Society teaches us that a homosexuality is a lifestyle filled with pain and sadness and sickness. The worst kind of life. I know that for many parents, the idea of a homosexual son or daughter terrifies them. We love our children and want the best for them.

We may remember moments in our younger lives when we witnessed other people persecute “queers”. We heard the horrible names they hurled and may have even seen them physically attack homosexuals.

Who would want that to happen to their son or daughter?

Many parents with a homosexual or transgender son or daughter seek answers:

Can my son change? Who can save my daughter from the lesbian lifestyle? Who can help my child sort out their gender confusion? Is there someone out there who can help? A psychologist? A clergyman? An ex-gay group? God?

Some have tried to seek change for their children with the belief that they are doing the best for them, but in reality these well-meaning parents have ended up harming the children they love so much.

(Read the rest here–CAN MY GAY CHILD CHANGE?)

This is the moment in the essay when it turns, and I appreciate so much the quality of that turn, and the argument that both comes before–which validates those who come seeking answers–and the argument that follows, that validates all those who are GLBT seeking acceptance and love from their parents.

Thank you Peterson Toscano for writing such a great article.  Thank you for Beyond Ex-Gay for posting it.

Until your life is at stake.

Coming out to myself really hit me hard.  It threw my sense of what I could believe in the Bible.  Waking up to the idea that I had been misinformed at such a deep level about who I was, and what I was, made me womder if the Bible (or Christians) could get how God felt about being gay wrong, what else could they get wrong?  It threw me, too, into a world where I felt pretty lost.

But then one day, I found Anne Lamott.  Actually, she was given to me, and the man who gave her book to me said, “Many people who have lost their faith have found it again after reading this book.”

He was a pastor in Osyter Bay, Peter Casparian, 1988 Quatrofilio Alfa Romeo-driving liberal Episcopal pastor preaching in an historic church, Christ Church, the church of Theodore Roosevelt.  Over croissants and jam outside of a French Bakery, I came out to him.  Because I was shaking, because I cried, and because I didn’t know what I wanted to believe any more, he said I should find a copy of Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, that it would restore my faith, or at least calm my nerves.  I was frightened of churches, a little scared of the Bible…as if it were now riddled with land mines.  If I go to Romans, bam! If I head to Genesis, boom!

Traveling Mercies is Anne Lamott’s honest memoir of trying out church.  It’s not written like anything you’d find in a Christian bookstore.  It’s refreshing.  It comes at faith from a non-churched point of view.  God is surprising, he’s real, he’s around the corner; Anne is the kind of believer who questions God, gets upset with him, does things wrong! does things surprisingly well!  She is fearless in her attempts to believe in God, and in a quirky group of believers.  Thank God she didn’t go to a stuffy, we-have-all-the-answers church.

I’ve heard people come away loving this book–and I certainly did.  It renewed my faith despite having had it trounced by well-meaning folk.  She provided a way back to the parts of faith that I loved and remembered.  Faith is not Religion, but Religion can be made of Faith.  For her there are only two prayers, “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”   I think that sums up most prayers well.

Anne Lamott allows herself to be so vulnerable, to be, as she puts it, “such a mess.”

It allows the rest of us to be imperfect, to approach God as people who don’t have it all together, who aren’t doing everything right, who don’t sometimes believe in every unbelievable thing, but we’re trying.  Traveling Mercies reminds me of that Tim Allen show, Home Improvement.  Tim’s marital problems are given the best advice by Wilson, who seems to embody Robert Bly and Joseph Campbell and God all rolled into one.  But Tim, as he tries to carry that advice in his cupped hands back to his wife and family, spills most of it, and always blurts out a tainted version of that wisdom, a splattered, messy version of wisdom that somehow works–mostly through the forgiveness of his wife.  Anne Lamott is messy in that Tim Allen way.  She gets to the same kinds of sermons and wisdom we all do but the application is messier than she thinks.  And wow, it’s messy for all of us, but none of us admitted it.

Anne allowed my faith to be messy, and allowed me to approach church in a different way–not of trying to regain some shallow perfection I thought I had, but in trying it out in whatever way I could muster.  She allowed my approach to God to be a little wobbly, a couple of bounces and skids, and sometimes I circle the runway for days…  It was never a perfect landing.  Faith is trial and error not a performance.

If Anne Lamott can say fuck in a Christan book–if she can insult someone, manhandle her child, eat ice cream in depression– then so can I—I can be human again.

Churchiness takes the humanity out of you.  Traveling Mercies somehow puts the humanity back into Faith.

Here’s an excerpt from Traveling Mercies on someone else’s page.

Thank you, Anne Lamott!  I know you’ve probably saved a lot of lives before–and perhaps you don’t even know that you’re doing it, but honest memoir saves lives.  We may write it only to save ours, but it ends up having multiple life-saving effects.  Resonance.  Mercy.

The church has to change.  It has to.  It may not change from those fighting it on the outside, but it will have to incorporate change if it is to survive further.  It faces irrelevance, it postures with discrimination, it plays favorites, it values money.

Not all churches–no.  (When I say a statement like this I have to stop and say, Thank you, churches that are moving more towards social justice, focusing on issues like poverty, the environment, civil rights.  You do exist, but I wouldn’t, yet, call you the “Church”–as the “Church” tends to be the Catholic Castle or the Evangelical Juggernaut.  One day, you will take on that mantle–you will be the “Church” and it will have a positive ring.)

The full essay is here, Moving Up, Coming Out, Moving On.

Anyway, there it is, in Geez #24.  If this brings you to this website, welcome.  There’s lots here, I hope, that will spark conversation.  If this entry leads you to Geez, welcome to Geez.  There’s lots there that will spark conversation as well.  It’s a valuable, important magazine carrying on “the” conversations we need to have happen.  It is intrepid, bold, and unflinching.

I would marry Geez magazine if it looked like a bear and loved me back.

*apologies to Kevin James, pictured, who is not gay.

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The history of the church’s reaction to gays

Clearly, churches have been much worse to the GLBTQ community.  They used to burn us.  Certainly early Church fathers condemned us, saying that we were aberrations (at best) or the devil (at worst)–with a midscale reaction that lasted through my lifetime, that gays were normally heterosexual people who got seduced by the devil to turn to homosexuality which was unnatural.  (As if no normal person could ever BE gay…this fooled me for a long time.)

In my lifetime I have seen that stance change.  It went from condemnation, saying that God never created gay folks, to an acceptance of the fact that gay people might be innately attracted to the same-sex–or born that way.  Created gay–but abnormal, in the sense that some children are born with defects, and that gay is just another defect.  Right now, pastors are calling it “not God’s best”–and they are willing to embrace gays if they remain celibate.  Well, it just so happens that Evangelicals have stumbled on an accidental “agreement” with a smaller percentage of gays, called Side B Christians, who believe the Bible has “no room for gay sexuality.”

________________

The emergence of Side B Christianity

It was surprising when I first came out, after that hard struggle to accept myself despite church teaching, to discover that there was a section of gay Christians who believed that though they were gay, they were not allowed to have sexual relationships.  That God didn’t want them to.  If you want to read a sample of their theology you can read it here on Gay Christian Network.  It’s a long essay, and finally it concludes with two points (and I paraphrase):

1.  That there is an overall negative view of gay sexuality in the Bible; that Jesus had nothing positive to say about gays, and the Bible has no room to bless same-sex unions or marriages.  That if you want to follow Jesus–and it’s hard–you will abstain from sexual immorality, and, for gays,–that’s ALL sex.  (And you probably shouldn’t be kissing and gettin’ all hot and heavy either, because that just leads to sex, or leads to Really Difficult Moments in Abstinence.)

