Confessions: I Don't* Read Homophobic Commentary Anymore

I've been giving myself permission to do or not do things lately.

I know that sounds weird, but I grew up in a White Baptist church where there were a lot of rules, spoken or unspoken. They would say it's not legalism, but well, okay.

So my brain is conditioned to view everything in terms of respectability. And there have been a lot of choices that I've made for a long time that neither reflect morality nor do they align with my preferences.

One thing I noticed that I have kept doing is reading the arguments against same sex marriage, or against church acceptance of it. I've been hearing about this issue from a church perspective since roundabout 2004 (well, since before that, but that was the first time there was any nuance at all).

Recently, a ministry posted a link to a series of podcasts on Twitter. My first reaction was that I should listen to the whole series, withhold judgment, engage the ideas, etc. So I clicked.

Here is how the podcast was framed:

"In society today, the orthodox Christian belief that the practice of homosexuality(1) is a sin is out of step with the times. This tension(2) is unavoidable. In a moment where the cultural consensus has completely flipped, many who hold to the historic belief avoid the depth of this conversation at all costs. The risk(3) of saying the wrong thing, offending a new friend, being extreme or worse yet—unloving, quiets the dialogue. Yet privately, Christians are desperate to address this important topic with love, clarity and biblical conviction. Is there really a way forward that demonstrates both truth and grace(4)?"

If you really wanted to track through my tweets or do some googling, you can figure out where this comes from, but I'm not linking you because that's not the point.

As a gay person who has been thinking about this for more than a decade, here is what I notice that a lot of Christians who are relatively new to an actual conversation on LGBT rights would miss:

1. It still uses the word homosexuality.

This means it's likely to ignore transgender people altogether or lump them in with gay people, and also that it clings to a general notion that homosexuality is bad. 

Yes, the connotation of homosexuality refers to religious interpretations that skew negatively. Some style guides already recommend using something else. It's a red flag for me to see this word.

2. Tension.

Always so much tension. People don't want to say conflict. They don't want to admit that my marriage is an argument, that they don't like it, that they think I'm a sinner. Often, they like me once they've met me, or they think that Rebecca and I are a lovely couple. If there's tension for you when this topic crosses your mind, what do you think it's like for me in the pew every Sunday I see you? I'm so tired of the tension and of you phrasing it this way.

3. Risk 

Look again. Who is framed as at-risk here? No, seriously, scroll back up and look.

It's not the gay person coming out who may be refused communion, or denied a marriage ceremony, or fired, or refused medical treatment, or evicted. It's the straight person with Christian privilege. And the risk is one of perception - people might not like  this conservative Christian as much.

4. Both truth and grace

You know what this means? They're trying to look fair and balanced by including truth and grace. Let me suggest that the truth here is still going to be that homosexuality is unbiblical and unbecoming to a true Christian. The grace part? They mean trying not to look homophobic when saying the truth part, usually by adding that God will forgive gay people, or that celibacy is an option, or that it's not a worse sin than any other sin, or something that seems loving to someone who has never had someone say something like this to their face.

 I didn't listen to this podcast. I gave myself permission not to.

I'm giving myself permission to extricate myself from these situations. I often do try to engage. Really.

But justifying my marriage, my existence, my identity, my theology at every turn is exhausting. It detracts from actual worship. It brings up a lot of pain from when discrimination against my family was even worse than it still is now.

I can't tell you how often I hear straight, conservative people claim that I should listen to their point of view, because they're not homophobes and their perspective is compassionate and different. And then they tell me something I've already heard, a bunch of times, for the last six years at least.

But they hadn't heard it before. They didn't have to, because as someone with straight privilege and religious privilege, these issues affected them very little, they could ignore them. If they wanted, they could keep asserting simply that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, without reading the verses, without looking at cultural context, without consideration of whom they hurt. Without considering how the closeted gay kid in youth group or the member of the congregation that never could pray away the gay was reacting (you think we didn't try this? We did. Trust me, that was the first thing we tried.). Because mostly, the issue/tension/truth/grace/risk didn't hurt the straight, conservative Christians. Because for them, mostly, it was a philosophical or rhetorical exercise to even engage with the issue.

And so now, they want my approval that they have considered the issue. In some cases, I am the only gay person they know, or maybe the only gay, out Christian they know. And because they have had the privilege of ignoring the issue and are now finally considering the nuance, they feel that I owe them my attention as a sounding board. For a while, I gave them my attention. I listened and read. I tried to see how this argument was different. I tried to explain things. I blogged. I posted specific blog entries. I re-posted specific blog entries. I wrote new blog entries.

If you've just decided to get up to speed on this, good. Better late than never. But you are late. There are a lot of resources out there. Most of your questions can be answered with a quick Google search. No one owes it to you to explain it, or to use their backstory to convince you. And if you still believe that LGBT people should be disadvantaged at your church, do not ask them to agree with you or to approve. Do not ask them to be kind and nod politely. You're entitled to your ignorance, to your opinion, to your theology.

But I have given myself permission not to engage it when doing so would hurt me.

This picture has little to do with anything, but I like it, and I think I haven't posted it before. It's our first bites of cake as a married couple, at our first wedding - the religious one, when we still couldn't have a marriage license.

*Yes, the title is clickbait. I'm sorry. Would you have read it if I said that I often skip reading or listening to homophobic theology but sometimes decide to engage?