First Unitarian Church of Worcester, MA
October 20,2010
I wore my lavender tie this morning to the Clergy Academy at the Worcester Police Department this morning. It made me feel a little vulne rable, which was the point I suppose. Today was a day in which folks were supposed to wear purple to show solidarity with teens who feel threatened and endangered because of their perceived sexual orientation. So I put on my lavender tie.
I remembered the little clothing rules from high school. It was widely believed in my small Ohio high school that gay people signaled to each other by wearing green on Thursday. If you wore green on Thursday, you were subjected to a lot of derision and teasing. I don't know what happened if St. Patrick's Day fell on a Thursday. I do know that wearing anything lavender would have be like wearing a tiara.
High school can be a very wounding period of time; for some kids it is literally dangerous and life-threatening. Young people are being relentlessly and ruthlessly evaluated by other kids as to their sexual desirability and their conformity to gender expectations. Gay and lesbian kids are often bullied and harassed. Young women are often undergoing a brutal public discussion of their bodies and attractiveness. Touching and co mments that are completely unacceptable in an adult workplace are routine in high school.
It gets better as people get older. But things will get better faster, and there will be less suffering, if adults take a stand against bullying and sexual harassment among young people. Adults need to show active solidarity with those kids who are on the margins and vulnerable because they are, in some way, different.
To be more personal and specific: Gay youth have gone through our Religious Education program, including YRU2. I do not think that we can say that the First Unitarian Church ever extended itself to affirm and sup port them, our own gay youth. I think we should have. Let's not be like that anymore.
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