GCN Radio - August 26, 2005
Transcribed by Vombatus

To listen to this episode, visit http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio

[GCN Radio Intro]

BRIAN: We're glad to be back on another Friday for GCN Radio. And I had a wonderful time at the fair, Justin. A lot of people were asking me.

JUSTIN: Yeah, you know what though? You did not send me a funnel cake.

BRIAN: [apologetically] I'm sorry.

JUSTIN: You promised and...

BRIAN: Did I promise?

JUSTIN: We did talk... well, I don't know if you promised, but we did talk about...

BRIAN: I don't think that... I mean, I said I would try.

JUSTIN: Yeah, well, I took that as a promise. We talked a lot about funnel cake last week and it became a major topic on the section of the site where people can comment on the show. That was, like, the thing that people wanted to talk about, funnel cake, out of the whole show that we did.

BRIAN: But I did have, I did have Dippin' Dots(R).

JUSTIN: Oh, the little frozen ice-cream pellets.

BRIAN: And those were dynamite. I love Dippin' Dots(R).

JUSTIN: Really?

BRIAN: We were too busy getting ready to see a show, so we didn't make it over to the funnel cake. But we thought about them and talked about them.

JUSTIN: Well, but I want some! I still want some, I'm waiting for my funnel cake.

BRIAN: All right, well... you know, fair season has not ended, there's still time, and if someone can get Justin a funnel cake and just e-mail it to gcnradio@...

JUSTIN: That's right! And now I want Dippin' Dots(R), so this is not turning out to be a great season.

BRIAN: [laughs] Okay.

JUSTIN: Because you're making me very hungry.

BRIAN: Why don't you just go to the fair?!

JUSTIN: I don't like the fair, we talked about this last week.

BRIAN: Yeah, well maybe you need to get your own stuff.

JUSTIN: I know, I know. I shouldn't rely on you to get my food for me, I know, I'm sorry.

BRIAN: Produce your radio show, get your food... Jeez, would you like fries with that, too? Would you like a pony? Would you like a gold-plated G5 Apple computer?

JUSTIN: Yes, please. Thank you. So, I have a question. I have some answers to a question.

BRIAN: Okay.

JUSTIN: We, a couple of weeks ago asked the question: "How effective is the modern gay rights movement?" And we received a number of answers through our website.

Sidney says: "I personally believe the gay rights movement has been imperative in the past for making rights for GLBT groups. I do, however, believe we tend to take too many No's for an answer. What would have happened if Martin Luther King, Jr. had accepted "No" or Malcolm X would have accepted "No"?" Sidney goes on to say, "We need to be more assertive in demanding our rights." And then he concludes, "I know this doesn't sound Christian in its idea, but think about it: Martin Luther King, Jr. was a spiritual man who realized that accepting anything less than the whole package was giving in."

Mike from Arizona takes a somewhat different tack. He says, "I think the modern gay rights movement is being stalled due to the fact that so many people in light of media stereotypes assume that all gay men are sex-crazed party snobs with fashion sense. Furthermore, with events like gay Disney that get taken over by drag queens and leather daddies, oh how rare it is to find the gay guys that want to stand up for the love of Christ rather than gay marriage, gay adoption, and the right to show your butt through chaps at a children's theme park."

Eric says, "I don't think that it is effective enough just yet. I believe the movement will truly become effective when we as gay Christians, their families, and friends start to step out more. The time will come, the Lord will make it happen, we just need to keep praying and keep serving with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths."

BRIAN: Very interesting responses. Clearly people have a wide range of views on this.

JUSTIN: Yes! Absolutely. And I have a sense that some of these things may be a bit controversial. But hey, we're gay and Christian and we're all about the controversy here at GCN Radio.

BRIAN: You know, it's that cutting edge sort of mentality that we have that we're going to be right out on the edge, making people's heads and ears turn.

JUSTIN: Yes.

BRIAN: I want to react, just briefly. What comes to mind hearing these responses is the show that we did with Mel White in Season 1, I believe. One of the things that he believes, and some people may agree or disagree, is that the best way to gain acceptance is for people to come out of the closet, and then go about our lives, open and free to be what God wants us to be. Now that is the view of one person. I just found that interesting. But I think in some parts of the country and some families and some churches, it's still very very very hard.

JUSTIN: It is hard. It is hard to come out. And I hear what you're saying because Mike, who was writing about the stereotypes that he doesn't like seeing all these stereotypes portrayed in the media... of course, the quickest way for us to combat that is for people who don't fit those stereotypes to be out. The more people who come out to their families and friends and churches, the less people are going to be able to stereotype us as a whole community, because they'll see how different we are. Not all gay people are the same.

BRIAN: Exactly.

