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Saturday After Surgery

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Hello readers! As you know, Sarah had ear surgery yesterday morning. Sarah’s doctor found the endolymphatic sac and inserted a shunt during a routine surgical procedure. We went home, watched The Muppet Christmas Carol while singing along loudly, ate food provided for the occasion by one of Lindsey’s colleagues from work, and rested.

Surgery days can be exceptionally stressful. Thank you everyone who prayed for us, kept Lindsey company on Twitter during the procedure itself, and has sent well-wishes of various kinds. We’re both tired, and Sarah’s ear hurts following the procedure — which is to be expected. We’re glad that we planned to have a weekend at home resting.

In yesterday’s post, Sarah shared several pieces of art. Many people asked us if Sarah would ever consider selling some prints. We had been talking about the possibility of creating an Etsy store and decided that it made sense to launch Art Coming Out the Ears today. Sarah’s full art album is available on Flckr. We seeded the store with your recommendations from yesterday. You all have made this blog the kind of place it is on the internet, and we want to involve you in putting pieces in the art store. Which pieces appeal to you most? Would you be interested in greeting cards or postcards? What do you think of Lindsey’s hair-brained idea of making a custom mug with Isidore on it? You can leave a comment here or use our Contact Us page should you want to request a print of something not yet stocked in our store.

Our questions today are: what are some of your favorite things to do while at home during the winter? Do you have any particular favorite movies or documentaries as we prepare for Christmas?

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Shifting the Conversation Is Not Silence: A Response to Maria McDowell

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One of the first things we did before launching A Queer Calling was create a joint email account. Both of us take great joy in engaging in conversation about celibacy and related issues, so when the new mail alert dings we race one another to read what has arrived. We are grateful for all of our readers and commenters because everyone brings his or her unique voice to the dialogue. In the seven months we’ve been blogging, we’ve been impressed by the level of respectful conversation we’ve seen in the comment box.

Last week, we received an email notification that Maria McDowell had responded to “Our Celibate Gay Agenda” in a post at the Women in Theology blog. We appreciate Maria’s generosity in her analysis of our post and our blog in general, and we hope to offer just as thoughtful a response to her as she as given us.

Maria differs from many bloggers in that she sees how celibate vocations can be life-giving for LGBTQ Christians who choose them. She also agrees with our point that in general, modern society erroneously views celibacy as a strange and harmful self-denial. We were especially glad to see this coming from an LGBTQ Christian who asserts that she does not feel called to celibacy. Maria’s discussion about examples of people living celibate vocations immediately caused us to think back to a post Sarah wrote months ago that included brief profiles of three very different female celibates. We hope to provide our readers with more examples of real people and their celibate vocations. We live at a time when more and more Christians are living as celibates in the world because not everyone feels a call to marriage or monasticism. Perhaps there is something more we can do to help foster greater acceptance and appreciation for celibate vocations in general and not just within the LGBTQ context.

Maria also references her own experience of knowing celibate couples who have been ostracized within their faith communities after someone “outed” them and no one knew they were celibate. It’s entirely true that this happens, and probably with great regularity because, as Maria says, “Such things are not publicized, and often not talked about even among the LGBTQ community for fear of ridicule. Most humans, straight or otherwise, can’t imagine why one would choose to live with someone AND be celibate, oh, the horror!” We know firsthand how real those sentiments are among church folk and within the LGBTQ community, and we’re also aware of how often coupled celibates are expected, or even directly instructed, to keep quiet.

Many LGBTQ people have told us that we should be quiet because sharing about our celibacy could be dangerous and set back decades of work for LGBTQ acceptance. We’ve lost track of the number of times church folk have told us that we should be quiet about our celibacy because, if we’re truly being obedient to our Christian tradition, why should discussing our celibacy matter? When celibate, LGBTQ people are instructed to remain silent about their celibacy, their sexual orientations, and their gender identities, the real experiences remain hidden. This prevents other Christians from acknowledging that, yes, there are celibate LGBTQ members of their churches. We know for a fact that we’re not the only celibate couple within our Christian tradition. We have many conversations where people thank us for being willing to open up about our experiences, challenge them to raise awkward questions, and deal with any negativity that may come our way as a result. We were glad to see Maria’s acknowledgement that celibate LGBTQ Christians are not automatically protected from judgment and discrimination.

