To Believe or Not Believe
ChrisDill

When I first began writing this article about the Community
Church and its Burlington store, Strictly Vermont, I planned
on writing an article filled with anger and indignation. My
mind, filled with the quotes from their pamphlet, Back to the
Garden, grew defensive and aggressive. Yet upon talking to
some of the members of the Community during and after pro-
tests held outside their store, I have changed my dirmtion of
thought.

It seems that what the Community is at fault for is simply ig-
norance and narrowmindedness. They are ignorant for ex-
ample in thinking that gay men, lesbians and bisexuals feel
they are trapped in the body of the wrong sex. They are ignor-
ant of the real love, emotional and physical, that can occur in a
homosexual relationship. Yet even their ignorance of what it
means to be gay can be dispelled by their willingness to listen
and talk to gay individuals. What cannot be dispelled and
keeps these individuals from recognizing the validity of a ho-
mosexual lifestyle is their literal interpretation of the Bible.

What can we say? At this point there is not much to say. Either
you believe the Bible word for word, or you do not. For my-
self, I choose not to. For me the Bible is a collection of stories
reflecting a predominantly straight and male dominated society
in existence over two thousand years ago. For me, revelation is
not an occurrence that took place some thousand years earlier,
but a continual process of strengthening my awareness. Rev-
elations don’t occur only once; they happen throughout our
lives.

The Community members at Strictly Vennont are not guilty of
hatred, nor of wishing to spread violence (they guaranteed that
they would mention their disapproval of any anti-gay violence
in their next pamphlet). But they are guilty of closing their
minds to diverse thoughts. They are guilty of following their
own path and refusing to see any other path as valid.

I do not believe we should harbor any strong feelings of anger
towards this group, nor should we interpret their actions as be-
ing hateful, for after all they honestly do see their actions as
being motivated by love, and they believe homosexuality to be
another form of suicide. However, I feel that you should not
buy items from their store unless you are willing to help pay
for their sexist and homophobic pamphlets. The inability to ac-
cept others for who they are is the greatest danger to life and to
peace. Throughout history it has caused the greatest harm. To
give money to Strictly Vermont is to give money to the in-
tolerance that inhibits peaceful cohabitation. V

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