Where can a person who believes homosexuality is an aspect
of the sin nature’s color wheel find ways to align with the Human Rights
Campaign? You know the ones who staunchly fight for marriage equality or in
other words, same sex and transgender marriages? The cool thing is they do a
lot more than just fight for the right to have unions before the state on par
with heterosexual couples. We found just one small way to align with the more
activist leaning members of the Community.
One steering committee member of HRC stated with force at one earlier
meeting that there really is no overlap to what her crew (liberal secularists, I assume)
and mine (conservative religious people, I think she assumes me to be a member of) believed and lived.
Every year, the San Diego chapter of the Human Rights
Campaign partners with local youth service organizations that serve homeless
LGBTQIA youth in San Diego. Many of these kids by the way, likely come from
homes where their parents reject them and they are seeking value and acceptance
and ability to live the life they feel they are meant to live-by being
themselves. It wouldn’t be very unlikely that perhaps a majority of these kids
are from religious homes, their rejection which pushed them to abandon the benefits
of their family at the hope for the benefits of finding where they really
belong. In the intersection of social rejection and placelessness, HRC seeks to
help their own. They want to bring the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
people of the next generation up. But, before they bring them up, they meet
them where they are, even if that be wandering the streets. This is where we can and did seek to find
common ground with the Community.
From the garden of common purpose and concern, we hoped a
crop would form in the Community via a small partnership between our outreach
and HRC. A partnership where we also care for the poor, the rejected, and the
needy-people who happen to be members of the LGBTQIA tribe.
So, we gathered our resources and we asked others to gather
them with us. Together, we helped form over 700 bags filled with toiletries, particular articles of clothing to keep them warm, hygiene products to help them in
practical ways that shape their worth, and other stuff that each hopefully
showed them that someone cares. Here was our biggest contribution (see below for the images of the lip balms we procured). They let us
acknowledge that we too love them and believe God does.
a full label for the lip balms we donated
lip balm sample, one of 750
Paul exploited the intersections of culture for the
furthering of the message of a sacrificial King, with the desire for all people
and creation to live under the care of His reign (Acts 17:16-34). Since Jesus
and disciples who wrote the sacred text we adore as Scripture advocated for the
poor, we too can hopefully bring the light of the good news to the poor in the
LGBTQIA community. As Christ loved us, so do we love others—IN ACTION (Rom.
5:8).
The work of over 100 volunteers that served with HRC
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’”
(Matt. 25:40).