While we are grateful that Maria trusts our agenda without qualification and does not believe, as some do, that everyone has an agenda that can be categorized into one of two polar extremes, we have to disagree with her assertion that stories are never just stories. People tell stories for all kinds of different reasons that are agenda-driven, but this isn’t always the case. The two of us frequently play random games of “Tell me a story.” Typically, Lindsey will interrupt something else that’s going on just to hear a story. Sarah may share a fun memory from childhood that just happens to come to mind, a completely fictional story, or a story about the adventures of a hamster. We tell stories to each other like we want to tell stories to children. Not every story needs to be a morality play. Humans often tell stories to have fun and to get to know one another in different, deeper, and more intimate ways. It’s true that most often, there is some specific reason for the stories we tell on the blog, but usually the point we are trying to make by telling a story is obvious. And we’ve never told a story intended to convince anyone that our lives are more moral than another person’s.

We also disagree with Maria’s assessment that we are silent on issues explicitly relevant to non-celibate members of the LGBTQ community. If we read her correctly, she seems to believe that when LGBTQ celibates share our stories, we ought to indicate to the hearers where we stand on the question, “Is same-sex sexual activity sinful?” and celibates who don’t are failing to show support for non-celibate LGBTQ people. As we read the second half of Maria’s blog post, we thought of several instances where we’ve discussed our relationships with non-celibate friends. We’ve written posts about lessons we’ve learned from our friends in non-celibate relationships and ways that our non-celibate LGBTQ friends have been supportive of us during difficult seasons of life. We’ve also discussed a variety of issues that affect both celibate and non-celibate LGBTQ people such as workplace discrimination, legal protections to ensure that couples can meet healthcare and other needs, language policing, and the use of false information to “prove” that LGBTQ people are ill or have chosen their orientations. Given these, we wonder how a non-celibate LGBTQ person could possibly read our blog regularly and come to the conclusion that we only offer significant support for other celibates.

We also wonder why many involved in this discussion tend to reduce the idea of “support” to making the statement, “I don’t think it’s a sin if you have sex.” Neither one of us could ever imagine telling any person — gay, straight, or otherwise — “I affirm you and your sex life.” The thought of doing so strikes us as absurd, condescending, and presumptuous. As we once expounded upon at length in a comment, we believe that it’s far better to be good to people and to build close relationships with them when possible than to make direct judgments about the specifics of their intimate lives. The latter would require having detailed knowledge of their intimate lives, which are none of our business. We are curious: in what other areas of life would one suggest that showing support for a person requires an overt assertion of agreement with his or her beliefs and decisions? Take, for example, how we as cat owners interact with other cat owners. Regardless of what we believe about the morality of declawing cats, being there for someone who is raising a newly declawed kitten does not require us to state publicly that declawing isn’t sinful. And we’re pretty sure that our refraining from such a statement wouldn’t lead our feline-loving friends to think we would only visit if we’re allowed to inspect kitty paws before dinner. Some might argue that this example is trivial, but we would hypothesize that most people have meaningful relationships with others where no one is expected to proclaim boldly an opinion on the morality of everything. We don’t see why questions about someone’s level of sexual activity should be a special exception where everyone must state a judgment to the world.

Maria is not the first person to suggest that our abstention from discussing this issue indirectly validates the position opposite hers. We wonder whether she would still say, “The very polarization which A Queer Calling decries is embedded in the silence that they keep,” if she knew that very conservative people often assume that our “silence” somehow affirms gay sexual activity. Not long ago, we received a remarkably similar (although private) response from a priest who was convinced that we must be “flaming liberals” because we don’t say otherwise. To one reader, our story “looks an awful lot like an agreement that gay sexual activity, even within the bounds of marriage, remains ethically unacceptable for Christians.” To another, it appears to be just another cog in the “gay agenda.” Everyone interprets stories with their own experiences and biases in mind. Naturally, different hearers will extrapolate different meanings from any story. Sometimes, only the teller knows the full context of a story’s meaning.

It troubles us to think that the current conversation about LGBTQ people and the Church has become singularly focused on publicly affirming or condemning someone’s private behavior. We would estimate that about 40% of the email correspondence we receive comes from people — both conservatives and liberals — who insist that we are not participating properly in this conversation because we have chosen to frame our discussions of difficult issues differently than “gay sex is a sin” or “gay sex is not a sin.” Should you be interested in more information about to why we frame our contribution to the conversation differently, consider reading this post. Every time we get an email saying that we’re approaching this discussion in the wrong way, we suspect we’ve said something that might be making a person uncomfortable because we’ve forced him or her think about a new set of questions.

