Subject: A Soulforce Response to the Massacre at Columbine High School
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:58:48 EDT

From the News Service
of the Universal Fellowship of
Metropolitan Community Churches

LESSONS FROM LITTLETON
A Soulforce Response to the Massacre at Columbine High School   

by Dr. Mel White, UFMCC Minister of Justice
Author, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay And Christian In America
([email-masked]   WWW.SOULFORCE.ORG)

We will never know exactly why Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, turned 
their campus into a bloody war zone. But we can know for certain that the 
violence in their hearts was nurtured by the violence they suffered from the 
lips of their classmates.  

"We called them 'gay' and 'inbreeds,' explained Mike Smith, an athlete who 
knew both boys. Then he added sadly, "They finally fought back." Other campus 
jocks remember calling Eric and Dylan "faggot," "homo," and "queer" because 
"they showered together" or "were seen holding hands."  

The boy's sexual orientation is not the issue here. And long discussions 
about their "genetic predisposition to violence," about their "parent's 
abdication of responsibility," about gun controls, Marilyn Manson, violent 
movies, hate crime legislation or the NRA must not keep us from learning 
other important lessons from Littleton.

Violent Words Lead to Violent Actions
"Speech has power," writes Abraham Heschel, "and few realize that words do 
not fade.  What starts out as a sound ends in a deed."  

Once again we've discovered the hard way that violent words like "faggot," 
"homo," or "queer" (or "nigger," "wetback," and "kike") often (if not always) 
lead to violent actions. The bullies and jocks who survived the Columbine 
massacre will always wonder (or should always wonder) if their violent words 
pushed Eric and Dylan to this violent act.

There are pastors, priests, and televangelists who should also ask themselves 
what role their anti-homosexual campaigns played in this terrible drama. The 
religious leaders who use false and inflammatory rhetoric to raise money and 
mobilize volunteers share the blame.  Their toxic antigay words trickle down 
from pulpit and podium, telecast and fundraising appeal to poison the hearts 
and minds of the nation.

Violent Words are Violent Actions
Take it one step farther. Calling someone "faggot," "homo," or "queer" isn't 
simply an act that may lead to violence. It is an act of violence in and of 
itself. The bullies at Columbine High School are as guilty of acts of 
violence against Eric and Dylan as those two boys are guilty of acts of 
violence against their innocent classmates. 

We respond with grief and anger when we see Eric and Dylan's victims lying on 
the sidewalk soaked in blood. And we should. But the victims of psychological 
and spiritual violence, like Eric and Dylan, are seldom noticed, let alone 
mourned or defended.

Why do most homosexuals live and die in their closets without ever knowing 
life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness?  Why are gay teenagers seven times 
more likely to attempt suicide than their peers?  Why is our community ten 
times more likely to suffer from alcohol and drug abuse?  Why have Gary and I 
received tens of thousands of letters from closeted gays and lesbians asking 
"How can I be sure that God loves me, too?"

The answer is simple. Too many of our sisters and brothers are victims of 
psychological and spiritual violence.  Their beautiful gay souls have been 
killed or wounded by violent words just as those thirty-two students and one 
teacher were killed or wounded by violent acts.

When religious leaders say that homosexuality is a "sickness" and a "sin" 
they are committing acts of violence against innocent lesbian, gay, bisexual, 
and transgendered people.  When they say we are a "threat to family values," 
that we "abuse, recruit, and molest children," that "God doesn't love us as 
we are" they are wounding the very souls they want to heal.  Isn't it time we 
take a serious stand against their violent words, for our sake and for theirs?

Violence Is Not The Answer
Eric and Dylan tried to stop the violence against them by killing their 
enemies and then by killing themselves.  It is easy to say now that violence 
is not the answer. But even Mahatma Gandhi, this century's most articulate 
advocate of nonviolence, admits that responding to violence with violence is 
better than not responding at all.
  
"It is better to be violent if there is violence in our breasts," Gandhi 
writes, "than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence…There is 
hope for a violent man to be some day nonviolent, but there is none for a 
coward."
 
Our community has suffered patiently this outrageous flood of antigay 
rhetoric.  But our patience is beginning to look more like impotence or even 
cowardice.  We ridicule and rebuke them in sound bites and press releases.  
We stage one-day protests, sign petitions, and write letters.  But 
nonviolence offers us so much more.

When we get angry enough to kill, says Gandhi, we are ready to learn 
nonviolence.  Before one of our own wounded souls picks up an automatic 
pistol or makes a nail bomb, we need to rediscover the rules of effective 
social change as taught and practiced by Gandhi and King.  They called it 
"soul force." We need to learn and apply their principles of militant 
nonviolent resistance to Robertson, Falwell, Dobson and the others.

It may seem naïve to think that we could change the minds and hearts of 
Robertson, Dobson, Falwell and the others. Dr. King would disagree. "The 
nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor," 
he writes. "It first does something to the hearts and souls of those 
committed to it.  It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of 
strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally, it reaches the 
opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality." 

[Note: Dr. White is creating an interfaith, ecumenical network of Soulforce 
Friends committed to taking Truth to Virginia Beach, Lynchburg, Colorado 
Springs, Rome and the other primary sources of antigay rhetoric. For 
information about his complimentary eight-week email Journeys into Soulforce 
contact [email-masked]. Or simply stop by www.soulforce.org and sample the 
Soulforce Principles. If you aren't on-line, write Mel White at Soulforce, 
Inc., PO Box 4467, Laguna Beach, CA. 92652.] 

(END)

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:
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West Hollywood, CA  90069

Tel. (310) 360-8640
Fax: (310) 360-8680

E-mail: [email-masked]

website: http://www.ufmcc.com