[slow piano music] across the nation and around the world public reactions to the mass murders in orlando have profoundly touched the hearts of millions of people. deep and strong emotions about the senseless and brutal attack on humanity, have triggereda powerful and galvanizing global spirit inspiring people in many cities and nations to come out, and stand up for a community of human beings who have been marginalized throughout mankind's history. today, on a special edition of equal time, we'll learn how major religions have viewed this remarkable outpouring of support. and ask those leaders in faith communities, how they plan to respond to the lesbian, gay,

bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and queer community, and we move forward. from the campus of san jose state university, welcome to this edition of equal time. i'm your host journalism school director, bob rucker. today we will hope to have a candid conversation about things that are on your mind and certaintly things that we've been talking about in our communities. so let's meet our panel of experts. i am father saju joseph, a catholic priest and pastor at st. julie billiart perish in san jose. was a judge in dioses station, tribuna and we are -- i'm blessed to be part of the community which says a message: all are welcome, and we really live it. that's so beautiful, i'm the reverend nancy palmer-jones, the senior minister at the first unitarian church of san jose, downtown on third street. we too are a welcoming community with a

long history of lgbtqia activism and inclusion. we also welcome people of all faiths and theologies. my name is zahra billoo, i'm a civil rights attorney and the executive director of the san francisco bay area office of care. the council on american-islamic relations we're the nation's largest american-muslim civil rights group. and have offices across the country, including in florida where the unfortunate tragedy happened. fortunately, or unfortunately, our staff were able to mobilize quickly to be there to support the victims and stand in solidarity with the lgbtq community my name is father john pedigo i'm the director for projects for peace and justice in the diocese of san jose and the former pastor of our lady of guadalupe parish on the east side san jose. and former pastor at st. julie billiart parish, where i started the lgbtq ministry and community. i want to thank you all for being here and i'm sure our audience is hoping we'll get to

get to some really good substance. but i thought we should start by sharing our personal reactions to what happened in orlando, and i'll get you started. as a person of color who grew up on the south side of chicago, african-american but also gay. i've often wondered why we can't come to grips with the notion that this god that i believe in and the way i live my life is ok to be accepted and yet sometimes throughout the course of my career i've found just the opposite. so i thought after the orlando massacre there might be a reaction and a reaction that would be negative and instead it was just the opposite. instead of a dogma and a book throw in many people's faces. you saw all kinds of people from all over the world ready to stand with the lgbt community. and john let me start with you, what's been your reaction to the massacre and how this should be handled? well my first reaction was, you know, shock i mean i just couldn't understand how many people could be killed mechanically. how do you kill so many people so quickly and it was until that morning after my first mass

i found it was a lgbtq, it was a gay club in orlando that just really was something that was completely it was just heartbreaking because a lot of friends who went to school with for the folks, musical school and that are gay and lesbian and just it was, it was, it was so tragic. there was no words and yet i had to go out and preach. and so, i pivot my sermons that day to address ourselves as catholics how we might have contributed to some of this by some of the violent words and the theology and some of our cultural reactions that that that give an atmosphere and in which violence can happen like this. i was just really... it was very hard very good, you know nancy i wanted to bring you in next and say that i worried about the families and friends of the victims some of which might have just for the first time discovered that their loved one was gay, lesbian, or transgender or transsexual.

what was your reaction? that's a profoundly compassionate reaction, bob. i did feel like it was some of our family. i heard from, through my social media networks almost immediately from friends, some of whom knew people who had been at pulse that evening. some made it out, some didn't in our community we have so many members of the lgbtqi communities and this experience mirrored and echoed the kind of fear that is that a lot of folks have been living with all along. even in our society as change for the better, change for more equality, change for justices happen. i think there was also this feeling that we made such great strides last year, the glorious day we unitarian universalist were all together the day that the supreme court said that marriage could be was equal for everyone and to have that feeling of joy and success and empowerment ripped away with this kind of violence it was terrible

i want to say to - i've noticed in the response that this is that heartbroken open moment when we have the choice to open to a wider love. and that's what i'm mostly seeing it's a little bit like the post 9-11 experience especially on the east coast where i was at the time where it was all so fresh and vivid. so that's my hope is that we carry that forward. takes intentionality though. >>absolutely and so here on our campus and san jose state we have many muslim students, faculty, and staff and i worried about them and how they would perceive the way the media was covering this event. how about you? >>yeah i mean my first reaction when i saw the news on sunday morning, to be honest was please don't let it be a muslim shooter. please don't let it be connected to isis and that was when the body count was at 20. when the body count went up to 50, i think that that thought fell away and just a grief beyond - beyond comprehension is is the best way i could describe it and i don't even know that there are words to describe it. this past week has been challenging, interesting, and yet so full of love.

