114. ignorance

‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.’
— Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

Full disclosure: I am angry right now.

If you follow GLBT news at all, one of the big items in Minnesota is the announcement on Tuesday^[1] that the Anoka-Hennepin school board is considering an alternative to the Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy^[2] that’s in place right now. This is the home district of Michele Bachmann, the anti-gay congresswoman whose husband Marcus(ss) runs the [Pray-Away-the-Gay] counselling clinic^[3].

In case you aren’t familiar, the current policy prohibits teachers and administrators from talking about or interfering in matters concerning a student’s sexual orientation—including a student being bullied—the purpose being (and I’m speculating here) to protect school officials from being sued over insinuating that a teen is gay. What it’s created, however, is a culture in which GLBT teens have little recourse from bullies, and a culture in which nine students have committed suicide in the past two years, some of whom were gay or merely perceived to be gay.

Again, this is the home district of Michele Bachmann. And, not surprisingly, the Parent’s Action League, an ultra-conservative group, is protesting the new policy^[4], stating that it is “being used as a pretext to advance a much broader agenda: the legitimization of homosexuality and related conduct to impressionable schoolchildren [and] will undermine the academic focus of this district and open the door to pro-homosexual and related conduct materials in the school curriculum thereby exposing students to concepts hostile to their religious faith and or moral convictions.”

So, “school safety” = “pro-homosexual.” Simply astounding.

MinnPost reported in an article on Thursday^[5] that these parents also requested that, should this new policy be instituted, students also have access to information about conversion (i.e., “ex-gay”) therapy, a form of psychological terrorism that has been denounced and derided by every reputable therapist. They also demand that (and I’m not making this up) officials “provide the history of gay-related immune deficiency (GRID), AIDS, and the medical consequences of homosexual acts” and “provide pro-family, ex-homosexual and ex-transgender videos to secondary media centers.”

GRID, in case you don’t know, was the name initially proposed for the disease that became AIDS. In 1982.^[6] It was promptly discarded for its inaccuracy^[7]. Yet here it is again, in 2012, being referred to in a proposal by a bunch of right-wing, religious, anti-gay parents.

In Michele Bachmann territory.

This comes in the same month that the Tennessee General Assembly is meeting about the HB229 (a.k.a., “Don’t Say Gay”) bill^[8] that’d make it illegal to even mention homosexuality in a public school, even though another 14-year-old committed suicide^[9] this past week after he was relentlessly bullied at his school for being openly gay.

And we need to prohibit teachers from talking about homosexuality, as if that will stop kids from turning queer.

Just like we need to keep telling teens not to have sex before marriage, which is obviously going to stop teen girls from getting pregnant—just like it’s stopping them in Texas, which has the third highest teen birth rate^[10], and the highest repeat teen birth rate^[11], in the country. That’s one race you don’t want to come first in.

I am angry that there are still anti-sodomy laws^[12] in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Montana, which means the police can technically arrest you in your own home for having “gay sex.”

I am angry that Oklahoma State Rep. Mike Reynolds is attempting to push new DADT legislation^[13] that would ban GLBT citizens from openly serving in the National Guard (even though a similar measure was attempted in Virginia last year, and the federal government responded by threatening to cut their entire budget)^[14], a measure that Rick Perry lent his support to by encouraging Christian Oklahomans to mobilize.

I am angry that a 16-year-old atheist student ^[15] in Rhode Island received violence and death threats after she sued her school to have an overtly Christian banner taken down. (This is supremely ironic, considering that Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams in 1636 as a haven for religious freedom.)^[16]

I am angry that an Oklahoma Republican, State Sen. Ralph Shortey, is actually pushing a bill that would (according to the website Talking Points Memo):

outlaw the use of human fetuses in food, because, as he says, “there is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.”^[17]

Yes. Soylent Green is a tasty food additive made from dead babies.

I am angry that Rick Santorum (among other things) is publicly saying that he thinks that women who become pregnant after being raped should “make the best of a bad situation” and carry the fetus to term as a “broken gift from god.”^[18] (This coming from a privileged white guy who will never have to face that scenario himself.)

I am furious that Tennessee Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) said that it’s “virtually impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex.”^[19] Tell that to the 12 million women living with AIDS in 2009 in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 8.2 million men. (More on women living with AIDS globally at http://www.avert.org/women-hiv-aids.htm.) Tell that to the children—born of heterosexual parents, mind you—who were infected at birth.

I am furious that the Catholic Church still advises against condom use^[20], in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas where it could save millions of lives, under the notion that condom use will encourage fornication and prevent procreation.

I’m fucking angry.

That is all.

