Life was a whole lot simpler when there was a clear
distinction to be made between gay people on the one hand and religious people
on the other.
You know how when Muslims make their pilgrimage to Mecca one of
the ceremonies they perform involves throwing pebbles at the devil? I love
that. It’s really useful to have a bad guy to throw stones at. Soul-soothing, somehow.
I loved it when I didn’t have to think before bashing the church – almost any
church – for its homophobia. They were all, more or less, homophobic.
With the gradual recognition that there is nothing
essentially Christian about ostracizing LGBT people as sinners, and the even
more dramatic sea change among non-religious people in accepting LGBT people, the
notion that one has to stop being gay in order to be Christian is falling by
the wayside. The authoritarian religious groups are still pushing that bigotry –
the traditional Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Mormons, the Evangelicals, but
mainstream Christian groups and all but some of the most orthodox of Jewish
sects have pretty much made a 180 degree turn on the topic, many now warmly
embracing gay people. In 2009, the Hindu Council of the United Kingdom issued a statement that "Hinduism
does not condemn homosexuality.” Buddhists seem to fall, for the most part, between gay-neutral and
gay-friendly.
Being gay ain’t all it used to be. Once upon a time you
could count on gays and lesbians to rally behind another gay or lesbian person.
There are not that many of us, after all, and it’s easy to get tribal when you
identify with a group with a history of oppression. But things have changed.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is running
for president and I don’t know what is more remarkable, that fact, or the fact that
he’s shooting up dramatically in the polls. I’ve been around long enough that I’m
inclined to see that as something to stand up and shout over. Who would have
thought this could happen in our lifetime?
When same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S., some said,
“We’ve arrived, at long last!” It seemed to many that was the pinnacle. But it pales,
somehow, next to being able to run for president and kiss your husband in front
of a cheering crowd. Evidently, arriving isn’t something that can be measured
by any single kind of event.
I’m reminded of Sally Field’s acceptance speech at the
Oscars in 1984 when she said, “I’ve wanted more than anything to have your
respect…and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now you like me.” We
tend to pity people who go around wanting to be liked and respected. You’re
supposed to have a strong enough ego that you don’t depend on others for
validation. But the truth is, while some gays – drag queens, for example –
thumb their noses at acceptance, most LGBT people display the middle class need
for social acceptance. And we seem to have moved on without taking a lot of
time to celebrate the progress, to the next step, where we stop using LGBT as our primary identity. Two good friends surprised me recently, one
by complaining that the patriarchal world we live in makes it easy for a gay man
to roar ahead, while a gay woman, in her view, gets no such royal
treatment. The other friend, a gay man, tells me he values political experience
more than being gay, and so he’s rooting for Bernie Sanders.
My guess is that Mayor Pete will not make it to the top this
time around. For all his charm and wit, he’s new to the game. But I’ll take his
candidacy as a feel-good moment, in any case. Cynicism and despair are always
just around the corner. Blow the horns and bring out the balloons at every
opportunity, I say.
This morning a YouTube video popped up suddenly and caught
my attention. It is titled, “Devout and Out: Pip – A queer priest on leaving
his evangelical church & making faith more inclusive.”
Stories like these are good for me. They make me realize
there’s a gap between my espoused values and my actual values. I argue that I
have no trouble with religious people, that my only beef with religion is the
way it is so commonly used as a cudgel. Americans are notorious for their religiosity.
But when you take a closer look, you realize it’s not the spiritual side of
religion that captures the headlines; it’s the tribalism. Religion is used,
particularly by evangelicals – “born-agains” – as a way of marking themselves as
insiders. “Real Americans.” They are currently in the seat of power, making
arguments that Donald Trump with his petty self-serving nature is actually an
instrument of God. These are single-issue people for the most part. Their issue
is Israel for Jews only, or abortion, or holding back the tide of approval of
gay rights. They are political Christians, not religious ones. And they are a
loathsome lot because they put their own cultish interpretation of their
scriptures ahead of the U.S. Constitution as their highest source of authority.
Objective truth is not the goal of their search for meaning; “testifying” is – mouthing the doctrine. Twisting history to their purposes, they insist we identify America as a Christian nation or suffer the wrath of God. And repackaging the Jewish concept of "chosen people" to mean pre-selected for eternal bliss because of their born-again declaration.
I have trouble with these people because they fight so hard
to choke off the extension of civil rights to LGBT people, not because of their
doctrine. But here’s the rub. I also don’t like the doctrine. I have trouble
with the virgin birth, with the resurrection, with bread and wine become flesh
and blood to be consumed. I see no evidence that there is a single invisible
being who answers prayer, and considerable evidence that if he exists, he can’t
be counted on. So when I say to people that “I have no trouble with religion,”
I’m not being totally sincere. I no longer take the issue seriously enough to want
to persuade others to give up their faith in the local gods, but if the topic
comes up and somebody makes the mistake of asking me whether I’m born-again, I’m
quick to assure them I think once was quite enough.
Then along comes someone like Pete Buttigieg. I’m becoming a
real fan. Not just because he’s gay, although I’m not above a little tribal
loyalty, but because he’s so articulate. So earnest. Because his head is in the right place. As are his values, which are my values. And mostly I’m delighted
to come across a Sermon on the Mount Christian after having to put up with all these “terrible
swift sword next time" Christians for so long. Don’t look now, but I think I’ve
spotted a real one.
And how could I not wish him well? For years I went to shabbas
dinner every Friday night and memorized the prayers in Hebrew, not so much out
of respect for the Jewish religion (I find the Exodus about as convincing as history
as I do the virgin birth), but out of respect for my friends who want to raise
their children in a tradition which they feel provides the framework for
getting through the hard times. A bit of order in a chaotic world. What’s wrong
with doing that poetically? I have to ask.
But those friends are straight. Pete Buttigieg is gay, and
my hostility to organized religion is so dyed in the wool by now that I’m
having some serious cognitive dissonance with the acceptance of gay people by American churches these days. I shouldn’t, of course. Gene Robinson was made a bishop in the
Episcopal Church in 2003, for sure, but it practically tore the church apart.
Since then, however, the word “sea change” pops up regularly when discussing attitudes toward LGBT people.
If you want to see what I mean, have a look at a couple of
these documentaries now available on YouTube on the impact LGBTQ people are making
on the church.
There’s this one, about an evangelical once tortured by the
conviction that he had to undergo “conversion therapy” (sort of like calling drowning therapy) in
order to get right with God. It’s uplifting as can be to see his success, a
pick-me-up story.
Or this one, about a transgendered person (the reason we
have the Q in LGBTQ).
For that matter, have a look at the 2013 film, Southern
Baptist Sissies, available on Amazon Prime. Overwrought by today’s
standards when it comes to gay angst, but it has some great one-liners from the
Greek chorus, the two drunks who sit offstage and comment. (“I’m a social
drinker: You have a drink? So shall I.”)
And the entire story is summed up by one of the character’s description
of the church: “This is where we come to learn to hate ourselves.”
Only six years between that and the three signs of the times
I’ve linked you to, just above.
Sea change.
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