I lose count the different acronyms given in the LGBT community. I can see why the labels are used: to give people an identity that society has tried to wrestle from them, to give them a platform from which they can make their case. But why did they need to?
The point is that this is who they really are...humans, trying to live their life as they feel it is right to do so. No let me correct that: to live their life in its truest sense.
Let's not moralise here unless we know exactly what it is like to grow up as one gender when inside everything is screaming that it is the wrong gender, or that our heteronormative society has decreed that the sexual orientation that people really feel is wrong when really it's natural.
What if the Church were to drop the current array of labels and use 'truly loved'?
The Vatican have stated that the gay marriage vote is a defeat for humanity. I thought it was marriage, period. The use of labels doesn't help but further marginalise the very people we wish to help, support and cherish. The Church is currently trying to move deftly between one side and the other - not wishing to offend any party but in so doing, succeeding in both camps. We have one Irish Catholic ArchbIshop of Dublin arguing that the Church has had a wake-up call and needs to change which is then followed by the Vatican statement above.
Jesus didn't use any labels towards the marginalised. Bartimaeus
(Mark Chapter 10), an outcast in that society, did not suffer any interrogation, did not have to prove himself, just had to show faith. Jesus healed him. Many outside the Church want to be loved, be accepted for who they truly are and what is the Church saying to them today?
Where is the Church showing such love today as seen in the passage above?
Can the Church drop the labels and speak love to all? How will it ever welcome all, not as the downtrodden, not as the outcasts, but as the 'truly loved'?
Let's start now.