Speaker 1: The McDonald's grappled with profound spiritual questions. Could they reconcile
Speaker 1: their faith with loving and accepting their gay son. Their
Speaker 1: attempts to remain closeted about his sexualities strain their family
Speaker 1: and marriage as they feared the judgment of their evangelical community.
Speaker 1: Yet moments of vulnerability lend battle with cancer and Greg
Speaker 1: Junior's care for her challenge their belief. Over time, exposure
Speaker 1: to LGBTQ plus voices and progressive Christian scholars like David
Speaker 1: Gushy reshaped their view, leading to a deeper understanding of
Speaker 1: both love and scripture. This story invites critical reflection. How
Speaker 1: does a faith community stance on LGBTQ plus issues shape
Speaker 1: family relationship, Can personal experiences lead to reinterpretation of deeply
Speaker 1: held beliefs, and what role should love and empathy play
Speaker 1: in navigating tensions between faith and identity. The story is
Speaker 1: from CNN by John Blake on November third, twenty four. So, Eli,
Speaker 1: my first question is coming to you. How did the
Speaker 1: McDonald's initial reaction to their sons coming out reflect broader
Speaker 1: tensions within conservative Christian communities regarding LGBTQ accepted well.
Speaker 2: So as they describe it, and the whole article kind
Speaker 2: of had this sort of atmosphere to it that was
Speaker 2: all about the parents and how their lives were different
Speaker 2: now because they found out that their son is gay, right,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of a strange thing. But what
Speaker 2: their initial reaction was, well, for the dad says that
Speaker 2: he is first thing he said to him was, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll love you no matter what, but we got to
Speaker 2: fix you. And he, you know, when it got out
Speaker 2: into the community that he, you know, he was gay,
Speaker 2: his parents were hearing the same thing from other people.
Speaker 2: His dad said that one of his like work relationships
Speaker 2: didn't work out because of because of his son being gay,
Speaker 2: and someone said, you need to get a handle your son. So,
Speaker 2: as the article talked about, that's a thing that a
Speaker 2: lot of you know LGBTQ plus people from conservative Christian
Speaker 2: families and homes and towns go through, you know, a
Speaker 2: really really similar story or experience. What I applaud the
Speaker 2: McDonald's for is that they did eventually take a step
Speaker 2: back and say, hey, like, you know, maybe I have
Speaker 2: something wrong, maybe my beliefs aren't quite you know, as
Speaker 2: as as as right as I thought, And they started
Speaker 2: to re examine that. I don't think they quite landed,
Speaker 2: you know, as close to rights as we would all hope,
Speaker 2: but I applaud them for that at least.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned the whole notion concerning fixing their son,
Speaker 1: and I believe that the article actually touched on conversion therapy,
Speaker 1: which is something that we talked about here on the
Speaker 1: nonprofits quite extensively. And I kind of want to throw
Speaker 1: this to you, Jimmy, because the parents actually sought conversion
Speaker 1: therapy as a means of fixing quote unquote their son.
Speaker 1: In hindsight, what are the psychological and emotional costs of
Speaker 1: practices like conversion therapy for both the individual and the
Speaker 1: family if you can, if you can really just recall
Speaker 1: how that could be a notion that could be very
Speaker 1: I would say, detrimental to all who happened to be.
Speaker 3: Involved conversion therapy or trying to fix somebody who really
Speaker 3: isn't broken. I would say, probably has a really profound
Speaker 3: effect on the person that is trying to be fixed
Speaker 3: or in the position to be fixed quote unquote. This
Speaker 3: probably won't strengthen his ties with his family. It didn't
Speaker 3: in the end, but it won't make that person feel
Speaker 3: better about themselves. It just makes them feel more out
Speaker 3: of place and more more broken, if you will, because
Speaker 3: this is a waste of time and waste of energy,
Speaker 3: and it's a very emotional event. I think for people
Speaker 3: to be in this position to be fixed, it just
Speaker 3: highlights that there is something wrong with them, that there's
Speaker 3: something wrong with their life. You know, there's something wrong
Speaker 3: with who they are. And so I think that a
Speaker 3: person in that position would suffer. But you know, and
Speaker 3: not that I'm sympathetic to the parents, but I think
Speaker 3: they suffer as well, because then they never get to
Speaker 3: the goal that they are set out to. Well, that
Speaker 3: that they've embarked on, right, they they're never going to
Speaker 3: arrive at a fixing. It's always going to be a
Speaker 3: farce if they even do arrive there. But I think
Speaker 3: the harm is captured in how this article highlights the
Speaker 3: father's views of his son, saying you can be an
Speaker 3: axe murderer and we would still love you. I mean,
Speaker 3: are we comparing homosexuality to axe murderer? Is that what
Speaker 3: we're is that what we're looking at? I mean, is
Speaker 3: it really that bad as being that? Being gay is
Speaker 3: not bad?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: But let's just say in the context of having an
Speaker 3: undesirable position or or life. Is it as bad? I mean,
Speaker 3: do these Christian people think that being a being homosexual
Speaker 3: is as bad? So yeah, those are my thoughts on that. Harmful, harmful,
Speaker 3: very harmful.
