The other morning, there was a knock on my door. A couple in their late twenties stood there with a clipboard, and asked to talk to me about domestic violence. They showed me some frightening statistics about the number of men and women who are abused and beaten by their spouses. They had both statistics for the nation and our own county. They then asked me to help put an end to domestic violence, showing me a petition in support of new legislation that would call for stricter sentencing for those convicted of domestic violence, budget for the creation of programs to better train police officers to respond to and investigate claims of domestic violence, and other measures.
I decided not to sign the petition. Instead, I decided to hand them a card, that says the following:
I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.
I strongly believe that domestic violence is wrong and I would never hurt another person, even my own spouse. So I’m offering my pledge to the golden rule in response to the issue of domestic violence.
The point:
I suspect that many of my readers are having a rather predictable reaction to the above story. I can just hear people like Eileen (assuming she still reads me) getting ready to type a lengthy comment about how serious domestic violence and simply promising to treat others well in accordance with the Golden Rule isn’t nearly enough. And I’m in total agreement with her.
I’ve had the exact same reaction the last two years when Dr. Warren Throckmorton began to propose the Golden Rule Pledge as an appropriate response to The Day Of Silence, an annual event meant to raise awareness of anti-gay bullying and other mistreatment of gay people (or people who are merely perceived as gay) that takes place all over this country and to advocate for such bullying to stop.
Now, in Dr. Throckmorton’s defense, I will note that his response to The Day of Silence is far superior to other responses proposed by other conservative Christian groups. The Golden Rule Pledge is far better than The Day of Truth or merely proposing that all Christians avoid school during The Day of Silence. And I give him credit for not trying to paint a day dedicated to the idea that it’s wrong to bully and mistreat gay people as some horrible, immoral idea.
But in the end, I find it a weak response at best. It’s great that Dr. Throckmorton and those with him are willing to promise to treat others well. However, I also want to know what they’re going to do about the bullying and mistreatment being propagated by others who don’t share their commitment to the Golden Rule. Saying you won’t mistreat gay people while still standing by while others do so just doesn’t cut it in my book. In my mind, justice demands that right-minded people stand up to the bullies and say, “What you are doing is wrong and you must stop.” Confronting the injustice head-on is absolutely essential. And in that respect, I feel the Golden Rule Pledge fails miserably, just as such a pledge in response to domestic violence fails miserably.
I’m going to take a break from analyzing Patrick Strudwick’s article about conversion therapy. I decided that I wanted to take some time to instead address a more personal invitation to the person who found my blog using the following search phrase:
oh god please help me i’m gay and confused iwant to feel loved i can’t stand working: i don’t.
Hello, dear reader. I want to take a moment to welcome you to my blog and my greater site. I’m glad you found me, and I hope you find my writings helpful to you. To be honest, your search phrase suggests that you need a great deal of compassion, understanding, and encouragement. I hope that you find some small portion of it here. After all, it’s one of the reasons I write this blog and work on some of my other writing projects.
You see, I have a pretty good idea of the kind of inner turmoil that caused you to type in that search phrase. I’ve probably felt the same way, myself. In fact, I found myself in a pretty dark place when I was first struggling with my sexuality. So I can tell you that as dark as things may seem, things can get better. There is light at the end of all that confusion.
Granted, it can be a difficult process getting there, and like any life, yours is bound to have it’s sad and painful moments. But anyone who promises you a life that’s devoid of such moments is a con artist. And I believe that in time, you will find that the beautiful and joyful moments. And you’ll discover more about yourself, and might even be surprised by the strength and other qualities you have inside of yourself.
Most importantly, you’ll find that even while confused, you don’t have to be alone. There will always be people you can turn to and talk to. (You’ll even find friends you can turn to in “real life.”) There are other sources of comfort. Even little chance encounters can be a source of surprise and comfort in their own little ways. And in time, you’ll find that it will help you a lot.
So if you come back and read this, I’d invite you to stick around. Please explore what I have to say. Please visit some of the friends’ blogs I list in my right sidebar. You may find many of them quite helpful and inspiring as well. I know I have. And if you’re really daring, please feel free to contact me. (There should be a link to email me at the bottom of this post.) I promise to listen. I promise to answer any question as honestly as I can, even if that answer is “I don’t know.”