References:

Baca, Maria. “4 of 6 on Anoka school board back new policy on sexual orientation.” StarTribune. 24 Jan 2012.
Anoka-Hennepin School District. “Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy.” 9 Feb 2009.
Benjamin, Mark. “The Truth Behind Marcus Bachmann’s Controversial Christian Therapy Clinic.” Time Magazine, 15 Jul 2011.
Lindquist, Bryan, and Michael Skaalerud. “Concerns & Demands.” Parents Action League, 09 Jan 2012.
Hawkins, Beth. “Learning Curve.” MinnPost, 26 Jan 2012.
Altman, Lawrence. “New Homosexual Disorder Worries Health Officials.” The New York Times, 11 May 1982.
Altman, Lawrence. “Outlook on AIDS is Termed Bleak.” The New York Times, 13 Jun 1988.
Towle, Andy. “Tennessee’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill is Back for Another Try.” http://www.towleroad.com, 17 Jan 2012.
Huffington Gay Voices. “Phillip Parker, Gay Tennessee Teen, Commits Suicide After Enduring Bullying.” Huffington Post, 23 Jan 2012.
“50-State and National Comparisons.” The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Nov 2011.
“Lowering the Teen Birth Rate in Texas.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 Jun 2011.
Murphy, Kevin. “Gay groups angry Kansas anti-sodomy law remains on books.” Reuters, 24 Jan 2012.
Wright, John. “Oklahoma lawmaker seeks to ban gays from serving openly in state’s National Guard.” DallasVoice, 10 Jan 2012.
Nolan, Jim. “Cuccinelli: Va. could exclude gays from National Guard.” Inside NoVa, 31 Jan 2011.
Goodnough, Abby. “Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Protest Against a Prayer.” The New York Times, 26 Jan 2012.
“Rhode Island.” Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 27 Jan 2012.
Rayfield, Jillian. “Oklahoma GOPer Proposes Bill To Outlaw ‘Aborted Human Fetuses’ In Food.” TPM. TPM Media LLC, 25 Jan 2012.
Graff, Amy. “Rick Santorum: Rape babies are gifts from God.” San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications Inc., 24 Jan 2012.
Gittleson, Wendy. “Tennessee Rep. Says It’s ‘Virtually Impossible’ To Contract AIDS Through Heterosexual Sex.” Addicting Info. 26 Jan 2012.
Bowcott, Owen. “Catholic church tries to clear confusion over condom use.” The Guardian. 23 Nov 2010.

107. defriend

Okay. I didn’t actually see it, but after seeing the commercials I had no intention to see it either. And after reading the reviews—most, if not all, of which were unanimously negative—I’m not sorry I missed the pilot of ABC’s Work It. This only crossed my mind because I came down to cook dinner while the roomies were watching TV and a spot came on for it, which sparked a conversation.

Even as a non-transgendered person, I find the very idea of the show offensive on several levels (and most of the reviews confirmed my suspicions). It makes a few ugly insinuations:

Puerto Ricans are drug smugglers.
All a man needs to do to pass for a woman is don a dress, bra, wig and high heels, and talk in a higher voice (think Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot, which Work It wishes it could but has no chance of ever being).
The only reason women have sales jobs is because men want to sleep with them.
Men are insensitive Neanderthals.
Even when pretending to be women, men are still more successful than those dumb, tampon-sharing women they’re impersonating (who, by the way, can’t tell the difference between another woman and a man obviously in drag).

This is the station that just had a news anchor, Dan Kloeffler, come out publicly as a gay man in October of 2011. ABC Family was voted the most gay inclusive network during 2010-2011. Shows like “Ugly Betty,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Modern Family” have prominently featured gay characters. One of my favorite shows (up until the 5th season, when it all sort of fell apart) was “Brothers & Sisters,” a show my parents deplored due to the inclusion of three openly gay main characters—two of whom were married in the show.

So now for it to come out with trash like Work It?

Counterpoint this with an incident a few weeks ago on Facebook where I ended up deleting a friend after he said that Hulu was “acting up” and was “gay.” When I called him out on this, he came back with, “Oh, c’mon dude, you know what I mean.” *winkwink-nudgenudge* To which I responded, “No. I don’t know what you mean. Enlighten me.” The eye-rolling came loudly through the screen when he came back with, “Gay as in stupid. Not gay as in homo.” (“Homo”?) Then several of his friends rushed to his defense, saying that I was overreacting. One guy even chimed in, “Hey, guy, I’m bi and I’m not offended.”

Right, because… oh, nevermind, I’m not going to get into bisexuality in males, which is pretty rare and often a way of cowardly eschewing the label of homosexual—as if to say, “hey, I like pussy too!” Because real men like vaginas. Even the ones who also like la bite.

The moral of the story is that I ended up de-friending him over the incident. That may be a bit reactive, but it would’ve been one thing if he’d thought it over and realized that using that particular word as pejorative might be hurtful and offensive to gays and lesbians. It was how little he and those who commented seemed to care, and the fact that nobody noticed the insidious logic. Because it’s not like anyone has been maligned, mistreated or murdered for being gay…

“Gay” came into use as a pejorative in the 1970s: “That’s so gay.” It was a way of putting down effeminate (and therefore “gay”) behavior in men, and quickly became an easy insult amongst young people who adopted it as slang. Gay = stupid (read: “those dumb faggots!”). Because, as we know, all gays are stupid. Just like the women of Work It who’re too dumb to realize that their new co-workers are a couple of dudes in really bad drag.