Speaker 1: And you know I did have a big problem with that, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: especially you know, saying, oh, we still love you. You can
Speaker 1: do basically a whole bunch of serial killing and we
Speaker 1: would still love you. And I and I think that
Speaker 1: the issue that they had with how they were viewing
Speaker 1: what it means to be gay and in context, because
Speaker 1: I think that you mentioned like needing more contest, especially
Speaker 1: from the father when it came to how you know
Speaker 1: one is viewing another person, even if they come from
Speaker 1: them on you know, should I say okay, well yeah,
Speaker 1: what what you what you have chose? I and I
Speaker 1: use that, you know, very hyperbiologist of course to do
Speaker 1: with your life as far as like you know, how
Speaker 1: you chose to live your life, you know during your
Speaker 1: sexual orientation is a problem. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, having them, as you said, being compared with
Speaker 1: something that is objectively worse and saying that Okay, this
Speaker 1: is something that I but I will still love you anyway,
Speaker 1: I would definitely think is an issue. But you know,
Speaker 1: but at least we had like some type of redemption,
Speaker 1: redemption per se, and I and I would like for
Speaker 1: both of you guys to talk about that, because there
Speaker 1: was an eventually eventual shift in the attitudes towards sarragay
Speaker 1: son and I know that, like and I and I
Speaker 1: did like mention it a little bit, like you know,
Speaker 1: when we were first talking about, like you know, in
Speaker 1: an introduction, like you know, they did happen to get
Speaker 1: I guess more information. They were exposed to David Gushy
Speaker 1: and some of you know, his rhetoric about being and
Speaker 1: again I don't know if that's like a better term,
Speaker 1: but about really just being more tolerant and actually saying that, hey,
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily a bad thing. Right, So, if
Speaker 1: if you guys want to kind of like just like
Speaker 1: jump in and just like really just talk about like
Speaker 1: some of these other external influences that really helped to
Speaker 1: shape the changing of how like the McDonald's really viewed
Speaker 1: their son and their son's sexuality, and how, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I think made it a little bit better for both
Speaker 1: of them to actually have like a better relationship between
Speaker 1: them and their son, Eli, I would like for you
Speaker 1: to start upon that, and then Jimmy, I would like
Speaker 1: for you to do a follow up.
Speaker 2: Sure. So that also wasn't like the only like completely
Speaker 2: terrible attitude they had towards homosexuality that like, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's equitable to act murdering. They also said things like,
Speaker 2: you know who the idea was it to let them
Speaker 2: take those art classes, or you didn't go camping with
Speaker 2: them or take them on enough fishing trips or play
Speaker 2: baseball with him enough as a kid, and that's why
Speaker 2: he's gay now. And it really illustrated this sort of
Speaker 2: absurd mindset they had towards homosexuality, you know, around the
Speaker 2: time and before and even slightly after they found out
Speaker 2: that their son was gay. And it does they do
Speaker 2: shift later on because of these you know, outside influences
Speaker 2: you mentioned, They do shift to this somewhat better attitude,
Speaker 2: But it still doesn't quite land as like a feel
Speaker 2: good story to me, because it's still looking at it
Speaker 2: as sort of like you can love God even if
Speaker 2: your kids are gay, rather than like, hey, being gay
Speaker 2: is just regular, like just like not being gay, Like
Speaker 2: it's it's not they're not shifting their attitude attitude to
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. They're shifting it to well, we can
Speaker 2: love you anyway, and that's okay with God. And it
Speaker 2: doesn't wow exactly like, you know, even though you're worse
Speaker 2: of a person than all the rest of us, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it still does. It still hits that way for me.
Speaker 3: Excellent point. You know, I I think that the failure
Speaker 3: of this family is that they never established the normalcy
Speaker 3: of their son, right not accepting him in the first place, Well,
Speaker 3: that is a failure on their part. But then the
Speaker 3: only way to accept him is to kind of reach
Speaker 3: out to other parents who are also struggling, you know,
Speaker 3: when the struggle is really not theirs. The struggle is
Speaker 3: for the person who's trying to fit in with a community,
Speaker 3: a society, a family that doctrinally rejects him. And so
Speaker 3: I wrote a note here which I have to highlight
Speaker 3: because it's kind of hilarious because I have a typo
Speaker 3: and I have no idea what I was trying to say.