Again, dear reader, I want to welcome you to my blog. I hope you find something to help you with your confusion and inner turmoil, even if it’s just a moment’s respite.
Patrick starts this section of the article by indicating that he and David are conducting these therapy sessions using Skype and webcams. Just as I noted the strangeness of Lynn holding a scheduled therapy session over the phone, I find the idea of holding therapy sessions over the Internet to be highly questionable. Once again, I fin myself wondering how well a therapist can handle a situation from a distance if something particular difficult or traumatic comes up during the session.
David starts the sessions by giving Patrick a highly positive prognosis. In fact, David indicates that one third of people seeking reparative therapy face complete change, while another third experience significant change (a phrase that is rather vague). The problem with David’s claims here is that there is no evidence to substantiate them. There are no comprehensive studies on the success rates of conversion therapy. In fact, the only recent study on the topic doesn’t match up to David’s claims, despite the fact that some have heavilycriticizedthatstudy. So here we have a therapist who is making promise based on claims that are not backed up by evidence. Again, this is nothing less than playing into a client’s insecurities, and is rather unethical.
David then moves into the same talk about both religion and masculinity. Apparently, conversion therapists are still trapped in this notion that homosexuality and not being “masculine” are somehow inextricably linked. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of both sexual orientation and masculinity. Part of David’s therapy involves Patrick examining himself in the mirror while affirming and touching his own body. I find this a very strange practice and don’t see any psychological model that would explain how this would affect one’s same-sex attractions.
David’s approach to conversion therapy is odd in that he asks Patrick to reinterpret all of his actions and feelings. David suggests that there must be some hidden meaning behind every attraction and emotional experience he has. He interprets everything as a manifestation of some hidden wound. Again, I find this a strange practice rather than simply accepting one’s feelings and attractions for what they are until a reason to look for another interpretation arises. I certainly find his idea of “homosexuality as cannibalism” a rather weird notion, and seems to say more about conversion therapists’ needs to pathologize something as natural as desire and love.
Like Lynne, David looks to Patrick’s relationship with his parents as possible cause for his homosexuality. Unlike Lynne, David does seem to pay attention to what Patrick says and tries to mold his theories to Patrick’s life rather than trying to rewrite the client’s history to fit the model. Particularly, David suggests that Patrick over-identified with his mother due to the fact that he was creative and extroverted like her and under-identification with his father. David suggests that this pattern led to a lack of masculine identity in Patrick, which he then sought to compensate by latching onto strong men in a sexual relationship. Again, we find ourselves circling the conversion therapists’ inability to separate their notions of masculinity from sexual orientation. It is perfectly possible for a gay man to be masculine, and I have known more than one heterosexual man who didn’t meet such rigid notions of masculinity. (In fact, such heterosexual men are often the biggest critics of such narrow concepts of masculinity.) In the next session, Patrick indicates that he’s had sexual feelings for David. David seems rather unphased by this admission. David — a self-identified ex-gay himself — also acknowledges that he still has “echoes” of sexual feelings towards men. This makes the next part of Patrick’s therapy session particularly shocking — as if what happens next isn’t shocking in its own right.
“Close your eyes and focus on that arousal you’re feeling down in your genitals,” he says. “I want you to hear, as a man, as I look at your body, I see strong shoulders and a strong chest, I see a man who has an attractive body and I want you just to notice the arousal you feel as you hear me talking about that. Imagine an energy and picture that energy as a colour, and make the brightness of the colour relate to the intensity of the sexual feeling, so you might be starting to get a bit of a hard on, you might be starting to feel an erection and that sexual energy, but I want you to just picture that as a coloured light. What colour would it be?”
This kind of talk strikes me as very intimate and sexualized. It certainly is not the kind of conversation I’d want to be having on a webcam session with my therapist during my second therapy session with him. And I certainly would not want to be going through this with a therapist who in one breath claims to be “cured” of homosexuality and admits he still has the occasional sexual thoughts about men in the next. David’s entire approach to therapy seems highly sexualized and even voyeuristic. That alone strikes me as disturbing.
I suppose it comes as little surprise that David reveals that his supervisor is associated in some way with Richard Cohen. Patrick notes in his article that Cohen was expelled from the American Counseling Association. He doesn’t note that many ex-gay ministries and conversion therapists distanced themselves from Cohen for a while when Cohen’s disturbing “holding therapy” got strong media attention. Cohen’s approach to therapy seemed inappropriately sexualized and intimate, so it’s unsurprising that other therapists associated with him would have equally problematic practices.