What bothers me is not so much that drag is being used for a cheap laugh. It’s one of the oldest stand-bys in theatre. They say that laughter fills uncomfortable silences (I’m not 100% who said that though), and what makes people more uncomfortable than seeing a male pretending to be a female, temporarily emasculating himself in front of an audience? Of course, when we’re all in on the joke it’s funny.

It’s not so funny when you’re the joke though.

It speaks to these deep-seated fears we have as a society about masculinity and the fragile thing that it is. It can be undone in an instant, which is why a woman can have a lesbian “phase” and go on to be a “normal” wife and mother, but a man is gay for life if he has just one sexual encounter with another man. It’s why the gay character (male or female) is such a staple: think Nathan Lane in Frankie & Johnny; Harvey Fierstein in Mrs. Doubtfire; Rupert Everett in My Best Friend’s Wedding. With few exceptions, their sole function is to provide a clever foil to the protagonist and sage advice via witty banter. They are rarely given external lives beyond this, and aside from a few cliched bits (which are almost always played for a laugh, such as in Internal Affairs, when the characters played by Andy Garcia and Laurie Metcalf realize they are checking out the same woman) are essentially treated as non-sexual.

It makes the gay character a stereotype, someone so impossibly larger-than-life that he or she could never really exist in real life. And therefore an entity to not be concerned about.

Yes, using “gay” may be a trope for most people. I doubt images of homosexuals being burned alive in the Middle Ages, “corrective” rape, teens hung in Iran, or of Matthew Shepherd tied to a fence post and beaten to death spring to mind for them. Nor were the creators of Work It intentionally making light of issues that transgender people face everywhere—and not just in the workplace.

Yet they’re unwittingly reinforcing the notion that to be anything less than heterosexual is to be less than human.

93. sisyphus

Quick aside here from NaNoWriMo.

My friend Jenny just posted a link to an article on Ye Olde Facebook that was posted by Rachel Held Evans entitled “A Non-Zero-Sum Conversation Between the Traditional Church and the Gay Community“, which I guess is a re-post of an article written by a guy named Richard Beck. I thought about commenting but then decided to write my own quick rebuttal before plunging back into the writing fray.

For those who don’t care to read or explore either of these authors or their articles, let me sum up briefly. The thrust of the piece is that the gay community and the trad Christian community have mutually compatible interests in promoting acceptance, even in the face of fundamental differences in belief. “Both groups share a mutual concern in treating others with respect, love and dignity,” Beck writes. “We share an interest in the Golden Rule. We both want to be treated well.” He also rightly observes that trad Christians have an obligation as Christians to display kindness, hospitality and generosity – three things that the church lacks in spades.

He continues:

“The game isn’t zero-sum; it’s non-zero-sum. Fighting doesn’t have to be the only thing we have in common. There are significant areas of mutual concern, locations where we can drop our fists and partner together on important Kingdom work . . . Imagine how the conversation would change between the traditional Christian and gay communities if traditional Christian communities became, say, known for their guardian angel and anti-bullying programs and initiatives, often partnering with local gay advocacy groups to get this work done.”

This is a lovely, Utopian image where everyone gets along and is able to put aside their differences and work together to build a world based on peace and love. It’s a sentiment that many of my Christian friends express (including my two best friends, Mark and Emily) in their continuing work in building a church that fosters such a worldview, and is open to discussion and bridging that conversation with the trad Christian church in bringing about real and tangible change in how Christians and gay (and really anyone who is of a non-believing persuasion–Jews, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, etc.).

Well, forgive me for not jumping on the hippie bandwagon (to be sarcastic for just a moment) but I have experienced first-hand the “openness” of the fundamentalist church. And I can say that without hesitation that my friends will be fighting an uphill battle both ways to start that conversation; and maybe that says something of their love for people, and their willingness to not give up.

The problem with the trad Christian community and why I think this Utopian world will never come about is that their beliefs about the Bible and about this world will always prevent this. It’s why Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, James Dobson, Peter LaBarbera and the rest of the anti-gay crowd can say the things they do and still sleep at night. They honestly believe that they are doing homosexuals a favor by “proclaiming the Truth” (and yes, I am using the capital T there purposefully) in order to free them from their “lifestyle of sexual bondage,” which I think was something like the phrase Bachmann used once.

Underlying their actions is the fundamental Christian belief that this world is not all there is, and that a better world awaits those who love and follow Jesus after death. Amongst the Evangelicals is the additional caveat that you have to “proclaim him as your Lord and Savior.” Just try doing a search for “how to become a Christian.”

