Study & Discussion Guide for Using Remember the Main in Courses and Religious Retreats

Directions

This guide prompts both analysis and personal reflection. The goal is to help readers understand history, bigotry, grassroot organizing, and the experiences of the disinherited. It is also to foster personal reflection on one’s values, attitudes towards others, and one’s commitments to social justice and compassion for others.

Each chapter has its own prompts. In academic courses, these prompts may be assigned as homework and used for class discussion, the following class meeting. They may also be assigned in class as a group of questions or individually, and students may be given time in class to discussion in small group or quietly reflect on prompts before being invited to discuss thoughts and insights in class discussion. Students may also be given writing assignments based on the prompts.

In religious retreats, the use of this guide will depend on the structure of the retreat. If participants have been assigned the text or chapters of the text ahead of time, reflections and discussions related to the material will be easier to facilitate. Taking time to read in retreats can be difficult as readers read at different paces.

In religious retreats this text may:

  1. Help people understand popular prejudices and its impact on the dignity and well-being of others
  2. Help people explore their own struggle to respect and care for people who are different from themselves
  3. Help people understand how their own faith traditions and teachings may inform their response to political and social advocacy for the rights of all people

The following suggestions are for retreat team leaders who will facilitate reflection and discussion based on Remember the Main. These suggestions are offered with the expectation that retreat participants will have read the book before the retreat. Each suggestion here is designed for a workshop session of 2.0 to 2.5 hours. These suggestions do not necessarily follow the order of questions in the guide, as they are based on the book as a whole and not on any single chapter.

DISINHERITANCE AND THE LOVE OF GOD

  1. Allow participants to reflect and write for 15 minutes on the following questions:
    1. What did interviewees reveal about what it was like to be despised and discriminated against? What do Cheryl Hager’s (Chapter 2) and Mary Griffith’s (Conclusion) stories have in common, and what do they suggest about the love of God?
    2. Is the practice of disinheritance and discrimination compatible with the love of God? Explain
    3. What do you imagine are the spiritual consequences of being disinherited?
    4. Are the faithful called to defend LGBTQ rights or to oppose them? Why?
  2. Facilitate discussion
    1. What do participates say about what is it like to be discriminated against and disinherited? (Did they acknowledge the internalization of hate, the loneliness, the fear of loss of friends, jobs, shelter, family, and church membership, the helplessness of knowing that the law would probably not protect them?)
  3. What do participants say about disinheritance and discrimination’s compatibility with the love of God? (Do some hold that Mosaic laws found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus be strictly kept in one’s response to LGBTQ petitions for respect and rights? Can that be reconciled with the New Covenant of the Gospels? What does it mean to “love the sinner but hate the sin,” and how does that apply when the sin concerns an individual’s identity? Does medical science offer insights to the issue of whether being LGBTQ is biologically determined or a hosen way of life? How well informed about these things should a person be in order to make sound moral judgments?)
  4. What do participants say about the spiritual consequences of being disinherited? (Do they mention self-loathing, loss of faith in belief that they were created in God’s image, idea that God made a mistake when they were created, idea that they deserve to suffer terrible things because of who they are? Do they mention abandoning faith in God and hating all things religious? Do they take the loss of spirituality and the wounds of one’s spirt as seriously as they take physical or material injury and loss? Do they blame LGBTQ for their suffering and loss?)
  5. What do participants say about the obligation to defend LGBTQ rights? (Where do ambiguities lie? What are the foundations of their conclusions? Are they aware of the consequences of their choices, and what do they imagine them to be for all stakeholders concerned? Does their spirituality inform their decision and should it? What fallacies, if any have they used to defend their position — such as, “gays are all child molesters,” when data for decades shows that straight white males represent the majority of child molesters in US)
  6. Open the floor for discussion on following: What insights have you gained from this session? What kind of questions remain in your mind and how might you answer them? Has this session helped you to clarify your understanding of the love of God? How?) NOTE: this follow up question might be most productive if undertaken after a break, such as a lunch break or after recreation or prayer time.

RELIGION & STATE (See supplemental materials that follow the chapter by chapter guide)

  1. Allow participants to reflect and write for 15 minutes on the following questions:
    1. What did the text reveal about how religion can be used in public policy-making and shaping public attitudes?
    2. Are the faithful called to leaven the love of God into civic life and politics? What are the pros and cons of doing this? Explain
    3. What the spiritual and social consequences of separating one’s private spiritual and public life?
  2. Facilitate discussion
    1. What do participants say about how religion can be used in public policy-making and shaping public attitudes? (Did they acknowledge that religion can be used by those who have studied theology and biblical exegesis and those who have not? Did they speak to the how this might impact public discourse? Did they mention that opponents of the Duluth Human Rights Ordinance who used religion to discourage support for it often assumed that the LGBTQ community was by definition against God? )
    2. What did participants have to say about leavening the love of God into civic life and politics? (Did they distinguish between informing and challenging other’s points of view and trying to indoctrinate or condemn others? What were the pros and cons of bringing religious perspective into discourse about public policies? Did they address what might happen if religious ideas were never considered in public-policy-making? Did they identify what principles would guide moral decision-making in public policy if religious ideas could never be discussed?)
  3. What did participants say about the spiritual and social consequences of separating one’s private spirituality from one’s public life? (Did they raise matter of exercising conscience and whether it was a private or public matter? Did they address the consequences for those who are persecuted and disinherited? Did they address consequences for social standards of morality? Did they address the extent wo which major religious share a consensus about certain moral standards and what they are, and who should “enforce” them?