2.  That [gays] have undervalued friendship to the point of making same-sex friendship immediately, and only, into sexual unions, thereby foregoing the cool idea of friendship men can have.  The author of the above linked essay confessed that he would have been pretty miserable if he had just believed God was against same-sex relationships,  but he felt better when he realized that he had undervalued friendships.

I have respect for those gays who believe they are called to celibacy, but I have a problem with their theology.

Checked the Bible thoroughly myself, and while we both conclude that Jesus never said anything about gays, Side Bs see that negatively—that Jesus didn’t take the time to promote them, nor did the Bible–and I see that as positive–that Christ had more important things to promote, and that it didn’t matter to shout out to the gays in the audience.  Perhaps no one was having a big problem with them.  Look at the Roman Centurion and his “boy” in Matthew 8:5-13 whom Jesus affirms. He may not need to point out what was obvious to everyone watching.  This was a same-sex couple.

The absence of specific mention doesn’t have to be a lack of blessing, as SideBs see, but might instead indicate a lack of divisiveness.  Divorce got a heckuva lot of mentions from Jesus!  It was important to correct people’s ideas about it.  Still, it doesn’t seem to matter now.  But his mention of it stemmed from the problems it created.  If gay love were a problem, he would have mentioned it.

The second argument in the SideB theology–the lack of good male friendships with gay men– doesn’t hold up logically.  If you are hungry for a man to love, OF COURSE relationships will be hard to keep “straight.”  But it is no different between men and women.  Very few horny men can really have good women friends without thinking about sex.  Abstaining would make it worse.  Why do you think Monks go off to a monastery away from women?  Since straight men are attracted to women, we don’t expect them just to be friends–we allow for falling in love to meet their needs and desires.

Let’s see When Harry Met Sally for that one.

__________________

Sure, i’ll agree that as a SINGLE gay man, male friendships are difficult–because I’m desiring a man of my own–just like a man desiring a woman will have a problem not hitting on all of his women friends.  But stopping yourself from having sex with SOMEONE would only worsen all your friendship and the sexual tension that is created for you.  Trust me, I know.  If I had a partner, my male friends would be relieved!

Third, Celibates are called to be celibate, individually, not collectively.  You cannot tell someone they must be celibate.  God can only tell an individual that.  And for many, many gays, this is not their calling.  Celibacy is an individual choice.  It is not a mandate.  Paul and Jesus both emphasize that celibacy must be something that the individual feels called to do.  Paul even goes so far as to say, “it is better to marry than to burn” [with lust].  Well, if it’s a hard road for those lusty straight people–and better that they are married because of the trouble lust will get them into–then it’s applicable to gay people.  We are not separate species!  It will be better for us to marry than to burn.

_________________________

How the church will manipulate this

I have a fear that evangelical Christian churches will use Side B Christians as pawns to try and manipulate how gays can come to church.  Right now, there seems to be a blessing on gay celibate Christians–and they receive the love from their congregations–but it is a clear message to those of us who believe God is cool with us dating and having relationships that our “interpretation” of gay christianity is not acceptable and that the Side B version of gay Christianity is.

But imagine what it’s like for most gays looking at those churches.  They will still see rejection–but this time the rejection of gays is being justified and promoted by gays in the church!  It’s almost like having women in a church stand up during a meeting and denounce women in leadership positions.  If you’re a strong woman in a church and you watch the argument unfold, pitting women against women to decide women’s place in the church, you just want to scream.  I don’t like how this argument is shaping up–that gay celibates are being used as models of gay Christianity against those who believe differently.  You will win no gays this way, ‘cept those that are frightened of their own sexuality.

Consider this book review from Books and Culture where the author reviews Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community.  I admire that they had a gay christian review the book, and I have nothing against Mr. Hill personally–though some his comments I will look at closely.  It might have been nice to unghettoize it and have a straight Christian say–hey, this is cool.  I mean, the book is meant for straight Christians.  It’d be nice to hear what a straight Christian thinks in Books and Culture–whether the argument is convincing to them.  Instead, I almost felt like they called in a “ringer” —someone on our team who could challenge the concept.

And he did.  In his review he challenged the idea that an individual could hear something from God that God was not telling the church.

it is difficult to avoid seeing here an overemphasis on the role of the individual and a downplaying of the church’s collective task of discernment and discipline. Say, for instance, that a gay Christian does hear God’s personal, immediate voice telling them he affirms their sexuality, what then? What becomes of this person’s identity as a member of a historic community of faith? Suppose a gay Christian who is—oh, I don’t know, just hypothetically—Anglican hears God telling her he feels being gay is best for her life. Does it matter for this Christian that the Anglican Communion has not yet heard God’s voice to that effect? And if it doesn’t, why not?

I think it’s surprising that Mr. Hill puts all the burden of the possible loss of community on the lone gay person rather than on the church.

The ENTIRE NEW TESTAMENT is a collection of books from individuals who were told something that wasn’t told to the church.  Jesus, Peter, Paul, Timothy, the entire collection of Disciples…. nearly all of them have written encounters with stunned “churches” (Judaic or Christian) who are flabbergasted that someone would re-interpret thousands of years of “the way it’s been done before.” Heaven forbid, the Pope didn’t get the memo.

Over and over again, Mr. Hill, the reviewer, posits the question that we must doubt the lone believer against the greater church doctrine–or doubt that God loves the church.  This is striking to say when SO many denominations are actually turning to the idea of accepting gays FULLY.  Now where is your argument, Mr. Hill, if churches have “okayed” the new doctrine of the lone believer?  Still, it shocks me that anyone would throw out the Priesthood of the Believer.  It’s arrogant to think that God only deals from the top down—when Jesus NEVER did.  Jesus always went from the Bottom-up!

Mr. Hill also brings up his own personal bias as a way to make straight Christians afraid of Marin’s book–

… for those gay Christians, like myself, who feel that their efforts to remain abstinent are bound up with their sanctification and growth in godliness, a plea for love without an attendant call for supportive pastoral accountability may sound hollow.

Here’s where Mr. Hill’s individual choice to be celibate angles for a better position for himself as opposed to other gay christians.  Mr. Hill is seeking sanctifcation (as abstinence will lead him there) and godliness—implying that those other gays or gay Christians are completely, apparently, missing the boat on both sanctification and godly growth.  Funny that sex for straight people doesn’t inhibit their godliness or their sanctification.  (I don’t doubt that for god-called Celibates, their abstinence is important to their Christianity, but certainly not to all Christians.  The implication for gay Christians, though, is that celibacy is for all gays.)

However, Hebrews 10 tells us that Christ already sanctified us.  The first 25 verses are powerful.  They’re sufficient for me.  Because I don’t believe I am sinning, verses 26-to the end don’t apply to gay sex.  Certainly they have nothing to do with sanctification.

Hill also makes a plea to the pastor to not abandon gay celibates.  This, I find, is the most difficult part of Hill’s and possibly other Side B’s strategies.  Why does it have to be us vs. them?  It is a plea of “protect us, protect us” from our own passions, and from the influence of those “worldly” gays.  It brings out a protective, paternal side of pastors–who already believe that young men and women are being “seduced” by gays and who believe that only Pastors stand between gays and their hormones.  They believe now that while someone may be born gay, the devil is still present to get you to try to act on it.

Finally, even though Hill is happy that Marin is trying to elevate the dialogue between gay and straight christians, he damns the book in the end:

I still have hope that the conversation between evangelical Christians and the GLBT community may indeed be elevated. But it’s hard to celebrate an elevation—even one motivated by the sincerest love—that comes at the cost of turning a blind eye to the hard work of discernment happening in the collective hearts and minds of historic Christian communities.