JUSTIN: I also want to acknowledge that there are, as you say, a lot of folks for whom coming out, at this point, just isn't an option. People who are worried that they'll lose their jobs, lose their friends, their families, their churches and so on for coming out. And I think that we need to be careful not to put too much pressure on any specific person and say, "You must come out" if it's not what that person needs to do right now. But certainly as a community we need to be out there and making our voices heard to fight those stereotypes. And I think, as Eric says here, prayer is an important part of everything.

BRIAN: If we pray for guidance and strength, then God's going to be with us and hopefully we keep growing closer to God in what we're doing.

JUSTIN: Absolutely. Well, so we have a question for you for this week. It's a new question, and the question is: "If you could take a pill to change your sexual orientation, would you? Why or why not?" So that's the question for this week, if you could take a pill that would just change your sexual orientation, would you do it? This applies whatever your sexual orientation is, so don't think that it's just limited to those who are gay who are listening. So that's the question for this week, and you can send us your answer... you can submit a text response as these folks did by going to http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio/, but we'd also love to have you call in and we may play some of those on the air. So then we can hear your voice, which is a great thing. And you can do that by giving us a call toll-free within the US and Canada at 1-888-GAY4GOD. And that is toll free within US and Canada, and if you're outside of those areas, I'm sorry, but you'll just have to use the website right now, but we'll work on that.

BRIAN: We see all of the responses or hear all of them, we track all of that, and we select answers that we can read here on GCN Radio.

JUSTIN: That's right!

BRIAN: Justin, one of the cool things that we're doing in season 3 that we're rolling out today are GCN News Reports with Pach! So how about that? We're going to talk a little bit to Pach, but let's first of all find out what's happening in the world of gay Christian news with our very first GCN News Report with Pach. Let's listen:

PACH: A revealing story about really gay rams, today in the Gay Christian News. Researchers at Oregon State University may have uncovered more evidence that sexual orientation is biologically determined, and it all hinges on gay rams. Researchers Fred Stormshak and Charles Roselli, both of whom are straight, have been part of a multi-million dollar study of ram sexuality. The team found that about 8% of the rams they studied preferred to mate with other males rather than with females. And, that these homosexual rams had a biological difference of the brain. This further supports the findings of researcher Simon LeVay, whose 1991 study showed the same difference between gay and straight men in the same area of the human brain.

And now, a Japanese politician and an Irish boy-band member are two of the most recent high-profile individuals to come out of the proverbial closet. Kanako Otsuji a politician in Osaka, Japan, came out as a lesbian this month as part of Tokyo's first gay pride celebration in three years. Meanwhile, Mark Feehily, the lead singer of popular Irish band, Westlife, has announced that he is gay and is in a long-term relationship with singer Kevin McDaid. But, while more people are choosing to come out of their well-decorated closets, others are being outed against their will. A 45-year old man in San Francisco has won $270,000 from a Spanish-language radio network after a show on the network publicly outed him. Roberto Hernandez received a phone call in 2002 from a man claiming to have seen him in a gay bar. Only later did the caller inform him that their conversation was being broadcast nationally over the radio. Hernandez's victory comes after a period of serious depression following the incident.

A Metropolitan Community Church congregation has been evicted from a Catholic AIDS hospice, due to the MCC church's support of same-sex marriage. The 45 member church was leasing a space at the complex of Project Lazarus, a facility for people living with HIV and AIDS. But the complex is run by the Roman Catholic diocese of New Orleans, and after a complaint, the archdiocese gave the church 90 days to find a new home. Commenting on the case, a lawyer for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy referred to MCC's "pretense of being a Christian denomination".

And now, for this week's good news to reflect on: Proverbs 27:19 As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man.

If you have any interesting news or story ideas, please e-mail them to us here at GCN Radio. GCN Radio is a ministry of the Gay Christian Network, bringing the Body of Christ to a greater unity. And until next week, this is Big Daddy Pach reminding you that tomorrow's news will be yesterday's history.

BRIAN: Pach joins us from Austin each week on GCN Radio. We're glad that he is able to record these for us and today, in celebration of the debut of the GCN News with Pach, we have, in fact, Pach on the line with us. Welcome, thanks for being on the show.

PACH: Woo hoo! Hey guys! Woot! Whee!

JUSTIN: Pach, you have so much energy.

BRIAN: Gee whiz, I want what he's having.
[laughter]

BRIAN: So what inspired you to come forward an be part of this little endeavor with us.

PACH: Well, I think my inspiration comes from you guys. Awwww. And I would say Jesus, but at the risk of sounding kind of cheesy. I really just absolutely love GCN and I have loved listening to the radio reports and everything that you guys do every week and it's just been interesting and exciting and it's really been a blessing to me. And I was, like, "How awesome! I get to be a blessing to other people? Woo hoo!"

BRIAN: Awww. How old of a guy are you?

