People Are More Likely To Be Targets Of Hate Crimes Than Any Other Minority Groups

Before “coming out” most lesbian and gay Christians were devoted to the call of Christ in their local churches. They demonstrated their faith by actively participating in the church, and they felt safe in their congregations. Despite explicit or implicit homonegativity expressed within their current faith communities, some participants decided the benefits of remaining in their current congregation or denomination outweighed the costs of finding a new community or leaving a religious community altogether. Some participants viewed their faith communities like families of origin that they were not willing to abandon. The sentiment expressed was one of tolerance and working through differences. Their congregations were central to their identity …show more content…
On the one hand, in June 2016 the Department of Defense finally began allowing transgender personnel to serve openly in the military. On the other hand, The New York Times recently reported that “L.G.B.T. People Are More Likely to Be Targets of Hate Crimes Than Any Other Minority Group.” The story details what far too many transgender, bisexual, queer, lesbian, and gay persons already know: they are frequently targets of discrimination and violence at home, on the job, in public spaces, at school, and in their places of worship (Lowe, 2017). As alarming as these statistics are there seems to be a consensus in the conservative Christian community that people who identify as LGBT bring this type of hatred upon themselves. In sum, homosexuality has been viewed on a spectrum as anything from abnormal or dysfunctional through to perverted and evil (Venn-Brown, 2015). However, gender based violence and discrimination results in an environment in which covert if not overt permission is given to society to “punish” people for gender transgressions (Lombardi, Wilchins, Priesing, & Malouf, 2001). There is nothing antithetical in American Christian history, culture, or traditions to treating each other as human beings. When one takes it upon himself to harm another because of differences they are exposing their self-imposed god complex. Gender based violence and discrimination acts to maintain conformity to the traditional gender system, and many people may experience a small aspect of it whenever they transgress certain gender norms. Because transgendered individuals are seen as breaking gender norms in a major way, they are most likely to experience extreme sanctions for it, such as violence and discrimination (Lombardi, Wilchins, Priesing, & Malouf,