Today, while browsing the latest entries on Box Turtle Bulletin, I ran across a post that examined an Independent article. The Independent article, written by Patrick Strudwick, discusses reparative therapy. For the article, Strudwick had therapy sessions with two reparative therapists, Lynne and David. The bulk of the article describes what he was told in those therapy sessions.
After reading the article, I felt that these therapy sessions deserved careful consideration and analysis. The things that Strudwick was told by both Lynne and David are very telling about the whole conversion therapy process and the problems it poses. To that end, I want to take a close look at the therapy sessions with Lynne in this entry. I hope to do the same with the sessions with David in a future entry.
Lynne starts out the first therapy session by affirming that she believes homosexuality to be a mental illness, an addiction, and an anti-religion phenomenon. Bear in mind that the first two classifications are in direct contradiction to the position of every psychological and psychotherapy association out there (with the exception of NARTH, which was created specifically to peddle the notion that homosexuality is a mental illness) and all peer-reviewed research. This is important, because Lynne and other conversion therapists are already on shaky ground because they are seeking to treat something which doesn’t apparently need to be treated. However, such therapists rely on the fact that their clients (or worse, their clients’ families) are willing to believe their sexual orientation is an illness in need of correcting. In effect, they are playing off of their clients’ own insecurities to sell an unnecessary (let alone ineffective) therapy. This willing to play to their clients’ insecurities is highly unethical, and will play a bigger part in these therapies as we consider Lynne’s investigation into the “causes” of Patrick’s homosexuality.
Lynne then opens the session with prayer, the first sign that her therapy is going to be intermingled with a lot of religious material. This is evident when she asks Patrick if he is lustful about his same-sex attractions. That word gets thown around a lot in conservative religious circles, and I tend to think it’s abused. Truth be told, there should be a certain amount of sexual desire in any romantic relationship. However, things get worse when Patrick also points out that he also felt what he considered sincere love in some of his relationships. Lynne dismisses this out of love, referring to it as “darkness.” The conversion therapist’s willingness to discount any feeling simply because it doesn’t fit their model is unconscionable.
As is common among conversion therapists, Lynne starts asking about Patrick’s family. Those familiar with the theories of Joseph Nicolosi will recognize that Lynne is trying to establish the distant father and overbearing mother that is so often given as a major cause of homosexuality. (I’ve always found this theory silly, since I have yet to meet any teenager who doesn’t consider his mother overbearing at one time or another.) Patrick indicates that he had a loving family life. However, Lynne is not willing to let this particular theory go yet:
“Well, there was something happening within your family dynamics that led to your depression,” she says.
The depression that Lynne is referring to is the depression that Patrick indicated that he was depressed as a teenager. What is notable about this, however, is that Patrick already stated the reason for this depression:
I tell her that I was depressed as a teenager because I feared I would face prejudice for the rest of my life.
Fearing that one will face prejudice for the rest of one’s life is a perfectly legitimate reason to be depressed. However, Lynne discounts Patrick’s explanation for his depression and inserts her own, based on nothing more than her desire to make Patrick’s psychological profile fit her predefined notions about how homosexuality forms. This is questionable at best and downright unethical at worst. Again, bear in mind that most of Lynne’s patients are coming to her in an emotionally vulnerable state. By disregarding the explanations they give her and inserting her own, she is pushing her own theories and views on them. In effect, she has ceased to be a therapist at all, but has become something much uglier. This desire to push her clients in the direction her theories say they should go will appear uglier later on.
After exploring rather curious theories about difficult births, neonatal intensive care, and the “spiritual effects” of Freemasonry (I’d love to see an attempt at peer-reviewed research on that last one!), Lynne begins asking about sexual abuse. Patrick indicates that he’s never been abused. Once again, Lynne is unwilling to accept Patrick’s analysis of his own life:
“I think it will be there,” she replies, dropping her voice to a concerned tone. “It
does need to come to the surface.”
And so, she prays for me again. “Father, we give you permission to bring to the surface some of the things that have happened over the years. Father, enable your love to pour into that place of isolation in that little boy, whatever age, we give you permission to go there, with your healing power and your light, go into those parts, open all the doors, and access each one with your light.”
