mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell) (09/29/89)
Thanks for the wonderful post about the sacrifices made by the JW's
in Nazi Germany. Note also, that while they certainly were martyrs,
one can be a victim and a martyr at the same time.
Many groups are "forgotten" when we speak of the Holocaust. We all know
that about six million Jews were killed, but who were the other groups
that got killed? The Nazis also systematically killed gypsies, communists,
slavs, JW's, and many other groups. But the one that we "forget" more
than any other was the massacre of two million homosexuals.
In Amsterdam (I believe) there is the sole monument to the second largest
group of victims of the holocaust. Why aren't there more? Why do people
turn away and reject the notion that homosexuals were vicitms as well?
The answer is simple. Because they realize that homosexuals are the same
victims today. Society continually persecutes gay people, and there are
even those, in Congress, no less, who advocate sentencing them to
concentration camps and killing them wholesale. Our churches, by and large,
refuse to accept homosexuals as members, let alone ordain and respect them.
The vast majority of Christians engage in this continual pursuit. There is
a "gay church", Metropolitan Community Church. Many attack it on the grounds
of divisivness, without realizing that they are the ones who have alienated
gay people from Christ and told them that Christ isn't for them. The tide
is turning, but it hasn't turned yet, and we all need to be aware, when we
speak of persecution, that the persecution goes on around all of us, day in
and day out, for some.
--
Michael I. Bushnell \ This above all; to thine own self be true
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE \ And it must follow, as the night the day,
mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu /\ Thou canst not be false to any man.
Telephone: +1 505 292 0001 / \ Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!