Fellow Orthodox Laity, We Must Band Together To Call For The Orthodox Church to Hold a Series Discussion on Homosexuality.

Once upon a time, there was a blog called, JN1034, but now that blog is no more and good riddance to it. I know it sounds harsh and I don't say it lightly. JN1034 lured in individuals such as myself who were questioning the common Orthodox consensus of banning gay marriage and forbidding the ordination of women.

At first they released tension by being a mouthpiece for the frustrations felt by myself and others that the Church was remaining rather silent on these issues. They, the bloggers, rambled on and on about how they were high ranking priests under the Ecumenical Patriarch, but of course they couldn't prove it because they had to remain anonymous. So...we never really actually, knew if they were telling the truth. But that's not the point really. Whether they were who they said they were really doesn't matter. The point is, they were really...iffy, for lack of a better word.

I must say, looking back, I found Jn1034 to be very proud and arrogant. They didn't always seem that way, but it seems as time went on they got worse and worse. They began explaining their position a lot less and instead bragging about their position a lot more.

At any rate, there's no need for them. A constructive dialogue in the Orthodox Church which creates a truthful view of homosexuality is up to us, the laity; not them. We need not advocate either for or against.

We need only band together and declare with one voice that we want a discussion. A real discussion. Not one of those sudo-moral discussion of the past were some aged intolerant priest teaching the congregation about homosexuality with a fictional, gay, "little billy" character.

"Today kids we're going to discussion why homosexuality is wrong. This is little billy. Little billy wants to be popular and modern. Little billy wants to be called little Susie. Oh look, now little Susie is doing meth and beating children. Now how could you defend a life style that involves meth a beating children?"

And that would be the end of the discussion. And the congregation would walk out being none the smarter for having listened to that intolerant crap.

So...we need to band together with other Orthodox (they must be Orthodox) and declare loud and clear that past discussions within the Church have been stereotyped, unproductive, unclear, and dismissive.

We need to tell the highest authorities in the Orthodox world, make them understand, this issue cannot be ignored any longer. The laity demand and answer and the Church has been unclear. Even the passages in the Bible, are unclear. Furthermore the passages used to condemn gays in America are in English. How accurate are those English phrases? Do they even have the same meaning?

Even to this day, I have no clue what the passage in Romans is really referring to. I even read St. John Chrysostom's homily on it, and he didn't even clarify what exactly it was about. He just kept saying it was something which he would not mention.

Anyway, we need a dialogue. A long and serious dialogue, which involves homosexual members of our own Church.

We do not need JN1034 to reemerge with their arrogance and sometimes, questionable doctrine.

We are the laity. When we work together, our voice is louder, clearer and taken more seriously. If anything JN1034 is nothing more than "diverted dissent", our own dis-info unit to 1984's Goldstien.

Get your friends, get your neighbors, get your clergy, to say, "We want a dialogue." That's it. Nothing more. Not, we want gay marriage, not, we don't want gay marriage. No, just, "We want a dialogue."
One that is serious. One that isn't run by biased agendas or special interest groups.
We need our Church Hierarchy to sit down and look gay couples in the face to tell them and tell the Church once and for all, whether gay marriage is in, or out.