She looks up. I ask her again about this abuse. “I think there is something there,” she says. “You’ve allowed things to be done to u.” In the next session I ask if she thinks the abuse would have taken place within my family, because I can’t remember it. “Yes, very likely,” she replies.
Once again, the therapist is trying to force her client to fit some predefined model rather than observing the real life story he presents and analyzing it honestly. And this is where her clients’ emotional vulnerability come in. By pushing this idea that her client must have been abused, she is setting up the perfect situation for creating false memories. False memories have ruined lives — both the lives of the supposed abusers and those of the victims. False memories also end up hurting those who really have experienced abuse and have forgotten or repressed, as it makes professionals more cautious about accepting even valid recovered memories. In short, Lynne is hurting a huge number of people simply for the sake of making a client’s history fit her preconceived notions of what it should look like.
Patrick indicates that his next session with Lynne is over the phone. This single sentence makes my head spin. While I can certainly understand why a therapist might need to deal with an unexpected crisis with a client over the phone, I cannot imagine holding a planned therapy session over the phone. It strikes me as inefficient, and potentially risky. If any powerful or troubling emotions arise, Lynne is not present to handle the situation. It seems to me that it would make more sense to postpone or reschedule the session to a time when it can be held face-to-face. The fact that Lynne chose not to do so leads me to wonder if Lynne is the kind of person who puts conferences and lectures over the well-being of her clients. If so, then I hope someone will encourage her to leave clinical practice.
Lynne’s first two suggestions during this session is that Patrick should (1) distance himself from his gay friends and (2) take up a sport, possibly rugby. First, I find it strange that any therapist would presume to have the kind of authority to make such suggestions. I understand that being critical of a clients’ friendships and other relationships is not uncommon, especially if the relationships and friendships are unhealthy or promote unhealthy behavior. However, it’s also my understanding that a therapist generally points out how they’re unhealthy and/or promote unhealthy behavior and then allows the client to make their own choice. To actually suggest a course of action like Lynne has strikes me as assuming too much control.
Of course, there’s also the fact that it’s questionable whether Patrick’s gay friends are promoting unhealthy behavior. Nothing in the article suggests that Patrick has given Lynne any reason to believe such a thing. It again strikes me as Lynne making assumptions rather than analyzing the person and relationships at hand.
The suggestion about taking up a sport always makes me laugh. Conversion therapists seem to have strange beliefs about the relationship between homosexuality and masculine stereotypes. Truth be told, they’re two different subjects. Locally, we have a large number of gay men who are into volleyball and other sports. Many gay men are into body-building and other “masculine” activities. Others of us don’t care for such activities, but it has nothing to do with our sexual orientation.
Lynne’s idea of therapy involves trying to force her client’s life stories into her preconceived models, throwing out a lot of religious jargon, and playing with irrelevant notions of masculinity and sexuality. And she’s doing this with emotionally vulnerable clients. And we’re supposed to consider this valid therapy?
I’m a fan of movies that deal with a gay guy who is struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. There’s just something touching and nostalgic about watching the main character discover his feelings for another man and begin to sort through the emotional obstacle course made up of love, desire, fear, doubt, and guilt.
One such movie that stands out in my mind is Shelter, the 2007 movie about a young man, Zach, living in California. Where Shelter differs from other great coming out movies, like Latter Days and Rock Haven, is that Zach’s major conflict isn’t so much about his religion, but his family.
Zach lives with his older sister, her live-in boyfriend (at least I don’t get the impression their married) and his five year old nephew. Zach works at odd jobs to help support his sister and little Cody, who sees his uncle as a major father figure. Zach’s life begins to change when is best friend’s older brother, Shaun, comes to town for an extended stay. Zach and Shaun fall in love, and quickly finds his desire to be with Shaun quickly coming into conflict with his family obligations. His sister, Jeanne, is concerned about her son being around all that “gay stuff” and doesn’t think it’s healthy environment. (Strangely, Jeanne isn’t all that concerned that her live-in boyfriend is asking her to go to Oregon for six months and leave Cody behind.) Despite Shaun’s undying adoration of Cody and his willingness to make Cody a part of any plans he and Zach might have, the family conflict leads to problems in the couple’s budding relationship.