challenging because i think so many, so many different issues that are often seen a separate, have collided into this one. lgbtq rights, homophobia, and hate crimes, the war on terror, and isis, gun control mental health issues right and of course our political cycle. interesting because i've had the opportunity to learn so much more. as someone who lives in the bay area, i still am learning about how to be an ally, how to be in solidarity, how to use the most inclusive language. and then full of love because i think all of our communities have come together. i have not seen this kind of solidarity after an attack in recent years, right. the lgbtq community was among the first to say: we will not be used, like our tragedy will not be used to target the muslim community. and so in some cases, even before muslim leaders could reach out to lgbtq organizational leaders,

they were reaching out to us and saying we want to make sure that you're at our vigil, we want to amplify your voice and we want you to know that we stand with you. which is a kind of generous that that one that is we're grateful for, but also could not have expected given the circumstances. >>absolutely, and father saju, you offer an international perspective. tell us a little bit about how you think the world reacted. cause you're from india. >> yes, so the first reaction for me personally before i even go into the blog was, you know, deep sadness. but at the same time your heart going out to those who are, you know the families, the pain because as a human being i cannot but grieve the pain and loss and struggles of everyone and that is as a priest and not only that are the key teachings based on the scripture all of god's children. if i'm god's child so you are.

so that's the great deep sadness at the same time pain. and then my second reaction was my in my heart and in my thinking "oh my god, let no one use this for whom are we against." so sometimes i think that the basic principle is to what do we stand for, than whom are we against. the second may get some people because you can get people wander but the first thing is what are we for? what do i stand for? brotherhood. communion. well being. goodness. love. then if the primary talking point is whom am i against, that destroys the whole thing. they need to be concerned that the battlefield. and in the coming from even from india

so even there was, you know, prayers conducted a community. indian community homosexuality is not too much talked about, it is a taboo subject at all on, that does not mean it's not there. but sometimes people will tell, oh that's the western problem or because they have not talked about it. they don't talk about or later on even, sexuality is not talked about so homosexuality is in the same way, never talked about. and since you asked, coming from india, in india homosexual act is still a crime. and when we think don't just at india alone we know in various parts of the world in various countries, homosexual act, a tendency, homosexual act is a crime and punishable. and thank god that's not the case in the in the united states. but then when there comes a cry, and still the un is pushing

for a time, and i'm also glad in the recent years the catholic church has been pushing the un to decriminalize homosexuality all over the world, in the un. and that's a great but sometimes still india is struggling with the fact, its a crime. there was a law, there was a case, in a high court in delhi in 2009, where the they sent two consenting adults, and engaging in sexuality is not a crime, but somehow the supreme court are all overturned it seeing it is the legislators was to make the law and 2015 they wanted, they put the legislation: it failed. now it is again back to supreme court time to do a review so various parts of the world even homosexuality is considered a crime and i think the conversation has to first we have to begin with, first we have to move by talking about it anything it as human

>> and talking as human beings. >>as human beings. >>as opposed to you over there and a walls between us because my lifestyle, or my life experience is different from yours. but i also want to open it up now, let you all talk because you're really good at this. talk about people out there who are wondering, but where was thinking years ago? >>well i think one thing, i think my concern is though is that what's the culpability of religious bodies that are behind these laws. these laws don't just come out of nowhere, these laws are legitimized by religious texts and doctrines that can be used to free a person or they can be used to club a person. and in my own lifetime, as a catholic and as a priest we've seen statements referring to homosexual persons as intrinsically disordered i can't tell you, when that kind of came out i was a studyingat berkeley and at gtu with the jesuits and

franciscans and of course all the students there are many of them are openly gay, that study theology. and it was and also this even even when those terms are bandied about in the seminary. but at st. patrick's there was a lot of concern and we try to explain it's a technical term and all that stuff but the reality is that it's not just a technical term. they can be used to destroy people's lives. and you on social media, just talking to one of my facebook buddies that was you know, telling about his experience. it was just heartbreaking to hear that as a kid as an altar server and when he came to understand himself as a sexual being that his relationship to god had shifted. not because anything that his relationship to god was it was okay. but the relationship to his catholic family and to the catholic community.

