasis was on the part of the Bible where Jesus says “don’t be a douchebag,” and “wait for them to die” was something they actually did.
For context, it wasn’t about anything bad. When I was a kid, the church kept voting on if they wanted to be Open & Affirming (basically just taking an official positive stance on lgbtq folks). The church was already lower case open and affirming - the minister’s son was gay, as was the organist, and everyone was cool with it - but they needed a majority vote to become upper case Open & Affirming. Every year, one bigoted old lady who only came to church on Christmas and Easter would get all of her friends to vote against it, and every year it would get voted down.
The organist got tired of it, and he left. The next year, the minister went too. The year after that, when it got voted down, an old man near the front stood up and called out that he wanted to move to vote on tabling the issue for ten years. His wife quickly seconded, and the council held the vote… Overwhelming yes.
For the next decade, the lgbtq crowd in the congregation actually slowly grew: the church’s official stance was always quietly avoided, and the old lady was never there to make them feel unwelcome… Speaking of whom, her poorly-attended funeral was held about eight years later, and her friends stopped coming to the annual meetings.
When the issue of becoming Open & Affirming was raised again, it passed by a wide margin.
Why was it supported for 10 years but not 1 year?
Sorry if I was unclear - he moved to not hold a vote on whether we should become Open & Affirming for ten years, and the vote on that passed.
By tabling it for ten years, they avoided having to put “ALSO, STILL NOT OFFICIALLY COOL WITH GAY PEOPLE” in the annual report every year. No matter how nice and supportive folks actually were, having to reiterate that we weren’t Open & Affirming made us seem… Well, Closed & Disparaging, like the Catholics down the street.
I actually asked the guy about it a few years later, when I was old enough to actually pay attention to the annual meetings - he said he was pretty sure that the old lady didn’t have ten more years left, and he wanted to make sure that it passed the next time that it was voted on.