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9 (NASB)

It’s this eschatology that allows them to believe that the only thing that matters is getting to the right side in the afterlife. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS EXCEPT FOR JESUS. That “nothing else” includes sexual orientation, because obviously God created us all with a heterosexual orientation–right? So what does it matter if you have to live 70 years in total misery or loneliness if at the end of all that you have an eternity with Jesus?

[hold for laughs]

It’s this view that will not allow any sort of conversation between gays and trad Christians, and I don’t know that Richard Beck or Rachel Held Evans really understand that. I have the sense that they grew up in much more generous Christian denominations that were more life-affirming and dignity-affording. Then again, maybe they do and like the pacifist protesters getting beaten down in the film Gandhi they know what they’re in for.

All I know is that until trad Christians back down from their position of biblical literalism and inerrancy, there can be no conversation, for to even back down would be to waver in devotion to the Word and to God, which means jeopardizing their eternal security. My own parents would rather hold to that notion: that if I continue to “live as a homosexual” that I will one day suffer an eternity in hell while they enjoy a blessed eternity with Je-sus. (No, my parents are not Southern televangelists, but it’s fun to make them sound like they are.

It was partly because of this that I became an atheist in the first place (and I’ll be devoting my 100th blog entry to the reasons why I am an atheist). Jesus supposedly stood for love, affording dignity to all persons and speaking out against hypocrisy. And yet his followers resemble more the men who allegedly put him to death, and are putting gays to death every day in one form or another. They will continue to fight against gay marriage and equal rights for gays. They will oppose anti-bullying measures because it “encourages the proliferation and tolerance of homosexuality in schools.” They will rail against the teaching of evolution, ignoring all evidence that contradicts and disproves creationism.

Because the bible told them so.

78. nevermore

This weekend I came to the realization that I can probably only date other free thinkers or skeptics—guys who grew up in the Church and, after much thought and weighing of evidence, decided that it was no longer tenable to stay there.

Frankly, it’s not an easy thing to turn away from the place that has been your home for all of your life. From my earliest remembrance, the church was the primary social and sociological organizing feature of my life. I can still vividly remember sitting in the hard pews of the Evangelical Mennonite church that my family attended, feet dangling off the side, not yet long enough to reach the floor.

… I remember singing hymns together, and the older Mennonite woman who taught my 1st grade Sunday school class, and the felt board and pieces she used to tell Bible stories.

… I remember lunches, dinners and missionary gatherings in the community hall, and playing games in there during AWANA and vacation Bible school.

… I remember Christmas, Advent services with the candles (and mine catching fire several years in a row), Easter, and all the services in between.

It’s not that I don’t care about the Church, or about religion, or even God. I take it very seriously, which is why I can’t believe anymore—because I take it too seriously to believe on such a profound lack of evidence as there is. As Richard Dawkins writes in his endnote to Chapter 11 of The Selfish Gene:

“I don’t want to argue that the things in which a particular individual has faith are necessarily daft. They may or may not be. The point is that there is no way of deciding whether they are, and no way or preferring one article of faith over another, because evidence is explicitly eschewed. Indeed the fact that true faith doesn’t need evidence is held up as its greatest virtue; this was the point of my quoting the story of Doubting Thomas, the only really admirable member of the twelve apostles.”

He continues in the same endnote: “Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb.”

I’ve dated a number of guys who have held various religious beliefs. My first boyfriend had a horrific experience coming out as a teenager in his Christian community, where he was literally thrown out of his house by his conservative fundamentalist parents, as well as shunned by everyone he knew.

It’s been a mixture, with some guys still believing that Christianity is the way and trying to reconcile homosexuality with the Bible; but mostly the guys I meet are apathetic at best about Christianity. Like most American men, church doesn’t have a strong draw for them. Most grew up around Christianity but once they were old enough drifted away; and for many gay men, we get the message early on that the church has no place for homosexuals. Some might even go so far as to say that gays make Jesus throw up.

I’m at a place right now where there’s a lot of internal anger towards the church and its teachings. Having grown up within the system, while I’ve known many decent and kind religious people, I frankly believe that religion itself is too often used as a tool of psychological abuse and terrorism, subjugating individuals through fear of damnation and glorified ignorance in a sort of holy Stockhausen Syndrome.

It’s ironic. When I first came out, I was committed to only dating Christian gays, even going so far as to joining Christian gay dating sites and online forums (such as the GCN Network, which is where I met my first boyfriend). Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where I should probably only date date agnostics or atheists, guys who have come out of the church and are committed to free thought and eradicating ignorance and religious abuse and inculcation from the world.

This experience is so defining and pervasive that it honestly makes it difficult to connect to others. That was what made it easy to connect to Seth—our common religious backgrounds and the experience of growing up gay in a fundamentalist Christian environment. But that chapter of my life is over, and a new and brighter one has begun—and now I want to share it with someone who understands that; who takes faith and religion seriously but also realizes through having lived it how toxic and deadly an ideology it is.