In addition to the conflict between love and obligations to a family that doesn’t approve of gay relationships, this film weaves in the extra dimensions of different family backgrounds. While Zach and his sister have lived a difficult life with plenty of hard luck and few breaks, Shaun comes from a well-to-do family. This difference leads to differences in perspective and different approaches to their problems, adding to the conflict.
All of these elements are handled well, or at least as well as they can be in a 97 minute movie. It makes for a touching and heartfelt story, and one that I could personally identify with on many levels.
Misty Irons reposted the “gay lifestyle” of the (In)Famous SMT. After reading both her post and his original, I decided I wanted to make a similar post and offer some commentary on the underlying topic.
So an average weekday looks like this for me:
7:00am: The first alarm goes off. I hit the off button. 7:30am: The second alarm goes off. I hit the off button. 8:00am: The third alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button. I keep hitting it each time it goes off. 8:30am: The third alarm won’t let me hit the snooze button any more. I turn it off and get up. 8:35am: I wash up and get dressed. 8:45am: I check email, visit my social networking sites, and read my favorite blogs. 9:20am: I hop in the car and head to work, stopping at the 7-Eleven to grab something to eat and something for lunch. 10:00am: I arrive at work. I spend the next eight hours attending meetings, writing code, answering emails, and fielding the occasional technical question for the sales team. 6:30pm: I leave work. If it’s open, I run to Psychic’s Thyme and hang out with friends for a bit. 7:00pm: Dinner time. 8:00pm: If I’m curently dating someone, I ask my boyfriend if he’s free. If so, we get together, watch a movie, talk, make love, and cuddle. If I’m very lucky, we spend the night sleeping in each others arms. 8:00pm: If I’m single or my boyfriend is busy, I check email, respond to any outstanding ones, read blogs, do some blogging of my own, and/or or work on my writing.
In my life, there’s no such thing as a typical weekend. I may go see my parents for the weekend. Or I might head up to Toronto for a dance class and a show with Marina for Saturday. Or I might go back to Psychic’s Thyme to hang out with friends. I may go to dinner with friends. I may go dancing Saturday night. If I’m dating someone, I may spend time with my boyfriend (going to a movie, staying home and cuddling, making love, talking, going to a party together, whatever). Trying to fit that into a single “daily schedule” would be impossible. There’s just too many possibilities.
What inspired me to write this, however, is that I’ve notice something about many “gay lifestyle” posts: most of them say absolutely nothing about sex. In many cases, that’s perfectly understandable. There are a lot of gay people out there who are not sexually active for one reason or another. They may simply be too busy right now for a sexual relationship. Or they may be waiting for that one special someone they want to spend their lives with. I totally get that and respect that.
What I don’t get or respect, however, is the underlying message (or so it seems to me) that the only way to prove that all gay men spend their weekends at the bathhouse or bring home a different guy every night is to show that we’re not having sex at all, or at least hiding the fact that we’re having it. I’m sorry, but “total celibacy” and “having 100 sex partners every year” are not the only two possibilities.
In many ways, I’m reminded of the first American Pie movie. I loved that movie because it was a great commentary on the pressure (heterosexual) guys feel about having sex in their teen years and how it can become an obsession. The other thing I like about that movie is that the way the “quest to lose their virginity” ends differently for the various main characters. Two of them end up having what basically amount to random hookups (though the one ends up falling in love with his partner and marrying her in future movies). One ends up having sex with his long-term girlfriend (who breaks up with him in the next movie). And the fourth ends up in a relationship and he and his new girlfriend decide to put off having sex for a while longer. The movie ends up demonstrating a diversity of responses to human sexuality.
I think we need more of that in the gay community and how we present ourselves to the outside world. We need to get rid of the “celibacy/promiscuity” dichotomy altogether. There’s a far more complex range of choices when it comes to human sexuality and human sexual behavior, and I think we need to start demanding that our detractors acknowledge that in our own communities.
I won’t pretend I’m a sexual prude in order to get acceptance. But that doesn’t mean I’m totally devoid of a sexual ethic or standards, either.
Josh
awoke with a start. He let out a strangled gasp before his mind began
to process his surroundings. He looked round, finding himself in his
own bedroom. His sheets were pushed off to one side, probably due to
him moving around in his sleep. He took a few deep breaths to calm
himself. He willed his heart to return to a slower rhythm. “It was only
a dream. Only a dream,” he whispered. “It doesn’t mean anything. Guys
dream about all kinds of things.”
