RE: “LGBTQ inclusion in Christmas movies feels all wrong.” We all start with baby steps. We all stumble.

Filed Under: Purpose by admin — Comments Off

December 23, 2020

Font Size

Bad teachers criticize. Good teachers encourage.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/12/21/lgbtq-inclusion-in-christmas-movies-feels-all-wrong.html

David Mamet in his books TRUE AND FALSE and BAMBI VS. GODZILLA tells his readers, “Invent nothing. Deny nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school.”

He’s not alone.

Matthew Hays, author of the above opinion piece which appeared in this week’s TORONTO STAR, teaches courses in film and media studies at Marianopolis College and Concordia University.

Edmund White, a writer of repute who happens to belong to the LGBTQ body (as do I) states in his excellent RIMBAUD THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A REBEL, states, “As an unhappy gay adolescent, stifled by boredom and sexual frustration and paralyzed by self hatred…”

That youthful sexual frustration and paralyzing self hatred is something I and millions of others are all too familiar with.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for it for it forced me to learn to think for myself.

To do that we need all the information we can gather.

Healing starts with faith, hope and love, a great deal of love.

Love for our self (which is almost impossible) and love for others.

In fact before we can love anyone we have to learn to love our self (which ain’t easy).

A fellow said to me, “You are the only sincere Christian I have ever met.”

I replied, “You do not know what I was thinking.”

I became sexually active at 6 with both genders. I’m not alone. Most of us do.

At 14 I read that anyone who did what I had done was hated by God. I further read that anyone who killed such a person was doing God’s work.

I’m not the only person who’s been told that.

In 1970 I read cover to cover five times through THE NEW TESTAMENT en-route by bus to Hollywood, California at the invitation of a friend I had the hots for. Never underestimate the importance of sexual desire. It is that pillar of smoke which leads us by day, that pillar of fire which leads us by night and without which we would not have the magnificent conflagration which is Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, Zeus and Ganymede and so many, many more.

I read it to learn first hand for myself whether or not God hated me.

I learned first hand God does not.

I have since read THE NEW TESTAMENT through cover to cover several hundred times. Most valuable were.are THE PELICAN NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES.

Those shepherds to whom the angels sang were viewed by the orthodox as unclean because their work kept them from religious observance (and God knows what those men alone in those hills with no women were up to after all when David was a shepherd he loved Jonathan as a man loves a woman). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqooC4ZG75Y

It helps to know the material.

As one who knows his history of the art, business and culture of the motion picture (and who knows why Mamet advises his readers to stay out of school) I can say authoritatively Matthew Hays is one to stay away from.

And when he writes, “LGBTQ inclusion in Christmas movies feels all wrong,” I know that he is as wrong in his thinking as those folks who think themselves Christians (they are not. They are the tares in the parable of the tares and the wheat.) in deny LGBTQ people a place in the kingdom of God are in their thinking.

I don’t buy Hallmark cards.

I buy blank cards with great pictures.

Like those shepherds to whom the angels sang LGBTQ people are despised by the orthodox.

Don’t take my word for it. Examine the gospels for yourself. Get an informed opinion. You will not find a harsh word from the lips of Jesus towards us folk TV preachers are fond of warning unless we repent are going to fry.

I am not stranger to the hatred of the ignorant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXB6p2pdk0U .

But here’s the thing.

Jesus, in THE SERMON FROM THE MOUNT, calls me to love those who hate me, to do good to them.

Now you might disagree with that but to me it seems that is the only way not to become them.

Is it wrong to include LGBTQ folks in Christmas movies?

Hell, no.

As for Matthew Hays, he’s as ignorant in his thinking as is the man who has been skulking around Toronto for over twenty years posting “anonymouse” flyers designed to bring hatred and violence upon myself and others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XsY3aEPCIQ&t=36s , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXUKLO2oGT8&t=1s .

He says he is a Christian.

I’ll leave the truth of that for Jesus to decide.

But here’s the fucking deal. Jesus calls me to love this man, to return his evil with good.