PACH: I'm 25... no, 24. Twenty five in September, I'm practicing getting used to saying the '25'.

BRIAN: Ahh, yes. What do you do there in Austin?

PACH: I'm a student, commercial music, actually.

BRIAN: Wow.

PACH: Yeah, I'm really excited about that and I'll probably end up going to film school after that, but for now it's commercial music. I'm going to just finish up with that here at good old Austin Community College.

BRIAN: Are you out, may I ask?

PACH: Yes, I'm out. I'm out and about in the city and in the world. I think in my family it's kind of something that they don't talk about very often but ... My little brother, he's fifteen, he so wonderfully and so eloquently likes to point it out to everyone and likes to make his gay fruity jokes and make everybody giggle. I'm like, "Oh, okay, thank you. I love you so much, you're such a crazy person." But not mean, he's not mean at all, they're not cruel-hearted.

JUSTIN: Pach, we are so excited that you're going to be bringing us news every week. But of course, if anybody has any news items that they think would be of interest to the gay Christian community, they can send those to you at news@gaychristian.net.

PACH: Yeah, that's right, to gayn... I was about to say gaynews, no, gaychristian.net. Well, it is gay news! But that's not where to send it.

JUSTIN: So yeah, just send those on to news@gaychristian.net to get in touch with Pach.

PACH: Rock on! Yes, yes, I look forward to hearing from everyone.

JUSTIN: Pach, we will look forward to hearing from you next week.

PACH: I'll see you guys next week.

BRIAN: Okay, awesome. Thanks, Pach, for joining us.

PACH: No problem, thanks for having me.

JUSTIN: Well, Brian, I know we're getting close to the end of the show, but before we end things I wanted to comment on a couple of those new stories that Pach was sharing with us.

BRIAN: Sure.

JUSTIN: Because there's so much interesting stuff and I wish we had time to talk about all of them in depth, but a couple in particular stuck out to me as particularly interesting. One of them the one about the MCC church--and of course for those who don't know, MCC is a gay-friendly denomination, they do recognize same-sex marriage as legitimate--the fact that they were actually kicked out of an AIDS hospice.

BRIAN: Yeah, yeah.

JUSTIN: I mean.... You know, I certainly understand that a lot of Christians may disagree with the theology of the MCC, as a lot of Christians disagree with the theology of many denominations, gay Christians included; we all disagree on a number of points of theology. And so I certainly respect the fact that the Catholic Church in this case disagrees with the MCC's stand on same-sex marriage. But it does seem to me really ironic, and really a bit of a shame to deny a church that welcomes gay folks from meeting in a place that is there to support a number of gay folks who have AIDS.

BRIAN: Right, right.

JUSTIN: I did think that it was really a shame that that one lawyer commenting on the case was questioning the faith of these folks. I think it's one thing to say, "I believe that you are wrong, biblically", but I think it's an entirely different thing to say "You're not a Christian."

BRIAN: I think that he took it too far.

JUSTIN: Now, but my favorite news story of the week was the news story about the gay rams. Had you heard about this, Brian?

BRIAN: I had not. When I listened to the report, my eyebrows raised because I had no idea about this. It's quite interesting.

JUSTIN: This is another example of studies that are continuing to show evidence for a biological origin of sexual orientation. These cases, one after another, keep showing that it does seem to be biologically related. Now, don't take that too far. Does that mean that anything is proven? No. And who knows if anything will ever be proven, to prove anything 100% when you're talking about something as complex as psychology and sexuality. But the idea that gay men's brains may be wired more like women's brains in a certain area of the brain is very interesting. And to see the same thing, almost the exact same result, show up in these gay ram's brains is just more evidence for that. So it's really really interesting to see where this is going and we'll be watching this. One more example of many of gay animals. Remember, they used to say, "Oh it's not natural because you don't see it in nature."

BRIAN: Well, you do!

JUSTIN: You do, yeah. It's all over: we've had gay penguins, gay swans, gay rams... so many gay animals in the news recently.

BRIAN: So our question this week is, If you could be a gay animal, which would you be? Oh, no, that's not it.

JUSTIN: That'll be our question next week. No, but our question this week, as you remember, is "If you could take a pill to change your sexual orientation, would you? Why or why not?" So make sure you give us a call at 1-888-GAY4GOD or submit your answer on the website at http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio/. And we're always eager to hear your comments and questions.

BRIAN: Definitely. Our email is gcnradio at gaychristian.net. And we always like to hear from folks, tell us what you like, what you don't like, what you'd suggest for us. And if you're a member of GayChristian.net you can always post in our comments section down towards the bottom where you can post in GCN Features, just go to the GCN Radio area. So for this week I'm Brian...

JUSTIN: ...and I'm Justin. Have a terrific week!