Prop 8 Trial Tracker

The vicious cycle of guilt: A post-mortem on TheCall

(Linda Liles found a good outlet to express her feelings about TheCall Sacramento — she wrote up this compelling guest post last night for the P8TT community to discuss on this beautiful Sunday. If you haven’t read Linda’s first guest post about coming out to her mother, check it out after you read her analysis below. — Eden)

By Linda Liles

In Arisha’s first installment of her coverage of the ‘TheCall’ convergence she recounted a conversation she had with a young man. In the course of the conversation she pointed out the contradiction of being pro-life and pro-death penalty; to which the young man replied, ‘Yeah it’s all mixed up. Man mixes things up.”

This quote, coupled with the general tone of the conversation made me feel a deep empathy for this man. He has been through a lot, and has accomplished a lot towards getting his life back on track; but the message I picked up from what Arisha relayed was a deep current of guilt.

Guilt.

We have a wonderful family in our community on P8TT; and among us we have representatives of many different faiths, and many denominations within those faiths. We also have those who are atheist; those who are spiritual; those who are agnostic. In short, we are all-encompassing; and I believe we are to be commended for the lengths we all go to in making sure that what we express is not critical of or offensive to others.

And most of the time we are successful in that endeavor. In sharing my perspective I have no desire to break that unwritten code of tolerance and civility. The observations I am about to make are not to be taken as criticisms of true Christianity. In fact, it offends me that our opposition is allowed to wear that identity. But having been raised in an extreme, fundamentalist Christian household I feel a need to speak to the negative impact this false Christianity can have.

And the main component of this brand of Christianity is guilt.

Guilt is mandatory. Guilt is humbling; guilt actually proves that you’ve sinned, because the guilt you feel is God convicting you of your sin. And when you feel that guilt, then you need to repent and ask for forgiveness. And this is where they take control; because from then on every time you slip up or make a mistake it is labeled as a sin; sin equals guilt, which must then lead to repentance, forgiveness, etc. etc. It’s a vicious cycle that keeps the victim permanently guilt-ridden. There is always something to feel guilty about. And with that guilt come low self-esteem, and low self-worth. That’s what I picked up on in the young man Arisha was conversing with on Friday night.

That guilt is extremely valuable to these pseudo-Christian leaders; and they know exactly how to take full advantage of it. They begin by listing all the wrongs—in the world, in this country, in the state; and then they put the blame for all those wrongs on the people who are in attendance. And they proceed to list all the wrongs of the people—wrong actions, wrong thoughts, wrong effort, wrong amount of passion for Christ, wrong level of commitment to God—it starts to get very serious at this point, and then the attendees are called on to repent of their sins, over and over; and they are pleading with God to forgive them.

And then, after all that emotional turmoil, these people are instructed to pledge their lives to serving God and righting the wrongs their previous sins caused. And this time, they are not to live as passive Christians; no! They must be warriors, on the front lines. “The line is drawn, the weapons are ready, we will not back down, we will not give in!” How many times have I heard that growing up. So of course, the exhausted, emotionally spent, guilt-ridden attendees are going to pledge to do anything; anything to keep from sinning and feeling that awful guilt again.

And then, those deceitful leaders turn from being the accusers to being the recruiters, and all of a sudden those in attendance are Godly, righteous people who will stand against……whatever, it doesn’t matter. The intent at this point is to bring home the awareness that now that they’ve repented they have the freedom to judge and condemn all those who have not repented.

And, ohhh! That feels so good! Finally the attention is off their sins and on the sins of someone else. Finally they’re the good guys; the righteous guys! The adrenaline rush is incredible now; they are ready to go into battle; they are ready to do God’s work and rid the world of the evilness of sin….as manifested in….oh, let’s see….abortion clinics, planned parenthood offices, GSA organizations, LGBT-friendly businesses, churches that perform same sex marriage ceremonies, funerals of soldiers, any candidate for political office who supports something they do not believe in…. in short, any entity that does anything that can be interpreted as contradicting God’s Absolutes.

And it all started with guilt.

When I got out from under this type of oppressive form of Christianity one of the first things I did was release myself from all the baggage I was carrying because of guilt. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to take that load of guilt off my shoulders and toss it in the trash.

I’m done feeling guilty. I freely acknowledge that I’ve made mistakes; and I am endeavoring to learn from them. But I will not carry guilt for the rest of my life because of them.

As an LGBT community we are carrying more than our share of guilt, aren’t we? And we see the effects. We see the low self-esteem; we see the self-doubt; we see the depression. But do we see how we are being manipulated by all of that? It’s that guilt that makes us wonder if we really have the right to come out. It’s that guilt that makes us question ourselves when confronted with condemning scriptures. It’s that guilt that makes us willing to live as less than equal; to hide ourselves to keep from offending others; to lie about our partners; to stay silent when someone speaks against us.

Guilt!