He knew that was true enough. He had done a bit of research online, and
found that a lot of young guys dreamed about having sex with other guys
and still grew up to be heterosexual. He’d even read that some
experiment with male friends before going on to get married. So he
tried to reassure himself that this one dream didn’t mean he was one of
those terrible homosexuals.
However, his mind kept nagging at him. This wasn’t just one dream,
after all. He had been having a few dreams like this since he turned
fourteen nine months ago. He wondered if there was a point where it
quit being something any normal teenager might experience and starting
being the sign of something more serious.
“And it’s not just the dreams,” he whispered to himself as he lay
there, confused and frightened. “After all, I’ve been getting those
feelings when I’m awake too.” He thought back to that afternoon he and
Tim went skinny-dipping. While it had been innocent fun when they had
actually gone swimming at age eleven, it morphed into something more
sinister-seeming whenever he thought of it now. Tim had even suggested
they go skinny dipping again this past summer. But the thoughts and
feelings it stirred in Josh kept him coming up with excuses to put off
such an excursion.
Josh lay there, feeling more miserable the more he thought about
everything. He wondered how his parents, who raised him to be a good
little Baptist boy, would react if he told them he was attracted to
other guys. He wondered if they would send him to counseling or even
disown him. He was too afraid to find out.
And yet, he yearned to tell someone, anyone. He hated having to keep
this secret. It felt like a terrible burden – a burden he didn’t want –
to carry alone. And yet, he didn’t know anyone he could tell. He was
pretty sure everyone he knew would react badly.
“No, you’re on your own on this one. Just try to make the best of it,”
he told himself. Then he added in a quick prayer, “God, please help me.
And forgive me. I don’t want to be gay. I want to do what you want me
to.” He rolled over and waited for sleep to claim him again, to give
him a break from all his worries and doubts.
If you like it, please read the rest of the chapter and follow the story using the links above. I hope to write more soon. And of course, feel free to check out the rest of my portfolio on Writing.Com. Though I’ll warn you that some of the other stories are sexually explicit.
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs the past few days, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have been a major topic of discussion. This is because the ELCA has been holding their Church-Wide Assembly this week, and the church’s response to GLBT people in various circumstances has been a huge topic of conversation. They’ve voted on a statement on Human Sexuality (of which GLBT issues is only a small portion), a policy of allowing local congregations to minister to GLBT people in accordance with their own conscience, and a policy allowing the ordination of GLBT clergy in monogamous, lifelong patnerships.
It’s this last policy that I’d like to talk about briefly. Although I am no longer a Christian and don’t foresee returning to that faith (and if I did, I’d be more inclined to join the Orthodox church anyway), it’s something that in some ways is near and dear to me. As someone who loves to help and serve others, it pleases me to see new opportunities being provided to GLBT to help and serve others. And as someone who once felt called to ministry, I admit some pleasure in knowing that such an opportunity has come in my lifetime, even if I no longer plan to take it.
As I’ve read various people express both their joys and their concerns about this decision in the ELCA, I began to consider my own time of serving in my old (American Baptist) church back home. While I was not an ordained minister, I spent time as a Sunday school teacher, the leader of the youth group, and even the superintendent of the children’s Sunday school program. (I also did speak from the pulpit as a lay leader a handful of times.)
I came out to myself as a gay man towards the end of my senior year in college. When I graduated and returned home, I also returned to my small rural church an quickly found myself pulled back into leadership. I almost immediate took over the Sunday school class for grades 7-12 as well as the youth group. That summer, I also co-led our church’s Vacation Bible School program. A few months after that, my aunt stepped down as superintendent of the children’s Sunday school program and I was asked to take over.
At the time, no one in my church (with the possible exception of a couple of family members) knew that I was gay. To be honest, I’m not sure how the other members of the church would’ve reacted if they knew, and I was too afraid at the time to find out. So I kept my sexuality a secret and focused on doing my duties as a leader in the church. And I suffered in silence.
Yes, I suffered. Those first few months to a couple of years after you come out to yourself can be quite difficult emotionally. You find yourself sorting through a lot of feelings and trying to understand what it means to be gay and all the implications it has for your life. So here I was trying to act as a leader in my church and deal with my own problems, and I was afraid to turn to any of the other church leaders to seek help during this time of my life.
