Before this most recent spate of media attention to anti-gay bullying, Dan Savage set up a YouTube channel aimed at young lgbt people. The It Gets Better project invites anyone with a YouTube account who wants to share their experiences in order to give hope to teens facing discrimination and bullying. Dan and his husband shared their own experiences in the first video…

Yesterday Savage posted a video from Christian writer, blogger, and ordained Baptist minister Cody J. Sanders. He quotes Sanders on Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue:

Anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it has a theological base. I find it difficult to believe that even those among us with a vibrant imagination can muster the creative energy to picture a reality in which anti-gay violence and bullying exist without the anti-gay religious messages that support them.

These messages come in many forms, degrees of virulence, and volumes of expression. The most insidious forms, however, are not those from groups like Westboro Baptist Church. Most people quickly dismiss this fanaticism as the red-faced ranting of a fringe religious leader and his small band of followers.

More difficult to address are the myriad ways in which everyday churches that do a lot of good in the world also perpetuate theologies that undergird and legitimate instrumental violence. The simplistic, black and white lines that are drawn between conceptions of good and evil make it all-too-easy to apply these dualisms to groups of people. When theologies leave no room for ambiguity, mystery and uncertainty, it becomes very easy to identify an “us” (good, heterosexual) versus a “them” (evil, gay).