Experimenting with shifting the conversation is not the same as silence. We believe the time has come to expand dialogue beyond the question, “Is gay sex a sin?” The two of us collectively have spent several years engaging in both real life and internet discussions about how acceptable or unacceptable same-sex sexual activity is for Christians. To be sure, there are advantages associated with talking about the issues in these terms. But it limits the conversation to one question — a question that is often answered with a simple “Yes” or “No” by people who already have set convictions. We find ourselves bemused when some authors who call for more nuance in dialogue about sexuality, gender identity, relationships, and Christian discipleship include an obligatory statement — in every post they write — of, “Gay sexual activity can never be affirmed,” or “We must always affirm people’s personal choices to enter sexual relationships.” We imagine this is an attempt to signal, “Hey, it’s okay to read my stuff because I’m on your side in this debate.” If other writers see it as necessary to assert these beliefs frequently, they are free to do so. But that doesn’t obligate us to do the same. Last time we checked, no one individual owns this conversation. The issue of whether same-sex sexual activity is sinful or not matters. It’s extremely important. However, we think that there are other important questions to discuss when talking about LGBTQ people and the Church, and we see it as unreasonable for some bloggers to insist that every other blogger must offer a public affirmation or condemnation of gay sex.

When we began A Queer Calling, the two of us were of one mind about attempting to initiate a different kind of conversation here than what we have seen and continue to see in other places. As LGBTQ Christians, our struggles to find love within the Church, the challenges we face in the world, and the joys we experience are far more complex than what we choose to do (or not) in our private lives. We do not believe for an instant that our approach here is some superior, enlightened pathway between harmful extremes, but we do find it odd that so many people seem to be waiting around for us to start arguing for one side or the other. If that’s you, we inform you without regret that you’re in for a very long wait. Maria is absolutely right to assert that what one says publicly has consequences, and sometimes the cost is high. This isn’t just for people who make public statements about gay sexual activity. The road we’ve chosen also comes at a great cost. Because of our difference in approach, there are some celibate and non-celibate LGBTQ and ally voices who would probably never consider agreeing with us publicly on anything. But we believe strongly in the purpose we’ve made clear from our very first day of blogging, and we’re willing to accept that reality and continue interacting with everyone who is interested in talking with us.

We’ve found that by focusing our writings in direction that most people are not accustomed to seeing on LGBTQ Christian blogs, we can extend hospitality and a place for conversation to folks who would otherwise be without a space they see as safe for their participation. We feel honored each time someone contacts us to say that he or she was completely exasperated by the current conversation until finding our blog. Because we believe that hospitality is a central component of our celibate vocation, we strive to be as welcoming as possible to everyone who comes our way. If Maria were to visit our city, we would, without qualification, invite her to stay in our home as a guest and participate — as much as she felt inclined — in every aspect of our daily prayer life and other activities. We would sit around our dining room table with her and enjoy shared meals and stories. We would also invite her to attend church with us on Sunday. The extent to which she would be permitted to participate in the service would be between her and our priest, as is true for all visitors we and other parishioners bring. We would treat Maria exactly as we treat all who enter our doorway regardless of their celibacy or non-celibacy, and we fail to understand why someone would perceive us as keeping him or her from a table at which we are welcome.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Cavemen, Contraception, and Christian Controversies

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A reflection by Sarah

Within the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how easy it can be to polarize discussions of controversial issues, particularly those that impact multiple groups of people with varied needs and interests. Conversations become more about adhering perfectly to religious or political dogma than learning from engagement with opposing viewpoints. When this happens, the level of verbal gymnastics a person has to perform in order to avoid being identified with the “wrong” side of a particular debate can get out of control very quickly. And if the controversy relates to your life in some direct, practical way, watch out. Unless your own perspective aligns completely with the party line at either extreme, there’s a fair chance your voice will get lost amongst those who are louder and more ideological.

