There is nothing wrong with gay people having proper and justified self-respect. Gay pride is when gay people have proper, reasonable and justified self-respect. Instead of working closely together to ensure their mutual human rights are respected, many Christians actively work to keep gay people from having the same rights other members of society enjoy.Ī good working definition of pride is proper, reasonable and justified self-respect. Some Christians do not understand how much they have in common with the gay community. Unfortunately, discrimination and persecution of Christians and gay people continues today. Both Christianity and the gay community share a history of discrimination and persecution. The civil authorities were persecuting people for being Christian. During the early years of the Christian church, Christians were put in prison and killed for their faith.
A series of informative interviews about the Stonewall protest and the gay rights movement can be found on the National Public Radio web site.Ĭhristians who know church history can identify with persecution. You can read a little about the history of the gay pride parades at the About and the InfoPlease web sites.
The gay pride parades started as an effort of frustrated people within the queer community to end discrimination and violence against gay people. This event sparked the start of public protests to end persecution and discrimination against gay people. Police made a raid on the Stonewall gay bar in New York. Gay pride parades have their roots in a protest against systematic and systemic persecution by the police and the courts. A few countries of the world execute people for having sex with a member of their own gender. In some countries, it is still illegal to engage in sexual activities with another member of your gender. In the United States, it was illegal for gay people to express their love for one another. The jobs of gay people who worked for the government and for the military were very at risk. Not many years ago, people in the United States could be fired from their jobs for being gay. While the excesses of gay pride events are not godly, gay pride is theologically sound. Because they know so little about gay people, they may judge all gay people by a few excesses at pride events. The excesses of a few gay pride events leave other Christians feeling very uncomfortable with homosexuality. They feel gay people should be ashamed of who they are and any public celebration of queer sexuality is wrong. Some Christians are opposed to the concept of gay pride. One can be proud of being both gay and Christian.Īs gay pride events have become more visible, many Christians wonder how they should respond to gay pride. There is gay Christian pride or Christian gay pride.