Really?  The church is more important than a whole group of gay people?  Hill, in effect, tells Marin to leave the process alone–let the churches duke it out.  Stop trying to celebrate gays.  While one might commend Hill on his stand for orthodoxy, the price he pays is the turning away of the LGBT community.  Marin is trying to elevate the conversation; Hill wants it only between churches, and for the LGBT community to wait till it’s finished.  But that’s a situation fraught with problems.

Now, Hill’s review was done in 2009, and I don’t know if he still holds the same views.  Regardless, the review is still online.  It still has a negative effect on gays, and on Marin’s book.

There is a dangerous dichotomy set up here: godly and sanctified gays are celibate, and gays who marry, or date, are in a questionable state.  Just enough doubt to affirm him in the eyes of the church (and gain him the important solidarity) and condemn us.  I don’t believe this is all Hill’s fault, though he embraces the rhetoric with gusto.

Gays have been coerced into this decision.

This is a result of the church’s threat to reject gays.  They ask  gay christians to either sacrifice their sexuality or their church membership.  Side B Christians have taken the first method, and many others gays have taken the latter.  I’m mad at Evangelical Christianity.  I’m not mad at Side Bs, or even Hill.  He’s protecting himself.  I’m mad that Evangelical churches have poisoned us with this idea that our own sexuality is horrible, and will cause us to sin.  They have turned us against ourselves–and they have turned us against each other.  In effect, the painful rejection all gays feel by the church has been ameliorated in this SideB idea.  They won’t have to be rejected by the church if they just stay celibate.  They can get the solidarity and the family they seek, at the cost of their wholeness.

What a horrible trick of enslavement that is. 

____________________

The Hope in Christ Jesus, and in the Church

Well, I believe you can keep Family, and solidarity, by changing who is in your Family—and/or by changing the minds of the people in your family.  Solidarity is not only achieved by giving up your priviliges.  You don’t have to give everything over to be loved.  That’s too high a price for love.  I would have done anything to keep the love of my church, Mr. Hill, but asking a person to give up their sexuality—for church acceptance–is degrading hogwash, swill forced on us to drink by the church.  However, from the Side B point of view, the pressure is coming from the other side:  as more and more churches are becoming gay accepting, fully accepting, gay celibates feel threatened by that acceptance, as if they are being pulled by friends into an abyss they don’t want to go into–an abyss of sex and pleasure.

It’s not like that.  I still believe in a committed relationship, and I have been as thoughtful, careful and considerate as any straight single person in deciding how to approach the full acceptance of my sexuality.  It doesn’t mean a person is a slut, or is dangerously promiscuous.  It means that we have a healthy respect for sexuality.  It is what God calls me to be.

So, for the sake of the LGBT community outside the church that need to hear of Christ and his love, and for the growth of the church towards acceptance, I would ask that Side B Christians simply drop the idea that celibacy is God’s mandate and embrace celibacy as an individual calling.  This is going to take some work, and listening to what OTHER denominations and churches, who have “done the hard work of discernment” that Hill asks us to respect, have done on this matter, and making a discerning line between the calling of celibacy for straights and gays alike; and the call to full sexual expression for straights and gays alike.  If Side Bs make this distinction, that they are being called individually to celibacy, then friends and family could stand behind their call to celibacy without seeing the rest of us as wicked anti-christian tempters, trying to thwart the gay celibate Christian in his or her journey towards godliness through abstinence.  I encourage and commend anyone who decides this is God’s calling for them.  Blessings and peace on you.

For other gay christian organizations:  While I realize that Gay Christian Network, and other gay christian organizations, are a place for Side Bs and other gays to live and work in peace together,  I will never feel safe at a Gay Christian Network conference.  As long as they bring in speakers who hold the “celibacy only” theory, I might as well be back in my old church that demoted me, ostracized and preached against me.  What’s the difference?  Gay Christians–especially those who fought to be out, sacrificing everything, need to be surrounded by a supportive community.  Right now, the most supportive community for gays is the secular community (though it ridicules us, sometimes, for being believers).  One may say LGBTs and SideBs can agree to disagree, but one group is getting all the love from the churches and standing beside them helping them condemn the other group.  This isn’t post-tribs and pre-tribs together, who can easily agree to disagree. This is my life and my christianity here.  My own gay friends believe that the Bible does not support my love of my partner?  They might as well be straight christians who don’t understand a thing.

I think there’s a danger that, with the accidental help of Side B Christians, the Christian church will stop progressing towards full acceptance of gay christians.  Why change their stance if they always have celibate gays affirming current Evangelical beliefs: that gay sex is wrong, that gay marriage is wrong, that the Bible doesn’t condone gay sexuality, that God doesn’t condone gay sexuality?  No wonder the church believes it, a gay christian said it.  And if one of our own says we deserved to be treated this way, churches will take that easy route, rather than examine the scriptures more closely.  It condones a whole litany of abuses and condemnations against the LGBT community.  And straight Christians don’t even have to take responsibility for saying it—they got a gay Christian to say it for them.

Evangelical Churches, I’m mad at you for your promotion of this faulty belief that inhibits the growth of the church, of gay Christians, and of your own faith.  We must put a sharp line between celibacy for individuals and gay christianity.

Sadly, promoting gay celibacy as your policy keeps gays who choose to be celibate in a perpetual state of guilt and fear, feeling that they must be protected from other gays on the outside and their own feelings on the inside.  They believe too that if they slip, they may lose your love. 

It also keeps the LGBT community out of “church” –and we can’t distinguish sometimes between churches that condemn gays and those that embrace.  We may not take the time.  And therefore we may miss out. 

And Mr. Hill, and others, why doesn’t THAT bother the church?

 ___________

The problems at the outset:

1. Teach the teachers.  Just as teachers were taught history, literature, math, etc., asking them suddenly to know things they were never taught in schools is asking a lot.  My first step if I were a principal of a school is to have a Teacher-Training day where you bring in an expert on LGBT history or LGBT information in general.  Even us gays don’t know our history well–because it’s been hidden.  But teaching the teachers about our history is the most important first step.  Until THEY see how prominent gay and lesbians have been in history, they won’t be able to teach it.

A good start is Michael Bronski’s  A Queer History of the United States, which addresses everything from pre-first contact with North America, on through the history of the US.  It just gives a few brushstrokes of color to a queer history that had been erased.

2.  Awkward to talk about heterosexual and homosexual people in history class.  I rarely had a history course where ANYTHING was known about sexual orientation.  No one talked about historical figures dating, or marrying.  Most of the founding fathers, as far as we knew, were single and devoted to politics…  no one bothered talking about who they slept with, because, frankly, it didn’t matter.  Will teachers be required to emphasize that George Washington was “straight” or that he had a wife? I don’t know, but it’s awkward to just label people’s sexual orientation.

3.  Time.  I can’t imagine that a comprehensive curriculum will be developed for you that will include all of California and US history with its gay members polished up and shiny by January.  Don’t worry right now about having to plug a litte bit of gay in every history lesson.  No gay person expects that all will be suddenly be apparent–that every gay will be uncovered.

4.  The importance of teaching it.  The best quote I ever read about the importance of teaching LGBT history in schools was this one:

“Within the typical secondary school curriculum, homosexuals do not exist. They are ‘nonpersons’ in the finest Stalinist sense. They have fought no battles, held no offices, explored nowhere, written no literature, built nothing, invented nothing and solved no equations. The lesson to the heterosexual student is abundantly clear: homosexuals do nothing of consequence. To the homosexual student, the message has even greater power: no one who has ever felt as you do has done anything worth mentioning.” -Gerald Unks, editor, The Gay Teen, p. 5.

