Focus on which families?

Dear friends,

I received this article in my mailbox and found it sad. We often forget to question the practices of our churches in regard to spending and to the livelihood of people who work for them.

The article shows,
UPDATE: Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. Initial reports bring the total number of remaining employees to around 950.

Focus on the Family is poised to announce major layoffs to its Colorado Springs-based ministry and media empire today. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.

Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry.

There are quotes from both Californian Against Hate and a Colorado Springs activist who helped organize protests against Proposition 8. They examine the fiscal allocation of the group in Colorado.

“If I were their membership I would be appalled,” said Mark Lewis, a longtime Colorado Springs activist who helped organize a Proposition 8 protest in Colorado Springs on Saturday. “That [Focus on the Family] would spend any money on anything that’s obviously going to get blocked in the courts is just sad. [Prop. 8] is guaranteed to lose, in the long run it doesn’t have a chance — it’s just a waste of money.”

“They should do more with their half-million dollars than spending it to collect signatures to take the rights away from a class of people,” said Fred Karger, the founder of the anti-Prop 8 group Californians Against Hate. “I think it’s wrong and it’s hurtful to so many Americans.”

The issue takes hold at the ideological practices of these non-profit groups. Where so many of these could help with individual families, they have been spending more time and effort in donating to political groups and against ballot measures.

The article comes to close with a great quote from Lewis in regard to Colorado initiatives that were supported but failed due to constitutional rights being upheld.

Lewis likened Proposition 8 to Colorado’s Amendment 2, the 1992 anti-gay measure that was designed to prohibit gays and lesbians from seeking legal protections. Colorado voters approved the measure, which was marketed by proponents, including Focus on the Family, as an effort to prohibit gays and lesbians from seeking “special rights.” The U.S. Supreme Court stuck down the measure as unconstitutional four years later.

“You can’t make homosexuals second class citizens — we’ve learned that already,” Lewis said. “People will look back on this and see how absurd it is.”

We review pictures of the Civil Rights Movement where white southerners are yelling at African American children walking into schools trying to receive the same benefits as their white counterparts. We look at these with puzzled faces and sadness in our hearts. "How could people have treated one another in that way?" Very easily.

We are seeing these same images being exercised by a new set of people toward a new group of citizens trying to receive equal rights. I remember the group of people yelling like they won the national championship in football when Proposition 8 passed. Their eyes red with rage. I recall a pastor yelling at gay people and likening us to Adolph Hitler. I recall the signs that speak hateful words. I recall the people yelling, "You are going to hell!" I recall the anger toward me by my students in how I could ever think I was equal to them. I recall all these and I keep walking toward the door to the school.

I guarantee we will see this same thing happen in the years to come in regard to LGBT rights. One day, everyone will have the same rights as others. It is just a matter of time...and a matter of patience.

Stand strong knowing justice eventually succeeds,

Stacy