Proudly Promote Marriage Equality's Most Important Argument

Wear this t-shirt between now and the Supreme Court'sruling in Juneand let thosearound youknow and better understand that religious teaching or faith traditions should never justify the immense harm faced by LGBT youth and families.

The foundation of religion-derived derogation and its immenseharm to innocent LGBT youth and their families is traditional church teaching that says a person's same-genderorientation deserves religious and moral disapproval and condemnation. Such misinformed, outdated andmisguidedteaching has a devastating effect ona young person's emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being.

That's the most important aspect of today's historicmarriage equality progress – as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear arguments next week. It is truly history on the making and very few see the possibility of a majority of justices impeding this march toward social justice for LGBT individuals. But perhaps one of the most important aspects of a forthcoming ruling will be tolet LGBT youthknow that the good society bestows marriage is not off limits to them nor their families. From the 2008 marriage equality ruling in California that prompted the disastrous Prop 8 initiative to the recent rulings by federal appeals courts in favor of marriage equality, one message from those rulings holds more importance to these youth and families than any other – faith or religious traditions must hold no animus toward treating LGBT citizens equal under the law.

The misguided and misapplied religious teaching has been and is still today responsible for the emotional, psychological and spiritual destruction of LGBT youth and their families. There is no other religious belief being espoused in modern society today that causes parents to reject their innocent children, youth to flee their families, division among siblings, strife among faith communities and division in society as a whole as we have witnessed in the previous weeks in relation to the proposed "religious liberty"measures in Indiana, Arkansas and other states.

This one particular religious belief was the basis for Don't Ask Don't Tell, it was the basis for DOMA, it is the basis for laws that forbid gay couples to adopt and it was the basis for anti-gay marriage amendments all across the country. For the previous 40 years, anti-gay religious and political groups have worked feverishly to assert this one particular religious belief in the public square – and codify into our laws and state constitutions.

The effect has been a tsunami of derogation to the emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being of LGBT youth and their families. Asserting this one particular religious belief into the public square causes a unique and immensely harmful conflict in the lives of gay and lesbian youth and their families. Such religious teaching can cause uniquely harmful stress, anxiety and depression for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, as well as unique strife within their families.

Placing a stamp of spiritual and moral condemnation on a young gay or lesbian individual is a uniquely harmful form of stigma, hostility and oppression. Such derogation is uniquely oppressive to a young person because they perceive the stigma and hostility directed at them from individuals and society as sanctioned and justified by a spiritual or moral authority.

Religion-derived derogation can be uniquely harmful in that parents of young gay and lesbian individuals may direct this form of stigma and hostility toward their children, sometime consciously but often unconsciously. Nowhere in modern times can we recall an instance of children of a minority population being derogated in this manner by their parents or family members.

Faith In America is a nonprofit that has been working since 2005 to bring awareness and understanding about religion-derived derogation immense harm to LGBT individuals, especially youth and their families. After successfully changing the national conversation on this subject, last year we decided to focus our efforts on the foundation of religion-based bigotry – the traditional religious perspective that "homosexual behavior" is a sin. With a majority of the pubic no longer accepted such misguided teaching, it is time we focus our efforts on the lynchpin of discrimination and hostility toward LGBT people.

The outcome will be the well-being of individuals, especially LGBT youth, families, communities and society as a whole. We hope you will join us in our effort to get "homosexuality" off the sin list by purchasing a T-shirt that encapsulates that all-important message that we believe will be at he heart of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality this June.