COMMUNITY-BUIDLING

  1. Allow participants to reflect and write for 15 minutes on the following questions:
    1. What does community building mean to you, and what is its purpose?
    2. What does Remember the Main reveal about the best way to build communities and coalitions, and what barriers did the activists have to overcome to create them?
    3. What does Remember the Main suggest about the relationship between faith and community building?
    4. Where do you see the greatest need for community-building where you currently live, what could be accomplished by building a coalition, and what obstacles would have to be overcome?
  2. Facilitate discussion
    1. What do participants say about the meaning and purpose of community-building? (Do they believe it fills only a civic need or do they perceive the spiritual value of it? Do they conceptualize coalitions as homogenous or diverse organizations? Do they conceptualize community building as a democratic process where people identify needs and suggest strategies to resolve problems as they gather, or as a process that takes on democratic processes only after a mission or vision has been decided?)
    2. What do participants say about what Remember the Main taught them about community building? (Did they acknowledge the many ways that people who cared about the same thing did not always want to be involved? Did they mention the importance of inviting other organizations because activists paid attention to how other organization could contribute to advancing their cause; for example: undertaking the Human Right’s Ordinance Campaign by involving organizations of law-makers, educators, health care workers, religious ministers, social workers, the media, and business leaders? Did they recognize the power of socializing and sharing stories?)
    3. What did participants say about what Remember the Main revealed about the role of faith in advocating for the rights and dignity of the disinherited? (Did they see the value of risks that churches and ministers took to speak out on both sides of the issue? Did they acknowledge the formation of professional standards at religious schools? Did they address how religious people who struggled with accepting LGBTQ people relied on religion to resolve the struggle in favor of accepting LGBTQ people?
    4. What did participants say about the need for community building in their lives? (What are the needs? What would be the objective of creating a community coalition and organizing grassroots action? What are the risks and obstacles they see and do they have ideas about how to face, resolve, and cope with adversity? Did they acknowledge the incredible sacrifice that activists involved in the Northland’s campaigns to end violence and discrimination required personal sacrifices of time, money, and energy?
    5. Explore what participants have to say about their own religious and spiritual convictions and how they see its role in the civic life.

Remember the Main

A Chater by Chapter Guide for Academic Courses & Religious Retreats

Introduction

  1. What does this reveal about the relationship between the LGBTQIA+ people living I the Twin Ports region of Duluth and superior and their social environment?
  2. What conditions in the Northland were challenging to sexual minorities and women, and prior to the 1980s, and was the criminal justice system empathic to their suffering and needs?
  3. Do the conditions that impacted the LGBTQ community in the 1960s and 70s still exist? If so, how they impact the community and the national discourse on human rights?
  4. What does the author suggest about the scope of discrimination in the Northland and how people were affected by it?

Chapter 1

  1. What does the history of LGBT people in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s reveal about the relationship between the state and the individual’s private life?
  2. What did Bob Jansen learn from Viloa Spolin? Where did Spolin learn what she taught Jansen? What does this reveal about how people learn and about the value of learning from experience?
  3. Explain why the US military’s actions to purge homosexual from its ranks and Aldred Kinsey’s research were pivotal in the struggle to secure LGBTQ rights.
  4. What role did gay bars play in LGBTQ life during the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s and what were their pros and cons?

Chapter 2

  1. Identify the common forms of adversity that both LGBT people and women faced in the Northland prior to the 1980s. What was the root of these adverse experiences? What do these experiences reveal about society’s beliefs about power and privilege? Are those beliefs still intact in society?
  2. How did the creation and implementation of the Program to Aid Victims of Sexual Assault (PAVSA) change the way people thought about power and privilege in the Northland? How did PAVSA change the way people thought about victims of sexual violence?
  3. What does the development of PAVSA reveal about the power of one person to change the way people think and act?
  4. What did LGBTQ people and feminists have in common relative to social attitudes towards them, their vulnerability, and the will to resist abuse and discrimination?

Chapter 3

  1. What does the historical struggle for LGBTQ rights reveal about human nature, the nature of the truth, and the power to control society’s narrative about normalcy and morality?
  2. Identify the unique achievements Minnesota made during the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s on behalf of women’s and gay rights. What do these achievement tell us about conditions that are essential for establishing and sustaining social justice in society?
  3. Describe the different approaches that LGBTQIA+ took to advance their rights in the 1960s and ‘70s, and how competing agendas and strategies impacted the cohesion of the gay rights movement. What do these divisions in the movement reveal about the nature of social and legislative change? What do they reveal about what is necessary to organize and sustain effective coalitions and activism that are necessary to achieve political goals?