What it comes down to is that I can’t date guys who are willing to suspend their critical thinking skills in light of everything that we now know. Looking at the long term (which is where I’m at in seeking a relationship), our beliefs about the world are fundamentally different. He’ll believe that everything happens for a reason, and that there is a God benevolently looking out for us in Heaven, whereas I do not. My deepest sense is that there is a God (though that being is probably more akin to the God of the Deists than the personal God of the Evangelicals), but see no evidence to believe that life has any intrinsic purpose beyond that which we ascribe to it. The universe doesn’t care about anyone. It is amoral, non-sentient. Therefore, we must care about each other.

Similarly, I couldn’t date a guy who is apathetic about religion, because what we think and believe does deeply define us. It’s somewhat like having lived through combat—difficult for anyone who hasn’t experienced it to relate or fully appreciate the gravity of the emotional, psychological and social ramifications. Turning your back on your religion is a huge decision—one not to be taken lightly.

66. surprise

This morning on Twitter I saw a story from the Advocate about a church sign in North Carolina that was smashed and vandalized because of its anti-gay message:

GOD LOVES GAYS
BUT HE HATES A
PERVERTED LIFE
STYLE (sic) ROM.1-26-27
TURN OR BURN

The woman from the church, Anna Benson, who put up the sign in the first place, seems genuinely surprised that anyone would have found that message offensive. “I love the gays,” she said. “I love everybody.” The pastor of the church supports the message too, stating that it’s based on “biblical truth.”

Yesterday I came across an interview with Michelle Bachmann responding to questions from David Gregory on Meet the Press about her stated positions on homosexuality and her support for a same-sex marriage, amongst other things (the entire interview was about twenty-five minutes altogether).

At one point in the conversation, the following exchange took place:

“That is the view that President Bachmann would have of gay Americans?” Gregory asks (after playing an excerpt of her speech at the 2004 National Education Conference).

Bachmann responds, “I am running for the presidency of the United States. I am not running to be anyone’s judge.”

“But you have judged them,” Gregory continues.

She looks a little taken aback. “I don’t judge them,” she replies, and then later adds, “My view on marriage is that I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that’s what I stand for; but I ascribe honor and dignity to every person, no matter what their background.”

There’s a tragic, profound disconnect here between word and action. Both Bachmann and Benson are either unable or unwilling to see the implications of their positions. They see homosexuality and the person as two different entities: a natural playing-out of the “love the sinner, hate the sin” mentality that I grew up with. That’s an appropriate approach to take with, say, a five-year-old hogging the bricks in the playroom or Wynona Ryder shoplifting; but a propensity towards selfishness or a willful breaking of the law is a world away from a sexual orientation. Psychology and science are finally affirming what so many of us have known our whole lives: that, as Lady Gaga sings, we were born this way. Or if we weren’t that our sexuality was shaped in the same way that a heterosexual person’s is.

Yet this is precisely what my parents and most everyone else in the Evangelical camp continue to assert: that homosexuality is a choice, blindly in the face of mounting evidence from all sides, and that it is something that can be “cured” (or “prayed away”). And for them it absolutely has to be, or else their theological house of cards falls to pieces. Because if the Church is wrong on this issue, what else are they wrong about?

What this view allows the conservative Christian Right to do is dehumanize the GLBT community. Without a face there’s no human collateral. Rather, it’s an impersonal “agenda” that’s threatening your family, your children, your home and your way of life. An agenda can’t be hurt. It can be legislated and discriminated against without impunity. It can be vilified and demonized.

I wonder if Michelle Bachmann or Anna Benson could continue to believe what they do if they sat in a hospital room with a couple being separated because the law didn’t recognize either partner as next of kin. Or an afternoon with Bradford Wells and Anthony Makk, who is being deported back to Australia, even though they have been together nineteen years and were legally married in Massachusetts seven years ago (DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing their status under the law as a state-approved married couple)–and Makk is Wells’ primary care-giver (Wells has AIDS). Were they a married couple, Makk could not be deported. Heterosexual couples do not face this scenario.

With the mobilizing machine of the Tea Party, there’s a strong likelihood that in the next presidential election a Republican could sit in the Oval Office (most likely Rick Perry, if my reading of the GOP is accurate), wielding influence and power and armed with a deliberate religious and extreme right-wing ideology to craft public policy that could have very real implications for the GLBT community in particular. It’s this dual-mindedness that allows their indifference and bigotry to thrive in conservative corners of politics and mainstream America, fueled by the voices of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and the denizens of Fox News and other conservative pundits.

It wouldn’t bother me so much either if it were just the pundits, the Glenn Becks, or the Rush Limabughs doing the ranting. They have a constitutionally guaranteed right to do so. However, We the People of the United States–e pluribus unum–are not sending elected officials to state and federal office to promote their personal or religious ideology. We elect and appoint judges who are studied in law and we expect them to apply that law fairly and without prejudice or bias. (That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.) Similarly, we elect public officials in our representative democracy to uphold the Constitution and to be the voice of their constituents. How often do judges have to make rulings that conflict with their personal beliefs? They will often say so in their dissenting opinions, but must abide by stare decisis, whether or not they agree.