Speaker 3: So I said, so many people treat these struggles as
Speaker 3: their own when they are the ones serial the actual struggle. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how the word cereal got
Speaker 3: in there. But I know what I was trying to say,
Speaker 3: and that is, don't pretend that your son is not
Speaker 3: the one that's struggling, and try and cry poor me
Speaker 3: the reason. And even though there is a shift at
Speaker 3: the end where they do kind of come around to
Speaker 3: not ostracize him or reject him outright, I'll say that
Speaker 3: I'll take it in a sense, but really what this
Speaker 3: does for me is highlight the overarching problem that we're
Speaker 3: li in plays for society. Right, So doctrinally, like I said,
Speaker 3: you've got this group of people that just is brought
Speaker 3: up and spews and allows hate to just continue to
Speaker 3: exist by being a catalyst for it until it happens
Speaker 3: to them, and then they have to go, oh crap.
Speaker 3: And I made a note about again about the Salem
Speaker 3: witch trials. Everybody was burning everybody, right, especially the women,
Speaker 3: mostly the women, until the judge and a couple of
Speaker 3: other high ranking people in the sale of witch trials
Speaker 3: kids were accused, and then it was oh, this isn't
Speaker 3: this isn't real anymore. We can't allow spectral evidence in court,
Speaker 3: and so people have to change when they are confronted
Speaker 3: with kind of their own bs, and so in the end,
Speaker 3: I think I'll take it. It's like it's like the March
Speaker 3: towards spirituality where people say, well, I'm not religious anymore,
Speaker 3: I'm just spiritual. Okay, I guess I'll take it because
Speaker 3: at least you're not adhering to a really hateful religion
Speaker 3: and it's a progression away from it. But another thing
Speaker 3: I want to highlight real quick is that this highlights
Speaker 3: the abuses of women by churches as well. So you know,
Speaker 3: somebody that they had gone to for help had explained
Speaker 3: that having a domineering mother can have this impact on
Speaker 3: men to be I guess homosexuals, it always comes down
Speaker 3: to the women, doesn't it. They always find a way
Speaker 3: to blame women. So yeah, there's just a lot of
Speaker 3: problems with religion, problems that or stories like this highlight them,
Speaker 3: even if it looks like there's a happy ending.
Speaker 1: As the sitting woman on this panel with also a
Speaker 1: child whining in the background, sorry about that to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I find it, like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: call it necessarily ironic, but I found it like definitely
Speaker 1: problematic that this particular story just highlights like a lot
Speaker 1: of the different issues that we have with biases and
Speaker 1: also church right now, when it comes to how we
Speaker 1: are viewing people that's around us that happen to be different.
Speaker 1: If they don't necessarily like settle into the societal norm
Speaker 1: like being cis gender heterosexual, then it's a problem, right
Speaker 1: And I know that the Church along with their rhetoric,
Speaker 1: even though like that, we have very little passages in
Speaker 1: the Bible that talks really about like, you know, sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: And if you actually talk to some of the most
Speaker 1: pre eminent scholars in the Bible when we're thinking about
Speaker 1: some of the scriptures that may seem that they're talking
Speaker 1: against homosexuality, we find that the context is very different
Speaker 1: than what we actually think when actually it's being interpreted
Speaker 1: as correct. So I feel really for you know, the
Speaker 1: sun And even though that I applaud the efforts a
Speaker 1: bit from the parents when it comes to them being
Speaker 1: able to kind of leap frog over them your own
Speaker 1: indoctrination when it comes to how you know, gay people
Speaker 1: are talked about, As you said, Jimmy, that problem is
Speaker 1: still there. Do you all feel and I would love
Speaker 1: for you guys to chime in about this. Do you
Speaker 1: feel that the church holds some responsibility on how we
Speaker 1: actually are looking at you know, gay people, people who
Speaker 1: happen to be in the queer community, queer community on hold,
Speaker 1: because remember and especially like nowadays and and as of
Speaker 1: recent events, we know that you know, queer people, especially
Speaker 1: trans people are very much so under attack. And it's
Speaker 1: not just like you know from you know this one
Speaker 1: person who says they don't like you. This the person
Speaker 1: doesn't say it is like you. I mean like it's
Speaker 1: actually becoming policy now right, And and we know that
Speaker 1: a lot of these particular sensibilities have come from faith
Speaker 1: based institutions. So what does the church actually what what
Speaker 1: what what does the church's role play into actually helping
Speaker 1: to maybe reformulate some of the rhetoric that is out
Speaker 1: and about on a societal whole. And is there any
Speaker 1: and and do we have even seeing them possibly because
Speaker 1: we did have a David Gucci, I guess, but do
Speaker 1: we do we see this as a possibility of a
Speaker 1: change agent in the church in general to be able
Speaker 1: to say, maybe the way that we are talking about
Speaker 1: the peer community is unjust and we need to change it. Eli,
Speaker 1: I would like for you to start, and then Jimmy
Speaker 1: Light for you.