At one point, I began having trouble upholding my responsibilities as a church leader began to sag due to the issues I was trying to work through. (And things got even worse the few months before I finally left the church — as I had also begun to add in the complications that come with one’s first real relationship.) I started to procrastinate and forgot to do certain things. A few of the other leaders began to get upset, especially as they relied on me for certain things and I let them down on more than one occasion. And I was frustrated because they never once asked what was going on with me or why I was becoming less dependable. But to make matters worse, even if they had asked me what was wrong, I doubt I would’ve had the courage to tell them. I just wasn’t comfortable.
As I think of my experiences, I think of the ELCA’s decison with some pleasure, knowing that at least some GLBT people who wish to serve in a Christian community will now be able to do so openly. And this means that they will be able to get the support I felt was denied to me back when I was serving as I felt called. And that is something that pleases me greatly.
Now that it’s past, I thought it would be good to do a review of yesterday’s synchroblog event. It was an excellent experience and overall, I felt it went quite well. Wendy and her sponsors did a fantastic job putting it all together and the participants wrote some wonderful posts, some of which I will highlight in a moment.
The one thing I was somewhat disappointed in was the fact that despite the efforts of a couple of us (including Wendy), the event seemed primarily geared towards Christians. As far as I know, Christine Bakke, YewTree, and I were the only three non-Christians who participated. This is probably due to a number of reasons. For one, those who sponsored this event were Christian and therefore had the most Christian contacts. Then there’s also the fact that it’s much harder to convince a non-Christian to participate in an event to encourage Christians and gay people to talk to one another. On the whole, we non-Christians probably don’t see as big a need for such conversation.
More troubling, however, is that I did feel there was a certain undercurrent even among many of the participating bloggers that this was about gay and straight Christians talking with each other. I saw more than one post in which the sentiment seemed to be that the foundation for such conversation was the fact that those involved were all “brothers and sisters in Christ.” While this is a fine sentiment and I’m glad that some people were able to find that common ground, that doesn’t extend the conversation to the rest of the gay community — those of us who don’t consider ourselves “brothers and sisters in Christ.” So perhaps it may be a while longer before the entire gay community will find a welcome in the greater community.
Having said that, I wish to be clear that I don’t mean to be too critical because of this. I think that this synchroblog was a great next step in the overall dialogue process. And I have confidence that even my concerns can be addressed as that dialogue continues. I think we all just need to keep plugging away with patience, compassion, and a bit of understanding.
One of my favorite posts was over at Focused Conversations, which demonstrated a deep and practical understanding of the Golden Rule. Sandy tells of her own wedding and the people who supported her and helped her with her wedding, despite the fact that they felt she was making a bad choice. In retelling that story, she comes to a conclusion which she applies to same sex marriages:
I understand the desire to declare your commitment to your loved one in
a formal ceremony. Whether or not I think it is the right thing doesn’t
take away from that. As a Christian I live with that tension.
It sometimes takes a special person to realize how her own situation at one time mirrored that of another person’s and to place herself in that person’s shoes. Sandy’s willingness to be such a person spoke a lot to me.
Over at Based on a True Story, Nathan takes a similar approach and draws parallels between his own relationship with his wife and same-sex relationships:
My relationship with my wife runs very deep and there are plenty of
factors that play into it. If my relationship was all about sex, it
would not be much of a relationship. We know though, that a part of
marriage and relationships runs a lot deeper than just what happens
with our bodies. One of the more beautiful parts of a marriage is the
commitment and covenant to each other no matter what life brings. We
should be affirming and blessing mutual covenants of love between any
person and not denying them of a basic human need. We need to focus on
what we affirm rather than what we want to get rid of. Why are we so
bent on taking away all the good in a relationship? Is it just to prove
our theology? Is it just to satisfy our own desires for holiness to be
met around us?
In doing so, Nathan actually attacks one of the most damaging stereotypes about gay people: The idea that our relationships are just about sex. Nathan’s willingness to challenge that stereotype and then ask very hard questions about the implication of opposing relationships that clearly have a lot of good in them is superb.
Of course, not everything was perfect. Despite some great posts, there was the occasional argument in some comments. Some people wanted to argue over what constituted compromise or capitulation, while others wanted to discuss who (usually the other side) needed to do what in order for their to be dialogue. Some even questioned if dialogue is possible in the end. But that’s okay. This conversation is long overdue and it’s the kind of conversation that is never going to go perfectly smoothly. And that’s okay. The important thing is that people are still talking. Hopefully, that will remain the case.
