[Vision2020] Gay Bashing by Churches Is Why a New Pew Poll Shows America Losing Its Religion

[Art Deco]

 Wayne Besen <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen>

Founder, Truth Wins Out


 Gay Bashing by Churches Is Why a New Pew Poll Shows America Losing Its
Religion Posted: 10/12/2012 3:29 pm

  A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals that a
record number of Americans (19.3 percent) have abandoned faith and now
consider themselves unaffiliated with any particular religion. According to
*USA Today*<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/08/nones-protestant-religion-pew/1618445/>
:

This group, called "Nones," is now the nation's second-largest category
only to Catholics, and outnumbers the top Protestant denomination, the
Southern Baptists. The shift is a significant cultural, religious and even
political change.

...

Today ... the Nones have leapt from 15.3% of U.S. adults in
2007<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-02-25-survey_N.htm?imw=Y>,
according to Pew studies.

One in three (32%) are under age 30 and unlikely to age into claiming a
religion, says Pew Forum senior researcher Greg Smith. The new study points
out that today's Millennials are more unaffiliated than any young
generation ever has been when they were younger.


If you want to understand the reasons behind this trend, take a moment to
read a disturbing
letter<http://www.truthwinsout.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/nienstedt_letter.bmp>that
Twin Cities Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt sent to the mother of a
gay son. In it, the holy man told the mother that her "eternal salvation"
might depend on whether or not she embraced the anti-gay teachings of the
Catholic Church, thus rejecting her own child. Talk about family values!

Such a callous admonition might have worked in the past, when people had
little education. It might have resonated in bygone eras, when gays and
lesbians were invisible and easy to demonize as the "other." It might have
held sway had the Catholic Church's credibility not been left in tatters
after the church spent more than $2.5
billion<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/us/sex-abuse-statutes-of-limitation-stir-battle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>to
clean up the wreckage wrought by pedophile priests and their enablers.

While Nienstedt's arrogance and cruelty stands out as particularly odious,
it isn't just Catholicism that is in decline. In a world that is
increasingly more complicated, with infinite possibilities and pitfalls, as
well as seemingly unlimited access to information, the idea that one faith
owns absolute truth is a notion that is slowly becoming obsolete.

I, for one, believe that the 19.3-percent figure for Nones is too low. A
substantial number of people identify themselves in surveys as belonging to
a particular faith for one of three reasons:

   - *Habit:* People over 30 were brought up in a world where everyone was
   presumed to have a religious affiliation as both a mark of faith and
   cultural identity. So, when asked whether they belong to a faith group,
   they reflexively check the box, with little thought to their own belief
   system or actual adherence to the religious convictions they claim. As the
   "Nones" make themselves more visible, it gives these folks a new box to
   check -- and many of them will.
   - *Fear:* For centuries it was dangerous for people to acknowledge their
   genuine beliefs. "Today, there's no shame in saying you're an unbeliever,"
   Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler
complained<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/08/nones-protestant-religion-pew/1618445/>in
   *USA Today*. With people like Mohler losing their ability to ostracize
   nonbelievers and impose social consequences on them, millions of people
   finally have the ability to "come out" and exercise their freedom from
   religion.
   - *Politics:* Even today, if an ambitious person wants a successful
   career in politics, it is easier to fake having faith than to acknowledge
   being a nonbeliever. The result is that politicians appear significantly
   more devout than the general population. Once this taboo falls, which is
   likely to occur in the next decade, it will open the door to a more honest
   dialogue about the role of religion in public life. Of course, this can't
   happen soon enough, with the religious right arduously working to demolish
   the separation of church and state.

Religious extremists have long claimed that the acceptance of homosexuality
would bring down the fundamentalist church -- and they have been proven
correct, albeit not for the reasons they proffered. The downfall occurred
not because gay people stopped heterosexuals from reproducing or recruited
their children. It din't happen because LGBT individuals hate families,
which they have always been part of. And it didn't happen because
homosexuals despised faith; the abundance of deeply religious gay people
proves that this is not true.

The fundamentalists undermined their legitimacy by worshipping anti-gay
bigotry long after it had been exposed as a false God. In this unholy
obsession the sacrifices left bleeding at the altar were truth and justice.
When people see their own sons and daughters and friends and co-workers
coming out, it creates a crisis of credibility for religious institutions.
It leads to countless situations where mean-spirited men like Nienstedt
demand blind, irrational obedience and say "take it or leave it" -- and
more people are now following their consciences and walking away.

I'll conclude with this: The political coalition of the future is
non-dogmatic, mainstream people of faith and the Nones. In the coming
decade these two groups will forge bonds and create a dynamic force that
rivals the holy-book literalists who presently hold power disproportionate
to their numbers. This will be a much-needed correction to the outmoded
ideas and celebration of ignorance that is holding back our nation's
promise and progress.


 * Follow Wayne Besen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Truthwinsout *



------
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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