Pride Month is Over

Pride Month is really complicated for me.

I’ve got very close friends and family members who are passionate protectors of LGBTQ+ rights, and I have friends and family members who are cruel in the way they talk about them, and everyone in between.

I am here in the middle, a Catholic, and therefore not supposed to believe in gay marriage, allowed to believe in gay people’s goodness, but living in a Church that does not treat them like they are people created with inherent goodness often enough. Still, I long to see them treated with kindness, understood for their desire to love, and honestly, I am in obedience to the Church but I long for the Church to find a way to accept at least gay marriages that are out of a longing to be together-forever-partners. I know the arguments against it, and I make them to those who don’t agree, but always with a side of, something here isn’t right. These broken hearts, condescending words, and suicides are not what God would want, and I know the beauty of marriage between a man and a woman, but would He want them to not experience love at all because they aren’t experiencing it in this way?

I envision this different way of Christians engaging with PRIDE month, which generally gets me treated kind of weird, and shines through the Idealist in me. I have this vision of Christians, priests, nuns, pastors, lay missionaries making floats for PRIDE parades, praying with and for those who are suffering.

I have this vision of us crusading for their rights and protections, while being honest about what the Church teaches, and fierce about the fact that that does not mean these people are less than anyone else. I dream of something more than just tolerating them as people but embracing them and understanding them and their gifts and that they are here for a reason with something to offer, and we are called to love them as we would wish to be loved.

Anyway, I post this to say to Christians and Catholics, Pride month is over. It will all settle down for a bit now, but maybe this time, try to take some time to figure out how you can support these people, even if you believe they are sinners “hate the sin, love the sinner.” They are hurting and wounded, please, try to find new ways to love them.

For those who are LGBTQ+ and have suffered or are suffering because of the Church or the people in it, I am so deeply sorry. God loves you with a deep and passionate love and He wants to be close with you in the most radical and powerful way you can imagine, please know that where you have been hurt He will heal. He promised in Revelation “He will wipe every tear from their eyes,” and if you ever need a person to wipe your tears away in the meantime, I am here. I love you.

Love.

Me