Perhaps I’m being idealistic here, but I rather think politicians should be held to the same standard of upholding constitutional law rather than their religious or personal moral beliefs. They are elected to represent the People as fairly as possible, not “their” segment of the population. Will Michelle Bachmann stand up for gay Americans? Likely not.

The scales of public opinion are shifting ever-so-gradually towards a positive attitude of same-sex and other “non-traditional” relationships. But if the religious Right has their way, all of that could be undone with a few well-worded speeches and the stroke of a pen.

026. whether the weather…

The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

These are the words of my pastor, John Piper, in his recent blog entry on DesiringGod, writing about the tornado that struck downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon—specifically, that it struck Central Lutheran Church where the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was meeting to decide whether or not to allow homosexuals to serve in ministry within the church. They met again on Friday to vote “whether gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships should be allowed to lead individual congregations” (Minnesota Public Radio), and passed the motion with a 559-451 vote, repealing an earlier ban on gay clergy “unless they agree to remain celibate” (Star Tribune), essentially acknowledging the validity of same-sex relationships.

On the one hand, I respect and admire John Piper as a pastor and teacher. He believes firmly in the primacy of God’s word. He preaches the love of God to everyone, and the joy and full satisfaction to be found in the death, resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ—or, to use his motto, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” On the other hand, he also believes and teaches that homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle, incompatible with scripture and the teachings of the Church. Piper doesn’t dwell on this like some in the pulpit do, but rather stresses that all humanity is sinful (straight and gay alike) and in need of the grace of God, and for that I appreciate his ministry.

It’s moments like this that unhinge me completely and make me start questioning everything all over again. Part of me does feel like my sexuality is broken. I can’t imagine a life in which I’m not attracted to men, but since when has my lack of imagination ever stopped God? Even after deciding to pursue a relationship with my boyfriend, there are still unresolved doubts and fears in my spirit that come from a fear of being wrong about something so significant. How can a man I have listened to and trusted to deliver the word of God faithfully and accurately be wrong on this issue, or there be such consensus amongst other pastors and theologians that I also admire who agree that homosexuality is at best a neurosis and at the very worst an abomination?

There is this definitely a divide over this issue. The ELCA motion to allow gay pastors was passed very narrowly, with a 2/3 majority—a small but statistically significant difference of 108. I’m sure there were a wide variety of opinions at the conference. Lutheran CORE, a coalition for reform within the ELCA, has renounced the decision as well as their recognition by the ELCA “as an Independent Lutheran Organization that officially relates to the ELCA”, essentially encouraging “faithful” members to split and withdraw their support from the denomination.

There are to many differing positions on this issue, ranging from the usual outright condemnation (though to varying degrees of vituperation) from conservative denominations and theologians, to blanket acceptance from the more liberal and reformed sects of Christianity (the Methodists and the ELCA, for instance), and they all seem to find ways of supporting their arguments with Scripture. Traditionalists hold to the status quo on interpretation, pointing to the role of the Holy Spirit and the sovereignty of God in the authorship of the Bible; while progressives argue that the authors of scripture were writing from their own cultural perspectives, with a very little understanding of human sexuality, and were addressing a contemporary audience, so different standards apply to modern interpretation.

To cite theologian Virginia Mollenkott, to deny homosexuals their right to live in same-sex relationships is to deny their full humanity as sexually created beings; and along those same lines, C. Ann Shepherd writes in The Bible & Homosexuality in reference to the oft-quoted Romans 1:26-27 passage,

“When the scripture is understood correctly, it seems to imply that it would be unnatural for heterosexuals to live as homosexuals, and for homosexuals to live as heterosexuals.”

Personally, I have never experienced attraction to women, or sexual interest in women, even as a boy. I have always had a sexual curiosity about men that eventually blossomed into sexual desire for them. Yet the only messages I get are that I must either practically beg God to change me into a heterosexual, or choose and maintain a cloistered celibate lifestyle through Bible reading and prayer. So what are young Christians like myself supposed to do when there is a complete lack of agreement in the faith community about our sexuality? Are we, like Piper cries, distorting the grace of God into sensuality?

Now, I fully agree that the Biblical model of marriage is the one we must adhere to. Human sexuality must be expressed through appropriate vehicles in order to keep it from running amok and causing societal damage. I believe this applies to homosexual relationships as well, for we are no less human because of who we are attracted to, and gay men especially need to exercise sexual restraint. But to say that the gays are “going straight” by moving towards monogamy is just as bad as accusing black people of “going white,” betraying a basic misunderstanding of what it is to be human. That something as complex as sexuality should be expressed in only one way, in a Western, monocultural manner, seems absurd.