When I was about thirteen, my already-unmanageable menstrual cycle became debilitating. Despite trying every supposed cure and method of symptom relief at my disposal, nothing helped the pain subside. Heat packs, herbs, over-the-counter medications, supplements, hot toddies: you name it, we did it. It’s possible that we could have done more if my family had been able to access more resources, but we had tried everything we could afford. I had reached a point where I was experiencing severe symptoms for half of every month and was unable to sustain a reasonable quality of life. I fainted at school, had persistent anemia, and was frequently doubled over with cramps. My deeply conservative mother (who had experienced more than her own share of reproductive health troubles) sympathized greatly with my pain and, after she had exhausted all of the alternative options, scheduled my first gynecology appointment. From the moment my mom first set up the appointment until the moment we entered the doctor’s office, she was concerned and warning me that the gynecologist might prescribe birth control pills. That’s exactly what happened. After the doctor had examined me and heard my symptom history, she reached immediately for her prescription pad to write a script for Ortho Tri-Cyclen.

My mother’s greatest worry was realized, and she made it clear to me on the drive home that we must never tell another person outside of the family that I was taking birth control pills. She stated that she didn’t think I was sexually promiscuous. However, she warned me that if anyone else found out, he or she would automatically assume that I was a whore. I had no doubt about my mom’s message: like it or not, I had to choose between being seen as a good Christian and being branded the loosest girl in the 8th grade. We couldn’t discuss birth control if there was the slightest possibility of anyone else hearing us. In my mother’s opinion, my voice was bold enough to be heard across a room even in my most hushed whispers. Her solution was to ask me to come up with a codeword for the pills. I wasn’t very fond of this idea, and though I couldn’t imagine any reason I would need to tell another person about the birth control pills, I felt a sense of shame unlike any emotion I’d ever experienced around receiving other prescriptions in the past. But I gave in and eventually suggested we could call my new medication “the caveman pill” (BC, of course. Yeah, I know…quite original). My little pink compact of caveman pills stayed in my top dresser drawer next to my hairbrush. Each morning, I would open my drawer, take the medication, and then put it out of my mind for the rest of the day. However, anytime I had friends over, my mother would panic about the compact in my dresser drawer. She would urge me to let her keep it until everyone left so that none of my friends would find out I was on the caveman pill. All this because morally upright people supposedly never talk about needing to take birth control because discussing the subject publicly brands one as promiscuous. Or at least that’s how things worked in Eastern Kentucky in the 1990s.

Few things set Facebook and Twitter alight with polarized commentary like contraception and homosexuality. The recent Supreme Court decision in favor of Hobby Lobby highlights how people can be deeply divided over intersections between public policy and religious belief. While reading initial reactions to the SCOTUS ruling, I experienced a vivid memory of how my mother responded to my need to take birth control pills. Those who share her perspective would say that “good, conservative Christians” know that you keep prescriptions for these medications discreet if you need them to treat a medical condition. Yet, as the recent Hobby Lobby case shows, both conservatives and liberals are more than willing to assert beliefs on contraception so long as the issue is framed in a polarized manner. At one extreme, there are people arguing that if one cares at all about women’s health, one should be absolutely appalled by the SCOTUS ruling. At the other, there are people claiming the decision as a victory for religious freedom in the United States and chiding feminists as overly entitled whiners. The space between the two extremes is a no man’s land as both sides continue to hurl slurs at one another: “No true respecter of women would ever approve of the Hobby Lobby decision. If you’re not appalled by the decision, then you’re a misogynist and a bigot.” Or, “If you’re not celebrating the decision as a major cultural win for conservatives, than you’re a progressive liberal out to destroy America. No true Christian should have any reservations about the ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby. If you empathize at all with the idea that free birth control might be a good thing, then you’re an enemy to life.” The polarization is deep, and there is virtually no room for moderate opinions. At least on the internet.

What’s especially interesting to me is that people on the left rightly consider it absurd when the religious right claims gay rights legislation is a slippery slope toward state-sanctioned human-animal marriages, yet they make almost the exact same assertion about the Hobby Lobby ruling: that the decision is a slippery slope towards a society where employers are free to engage in widespread religious discrimination of all kinds. And neither side seems to be aware of how its own rhetoric removes any possibility for meaningful dialogue. On the day of the Hobby Lobby decision, I was called idiotic for mentioning the importance of religious freedom in one conversation and a heretic for discussing why society might benefit from greater availability of contraception in another. It seems impossible to have an intelligent, nuanced conversation about any controversy within the current American political and religious climate.