Can we, as a community, make a pledge to each other? Anonygrl started it here on P8TT by asking us to promise to live; Richard added to that pledge by promising to not only live, but to do all he can to help others live as well. My addition would be this: Can we all promise to forgive ourselves and release ourselves from that guilt? Let’s accept that we are living our lives the best way we know how, and let that be sufficient. Let’s look ahead with hope and enthusiasm; embracing each new day with eager anticipation. Let’s rise up out of our persecution, and claim our equality.

Life is a process; and I believe the point is to live it; and to live it as freely as possible.

An equality supporter and a volunteer for TheCall engage in a debate about the event on Saturday.

5015116 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F09%2F05%2Fthe-vicious-cycle-of-guilt-a-post-mortem-on-thecall%2FThe+vicious+cycle+of+guilt%3A+A+post-mortem+on+TheCall2010-09-05+20%3A00%3A39couragecampaignhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D5015 September 5, 2010

#TheCallTurnoutFAIL exposed: Organizers planned for 30,000, not 6,000; Endless, empty blocks of JumboTrons, Porta-Potties unused

(Andy Kelley, Courage’s New Media Organizer, was at TheCall yesterday, and wrote this piece revealing how the event was actually a total failure in terms of turnout, compared to what the organizers expected. Lou Engle expected 30,000 people, it appears, if the multiple JumboTrons and Porta-Potties stretching on for blocks… of empty grass… are any indication. Not to mention the 55,450 unused water bottles, outnumbering actual attendees almost tenfold. Great reporting by Andy, who also got video footage that will be uploaded later. Check it out. — Eden)

by Andy Kelley

It is difficult to call an event with an estimated turnout somewhere around 6,000 a small event. In truth, it’s a far cry from the few dozen people we came to expect during the NOM tour. TheCall Sacramento, however, is a totally different creature.

While driving to do an interview with a Minister from a local church (video to follow), Anthony and I couldn’t help wonder why so many streets were blocked off in downtown Sacramento. After all, everyone was down in the capital.

So I decided to get out of the car to find out what was going on. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered “Road Closed” signs at the intersection of 4th St. @ L St. (some 7 plus blocks from the Capital Park).

As I walked down the street I passed dozens of Porta Potties, but no one was in sight, let alone congregating around them. I continued down the street, walking in search of anyone who might be attending the event, but there was no one on the street, no one but me. I kept walking, until I reached a JumboTron, some five blocks away from the Capital, but again, no one was in sight. Had they really anticipated it would be needed?

As I continued walking forward, I passed many uniformed police officers, hundreds of feet of chain link fences, and yet another closed intersection. There was a a second JumboTron, like the first, I was the only one viewing it. Beside is were several pallets of water bottles. I couldn’t help but wonder how many, so I counted them. 35 bottles per case x 8 cases per level x 7 levels per pallet = 1,680 bottles of water. There were 17 such pallets, sitting unattended beside the JumboTron, 23,520 water bottles in total (feel free to check my math.)

I passed another solitary JumboTron, followed a block later by yet another massive screen with but one viewer besides myself. Here, I discovered another 16 pallets of water, 3 pallets (5040 bottles) appeared to have been used, bringing the grand total 55,440 unused water bottles!

With so much water around, it’s no wonder there were another 200 Porta Potties located closer to the venue, meaning that I’d walked by 250 or so in total, and had yet to see a line. According to their vendor, United Site Services website, 242 Porta Potties would service the a crowd of 30,000 people for 10 hours. This begs the question, how many people had The Call’s planners been anticipating. United Site Services states only 48 such toilets would be needed for the crowd of 6,000 present on Saturday.

Even as I got closer to Capital Park, there was enough room for several participants to set out picnic blankets, while leaving space in between (as the picture to the right of TheCall attendees bowing in prayer shows quite clearly).

Based on the Porta Potties provided, the scattering of JumboTrons accross capital mall, and the over-abundance of water bottles a conservative estimate could place their expectations somewhere around 30,000.

Clearly, this was not the case. It took me over 10 minutes from the first road closure, to even reach a semblance of “The Call.” Turnout was only 20 percent of what organizers may have expected, and considerably lower than the events from even the night before.

Let’s keep in mind that Lou Engle and Mike Huckabee claim that more than 400,000 people attended TheCall in Washington, D.C. in 2000, as this promo for TheCall Sacramento hypes to the, er, heavens:

The

4972136 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F09%2F05%2Fthecallturnoutfail-exposed-organizers-planned-for-30000-not-6000-endless-empty-blocks-of-jumbotrons-porta-potties-unused%2F%23TheCallTurnoutFAIL+exposed%3A+Organizers+planned+for+30%2C000%2C+not+6%2C000%3B+Endless%2C+empty+blocks+of+JumboTrons%2C+Porta-Potties+unused2010-09-05+14%3A30%3A35couragecampaignhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D4972 September 5, 2010