Acceptance and Reconciliation: Two very different acts

At last weekend's Chicago Gay Pride Parade, a friend of mine brought a group of people to stand in the crowd in t-shirts that said quite simply "I'm Sorry". The group also had signs, one of which said "I used to be a Bible-banging Homophobe - Sorry". This friend, Andrew Marin (Founder of The Marin Foundation and author of the book "Love is an Orientation") has been doing some amazing work in the conservative/evangelical community over the past decade, growing in his ministry and using his life to build bridges. Andrew has a growing network of people who look at the movement of gay rights at this point not as a series of marches and protests, or as a campaign of tolerance and acceptance, but as a work of reconciliation and forgiveness. Here is a wonderful posting about the spirit of this work.

I have increasingly felt that the work of reconciliation is right up the alley of Friends. As Peacemakers, reconciliation and forgiveness are vital to healing wounds so that we can move forward. It is a definite work of faith and heart. Too often, however, I think we get stuck on tolerance and acceptance, and it creates blindspots. Too often I have encountered Friends who have no idea that there has been a fairly dramatic change in the attitudes of evangelicals and conservatives with regards to the glbt community. My own sense is that this is because, in our desire to be accepting of all people, we often falsely believe that our acceptance alone is enough to bring healing. This is not so. And as cycles of violence tend to repeat themselves, we may be standing at a juncture where we Friends are perpetuating the cycles by not recognizing this. If we do not recognize that there are people like Andrew out there (and there are many), then we miss an opportunity to be a part of the reconciliation process. In doing so, we may also be falsely casting aspersions on people who are more accepting of the glbt-community than we know, and for this, at some point, we also will have to give apologies.

What we cannot do is hide behind our walls and claim that we will only change our beliefs about "Christians" and the gay community when we see it. We have to travel outside our comfort zones - as Andrew has done - with eyes wide open and deep love in our hearts. It is out there and has been for many years. We have to stop asking for the changes, but instead asking ourselves why we continue to not see what is very much there?