Good piece in HuffPo today by my friend Meg Riley, a lesbian UU minister, fantastic parent, and all around loving crusader for social justice.
The latest clergy sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has led to some interesting conversations with my 13-year-old daughter.
Always eager to differentiate herself from her minister mother, this teenage child/demon/Boddhisatva has been telling me for a while that she is "Churchophobic," hates religion, and is an atheist. This latest scandal gives her a lot of material to work with.
"You see?" she said to me, holding up the front page's latest allegations about the Pope's complicity in this scandal. "This is why I hate churches! The world would be a much better place without religion."
My primary parent-of-teen reflexes are shrug-and-ignore and tense-up-and-argue. Neither of these is ever effective, including now. In the tense mode, I have already told her, many times, about all of the good that religion and the church bring into the world. In this case, however, beyond my reflexive responses, I am called to a deeper listening to what she is telling me and asking me.
(snip)
More at link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-meg-riley/blame-the-gays-and-other_b_543554.html