Chapter 4

  1. Identify the ways religion was used to both support and oppose the Duluth Human Rights ordinance in 1984.
  2. Identify the pros and cons of brining personal religion to bear on law-making and resolving social conflicts.
  3. What is the difference between grassroots political activism and political activities in local, state, and federal offices, assemblies, agencies, etc.? What does this text suggest about the relationship of the two?

Chapter 5

  1. What does the Reagan administration’s response to the AIDs crisis reveal about its valuing of human life and their understanding of their obligations to public health and safety?
  2. Describe how Jansen and the LGBTQ community responded to the AIDs crisis and how it was different from the Reagan administration’s response.
  3. What does Jansen’s and his fellow activists’ response to AIDs reveal about their political priorities? What does it reveal about how they perceived problem-solving in general?
  4. Explain how Minnesota politics impacts the Northland’s response to AIDs and discuss what it teaches readers about how politics shapes how people react to crises. Did the political response help or hurt the battle against AIDS in the Northland in the 1980s?

Chapter 6

  1. Identify the conflicts that existed within the LGBTQ community in the Northland during the 1980s and ’90. Were these conflicts unique to this community and this time? What does this reveal about our society?
  2. Identify the advantages and disadvantages that people living in small cities and rural areas have when facing political, social, and public health crises. What do the Main Club’s experiences with fighting AIDs and struggling for human rights reveal about how power is distributed in a state?
  3. Do you think society in general still has anxieties and problems related to sexuality? If so, why do they still exist?

Chapter 7

  1. What does this chapter reveal about how far society has come since 1970 on the matter of LGBTQ and women’s rights? What issues remain the source of conflict and why?
  2. What are the main concerns expressed by interviewees about the future and grassroots activism? Do you share their concerns, and why?
  3. What makes people vulnerable to bigotry? Can bigotry be overcome? Explain.
  4. What were Jansens’s principles for community building and social reform? What strategies did he use in applying his principles? Do you think that these principles and strategies are valuable and effective? Why? What are their pros and cons?

Conclusion

  1. Identify the common elements in Cheryl Hager’s and Mary Griffith’s experience. What do these women’s journeys teel readers about the crisis of faith and human relationships? What is your response to their experiences?
  2. What do you think are the most important lessons to draw from the Main club’s story? Why?

Excerpts: Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (Boston” Beacon Press, 1996. First published in 1949)

The Christian Presence in the World (pp. 1–2)

“To those who need profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity, Christianity often has been sterile and of little avail. The conventional Christian word is muffled, confused, and vague. Too often the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak. This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in a modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to the weak and defenseless.”

Basic Principles of Jesus’ Way of Life (p. 24–25)

“Living in a climate of deep insecurity, Jesus, faced with so narrow a margin of civil guarantees, had to find some other basis upon which to establish a sense of well-being. He knew that the goals of religion as he understood them could never be worked out within the then-established order. Deep from within that order, he projected a dream, the logic of which would give to all the needful security. There would be room for all, and no man would be a threat to his brother. ‘The Kingdom of God is within.’ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.’

 

The basic principles of his way of life cut straight through to the despair of his fellows and found it groundless. By inference he says, ‘You must abandon your fear of each other and fear only God. You must not indulge in any deception and dishonesty, even to save your live. Your words must be Yea — Nay; anything else is evil. Hatred is destructive to hated and hater alike. Love your enemy, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.”

On Identity and Fear. (pp. 38–41)

“The core of the analysis of Jeus is that man is a child of God, the God that sustains all of nature and guarantees all the intricacies of the life-process itself. Jesus suggests that it is quite unreasonable to assume that God, whose creative activity is expressed even in such details as the hairs of a man’s head, would exclude from his concern the life, the vital spirit, of the man himself. This idea — that God is mindful of the individual — is of tremendous importance in dealing with fear as a disease. In this world, the socially disadvantaged man is constantly given a negative answer to the most important personal questions upon which mental health depends: “Who am I? what am I?”

The first question has to do with a basic self-estimation, a profound sense of belonging, or counting. If a man feels like he does not belong in the way in which it is perfectly normal for other people to belong, then he develops a deep sense of insecurity. When this happens to a person, it provides the basic material for what the psychologist calls an inferiority complex. It is quite possible for a man to have no sense of personal inferiority as such, but at the same time to be dogged by a sense of inferiority. The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power….

…. A man’s conviction that he is God’s child automatically tends to shift the basis of his relationship with all his fellows. He recognizes at once that to fear a man, whatever may be that man’s power over him, is a basic denial of the integrity of his very life. It lifts that mere man to a place of preeminence that belongs to God and to God alone. He who fears is literally delivered to destruction.”