Brad, Jay, and Ross at camp in their younger years
More than ten years ago, three gay Lutheran men with seminary backgrounds saw a need for “a space for youth to find community and know that they were safe and accepted for who they were.” Based upon their collaborative efforts, The Naming Project came into being and now celebrates its tenth anniversary. I blogged about The Naming Project four years ago, and more information is available on their website.
Rev. Brad Froslee is now the pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis, Jay Wiesner-Smith has returned to the secular world as a human resources person for Comcast in Philadelphia, and Ross Murray is now the Director of News for GLAAD and lives and works in NYC.
Today The Naming Project continues to provide safe, welcoming, and nurturing environments for g/l/b/t and allied youth. The dreams and work of Jay Wiesner, Ross Murray, and Brad Froslee alongside the work of a tremendous Advisory Board, congregations, and community leaders continues to unfold. There is a dream that every youth (whether g/l/b/t or allied) should know a place of acceptance and the abundant love of God. And throughout our lives we are reminded that it is an ongoing project to remember that we have been created and named as “a beloved child of God.”
On this tenth anniversary, the Naming Project is undertaking a major fundraising effort. Please help as you can, share with your friends, and point any potential camp attendees in their direction.
I do follow your blog and appreciate the contrasting viewpoints. However, I question your use of the term “liberal.” Seems less than consistent. Here is a consistent liberal: http://www.davidhousholder.com/youre-liberal-actually-you-probably-arent/
David,
Thanks for dropping by.
Isn’t it just a bit condescending to imply that liberal folks like me, with three score years and counting, are wallowing in youthful naiveté? “Most young people like how “liberal” and “progressive” values sound. They want to be cooler than their “conservative” parents.” I learned empathy, one of my liberal shortcomings, from my very cool mother.
The speaker you linked to in your blog post referred to John Stuart Mill, one of my favorites from my long-ago college days. If memory serves, the inspiration for his landmark, On Liberty, was societal opprobrium at the scandal of his relationship with a married women. It seems he, too, wanted to be free from prying eyes into his bedroom, and it is well to remember the context of his defense of individual liberty, as well as his grounding in the utilitarianism of his father and Jeremy Bentham.
Since we are on the subject of philosophers who have impacted modern notions of statehood, we should remember Thomas Hobbes’ warning that the life of the solitary individual is “nasty, brutish, and short,” or the adage of John Donne that “no man is an island,” or the social contract insights of Rousseau.
I haven’t read enough of your writing to know for sure, but you strike me as a laissez faire capitalist, and your biggest gripes have to do with taxation and government regulation of the economy. I apologize if I mis-characterize your brand of libertarianism. It is true enough that capitalistic ideas of the freedom of the marketplace and the belief in the laws of supply and demand to produce plenty for everyone grew out of the liberalism of several centuries ago. However, we have learned in the meantime that capitalism needs the regulating hand of government–see the trust-busting of Teddy Roosevelt following the gilded age or the collapse of the economy following the golden twenties. When I was in college over forty years ago, I learned that the American economic system was best characterized as welfare capitalism, and there was a Keynesian consensus that government had a vital role to play in creating and maintaining a level playing field, but then Reaganomics began to strip away at labor rights and social welfare programs, and Clintonian triangulation and deregulation advanced the process. The legacy of the past three decades is staggering income and wealth inequality, which is the greatest threat to our economic well-being–not taxation, not deficits or debt, not inflation, not government regulation.
Yes, I am a liberal, but not according to your centuries-old definition.