Speaker 2: To follow up. I'm not sure if I think it
Speaker 2: necessarily would go that way. I think there's a chance
Speaker 2: that if if it sort of depends on where the
Speaker 2: majority sits. I guess if you have a majority of
Speaker 2: you know, congregations or churches or denominations starting to affirm uh,
Speaker 2: you know LGBTQ plus people as they called it, there
Speaker 2: was it was previously there was doctrines to sort of
Speaker 2: be accepting of them, and now it's moving more towards
Speaker 2: being affirming them. And sort of because I was saying
Speaker 2: sort of the way that I was saying, this ministry
Speaker 2: that McDonald's have started didn't do. This ministry they've started
Speaker 2: is more on along the lines of accepting and just
Speaker 2: tolerating as sort of like a passive tolerance rather than
Speaker 2: an affirming acceptance and love. I think it is equally
Speaker 2: likely that the now that if they start to see
Speaker 2: the ability to if they start to feel emboldened going
Speaker 2: into the future, these religious groups, I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: chance that they might start to be more restrictive of
Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus people again and be less accepting and less
Speaker 2: affirming because they feel like they can get away with
Speaker 2: it more now and they don't have to appease to whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, the parties that they might not want to
Speaker 2: appease to anymore now they don't have to. I think
Speaker 2: it's just as likely that it could go either way.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure which one I expect.
Speaker 3: The Church is absolutely responsible for the way that LGBTQ
Speaker 3: community and LGBTQ people are treated. The Church is nothing
Speaker 3: more than a power structure. It is not some miraculous,
Speaker 3: supernatural thing that has anything to do with the deity.
Speaker 3: This is a completely man made institution that people use
Speaker 3: to climb to the top, and when they get to
Speaker 3: the top positions, they are in control. They're in control
Speaker 3: of societies. They're in control of society's wealth because they
Speaker 3: collect it from people, because they make them feel guilty
Speaker 3: and fearful their entire lives, and those people then turn
Speaker 3: and pay them to fix it. Okay. The Church feels
Speaker 3: that the LGBTQ community at least at least going back
Speaker 3: to where we have a more traditional idea of Christianity,
Speaker 3: and the church feels that the LGBTQ outlook is a
Speaker 3: challenge to this power structure, because then it negates what's
Speaker 3: in the Bible, and then it causes people to tear
Speaker 3: down the argument that the church makes for its legitimacy.
Speaker 3: The church cannot coexist with the LGBTQ community and still
Speaker 3: maintain its credibility, maintain its accuracy. However, what we see
Speaker 3: nowadays is that churches more and more are making exceptions
Speaker 3: for LGBTQ people because the court of public opinion is
Speaker 3: saying that LGBTQ people should not be mistreated and should
Speaker 3: not be othered. And the church church in general, I
Speaker 3: mean multiple factions of Christianity are losing money, losing participation,
Speaker 3: losing their congregation, and they are making changes in order
Speaker 3: to maintain their power, and that is all that's happening.
Speaker 3: They are absolutely the blame for perpetuating this lie about
Speaker 3: LGBTQ people and not fixing their own internal problems where
Speaker 3: homosexuality forced homosexuality is currently at play now. I don't
Speaker 3: think there's anything wrong with homosexuality. I do think there
Speaker 3: is something wrong with an adult forcing it on a minor,
Speaker 3: which we know happens by the tens of thousands every
Speaker 3: year across the world, probably a higher number than that. Yesterday,
Speaker 3: the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Church resigned because
Speaker 3: it came to light that they had been covering up
Speaker 3: child abuse for decades, decades, and he says he's stepping
Speaker 3: down because it was grossly mismandaged. No, you're stepping down
Speaker 3: because you got caught. That's why you're stepping down. And
Speaker 3: so the church has a responsibility to clean up its
Speaker 3: own act and stop pointing the finger at other people
Speaker 3: who are not doing anything wrong except challenging their incredibly
Speaker 3: extremist and archaic views. That's my view on that.
Speaker 1: That's your point, he was sticking to it. Yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: as a former Anglican person, I will say that we
Speaker 1: will cover that story that you mentioned, Jimmy about the
Speaker 1: Archbishop of Canterbury just a little bit. It wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: the Archbishop of Canterbury. He actually was covering up for
Speaker 1: one of the lawyers that turned to a priest who
Speaker 1: was sexually abusing a boys and young men, also not
Speaker 1: only in England but also in African countries of Zimbabwa
Speaker 1: in South Africa. That's right, Yeah, and he's been doing
Speaker 1: it since nineteen eighty four, So we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: But