It’s for this reason, that I think just putting a little LGBT into your curriculum is worth so much.

Because it’s an easy framework, and not a heavy re-writing of current curriculum, I’m going to suggest  Hidden Histories as a way to bridge the interim until you get more curriculum.

1.  Start off with a few weeks of curriculum that outlines hidden histories–the ways history has been written to emphasize certain races, beliefs, peoples over others—and how we are just now uncovering lots of hidden histories.  Talk about the black experience, the Hispanic experience, immigrant experience, women’s experience, Asian experience, the Jewish experience, and the gay experience—map out a few days of WHY their histories might have been submerged in the histories of others. Put it in context that the gay history is just the latest of hidden histories that need to be revealed.

2.  In the gay experience section, give a broad overview with good details of some of the hidden folks that you never knew were LGBT: a list can be found here.  Check that peope you use are actually LGBT; I give that site as a place to start.  Talk about their accomplishments—and be as positive about them as you would be towards the uncovered black, women’s, Asian, hispanic, immigrant or Jewish histories.  Three days discussing is not a lot, but is more than I ever had in my curriculum.

3. Build a Bulletin Board with a theme of a Mystery….  Hidden Histories could be designed to create a whole bulletin board of things that were left out of history—things the students themselves find, and things you add.  As the year progresses, you will add things to the bulletin board.  Some of those things might be gay people. 

4.  Now that you’ve set the tone of Hidden Histories–invite students themselves to become researchers uncovering the hidden sections of history that you will be covering.  It doesn’t have to all fall to you to be the expert here.  Let them uncover what they want about these figures and these events.  Emphasize that there’s been a cover-up–and that parts of history are unknown to the regular school curriculum.  And that you, and them, will seek to find out what’s missing.  If a student wants to find out which historical figures were gay, they can pursue that.  They can then add that to the bulletin board if they want. But you have already put some of them up there.  And other students can find other hidden little-known facts of history and put them on the board.

5.  What you end up with is a bulletin board of mysteries–of things you are solving as a class to uncover the Hidden Histories of California and the United States, and the World.

If I had just SEEN gays even mentioned in history, I would have known that we were not horrible, sinful, perverts whose tendencies stopped them from ever doing anything worthwhile.  When schools don’t cover the positive side of gays, the history is left for religious groups to define.  Since most children are exposed to religion early (and most of it is currently not gay-positive), and LGBT-positive stuff so late, the damage towards LGBT people is enormous.  Sometimes gays are poisoned against themselves for 18 years before they hear anything positive about gay people.  I encourage you to be the difference.

Hidden Histories provides a curriculum that puts the LGBT experience alongside others in the American experience, or in a World Experience, and so you are not left to come up with naming every gay person in every historical situation.  LGBT experience isn’t ghettoized.  It also isn’t emphasized over other groups that have been just as hidden.  I imagine that not hearing in the 50s and 60s about what Blacks had accomplished in history had a detrimental effect on black communities–and the lack of women’s history devastating to young women.  Gay history is almost completely unknown, or obscurely written down.  It’s just coming to the surface because being gay isn’t something you can see in a picture–like all the other hidden histories.

Turning your classroom into a detective agency uncovering Hidden Histories is a good, positive, solid first step in implementing gay-positive historical curriculum.  It’s also EASY.  It doesn’t involve radically changing the curriculum you have right now.  It just employs a framework that will bring out the LGBT parts of history alongside other groups, making both you and your students fellow researchers. 

Some basic ideas for other classes and curriculums:

Literature will be easy.  As I said in my post, I could teach a whole year of literature with just LGBT writers and hit most of the major American writers.

Elementary students only need what the article in the LA Times mentioned:  an understanding of diverse families, anti-bullying information, a breakdown of gender stereotypes.

Gay kids also need to be praised for the things they enjoy doing—boys who excel in art, music, theatre, writing shouldn’t be made to feel inferior to boys who excel in sports.  Girls who excel in sports, automechanics, woodwork should not be made to feel inferior to girls who excel in art, music, theatre and cheerleading.  Just overall praise for what students are doing well.

Examples:  Just as I noticed that women were finally used equally as examples in writing, math, English, science class for on the board exercises and in tests, a similar recognition for examples that involve human relationships might include two people of the same sex.  Instead of always “John wants to ask his girlfriend for a date.  He has fifteen dollars…”  why not, occasionally, “John wants to ask his boyfriend for a date.  He has fifteen dollars….”

Health and Human Relationships:  make sure the health and human relationship classes (formerly sex-ed, Health, etc.) include LGBT orientation as normative, and positive.  You may have to fight for this one–but you can’t have Walt Whitman mentioned in class and his sexual orientation called sinful, abnormal, or not mentioned in a health or sex-ed class.

All the Other Stuff that Counts as much as Curricula:  All teaching doesn’t happen in the classroom.  A lot of what a school puts in its newspaper, models in its hallways, in its relationships betweeen teachers, between students, tell gay kids that they are accepted too.  We don’t have to just hear facts about gay people—we also would love to see gay teachers, articles that mention other gay students, relationship advice that includes gay students.  A Gay-Straight alliance on school grounds (this should be in every school right now); positive LGBT stuff in the counseling office (posters, brochures, etc.); gay parents helping out at school functions.

Hidden Histories, as a curriculum for California schools, could be a way for students to engage history in a new way; it’s also a way to affirm gay people in your classroom by saying that they did count, they do make contributions to society; the rest of my advice is about forming a positive place for gay students which is the HEART of the new law.  The new law isn’t about getting everything right historically—it’s about making sure gays don’t disappear from history, or from life.

________________________________________

If you use this curriculum, all I’m asking in return is to be mentioned as the source of your curriculum.  My name is Jerome Stueart and I’m a gay educator living in the Yukon Territory.  (And hey, I was born in San Diego!)  

Ray Boltz was a staple of Contemporary Christian music for twenty years–a string of albums that contained songs sung in every church across America.  Who hasn’t heard “Thank You”?  “Thank You for giving the Lord/I am a life that was changed/ thank you for giving to the Lord/ I am so glad you gave,” or heard it sung to someone who had fulfilled a life of Christian Service.  Who hasn’t heard someone sing “Watch the Lamb”?  It’s the story of the crucifixion narrated through the eyes of a father who brings his two sons to Jerusalem to participate in the normal sacrifice of a lamb for their family.  He is unwittingly pulled into the drama when he becomes the man who is forced to carry Christ’s cross to Golgotha.  “Shepherd Boy” is the story of David–who isn’t picked because he’s big and strong, but because God wants to pick him.  I used to sing these songs in church–Ray Boltz and I have similar ranges (and I can only hope I did them justice).

His songs speak to the very heart of what it means to be a Christian—”does he still feel the nails/every time I fail/ does he hear the crowd cry crucify again?” and he sings to life the many people that we only know through Biblical stories.  Paul and Silas are singing “I will praise the Lord” in jail, and he sings about the view of the cross from below–the sisters, his mother, watching Christ as he hung there in “At the Foot of the Cross”—reflecting on every Christian’s hope: “keep me near the cross/near the cross/ may I never stray so far/ that I cannot see/ what flowed down for me/ at the foot of the cross”.

These songs keep you close to Christ; they are filled with passion and anguish and they tell the stories that we are familiar with.  Yes, keep singing the songs of Ray Boltz in Church.  To throw them out is to lose a canon of beautiful music, and lyrical devotions worthy of a prayer book.