So there it is. I’m out of thoughts for the time being. Need to process now.

003. first time

So after a visit to the library on Sunday I decided that it was time to have my first gay experience.

At Barnes & Noble.

In the gay & lesbian section.

That was lame. Sorry.

But in a way, it probably one of my first steps in coming out publically, if only in a small way. I started reading Bruce Bawer’s “A Place at the Table” and was absolutely floored by how he managed to pinpoint every issue I have with the gay community (and some I wasn’t even able to fully articulate).

In any case, I located the book in the store and my mind briefly shorted—not like I didn’t have a clue where it would probably be found, but the part of me that is still afraid of being outed, or of people thinking that I’m not straight. So I did what I usually do.

I walked straight into the lion’s mouth.

Turned right around, walked over to the business section and located the shelves. There it was, like a big, gay neon sign. In signage hunter green and white. So after sifting through copies of The Joy of Gay Sex, The Velvet Rage and copious amounts of erotica, I saw the “Arranged by author” label and went “Oh.”

My inner librarian looked down at me over his horn-rimmed glasses and poked me.

There it was. In paperback, even!

Here’s an excerpt from the author’s note:

If to many gays “homosexual” sounds like a clinical diagnosis, to many heterosexuals “gay” sounds like a political statement . . . I tend to favor “gay” when discussing subculture-oriented individuals and “homosexual” when discussing individuals who are more mainstream-oriented. I’ve chosen not to use the word “queer” which is favored by some gay activists and academics but turns off almost everybody else, gay and straight (13-14).

The book begins with an account of the author observing a “lean and handsome” teenager standing at a wall of magazines, anxiously working up the courage to pick up a copy of a gay weekly.

The image of gay life promulgated in these publications did not reflect actual gay life in America; rather, they presented a picture of gay identity as defined by a small but highly visible minority of the gay population . . . What was wrong was the image that they projected had, for decades, strongly influenced the general public’s ideas about homosexuality. Thanks to their extraordinary visibility . . . many heterosexuals tended to equate homosexuality with the most irresponsible and sex-obsessed elements of the gay population. That image had provided ammunition to gay-bashers, had helped to bolster the widely held view of gays as a mysteriously threatening Other, and had exacerbated the confusion of generations of young men who, attempting to come to terms with their homosexuality, had stared bemusedly at the pictures in magazines like the Native and said to themselves: “But this isn’t me.” (19)

This has been one of my primary hang-ups with coming to terms with my homosexuality—the fact that I’m not like them. I don’t fit the “profile” (whatever that means). Bawer goes on to write what he wanted to say to that kid at the magazine wall, and presumably what he wants to say to every young man who feels the same way (including himself at one point):

“Being gay doesn’t oblige you to be anything—except yourself . . . You’re you. You’re the boy you’ve always been, the boy you see when you look in the mirror. Yes, you’ve always felt there was something different about you, something you couldn’t quite put a name to, and in the past few months or years you’ve come to understand and to struggle with the truth about that difference. You’re beginning to realize that the rest of your life is not going to play out quite the way you or your parents have envisioned it. You didn’t want to accept this at first, but now you know you have no alternative. And you want to be honest with yourself and your parents about this; more than anything else, you want to talk to them about this momentous truth you’re discovering about yourself. But you can’t bring yourself to do so, since you’re pretty sure they’d be angry. You resent them for this. And on top of that you despise yourself, because even though you’ve always talked to them about everything, you’re hiding from them a very important part of who you are, and because—even though you didn’t choose to be gay (who, after all, would choose to experience the fear and loneliness and bewilderment you’ve known?)—you feel as if you’ve done something awful to them by being this way. (20-21)

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. As a Christian, add to that the fact that I felt that I’d betrayed my faith, G-d, my family, my church, and damned myself to an eternity with the other sodomites, empire-builders, autocides, gluttons, and highwaymen of the seventh circle of hell. So to read those words actually brought tears to my eyes. I’d known that there were others who’d shared my experience, but to hear it stated to succinctly and accurately was rather disarming. And heartening.

One of the things that characterize us silent gays is that, unlike the more visible minority of gays, we tend not to consider ourselves “members” of anything . . . Yet as the debate over homosexuality has escalated, some of us have grown increasingly impatient—impatient with the lies that are being told about us by anti-gay crusaders; impatient with the way in which TV news shows routinely illustrate gay rights stories by showing videotape of leathermen and drag queens at Gay Pride Date marches; and impatient with the way in which many self-appointed spokespeople for the gay population talk about the subject. (26)

He uses the phrase “professional gays” to describe these activists, and that’s a pretty good way of putting it.