Thus far, this post might not seem very relevant to the general purpose of our blog. However, as we’ve pointed out on other occasions, conversations about LGBT Christians are equally polarized. We mention frequently how the manner in which LGBT issues get discussed in Christian contexts leaves little space for moderates or those who care more about talking and listening than shouting. Lindsey and I regularly find ourselves pulled in all directions. Several of my more liberal Christian friends tell me I should just get over my internalized homophobia, dump the idea of a celibate vocation, and marry Lindsey even though that would involve defying the teachings of our Christian tradition. Some are quite blunt in telling us that we should leave our Christian tradition as it is not sufficiently welcoming to the LGBT community. Similarly, several of my more conservative Christian friends express their opinion that talking about “LGBT issues” (as opposed to “struggling with same-sex attraction”) places me outside the realm of orthodoxy, or at least precariously perched on the border gazing fondly toward “heresy.” Both camps are likely to proclaim, “Either you’re with us or you’re against us!” with one side saying, “You shouldn’t be talking about this at all,” and the other asserting, “You should be talking about this, but you need to have the conversation within progressive political parameters.” And no matter what we say, taking a more moderate approach leaves some people seeing us as wishy-washy and others claiming that we position ourselves on a moral high ground from which we silently judge one side, or perhaps both. In some ways, the linguistic mess that is the current dialogue on LGBT issues in the Church reminds me of the verbal gymnastics required for talking with my mom about the “caveman” pill: you can talk about these issues publicly if and only if you know the special code words that sound benign to everyone else around you.

The polarization of these conversations is extremely harmful. It’s harmful to tell a young girl who needs to take birth control pills that she must never talk about this medication to anyone lest she be perceived as a whore. It’s harmful to label everyone cheering the Hobby Lobby ruling as a bigot and misogynist. Similarly, it’s destructive to brand everyone who has a problem with the ruling as an enemy of the unborn and of and religious freedom. It’s damaging to say that the conversation about LGBT people in the Church only has two types of participants who are diametrically opposed on every issue. This is especially pronounced where one side insists that being LGBT is an illness of some kind that needs healing and the other argues that any person who does not fully affirm every aspect of an LGBT person’s life is an enemy. It’s a shame that people who do not identify as culture warriors for either side are dismissed from the discussion. When the poles are so present within every topic for debate, it’s hard to see any room for learning, growth, or the process of conversion.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Perspectives, Persecution, and #TakeDownThatPost

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This post is our second contribution to the What Persecution Is series that we are exploring with Jake Dockter at The Great White Whale. This series explores faith, gender, sexuality, race, culture, and identity. We’ll be posting one post a week for this series over the next several weeks. We’d love for you to join the conversation. Please let us know if you’re posting any related content on your own blog, so we can talk with you. You can read Jake’s most recent contributions to the series here and here.

In last week’s post, we opened our discussion about persecution by exploring the role of silencing. It was an odd juxtaposition of themes because the night before our post on silencing went live, we had tweeted the following:

Some context: several of our friends on Twitter were using the hashtag #TakeDownThatPost to raise awareness about an ill-conceived reflection from a youth-pastor-turned-sex-offender. Leadership Journal had given the anonymous convicted sex offender a platform to describe a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a student in his youth group as a mutual, extramarital affair. We agreed that especially because of this publication’s intended audience (people in pastoral leadership roles), the editors of Leadership Journal needed to take a critical look at this article, and we posted our tweet.

By the time we checked Twitter the morning our blog post released, we had received some messages suggesting that we were hypocrites because we had shared extended thoughts about how silencing can be the beginning of persecution while seemingly arguing for some degree of internet censorship regarding a difficult conversation topic in the church. People wanted to know, were we engaging in a sort of doublespeak, claiming that we should be able to share our story about life together while actively trying to block a repentant sex offender from sharing his story? Some of our readers asked if we were aware of the various obstacles that make it difficult for convicted sex offenders to reintegrate into society.

