How's this for empowering? Renowed "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert unleashed a stunning (and totally inspiring) response to those who use religion to demean and hate the LGBT community. You'll want to read the entire Facebook post, but here's the guts of Gilbert's post, in response to a lesbian woman in her 60's whom she met after a taping for a new Oprah (OWN) show in South Carolina.
The tearful woman (a pillar in her church and community) was tired of hiding her true self, and her loving relationship of over 30 years with another woman, but was certain she would lose everthing (and "go to hell") if she came out. An enraged Gilbert had this sizzling response, a brave and very personal warning to bigots and religious bullies:
Then I was hit with a spike of rage: How DARE someone tell this beautiful, kind, loving, grace-filled, faithful, decent, suffering woman that she is going to hell?
I don't even believe in hell, but I believe there's a special place in hell for people who tell other people that they are going to hell.
It enrages me.
Who do we think we are, to condemn our sisters and brothers to burn? For shame, for shame. (And don't anyone dare throw scripture at me here, to defend their condemnation of a suffering fellow human being — I won't take it. I won't buy a word of it.)
The great irony here, of course, is one of the simplest of all spiritual lessons -- love they neighbor as thyself -- is so often lost, or deliberately ignored. We say, you go Elizabeth, for reminding everyone to stand up to religious bullying that completely ignores the most human of all instincts: love.
What do you think of Gilbert's post? Does it help you feel more empowered if/when you face this kind of situation in your life? Leave your comments!
Ill remember this for sure next time my bigoted cousin tells me to find God... thanks Liz
Posted by: Jim | 09/10/2014 at 03:39 PM