When Ray Boltz came out in 2008, it shook the Contemporary Christian music world.  Though he had retired several years before, his coming out spawned a massive hate fest on blogs, in magazines, chat rooms, and even hate mail to his house.  His career, and even his legacy, was nearly destroyed.  But he was a brave man, and that kind of devotion to God and bravery in the face of opposition, I think, doesn’t go unrewarded.

He put out a new album, True, in 2010.  Aimed at two audiences, Ray Boltz tries to meet both their needs.  His gruff, deep voice still sings about contemporary christian experience, but it has a focus and a drive now, to help Christians understand gays, and to reach out to the LGBT community.  Many of the songs ask Christians to reconsider their stance–that they are in error–and that they need to understand that gays mean no harm to their families or their Christianity.  In some ways, Ray Boltz is a Paul, trying to talk to us about gentiles, that we are a part of Christ’s plan and message.

I hope one day that Ray’s new songs are also sung in church.  “I will choose to love” is Ray’s response to the hate mail.  “I will choose to love/ though they shake their fists at me/and I will be myself/ and live in authenticity/ though they wrap their hatred in a message from above/ I will choose to love.”  A truly Christian response to the discrimination and judgment of Christians.

“Who would Jesus Love?” asks “would he only love the ones who look the same as me/ would he only offer hope if he saw similarity/ would he leave the others waiting like a stranger at the gate”–and challenges Christians to go beyond the narrow confines of the WWJD movement.

Should we sing Ray Boltz’s music in Church?  I hope so.  I hope we still do.  I hope that one day who someone loves will not interfere with the lyrics and the heart of their offering.  Ray Boltz has written some of the strongest, most beautiful Christian songs, and he still writes and sings these songs–in the churches that will let him.  Ray Boltz is singing his music in church, and I can’t think of a better way to express the heart of Christianity than to keep him singing, and sing with him.

The Tempest:

Things were going fine for Willow Creek Community Church as they were the sponsor and host for a Leadership Summit in 2011 that had on its list of speakers CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz.  Then Change.org sponsored a petition that asked Mr. Schultz to cancel his speaking engagement at Willow Creek based on Willow Creek’s past association with Exodus International, which promotes ex-gay conversion therapy.   Willow Creek had dissolved relationships with Exodus International years ago, but not on belief issues, but moreso based on where the church wanted to focus its activity.  They got a lot of heat for that from evangelicals and other Christians on the far right who saw their dissolution with Exodus International a sign that they were going soft on gays.  Still, the petition mentioned that Willow Creek still had anti-gay messages of its own.  They wanted Starbucks not to associate itself with anti-gay anything.

So Schultz canceled his speaking engagement at the Leadership Summit.

The Reaction:

The World, watching, reported and discussed Willow Creek Community Church in a negative light.  So, Willow Creek started doing damage control.  They came out with a statement that said they were not “anti-gay” nor were they “anti-anybody”.  In fact, they touted the hundreds of people with “same-sex attraction” that attended their church on a regular basis as proof they weren’t anti-gay.  Just ask them, Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek, seemed to say.  They don’t feel unwelcome, he implied.  He went on to say that his church challenges everyone to live up to the “sexual ethics” as presented in the Scriptures.  And these are:  “full sexual expression between men and women in the confines of marriage” and “sexual abstinence and purity for everyone else.”

The Video Response:

Of course, in the video statement below, he is on home field.  He gets lots of hoots and hollers from supportive congregation members.  It’s a safe place for Hybels to make that kind of statement.   He gets to compliment them.  He gets to tell them they are doing fine.  He gets to re-brand them as the nice people they know they are.  Who would question Hybels at WCCC?  A whole room full of people who felt a bit stung by the media’s labeling them “anti-gay” give him clapping and happiness when they are re-labeled as not “anti-anything”, but welcoming of everyone–by the person who most needs to re-label the church, Bill Hybels, because of the bad PR he and his church are getting.  It’s always nice to show your mother your artwork.  You know she’ll love it.  But she’s not the best critic.

My opening concerns:

Let me say that I don’t want to stop churches from progressing–even in baby steps–to a full realization and agreement with God on this issue–that gays are 100% equal to everyone else in the eyes of God and are certainly allowed full sexual expression with their partners.  However, some churches seem to think that halfway is good enough—or even that the appearance of love will make it more palatable when they tell gay people to stay celibate.

This stops churches from progressing–and so I feel the need to say something to let them know that this is still not good.  To say to someone, “We love you, but you are still less than us–by some accident of creation.  We love you–but you are never allowed to have any of the privileges of serving the church or joys of companionship,” is not Christian.

Gays at Willow Creek Under WCCC definitions:

Hybels refers to gays at Willow Creek as those who have “same-sex attraction.”  He might do this because giving them GLBT monikers would empower them too much, or he might be reflecting their own wishes as they struggle with something they don’t want to have as a label.  And there are some gays and lesbians who prefer to be “Side B” Christians.  This comes with its own challenges as a definition–mainly because evangelicals love that these folks already embrace a celibate lifestyle (of their own choosing).  I find Side B has many problems for the rest of the GLBT community that should be addressed.

I’ve heard from friends who know gay couples that go to the church, and they say they don’t feel unwelcome, or that they have to abide by any rules.  But when 8000 people strongly believe that you are off path–and they preach from the pulpit what Hybels says in this video, there is judgment present.  It has an effect on a couple.  (Having sat in a church that loved me but thought I was delusional for being gay and wanting to date—it’s a tremendous horrible pressure.)

A great article from the Marin Foundation, a bridge-building organization that seeks to pull together evangelicals and the GLBT community, gives Hybels a walk on this one–saying that his statement is pretty accepting compared to other churches.  But even the author to this article admits that there are holes:

A former lay leader at Willow Creek was asked to step down when the church found out he was gay. “My personal experience was one that was not anti-gay,” he said, “but I wouldn’t say it was pro-gay either. Willow welcomes people, but they welcome gay people to the back row. I was asked to step down from my position, even though I hadn’t ever had sex. The same question—’How’s your celibacy going when you’re not married?’—was not asked of my heterosexual counterparts.”

Their proclamation in this video shows that their stance is one of outward welcome, and inward castration for gay and lesbian members.

How would a partnership or marriage survive constant scrutiny and judgment in a church?  One group gets to have all of God’s blessings–another group has limits, and gets to hear statements like the one below made from the pulpit of a church that proclaims to “accept” them.  At Willow Creek, gays can only make God truly happy if they never have sex, or if they have straight sex.   God is “thrilled”, however, with all those straight people around them.  I don’t know many couples who could take that kind of double standard.  If we just numbered you off–and all the even couples got full acceptance, and all the odd couples got disappointment, challenges to change, constantly looking at the even couples who have everything–the pressure on a marriage, or on a person, would be tremendous.  And these days, marriage is already under so much strain.  Fifty percent of straight marriages don’t last.  And the percentage is HIGHER if you go to a conservative church:

Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented:

“While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages.“

My point is that gay relationships enduring a constant barrage of messages that say that they are less than God’s best, and that they should not be having sex, or a relationship, for that matter, would face an unhealthy environment with which to grow.  Normally couples who attend churches can find themselves learning and growing in Christ through discussion and interaction with equals, all searching for answers in their lives, and serving, possibly finding leadership opportunities–but gay couples at Willow Creek would face a strong barrier to all of this.  They would be seen as not having their lives “right” in the first place–and therefore, unable to grow or learn until they get that “straightened out.”