Truth be told, we each have different reasons for discerning carefully questions of how society should approach reintegration of convicted sex offenders. Lindsey has personally been considering many facets of this issue after learning in 2012 that some churches have been offering or at least considering adults-only services so that registered sex offenders can attend without violating their parole. Lindsey has been surprised at how aspects of sex offender registries can create challenging legal issues, such as the social stigmatization and penalizing of juvenile offenders years after they have reached adulthood and the difficulties that legally of-age high school students can face when dating someone barely underage. Sarah is a survivor of sexual abuse, and much like the young girl described in the article in question, Sarah was a middle school student when the abuse began, and the abuser was in a position of leadership in a church. Sarah has encountered many incredibly judgmental reactions when people have learned that Sarah has forgiven the perpetrator and would be interested in understanding more deeply why he did what he did. Many of these people have reactions rooted in a belief that only survivors’ stories should be told because any story from the perspective of an abuser would invalidate a survivor’s story.

We have two entirely different sets of experience that we bring to discussing this issue, but neither of us would argue for silencing repentant sex offenders. We find it exceptionally important to navigate the tension between arguing against silencing and simultaneously advocating that the church change the tenor of particular conversations. While asserting that all people the space to share their stories, there’s good reason for us to be concerned that certain approaches to difficult topics can result in stories being used as weapons.

Persecution can occur when certain stories become weaponized. This is just as relevant to stories about LGBT issues as it is to stories about sexual violence. We can appreciate the authenticity of stories like that of Rosaria Butterfield–a heterosexually married Christian woman who previously identified as a lesbian–while simultaneously affirming that the way Wheaton College handled student concerns about her speaking engagement has made LGBTQ students perceive that the campus has no place for their stories. Many LGBTQ Christians have had to fight for the right to share their stories amidst dominant cultural narratives that suggest being gay is a choice and it’s possible for gay people to become straight. As a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, we’d be deluding ourselves if we failed to acknowledge that some cisgender, heterosexual Christians see our way of life as some sort “ideal” for LGBT Christians. We try to do whatever we can to prevent people from weaponizing our story, but we know that we cannot control how people pitch us and our story to their friends. There’s nothing we can do to prevent others from pointing at the gay couple next door and saying, “Why can’t you be in a celibate partnership like Lindsey and Sarah?” But seriously, we do not recommend celibate partnership as a way of life for all LGBT Christians. If you have used our story as a weapon against your LGBT friends, can you a) stop it, b) apologize for the way your actions have brought harm, and c) practice showing love in the midst of difference?

We decided to participate in #TakeDownThatPost because we thought the article in question was full of linguistic weapons with potential to re-traumatize survivors. The original version portrayed a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a likely middle school-aged student as a) an extramarital affair, b) a mutual relationship, c) an innocent friendship that went too far, and d) a shared experience of sin and temptation. It is absolutely wrong-headed, misguided, and soul-crushing to suggest that middle-school aged students knowingly and willfully “seduce” their pastors, teachers, or coaches. Even aside from Sarah’s story, we know far too many survivors of sexual violence who have suffered under the pervasive societal assumption that they were somehow “asking for it” to happen to them. The anonymous author showed no concern for how his actions impacted the young girl, the church, and the broader community. Despite naming “selfishness” as the main sin that spiraled out of control, his discussion about the impacts of sexual sin was remarkably self-centered and zoomed in on everything the author himself lost as a result of his actions.

When a story has become weaponized, people must step forward in order to prevent further harm. There were a number of courageous people sharing their stories across the internet in an effort to educate Leadership Journal as to why the originally published piece was so problematic. Tamara Rice wrote up a detailed review of what happened when she suggested that #TakeDownThatPost might be a way to amplify survivors’ concerns. Mary DeMuth penned an excellent open letter to the anonymous writer to explain why he needed to grieve how his actions affected other people and to provide some insights regarding what repentance looks like. As we followed developments on our Twitter feed and read pieces from various authors, we noted many thought-provoking conversation starters about how survivors and their stories could inform responses from Christian leaders. The vast majority of tweets we saw that were tagged with #TakeDownThatPost argued for meaningful, authentic, and solution-focused dialogue.

Advocating for safe spaces for all people is the antithesis of persecuting others. As we think about civil conversations on important issues in the Church, we keep asking the question, “How do we create safe spaces for everyone to share ideas freely?” The anonymous man writing from jail may be of the opinion that he had an entirely mutual relationship with the young girl in his youth group. He is free to write that down in the journal he may keep under his pillow, in letters to his close friends, on his personal blog, or in other venues available to him. It is probably good for him to get his thoughts on paper, so he can reflect more deeply on how his actions were sinful. However, we do not believe it is appropriate for a top-tier magazine targeting Christian leaders to publish a six page sermon describing a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a child as a mere extramarital affair rather than sexual abuse. Leadership Journal and similar publications have an obligation to Christian leaders to raise thoughtful discussion about preventing sexual abuse, modes of restorative justice, and helping survivors heal from trauma. As we followed #TakeDownThatPost on Twitter, we perceived that its advocates were attempting to educate others on holding constructive conversations about sexual abuse while putting safeguards in place for survivors to participate without shame.