The loudest voices on both sides rely in their arguments not upon common sense, reason, and democratic principle but upon the exploitation of negative emotions, chiefly fear and anger. Radical gay activists trade on the antagonism of many homosexuals toward the parents who rejected them, toward the bigots who insult them on the street, and toward the men of power who treat them as second-class citizens; professional gay-bashers, for their part, trade on the ill-informed fears and suspicions that haunt the minds of millions of otherwise decent heterosexuals. (28)

[The presence of visible, rancorous homosexuals has] helped to spread among heterosexuals an appalling, and profoundly distorted, image of homosexuality—and, indeed, to yoke the very idea of homosexuality, in the minds of many, with the most far-out images of the 1960s counterculture. Radical gay activists’ advancement of the notion that homosexuals are a socially, culturally, and politically homogenous group, furthermore, has made it harder to for many heterosexuals to see gays as individuals, and in particular to make distinctions between the largely invisible millions of gays who lead more or less conventional lives and the conspicuous few who don’t. (32)

The central irony of gay history is that laws and social conventions regarding homosexuality have long had the effect of discouraging monogamous relationships and of encouraging covert one-night stands . . . Indeed, far from helping to foster among young people who discovered themselves to be gay the self-knowledge, self-respect, and sexual self-discipline that would make possible meaningful, enduring relationships, the mentally cultivated by the Gay Liberation movement tended to induce young people to throw self-discipline to the winds; self-knowledge, they were led to believe, mattered less than self-expression, self-respect less than self-indulgence. (33)

There is no one “gay lifestyle,” any more than there is a single monolithic heterosexual lifestyle. There is in fact a spectrum of “gay lifestyles.” Near one extreme one might imagine a gay man whose sense of identity is centered upon the fact of his sexual orientation, and whose tastes, opinions, and modes of behavior conform almost perfectly to every stereotype . . . Toward the other end of the spectrum one might image a gay couple that most heterosexuals would not even recognize as gay. They live not in a predominantly gay community but in an ordinary neighborhood in a big or small city, town or suburb . . . In its essentials, their “lifestyle” is indistinguishable from that of most heterosexual couples in similar professional and economic circumstances. (33-34)

This is one of the big reasons why I was hesitant to come out in the first place, and why I’m still careful about broadcasting the fact that I’m gay—I don’t want to be lumped in with that lot. I don’t go to gay restaurants or clubs. I shop at Target. I often dress like a lumberjack. I’m politically and morally conservative. I have no desire to be promiscuous, consider myself a one-man guy, and have no affiliation with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queen Nation, or any AIDS-related organisation.

Like most adult heterosexuals, most adult homosexuals simply don’t want such a life [in a “gay ghetto” like Greenwich Village]. They were raised in conventional middle-class homes in conventional middle-class neighborhoods, and they want to spend their lives in similar homes and neighborhoods, and they don’t see why being gay should prevent them from doing so. Nor do they like the idea of inhabiting an exclusively, or even mostly, gay world: such a world feels artificial to them, feels like an escape from reality.

There is a broad cultural divide, and often considerable hostility, between gays who tend toward the two extremes of the spectrum. We might call them, at the risk of dramatic oversimplification, “subculture-oriented gays” and “mainstream gays.” Some subculture-oriented gays accuse mainstream gays of “acting straight,” the assumption here being that in comes naturally to all gays to speak and walk and act in a certain way, and that if you do otherwise you are suppressing your natural self; some mainstream gays, for their part, shake their heads at the stereotypical gestures and mannerisms of some subculture-oriented gays, which they see as a pathetic manifestation of the gay subculture’s lock-step mentality . . . Subculture-oriented gays often blame anti-gay prejudice on mainstream gays who refuse to put themselves on the line for gay rights and to make their sexual orientation known to their neighbours and co-workers; mainstream gays often blame anti-gay prejudice on subculture-oriented gays who way of life only confirms heterosexuals’ sense that homosexual men are a bunch of silly, effeminate, and irresponsible nonconformists. (35)

I don’t have much more to add since he pretty much said it all. My reading time will be a bit limited over the next few days so I’ll be posting fewer excerpts.

002. Definitions

Okay.

Before this goes any further, I think we need to establish a common vocabulary:

ho·mo·sex·u·al
adj. Of, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex.

gay
Can be used either as an adjective to refer to or anything regarding those attracted to the same sex, or as a noun chiefly for homosexual men. Lesbian is typically used to refer to homosexual women. Is often used synonymously with “homosexual” but tends to be more loaded, carrying associations with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex) community and political and social activism.

queer
adj. Used in reference to the LGBT communities as well as those perceived to be members of those communities. Originally it was a derisive term but has since been claimed as an identifier by many in the gay community.

For my own purposes, I’ve chosen to go with “same-sex attracted” or “homosexual.” It’s more clinical-sounding but accurate. If we’ve had this discussion, I feel comfortable saying that I’m gay because you know what I mean, and more importantly what I don’t mean. If you were to ask me right out if I’m gay, I’d probably respond, “I’m attracted to men, yes, but I don’t identify with the gay community as it currently exists.”

So now that we got that over with…