Listen to the video of their statement as if you were a gay person, or a gay couple, attending Willow Creek Community Church–how would you feel?  If this were directed at straight couples, could you endure?  It gets interesting at the 3 minute mark:

Some thoughts:

Willow Creek, and Bill Hybels, you are still anti-gay if you could answer no to any of the following statements:

1.  If Gay Marriage was made possible through the entire United States, and their marriages were just as legal as heterosexual marriages, would you be able to change your statement?   What happens when the US says it’s okay for gays to marry?  Then churches won’t be so smugly inside the law.  There will be a larger cultural battle between these churches and the US government.  Not sure churches will feel so easy to hold a faulty viewpoint.

2.  Would I be welcome with my partner to serve in the church, in any capacity, in the choir, being a chaperone on youth functions, serving communion, or leading prayer?   

3.  Are you letting youth know that they can live happy and fulfilling lives as gay people? Would my children be coerced, shamed or otherwise encouraged to become straight even if they are gay?  Perhaps they would realize the double-standard in store for them inside your system.  Then what?  Will kids be told that they have miserable lives before them if they don’t change?  Yes, just by listening to your sermons.

4.  Is it possible for your church to leave the matter open for discussion by inviting speakers at your church that will speak to your WHOLE congregation on a Sunday morning, on TV, on being gay and Christian and dating and married?   And the joy that God brings in their lives?

5.  Would you allow teachers or speakers to promote a Biblical understanding of gay christianity that differs from your interpretation–even if they were Biblical scholars from Harvard? 

6.  If you discovered that you were wrong on your interpretation of scripture regarding gay people–and that they can have full sexual expression– would you change your stance?

If you answered no to any of these questions, you are still considering being gay a sin.  You are still putting a dichotomy between attraction and dating/sex.  This is not a dichotomy you give to straight people.  You allow their attraction and their dating.  By not allowing full expression of gays and lesbians, bisexual and transgendered folks in your church, you are a) setting up a double-standard for sexual expression based on YOUR interpretation of the Bible, b) you are not seeking as a church to know the truth on the issue if it does not match what you’ve found–so ongoing dialogue is over, c) you are denying the full expression of the Living Holy Spirit which still speaks today, and d) you are asking gays to shoulder a burden you wouldn’t give any straight person, because even straight single people can find love eventually and be brought into full-acceptance within the church–which means your stance purposely targets GAY people.  Straight people, in your church, will always have hope.   

I am sympathetic to those who are just coming out and trying to figure out the truth on this matter–but, Willow Creek, you don’t provide anything but your opinion on scripture.  Certainly you are not giving gay people the dignity of being called “gay” or “lesbian” nor are you allowing them to read scriptural interpretation that differs from your own so they can make a real decision.  As a church then, you are not allowing God to say anything that doesn’t match with your understanding–nor inviting dialogue that might reach a new understanding.  There is no growth here.

I get that impression as well from the video–that gays are welcome to come and change.

Why your policies show an anti-gay stance:

Folks who disagree can’t openly challenge any of your “ideas” of scripture in your church–ideas that not every Biblical scholar agrees with, not every denomination agrees with.  While other stances may not be universally agreed upon either in all denominations, this is a stance targeted towards ONE group.

Any gay person who started dating, who was affectionate in public with another person of their sex, who questioned the authority of your scriptural reading, who got married, who started telling others in the church that God had a fuller-idea for gays and lesbians, a different gospel than Willow Creek was pushing—would be corrected, argued with, coerced, silenced, ostracized, and eventually pushed out of Willow Creek Community Church.  Is that not so?  Could your church tolerate a Jesus with a new gospel?

It is not good for man to be alone

I believe your stance on scripture is dangerously in error.  Christ never spoke about homosexuality.  Genesis 2:24 is the verse you pull up to show God’s idea on marriage.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  It’s that “for this reason” that refers back a few verses.  The more important verse that you should be looking at is this:  Genesis 2:18– “It is not good for man to be alone.”  The important thing to consider is that God had compassion on single people.  He goes through every creature to find a suitable companion, but the suitable companion is another human being.  In this case, it happens to be a wife.  But you cannot say that God creates a wife for every man.  Try that one on Sunday morning and see the response you get from people who are single in your church.

As we know the Bible is filled with lovable, accepted and affirmed leaders who had polygamous relationships, and prostitutes are lauded for their cleverness and included in Christ’s lineage.  God never had a thing to say against the marriages of Abraham, Moses, Jacob, or many of our other patriarchs.  Who they married was unimportant to their ministry, to their walk with God.

The truth is–who gay people choose to marry is also unimportant.  Gay people are only dating and loving another person, which is a God-given impulse for all humans.  I sincerely believe that God does not want us to be alone.  Even Paul admits that you have to be called to be celibate–and that it is better to marry than burn.   Celibacy is not your call to make.  It is each individual’s choice based on calling, not on a blanket scriptural doctrine for a whole group of people.   You would burden gays with resisting for their WHOLE LIVES this urge for companionship, and their sexual expression.  I challenge you, as a church, to go without sex or affection towards your partner for five months to better understand what you are asking gay people to do.  (don’t blame scripture on this–scripture doesn’t say it.)

Conversion Therapy

While I applaud your dissolution of relationship with Exodus International, your stance with gays scares me.  Instead of up front telling gays you are trying to convert them, you offer them incentives for good behavior.  Love, acceptance, rejoicing.   When Gays “choose” to become celibate or straight, they win the lottery at Willow Creek.  Folks are overjoyed as much in their conversion as they are in the fact that they can use them as evidence against the current GLBT community which is simply asking churches for full acceptance.

Gays who follow your rules get to be token “happy” people who are living forced celibate lives.  Not all celibates are forced–some take a vow of celibacy because God asks them to.  Some, unfortunately, based on faulty scripture, take a vow of celibacy because they believe God doesn’t want them to “act” on their “gay urges.”  When they “slip up” there is great shame and remorse and guilt and unworthiness that Willow Creek gets to be “magnanimous” and “forgive”.  How Wonderful Willow Creek looks towards its gay people.  By purposely keeping them hobbled, their kindness towards the disabled looks genuine.

Conclusions:

This is why you, Willow Creek Community Church, are still practicing anti-gay policies.  What’s worse is that you hide it in “acceptance” of people’s journeys, while you, yourself, are no longer on any journey.  You are convincing others that to be Christian they can’t be fully human if they are gay.  But you “love” them—and that love is so compelling, so desired by people, that they will deny themselves any personal happiness in order to keep the love of their church.

This is the most troubling stance that you could take—the appearance of love, the requirement of absolute lifelong celibacy.  It is a false appearance.  I would rather you reject gays so they know that God is not there at all in your church, so that they can find a loving church that does accept them.  But by feigning the appearance of love (love without full acceptance is not love) you fool them into thinking that God is behind you.  You make the gays that can’t contort themselves into something acceptable walk away from God.   You cause gay people to walk away from God.  Think about that.

I’m sorry, Willow Creek.  I’m sorry, Bill.  I know you want to love people–and I believe you are sincere–but you have become smug with your own humanitarian stance of being kind to a people who are, in your opinion, “condemned” to being alone and unloved by a partner for the rest of their lives.  You are adopting gays as perpetual pets and spaying and neutering them in the name of God.

I don’t think 700 signers on a petition should have scared Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.  I think understanding how deceptively friendly and dangerous and un-Christian Willow Creek’s stance towards gays should have scared him.  And should scare us all.  I sincerely hope, Willow Creek Community Church, that you will look again at your policies, and rethink your scriptural stance.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Here is a wonderful resource that can help you be a welcoming and affirming church.  And there are other resources that can give you a better understanding of how God sees gays.

