NYC: Dan Savage Keynotes “Sexual Diversity And The Catholic Church”

Guest author Kelby Harrison explains part two of a four part event, More than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church. Dan Savage will be the keynote speaker at this event Saturday, October 1. 

 

As a response to the suffering of LGBTQ people under homophobia, Pro-Queer Life: Youth Suicide Crisis, Catholic Education, and the Souls of LGBTQ People, organized at Union theological Seminary (as part II of the More than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church conference series) will call upon the Catholic Church, as a significant provider of education and producer of culture, to seek the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. The Church should be a source of liberation and a contributor to the flourishing of LGBTQ people within and outside of Catholicism. One important way in which the Church ought to, and in some settings does, contribute positively to queer life is by actively working towards the best practices of LGBTQ student empowerment and sexual diversity inclusion in school settings. This one-day conference will focus on high school and collegiate education curricula, administrative practices, student groups, and the fostering of a pro-queer life student/educational culture.

In the United States, the Catholic Church is the number one provider of private education. The cultural and personal influence that it maintains over its students —intellectually, spiritually, and morally  — is profound. The recent wave of teenage and young adult suicides by those who are, or who are perceived to be, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer is only new in its large-scale media coverage. The bullying and mistreatment of students based on perceived sexual orientation or gender expression, and the negative messaging all students receive about sexual diversity have been too long with us. All young people deserve empowering educations to know their full value as human beings.

Educational institutions must take responsibility for protecting against the culture and attitudes that contribute to LGBTQ suicide. The “Pro-Queer Life” conference will focus attention on where Catholic educational institutions are getting it right, where they need to be better, and where their complicity in the wounding of young LGBTQ persons is unacceptable.

 

More Than A Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church is a four part series of conferences produced by Fordham University, Union Theological Seminary, Yale University and Fairfield University

 

WHERE:  Day Program at Union Theological Seminary 3041 Broadway, New York, NY

Keynote Address by Dan Savage:

The Riverside Church, South Hall, 490 Riverside Drive at 120th Street

WHEN:   Saturday, October 1:

Day Program:  10:00 am to 8:00 pm**

Lunch Keynote by Robert Goss: 12:45 pm

Resistance is not Futile:  Queer Ruption of Catholic Theology 

Keynote Address by Dan Savage, It Gets Better Campaign : 6:00 to 8:00 pm

WHO:  Speakers at event will include:

Dan Savage, sex advice columnist and founder of the “It Gets Better” Campaign

Robert Goss, theologian and author of Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto

Patrick Cheng, Assistant Professor, Historic and Systematic Theology, Episcopal Divinity School

Fred Roden, Associate Professor of English, University of Connecticut

Winnie Varghese, Episcopal priest and former Chaplain, Columbia University

WHY: “At Union Theological Seminary, theologian James Cone counsels seminarians to believe that theology can be both life-giving and death-dealing. The messages that our churches send to youth are of vital importance. The theme of the “Pro-Queer Life” conference is to discuss how the theological messaging of the Catholic Church, as it is communicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and  ‘Queer’ youth receive the theological messages that come from the Catholic hierarchy, the parish level, and the older Catholics in their lives – parents, role-models, and teachers, to ask what we can do to make sure the messaging they receive is life-giving not death-dealing.”