(This post is part of the Bridging the Gap Synchroblog which I mentioned previously. I’d encourage all readers to check out other participants’ contributions to this event. Links to appropriate blogs can be found at the BTG blog.)
Almost a decade ago, I joined a Telnet-based BBS(1) called Jungle. It was hosted on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois, though the BBS itself and the machine that ran it was privately owned. I first created my account at Jungle when I was still a Christian, but after I came out as a gay man. I made a lot of friends there (a few of which I still have some contact with), and had a rather positive experience as part of that online community — a state of affairs that continued even after I embraced other gods.
Although my experience with Jungle BBS was mostly positive, there were the negative experiences, too. I had — and started — my share of arguments and tense moments there. I particularly remember a lot of arguments with one particular user, a young man (in his late teens, if memory serves) who went by the username Thyle on the site. Almost every time Thyle saw me online, he’d send me an express message(2) and engage me in the same old debate. He’d spend the rest of his time online trying to convince me why homosexuality was a sin and why I should try to become straight. The arguments were endless and repetitive, and I can’t remember how many times we rehashed that same conversation over those early months.
One evening, when he sent me a message to initiate the same old routine, I decided that I wasn’t in the mood for it. As I sat there for a moment, I decided that our conversation was going to be different that night. I decided we were going to talk about something else. So I started steering the conversation in various directions, such as what I had done earlier that day. I also asked him about his day and various other questions. As a result, we had a twenty minute conversation that night that was completely debate-free and even a little pleasant, if somewhat forced. The conversation ended when Thyle said he needed to go and we exchanged pleasant goodbyes.
I can’t remember if Thyle and I ever talked after that evening. If we did, it was only a few times. Effectively, after that night, our debates came to an end. Unfortunately, we never really developed a friendship, either. I have no idea what happened to Thyle or where he is. I hope he is well. But I learned a lot from Thyle and that one evening we had a non-debating conversation. I learned that it takes two people to debate, but often only takes one person to redirect the conversation away from that debate.
I think that often, we like to think of the constant debates as being at least mostly the fault of the other person in the debate. We like to tell ourselves that if only they’d stop — or come to agree with us — the debates could finally end. The truth is, however, that the debates could often end simply if we choose not to engage in them. Granted, that might mean swallowing our pride and even letting it seem like the other person “won” because we’re choosing to bow out. But I personally think that there are times when getting past the debate is far more important than “winning” it. Because what comes after the debate can often be far more interesting and rewarding.
I’d say that’s one of the biggest challenges to dialogue in general and the dialogue between (Side B) Christians and gay people in particular. Too often, we allow the debate to consume the dialogue, choking out everything else that matters — including those things that may be more important. My experience with Thyle that one evening gave me a glimpse of that reality. It let me know that there’s more for gay people and Christians to talk about than whether homosexuality is a sin. And I think it’s important to have those conversations.
Truth be told, like most people, we probably have a lot more in common than we have differences. Finding, acknowledging, and embracing that common ground is an essential part of dialogue. I allows us to see each other as more than debate partners. It allows us to become if not friends, friendly acquaintances.
This isn’t to say that there’s no room for debate, or that we should avoid those hard questions and tense moments. Instead, we simply need to move away from the current model where they take center stage and push everything out into the wings — or out of existence altogether. When we force the debates and disagreements to take a more appropriate place amidst all the positive interactions a group of people can have, there is room for a beautiful picture to emerge and develop over time.
It’s my hope to help make that a reality.
Notes:
(1) I suspect that these terms might be complete gibberish to some of my readers, especially those who came to the Internet and computing after the World Wide Web all but replaced Telnet, Gopher, FTP, and other services as the preferred method of communicating and getting information on the Internet. To put it simply, Telnet-based BBS’s (and their own predecessors, dial-up BBS’s) were the precursor to message forums. Instead of using a web page and clicking links and filling in forms, BBS’s used a simple terminal interface with a menuing system. You’d press keyboard keys to tell it what you wanted to do and it would respond with the appropriate information and prompts.
(2) Think of it as a type of instant message within the BBS system Jungle used.
The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.