he moved him and his mother to have to kind of find another place and that wound is very deep, but i just find i but that was you know that was one example out of millions of examples. >>i feel so a kind of impatient about this process. it's not that unitarian universalists have been on the right side of history throughout our existence at all, don't mean any sort of exceptionalism here. but i do feel that we have at least from fairly early on in the mid-twentieth century begun to name the belovedness, which is in our, that's what the universal as part of our name means. all our beloved you know the belovedness of people of all sexual orientations and gender and gender identities. of course we have growing edges still but i just don't get it why we don't see the harm done by the language offered from the pulpit or from the bema of you know

i just don't understand why we don't get how powerful that is. john, you're absolutely right it can be life destroying and that the message of love and inclusion can be life-saving. >>so we ask you we have students here that are gay, openly gay some are not openly gay, but muslim students tell me all the time this is nothing new for the middle east. this is nothing new for the world community. but they don't talk about it because they're fearful of how there will be treated. but i think that that's sadly a very normal situation in religious communities, is that people who are lgbtq don't feel safe. don't feel like they have someone that they can speak to write and so that's been an ongoing conversation in the muslim community is, if someone is is coming out how can we be, how can we make sure that they feel safe? how can we make sure that they have the resources that they need to not feel alienated from the community to not leave the community as a result right, and i think it's worth naming that in islam

that the position on homosexual acts is the same as it is in all of the other abrahamic faiths. but none of that ever says or permits individual violence against a community never permit shunning individuals. and so there's this thing of why is it that congregations of all walks and all sorts seem to make individuals who are lgbt uncomfortable whereas if it is a sin, like other sins why are other sinners welcomed into this space, right? and that's not to say that everyone is a sinner but rather why is it that this one group is so often marginalized? so often sent as an outcast and me to feel unsafe? and some of that is about the language from the pulpit. i agreed and no way its talked about. >> and how much choice of people have in the degree of interpretation, you know. so saju, you had talked about baptizing the children of same-sex couples is that correct? and so they're clearly there is a recognition of the blessedness and

beloved of these children and indeed of their parents. so there must be some way which are working with that theologically that that works within your tradition, is that right? >>the ultimate point is what am i ultimately supposed to be teaching, as a christian or a catholic? the ultimate normative to principal is: god is love. and all the other laws are surpassed by god is love. and within the framework of an institution there are regulations that some of them so i may not be able to bypass it but still i can act in a loving way in spite of and that is what sometimes the same laws could be used, as john said, to hit on someone's head destroy their lives for the same thing could be used to build in someone.

i always say openness does not begin in the head. openness has to take place in the heart, so that is what we talked about openness of the heart. small example not a long one. >>but you do know that there are people watching it will say that you guys are great, but we don't experience that. >>yeah, i think the problem is that, i agree with you and i guess what and nancy's working in interfaith work, i've interfaith work for you know, 25 years or more. and i think it's for me it's very helpful to have those conversations first. i think that we as different religions can sit there and battle about the nature of jesus, the nature salvation, the validity historical accuracy, etc. i think that that that just is not helpful. what's more helpful is that what is it that you know yes there is love there, but it also says will love let me listen? because i in my experience with my own colleagues

when we raise this question of lgbtq within our own ranks, as priests to talk about that in the priesthood or talk about it just within our congregations or have those conversations. there's not a willingness necessarily to listen. there's an immediate self-censor shut down or there is a -- there is just simply a request to simply stopped talking and i think that that we have to figure a way to listen. and i think that you know working with folks like nancy working with people like rabbi [unaudibe], you know these folks and then working with the muslim community when we have them. all the anti-muslim stuff is going on - just say, let's stop the theology-izing and doctrinal-izing and lawmaking and all. let's just listen. and we have to hear the stories in the that what is needed

to hear the story of somebody that was an altar server and then to get to know how much in love he was with the church and with his god and then to hear the pain of what that is like to be turned away by his own back to feeling of rejection and to listen to it and not offer platitudes. but to cry with that person and to say i don't have an answer to me i think that's the most important. >> well and i hear you saying that zara that the the love offered to members of your community. >>well, i want to add something also, agree listen right. and i think something to call out around listening is it also means stopping talking right. i worry that sometimes as someone who attends services right is that oftentimes the of speakers aren't realizing the impact of their words. it's hard, it's hard to be on camera, it's hard to speak to hundreds if not thousands of people and to think about what is the impact that i could have on a handful of individuals that i may not have considered in selecting my words but that's a lot of times where i see the breakdown.