Paul wrote that in Christ we become a new creature.

We sure as Hell do.

There has been no shortage of documentation that myself and others have had to carry our cross while bearing also the jeers of the mob: https://ericbrauer.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/profile-reg-hartt/ , https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/toronto-alternative-theatre-founder-stands-up-to-bullying-threats/article549053/ .

Nor is there lack of evidence of the same attacks on others: http://posterstoronto.blogspot.com/2010/06/davisville-psycho.html , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6wuSoPjlc , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v96QfcjaR2U , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWrubgHwJfc.

A lot of folks think we are called to walk the straight and narrow path. That’s because hearing “strait” they think it is spelled “straight.”

The important thing is being able to discern, to tell the difference.

The word “strait” means enormously difficult, almost impossible. A strait path is far from straight. It twists and turns. It demands great care and caution. It demands that we be on the alert every instant.

I have been on that strait path most of my life. So have most people they just did not know it.

If anyone has a right to be included in Christmas movies its LGBTQ people. Our presence is long overdue.

It does not matter whether the movies are particularly food or not. That’s subjective. It’s not relevant.

When you find your self alone on this strait path remember that when we want to build muscles we lift weights. We build spiritual muscles by lifting spiritual weights.

There are a lot of folks who say they are Christians who are not.

Christians don’t take people to court. St. Paul wrote, “What is wrong with you that you take people to court? Can’t you let yourselves be wronged?”

I ask myself, “Who was more wronged than Jesus?”

Christians don’t skulk around the city posting “anonymouse” flyers.

A friend, Jim Slotek, coined that word “anonymouse” to describe the many on the web who spout poison under anonymous names.

Jesus said one of the signs we are on the right path is that we shall be given poison and it shall nor harm us.

I can say with authority that is true.

Jesus also said we shall handle serpents. That means deceivers, liars.

I am certainly handling my share of those.

Experience teaches me that everything Jesus taught is true.

When you find yourself alone as I have found myself alone bearing a weight it seems will crush you while all around you no one is doing anything to ease that burden while at the same time doing everything to increase remember that others before us have walked this path.

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote, “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself.”

That is not true. Mediocrity always recognizes what is higher than itself and always seeks t6o destroy it.

The Supreme Court of Canada decided, against the will of every city in Canada, that posting flyers on the street is freedom of speech for people who can not afford to use mainstream media.

The Supreme Court did not defend that right to have it become, as it now is, the exclusive domain of people who poster for hire. Nor did they defend it for those who use it to post flyers meant to incite hatred and violence.

I have stood up, I am standing up for free speech.

I have been it seems standing alone.

I am in good company.

One person standing alone with God is a majority. Remember that when you find yourself standing alone.

As for Matthew Hays, well, the great Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci stated, like Mamet, “Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible.”

Ditto Jesus who when asked to be a teacher said, “You have one teacher, God.” John in his first letter writes, “You have no need that any man should teach you.”

Takes faith to believe that. Without that faith we are worthless.

Said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Where is the teacher who could have taught Shakespeare?” ( https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-h/16643-h.htm )

Finally, this year LGBTQ people are included in Christmas movies.

Kudos to Hallmark. They are leading the way.

Remember we are called to be a new creation, one that returns hate with love.

I am called to forgive that I myself may be forgiven.

Fail to do that then like the unworthy servant in the parable I will find my self condemned: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2018%3A21-35&version=NIV .

Too high a price to pay.

My saviour lives.

Marry Christmas.–Reg Hartt 202—12–23.

If your church does not welcome LGBTQ people work to get it on the right path. Only leave when they demand you leave. Do not look for the church where you feel comfortable. That does not exist unless it is false.

P.S. Beware. Folks have seen the man who has been posting hate flyers against myself and others skulking around the streets of the city late at night checking car doors to see if they are unlocked. He has also been observed going up laneways after dark and removing property from peoples’ back yards. People report finding their stolen bikes at his used bike sales.