Since “we’re” the largest, we get to define everyone else.  Not so fast.  Lest you be confused by Robert Jeffress’ claim, let’s go through the statistics on exactly where Southern Baptists are in the line-up of Protestant church denominations.

Southern Baptists, according to a 2007 Annual SBC publication, are at 16.3 million people.  Staggering, yes, but certainly not the largest Protestant denomination–not even the majority of Baptists.

Check out the (regular) Baptist denomination in relationship with other Protestant denominations.

Of the Baptist denomination, the SBC is the largest group.  Baptists make up 100 million people, but Southern Baptists are only 16.3 % of that denominational figure. That leaves 83.7% of Baptists who are NOT Southern Baptists.  While that leaves SBC the top of their denomination, it leaves them, frankly, in a vast minority to the larger groups of Baptists.

And by the way, there are 75 million Lutherans.  That’s more than four times the number of Southern Baptists.  If SBCers want to get picky about convention vs. denomination, the Evangelical Church in Germany has 24.5 million people– beating Southern Baptists by 8 million people.

There are 75 million Methodists, 75 million Lutherans, 40 million Presbyterians, and a whoppin’ 130 million Pentecostals, which outstrips the Baptists by 30 million, and the Southern Baptists by 114 million!  Within that Pentecostal denomination, 60 million are Assemblies of God!

So let’s do this again:

130 Million Pentecostals

100 Million Baptists

75 Million Methodists

75 Million Lutherans

60 Million Assemblies of God

24.5 Million in the Evangelical Church of Germany

16.3 Million in the Southern Baptist Convention

What is true is that in the pond of Baptists–which is a large pond, but not the biggest Protestant denomination–the biggest fish, or church, is Southern Baptist.  In the Protestant world, though, Southern Baptists don’t come close to the numbers of any of the other denominations.  They are a minority in their own pond–16.3% of 100%…which doesn’t allow them to speak for Baptists, even, let alone other Protestants where Southern Baptists are 3. 8% of the largest of the Protestant package.  In terms of all Protestants, get ready…. they are only 2.4%.

Robert Jeffress, Southern Baptists are not the largest Protestant denomination in the World, and though they may be the largest Baptist sub-denomination, they are still terribly small in the pool of Baptists, and microscopic in the pool of Protestants.  You speak for very few.  This is more the rhetoric of star-Bellied Sneetches than it is of Authority.

THANK GOD.

Besides, Mr. Jeffress, there are 14.1 Million Mormons…only 2 million more Southern Baptists exist….I wouldn’t be playing a numbers game here.

Mitt Romney, you still stand against gay people–by promising conservative voters that you will stand in opposition to marriage rights for gays.  Don’t think that we forget that.  My point here is that Southern Baptists don’t speak for anyone but Southern Baptists, but that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are still dangerously toxic for the LGBT community.

What this means for gay people

The larger message is that, for gay folks, Presbyterians and Lutherans and other affirming Protestant churches are changing–some of their sub-denominations becoming affirming–slowly outweighing those against us, outweighing the messages from those who proclaim to be the “largest” Protestant voice.  We’ve discovered here that they are a very very small voice.  And even smaller and smaller–if there are 312 million people in the US, and only 16.3 million are Southern Baptists, I feel better.  The more people, the more denominations, choose to recognize gay people in loving and affirming ways, the more we wipe out an historical mar on Christ’s message.  It’s not over.  I didn’t even touch the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world…  but don’t let that scare you.  1. 2 billion Catholics are no match for God.  *big grin*

Not all churches are anti-gay—but the ones that are happen to be very, very loud.  Their messages for gays make the news and turn gays against church altogether.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Become an affirming church.  Be a loud voice celebrating ALL people.

When the Pilgrims Met the Borg: Faith, Perfection and the Assimilated Pilgrim.

This is a piece of fiction about when the Pilgrims coming to the new world run into a Borg sphere in the ocean, rescue a few survivors and, through evangelism, and Borg assimilation, the Pilgrims and the Borg combine into one unstoppable, efficient and beautiful thing.  I was having fun–trying to copy William Bradford’s writing style–all for Thanksgiving.

(With all due respect and apology to Star Trek.  This is more fan fiction, than commercial–a teasing out of parallels, not an appropriation)

Comparing the Borg and the Pilgrims sheds a little light on problems I think are present in modern evangelical churches today.  These churches seem to be more into evangelism for the purpose of gaining members to their flock–rather than in giving them a complicated Christ.  Just imagine giving Christians the ability to choose a denomination, to wrestle with salvation, grace, letting them understand Christianity before they were “indoctrinated” with a particular denomination—why that would be insanity?  Where would the offering come from??

Modern Churches–especially the big ones–sometimes have a problem with new ideas, nonconformity, questioning, and problems with allowing new Christians to truly follow their own journey to Christ.

This is most apparent in churches that condemn LGBT folk.  But it’s present in a lot of churches.  Whenever I had a question in my church, no matter the local congregation, I was bullied back into the “right” interpretation of things.  If I held another interpretation, I was either looked on as a bit “wacko” because I held that belief–even if that belief was held by another Christian denomination–or I had people try to talk me out of my ideas.

What is valued most in today’s churches is a congregation that thinks alike, that marches forward together–conformity is not a bad thing.  The military uses it as an effective strategy to form a more unified group, a unit.  Groups that share values and goals are easier to find a sense of belonging in, a sense of home, and that shared sense of values and expectations and traditions protect and “conserve” the sense of a group identity.  These can be positive things.  It’s, well, also easier to collect money from that kind of yes-men congregation, and easier to get them to believe what you want them to believe.  Powerful men and women sometimes join “mega”churches for networking; some join them for the unchallenging way they can glide across a field of challenging scriptures, beliefs, and thorny interpretations.  They do it because Pastor “Bob” has “the answers” and so they feel good.  And they can financially contribute to “problem areas” in the world and feel good that they have done something, participated, alleviated–they may even get a taxable receipt.  A strong church can help one feel as if they are part of a grand design, a huge benevolent power, even when they might feel alone and singular, lost and unsure–the Church alleviates the burden of having to think through it for themselves; it gives them simple, easy avenues of influence and penance.  I may be a bit harsh, but I think Christianity was meant to be a bit more messy, a bit more uncertain, a bit more dealing with the real world.  Group identity is good, but not group stagnation.

Not so dissimilar to the Borg–which gave a sense of identity and helped people feel like a Collective–a Mass of minds with one thought, efficient in their labor and in their goals.

In my story, the Borg help the Pilgrims realize their dream and, in a sense, the Pilgrims in this version never fail.  With the Borg’s help–they accomplish their goals and more!  They sacrifice themselves, their own thoughts, their individuality, but become better as a whole.  And one could read the scripture in that Borg light: death to the old man, and raised to new life in a group of Christians who give you a higher purpose.

I don’t believe all churches are like that, and I certainly don’t believe God intended it that way.  Early churches don’t resemble the modern ones at all.  But even in Paul’s time—he needed conformity of thought so that they could establish a doctrine.  Without agreed upon ideas, there is no group structure.  And you might lose truth.  However, TOO MUCH doctrine, TOO MUCH conformity where you have all the answers, and everything makes sense in the world, leaves out all the reality of life, all the individual ways that God COULD interact with us.  He is AMAZING.  And wants to have a personal individual journey with each of us.  I am always surprised by the way God interacts with me–that he doesn’t just ignore me, or deal with bigger things.  He loves me.  And that love–and that individual love, the path that it takes for me–is important to preserve

–and it’s important to remember, EVEN in a collective.