is even the best intention to people sometimes choose the wrong words. >>your point is well taken this even on a campus like this where diversity is very important. i am appalled by some of the things i hear coming out of administration coming, out of students, coming out of people who come to the campus community. and they say they welcome diversity but then they retreat to a comfort zone that doesn't speak to diversity at all. >>and john i'm going to confirm too- i've actually talked to some of the diocese priests here in san jose. and i was appalled by their unwillingness to hear, ask questions, no one, no one wanted to ask any questions. they just wanted me to be finished. and i think that's what the audience is worried about. can the church move past their own comfort zones and reach out to the children of god they talk to? >> so in now events i say religious leaders have a tendency not telling over here we are maybe a different group. but at times and pope francis is creating that will be more open.

but at times the tendency is to go to a scripture and say for this is truth. this is what it is given but what we miss the life of my brother with lgbt he is living the life that is hundred-percent truth. see so truth cannot be just to put into think this is it. the harvest is not truth. so being connecting with that truth just as they connect with the truth in the scripture that enables me to respond to what if i just take to a book or a 10 or i know i'm not going to how it is real or not or whatever yet and i fail to see the true that is unfolding today. just take to a book in the life of my brothers and sisters. i'm not seeing truth. i'm blind and i need to see the truth and lived out in the life of the people. >>so there's something about the quality of the conversation, being willing to sit down with each other and truly listen.

there's something about an education around the impact of words, so intent versus impact right that famous thing. we can be the best intention people in the world and still say the wrong thing or say that's hurtful thing but then there's something about, i keep calling it root causes i keep hoping that we will pause long enough even in our grief following the orlando the slayings, to get at the root causes of homophobia and islamophobia and basically other incurring. and i would point to the privileging of certain normative ways of being. white supremacy, heteronormativity, ability and things like that. right, name that for somebody like myself who dwells in some but not all of those normative areas my awakening - that is so crucial to my being able to be humble and to --- >>what i think that the, to me i agree if it is really looking the inside peace.

i think if we don't look within our own fears that i think when you talked, about that and i think when you nancy. i think it's yes, we can do with the head stuff about theology and stuff. but i think really it's about doing a feeling check on ourselves. how comfortable are we talking about because if you're not comfortable yourself and if you're in a position of privilege, i think that that really in sensitizes us and me to hearing somebody else's story. i have to kind of figure out and then that people are very frightened about associating with some groups but i just i just want to throw that out there. >> in the time we have remaining i want to ask everybody to have some closing comments. i'm really impressed that you're able to talk about this in an intellectual light but also a human way and i think that's important to talk about and hear from all of us. but what's the next step? when there's a moment of crisis whether it's orlando or domestic violence or whatever it is what are the religion is going to do to reach out to those people?

i'll let you finish. you know, i think the first thing that we need to be working on is talking to each other and building community, right. is that it's tragic that this happened but there are relationships, new friendships that have been forged. even in the time since the massacre let's ensure that those continue to blossom. >> but when are afraid because they're dealing with the crisis, and they don't know if you're going to be receptive or not. what makes them sure i can call you i can reach out to you i can email you, what makes them say i can trust to let this out? >>yeah the capacity even to vent even a little bit in a level of safety, i think the main thing is the communication that it's that there is not one "of those" people. it's all a we. >>and the consistency maybe of that message. >> that's right. >> an if we can show a sense of fellowship between us have a dialogue. you know, then i think the more progressive ends of a religious spectrum respect the traditional end of this have a special spectrum

is struggling with our own texts. >>so - after the orlando incident different religious leaders, different persons those who may not be of personal faith, coming together or in common humanity. what a great song, that life up for india's their allegiance may become part of that ability that unity and division. >>you've been fantastic. we should continue this conversation. so let's do that. i'll invite you back to talk more and i want to thank you. and thank you for joining us, please come back for another edition of equal time. [slow piano music]

whoo! oh, i got it. in so many ways, you made the world smaller. yes, that's true. so--so you brought this beautiful, global cuisine to america... when cecilia came to san francisco and opened her place on polk street, she brought a new kind of, uh, northern chinese cooking to san francisco. cecilia chiang is the julia child of chinese food in america. narrator: pot stickers, the dish that launched the legend. she was born almost 100 years ago in a china that no longer exists. her privileged childhood was interrupted when the japanese invaded and she was forced to flee and then flee again when the communist revolution swept over china,