Here's a way to honk off the Religious Right....

Plan a screening of Camp Out.

It asks the question that the so-called Religious Right just don't want to hear: can you be gay and Christian? And, even better (or worse, depending on which side you're on): can you be a gay Christian teenager?

This is no work of fiction: this is a documentary of 10 gay/lesbian teenagers who attend a camp run by a maverick gay pastor in the ELCA and his partner (by itself, a big no-no in the ELCA...bad pastor...). Not just any camp, mind you, but a camp specifically for gay Christian teens. The plot summary says the pastor and his partner started this camp because they were tired of hearing about gay kids killing themselves because they believed they were going to hell.

Yup - those Religious Righters probably need to stomp on THAT ministry as quickly as possible (although I suspect their more liberal ELCA brothers will do it for them). After all, we don't want any of that good-news crap getting out to the queers, now do we?...
:-(

In fact, in one of the review of the screenings at various film festivals, it describes a scene where one of the teens asks the tragic question: "What if they're right? What if we are going to hell?"

Of course, the answer that conservative Christians don't want you to hear is, of course, that everyone is going to hell - absent the saving power of Christ. Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (the Enron execs), the addict living in the alley, the ACT UP! gay activists, and all ten of the teens in this movie are all damned - absent faith in Jesus.

I'll be interested to see if this movie makes it to any of the film festivals here in Chicago this summer and fall...if it does, I'll be near the head of the line to support it...