Esther at the moment of decision---Sir John Everett Millais, painter, 1865

The Story of Esther in the Bible means a great deal to me.  On the day I decided to come out it was Esther who gave me the last push.  She was the one who told me–you aren’t just doing it for you.  You’re doing it to save your people.  Every act of coming out is about saving people.  But more on Esther in a moment.

Some background is in order:  I had kept the secret of being gay for five years before coming out—three of them I was gone from the Yukon, a student in Texas, researching whether or not God was okay with me being gay.  He was uppermost on my mind.  If He didn’t like it, I would go through therapy, I would become a monk, I would do whatever was necessary to change myself to fit what He wanted.  Thankfully, not only was He cool with me being gay, it was how he created me to be.  So it was quite a revelation.  However, just because God was okay with it, didn’t mean I was itching to tell my church.  People are unpredictable.

At first, I wondered if I really HAD to come out.  It wasn’t anyone else’s business.  I had known many gays who told me to go live my life and not bother with coming out at all.  Who needs to know?  — Well, I had lived my life pretty open to this point, and it was difficult to keep part of myself from people I loved.  In fact, it was so difficult it was hitting me on multiple levels that I had to come out.

1.  I had become deceptive.  This was hard for me to accept.  That I would have to hide who I was in order to keep the life I had been living, to keep the friends I had.  I was never a liar growing up—and never a liar as an adult.  But suddenly, I was a liar in order to keep the peace, to keep friends, to keep interacting with the church and people I loved.  It made me into a person I didn’t want to be.

2.  I wanted to share who I loved with the church.  They loved me, and I wanted to be as open as I could be with them–letting them know, like anyone else, when I was dating, when I was happy, why I was happy, who I loved.  One day I wanted to stand up with my boyfriend like so many other couples in the church and declare that we got engaged.  The whole crowd would clap.  There would be such a renewal of love and hope in the congregation whenever a young couple announced their upcoming marriage.

3.  God told me, point blank, that he couldn’t use me until I came out.  How could he use someone that had a secret to spill–a secret that might endanger whatever mission he would give me?  And further, how could God put me on any kind of road to minister to other gay christians–when I couldn’t be honest with them?

4.  I was hurting others who knew.  A woman in the church whom I’d told many months before came up to me and said–we can’t keep your secret any longer.  You have to tell the pastor.  She set in motion a pressure that would just increase every day until I came out.  She wasn’t threatening to tell–but she said that the pressure to keep the secret was hurting her family.

And then Esther came along.  I realized what I had to do—but for some reason I thought Easter was the best time to do it.  I knew that I would go from family to family, but just like it’s hard when you skydive to let go of the safety of the plane… I was lingering at the door, looking at the thousand mile drop below me.  I knew if I went to one family, it would get away from me and I would never be able to control who knew what.  The truth would be out and then they could decide to hurt me with it.

I didn’t think that God would REALLY want me to mess up Easter Week, nor did I think he wanted me to REALLY go through all that ordeal just to come out… Geesh.  It seemed so selfish.  I demanded one night that God prove to me that it was really Him speaking and not some grandiose plan of my own to steal thunder from Jesus during Easter (I didn’t trust my inherent need for a bit of dramatic action).  I grabbed a Bible and opened it at random.  “Do it!  Use the Bible to tell me to come out—or else I’m staying put.”

Esther. 

I flipped open to the first chapter of Esther and began reading her story for the first time as a gay man.  I was shocked at how closely she paralleled what gay people go through.  She had been raised by Mordecai after her parents had died.  She was his cousin.  When the King suddenly wanted every beautiful virgin in the kingdom rounded up so he could pick a new queen, Esther was rounded up.  This was not her choice.  Mordecai forbid her to tell anyone that she was Jewish.  Instead, as all the other virgins, Esther was given a lot of beauty treatments–which just made her look more beautiful.  And, of course, the King picked her as his new Queen because he found her more beautiful and was “more attracted” to her than the other virgins he was quickly making into concubines.

Through a series of events, Mordecai finds out about a plot to assassinate the king, tells Esther, the plot is foiled, and Mordecai gets credit–but no reward.  Haman, a nobleman the King favored, got a promotion above all other nobles.  So lots of nobles and other royalty bowed in his presence, but Mordecai, and other Jews, refused to bow.  Haman, annoyed, told the King that he had a lot of people in his kingdom who had other traditions–who did not follow the king’s laws–and that this was dangerous to have in a kingdom.  Further he asked that any man who did not obey the King’s laws be put to death–meaning that every Jew would be rounded up and killed.

Mordecai heard of this–and even though he’d told Esther to hide her nationality–he now told her to come out.

Esther was in a pickle.  It wasn’t like she could just up and go to the King and ask him something.  Vashti, her predecessor angered the king by not following his rules, and so Esther might end up like Vashti, deposed, or worse, dead.  Queens had power only as the vassal of Kings—at least here.  If she didn’t say something to the King, her people would perish.

“I will go to the King, even though it is against the law.  If I perish, I perish.”  The most telling, and famous, line from the Book of Esther.  She decides that her own life is not worth the death of her people.  So she risks everything for them.  In her case, the King is favorable–the genocide is stopped, Haman is killed, and Mordecai is promoted and honored.  Esther is a good Queen and her husband loves her.

Is Esther applicable to gay Christians today?

Esther clarifies why coming out is so important.  Coming out is not just about saving yourself, but it is about saving others.  Every gay person who comes out helps introduce the normality of gays to other Christians.  Gay people are already in their lives.  We are not weird, or strangers.  We are not anti-God, or anti-Christian.  We are those they already love.  Just as Esther showed Xerxes, her husband, that Jews were already a people he loved.

We come out for everyone else first.

Today, many GLBT folks are inside churches, or raised by Christian families, told that they must choose between being gay or being Christian–and that’s just not true.  For many gay Christians, suicide looks like a viable option–and suicide rates are statistically higher for LGBT youth.  It makes sense that Youth and Adults outside of a fundamentalist religious or conservative environment have less pressure to change–the “secular” world is generally more accepting.  These GLBT folks have fewer moral and spiritual issues to have to deal with than youth and adults raised in a religious, or conservative environment.  If their environment is accepting, youth will generally make an easier transition into accepting themselves.  If their environment is hostile, then there is greater risk to the GLBT person both from the people around him and from himself.  These people need to see gay Christians come out.  They need to see that it can and should be done–that they will be loved by other Christians.

In the end, though, coming out saves us too.  It is a great risk–but the reward of integrity, honesty, relief and Love are worth the pain.  In my case, there was a lot of pain–as people had to firmly stand against homosexuality, even as they tried to stand for me.  But just as you cannot take the color out of your skin and just hate the color–you can’t take the homosexuality out of a gay or lesbian and separate it.  It would be like me saying, I love you, but I hate your straightness….

But coming out saved me.  I am so glad I came out.  I came out to my church in 2009.  I am a much different person now in 2011, and all of this because I came out.  I am happier, more stable, more confident, and willing to take stands knowing I am standing on my own integrity, and on the truth that God loves me as a gay man, and wants the best for me, which will include, one day, a good man as my husband.  I can stand firm knowing I have God watching my back.

And because I came out, I can now talk to others about coming out–through this blog, in person, and it makes a difference.  I know if I had had other gay christians to talk to, it would have been less painful.   And I hope that I am helping others. When others come out–they give us all strength.  Thank you, Ray Boltz, for coming out.  You gave me strength.  I know that Ray got strength from Mel White, whose book, Stranger at the Gate, started most of us on this journey.

Finally, thank you, Esther, for coming out.  You came out so long ago–but for me, you came out April 6, 2009, so that I could too.