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Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community QUOTES

Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community QUOTES

1 " What's happening outside church walls is happening inside church walls. It is all part of the human experience. Ignorance and lack of education about sex, sexual orientation, gender identities, and human sexuality in general have led to harmful assumptions and poor pastoral counsel. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

2 " If your church is not going to support the committed same-sex relationships of LGBT congregants, be honest about that. Bait-and-switch is deceptively un-Christ-like and serves to push gay and transgender believers farther away each time the deception happens. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

3 " In 1967, only 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage, yet the Supreme Court dismissed the desire of 96% of Americans who did not support it in order to preserve the rights of the minority. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

4 " Until the mid-1500s, priests were allowed to marry and amass wealth and land just like anyone else; such property passed to a priest's wife and children upon his death. But starting in 1563, married priests were restricted from saying mass. This policy change, in effect, stopped priests from marrying, so upon their death, any wealth they had was passed to the church. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

5 " In terms of sex between same-sex partners, the objection that "the parts don't fit" doesn’t make sense on even the most logical level. If the parts didn't work together, frankly, people wouldn't be putting them together. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

6 " Besides a fascinating story, the John/Joan/David Reimer case highlights several issues of prime importance about sex and gender that can be applied to questions surrounding sexual orientation. First, the body of evidence collected over several decades from adults who underwent unnecessary and wrong gender assignment and sex reassignment surgeries teaches us that trying to match gender to genitals should not be a standard. Gender and genitals do not necessarily align. Gender is an innate trait established within the fetal brain. Furthermore, the attempt to change what is natural and inborn in a person has devastating effects on lives. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

7 " Because there is no way to know the gender of an intersex baby, experts recommend that intersex children be allowed to manifest their natural, innate gender, which may be witnessed as early as two years of age, usually by age three, and almost universally by age six. Not identifying a gender in an intersex baby may be socially difficult for parents, causing them uneasiness or even hostility on the part of others, but it can save the intersex person from a life of frustration, and mental and emotional anguish. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

8 " Corrective surgery is referred to as genital reassignment, or reconstruction, surgery (GRS). In the past, it was referred to as sex reassignment surgery (SRS), but this term is not technically accurate. As we’ve learned, sex is a combination of chromosomes, reproductive systems, and genitals. Corrective surgery for a transgender person doesn’t change the sex chromosomes; therefore it is properly known as GRS. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

9 " As used by Paul in the first century, arsenokoitai likely means pederasty. Pederastic relationships, inherently abusive and exploitative, are not equivalent to committed, loving, and monogamous same-sex relationships today. To say that they are would be like saying sex trafficking of young girls is equivalent to marriage. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community

10 " Over the past thirty-five years, untold numbers of gay Christians have turned from God in their "failure" and "inability to please God," who, they were told, could not accept them as a gay person. Some felt so rejected and depressed that they turned to self-destructive behaviors, including suicide; some went deep in the closet to try to fit in at church; some became vehemently opposed to all things religious; some decided to seek God in other religions, or no religion; and very few individuals were able to find a church community in which they could worship and serve God without being rejected. "

― Kathy Baldock , Walking the Bridgeless Canyon: Repairing the Breach Between the Church and the LGBT Community