Coming Out, Coming Home
Asian Week Staff Report, Aug 12, 2005
Over 50 people held an open dialogue, listening and learning about the
struggles of Christian Asian American LGBT and their families.
The event was co-sponsored by four organizations:
API Family Pride,
PANA,
CLGS and
GRACE.
Oneida Chi shared her journey of conflict, struggle and finally reconciliation
of being Asian, gay and Christian. Rev. Nobu Hanaoka, minister of Bethany UMC in
San Francisco, talked about being a pastor and a father to a lesbian.
Members of Pine United Methodist Church, the first Asian American congregation
to make a public declaration in support of LBGTs, shared the path followed by
the church to take this historic decision in 1994.
Professor Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan, of Pacific School of Religion, shared his own
transformation as a biblical scholar on this issue, and gave a biblical study on
six verses in the Bible that possibly refer to homosexuality. He emphasized the
importance of understanding the biblical cultural framework in the Old Testament
and Greco-Roman period.
John and Belinda Dronkers-Laureta, Harold and Ellen Kameya, and Al and Jane
Nakatani, all parents of LGBT children, shared their stories, including how it
took years, and sometimes even decades, to get to acceptance, love and now
public advocacy. They shared how religion and religious involvement impacted
their children.
Out of this gathering, an interfaith network will begin working together for
Respect and Justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay
Bisexual and Transgender Persons in Religion. Contact PANA at (510) 849-8244 or
pana@psr.edu.
Can I reconcile being Asian, Christian, and gay?
Oneida Chi
It was a blessing for my [gay] son that he was not religious. That was a battle
he did not have to fight.
John Dronkers-Laureta
Those of you thinking about being a reconciling congregation take off your
thinking caps and just do it because our children need it.
Al Nakatani
Asian American Christian churches for the most part have either been condemning
of homosexuality or completely silent ignoring that, of course, devout people
in their own congregations might be gay or children or other family members of
their parishioners might be gay. The silence has really harmed people and sent a
strong message of shame and exclusion.
Rev. Deborah Lee, program director of the PANA Institute (Institute for
Leadership Development and the Study of Pacific and Asian North American
Religion).