Traditional Families Cannot be Enforced–Inclusion Must Win

Last updated on: September 20, 2024 at 9:22 am by Julie Nichols

Traditional Families Cannot be Enforced–Inclusion Must Win 2024-09-20T09:22:10-05:00 Julie Nichols

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This morning I had a conversation with my husband Grant about the current state of events. If you haven’t noticed in both the USA and in other countries, an effort to preserve traditional family structures and traditional religious cultures are occurring globally. This is happening primarily by force through a dangerous union between the right wing of a government and a conservative religious sect. It’s happening by Hindu Nationalism in India, through Jewish Nationalism in Israel, through Eastern Orthodox Nationalism in Russia, Catholic Nationalism in Poland, and Christian Nationalism in the United States. This list continues to grow. What I didn’t understand as a religious person and what many are not understanding now is traditional family structures and traditional practices cannot be enforced at all costs by any unethical means possible. They also cannot be done at the expense of reversing civil rights and endangering peoples’ human rights and lives who are different than our own. Donald Trump and his team are attempting to implement a variation of this through the Project 2025 Agenda which can be found here. https://www.project2025.org/

Last Christmas, I wrote a piece about a Catholic priest in Italy who created a manger scene with “Two Marys.” Let’s say the reaction to it from the Italian Catholic Right wasn’t kind. This priest witnessed different LGBTQ+ families come in and out of his church. His goal through the manger scene was to make everyone feel welcome, particularly the children growing up in gay families. You can find one of many articles here. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2024/01/26/after-criticism-priest-defends-nativity-scene-depicting-jesus-with-two-mothers/

I’ve been asked, “why not enforce the traditional nuclear family and traditional ways of life.” My simple answer now is, “this is not lived reality, and it would be dangerous.”

The more I expand my social lenses, and the more I see, the more I realize that inclusion of everyone is a safety issue, a right-to-life issue, a human dignity issue, and a loving our neighbor as ourselves issue. A key moment of understanding for me is when I had a recent conversation with my neurologist. All areas of society are moving to an inclusive position in medicine, the military, and a number of other areas. I believe religious communities must as well because they impact society.

Since all people are equally-sacred and equally-created in God’s image, the Church must minister to current reality and realize that the traditional nuclear family is now one variation of many variations of families. To not treat all people and all variations of the modern family as equally-sacred is to place less value on some people than others. This is antithetical to the Gospel. To not do so is to align with fascism which is a great danger to LGBTQIA+ people and their families, some racial groups, various types of families, religious minorities, and more. We do not want a repeat of any variation of the Holocaust which is a growing threat in various countries, including here in the USA.

God forgive me for not understanding this much sooner.

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