Consumers of a publication, a television show, or any other form of media have the freedom to critique its content. Suggesting that #TakeDownThatPost was an instance of persecution aimed at sex offenders is similarly ludicrous as the suggestion that, for example, A&E was persecuting Phil Robertson (and Christianity) by suspending him from Duck Dynasty. Consumers of A&E who objected to Robertson’s interview were not saying, “We think Phil Robertson and all conservative Christians should be silenced.” Instead, the main message we heard throughout that whole fiasco was, “A&E should not offer a platform to a person who conveys harmful stereotypes about gay people, comparing them to humans who have sex with animals.” As we said in our first post of this series, freedom of speech in America does not mean that you are entitled to escape the social consequences of what you’ve said. And when powerful outlets like Leadership Journal respond to previously silenced people amplifying their voices with direct calls to action like #TakeDownThatPost, we all benefit from the deeper dialogue.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Phasing out Civil Unions for the Sake of Marriage Equality is a Bad Idea

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Last week, each of us independently posted an article from the Catholic Herald called “Don’t convert same-sex civil partnerships automatically into marriages, urge bishops” on our personal Facebook pages. Bishops in the UK are concerned that gay and lesbian Catholics who entered into civil partnerships in order to access legal protections will find themselves at odds with their faith tradition’s teachings on marriage if these partnerships are automatically converted into marriages without their consent. We thought the article from the UK context would generate a lot of interesting conversation because we both have diverse circles of friends with a wide range of views on sexual ethics and marriage equality. Upon seeing our friends’ responses, we were surprised by two things. 1) Very few of our American friends realized that some US states have already converted existing civil unions into marriages. 2) Many of our American friends with a more progressive sexual ethic were mystified as to why any LGBT couple would have a problem with their legal relationship being named a marriage. In today’s post, we want to highlight the reality that civil unions are being phased out while also discussing real concerns we have as a celibate, LGBT couple related to our various legal options.

In the United States, civil unions were once available in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Federal courts in those states have ruled that civil unions are a kind of “marriage lite” and violate equal protection. Therefore, the named states are in the process of phasing out civil unions entirely and some (e.g. Connecticut) are automatically converting or have already converted them into marriages. Civil unions are still available in some places: Colorado, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois. However, we are concerned that it’s only a matter of time before civil unions become a relic of history rather than an available legal option.

We wish more Americans were talking about this issue. Why do we so readily accept marriage as the only viable legal pathway to gain certain rights and responsibilities to another significant person in your life? How is it that it is so easy to overlook the different kinds of people who benefited from the availability of civil unions? According to Cyril Ghosh of The Guardian:

“There are a number of good reasons why both heterosexual and homosexual couples may wish to enter into a civil union instead of a marriage. For example, for many couples, civil unions provide a secular alternative to marriage that aligns with their values. Some may not be ready for a commitment like “marriage” – a word that’s laden with history and tradition. Others may not wish to enter into a marriage contract because they believe the institution carries distinctly religious connotations. They may also see marriage as a patriarchal institution and be ideologically opposed to it. Finally, many couples that have been married and divorced may not be ready to marry again, even though they might want to codify their relationship with their current partners and lovers in some way.”

Civil unions also filled a void in elder care law by allowing widows and widowers legal pathways of supporting one another in various health care systems. It has been difficult for us to see civil unions as a unique concern of LGBT people. We know many who think that government should only be offering civil partnerships while letting various religious traditions retain control of the word “marriage,” and we’re mostly in agreement with that position. An oft-cited article from the New York Times highlights that as of 2010 in France where civil unions continue to be available, there are two civil unions for every three marriages. The vast majority of civil unions are amongst heterosexual people. Civil unions are slightly less popular in the Netherlands where there is one civil union for every eight marriages. Nonetheless, civil unions are thriving in these countries. They aren’t viewed as evidence of an oppressive “separate, but equal” system. They are important options for people who are willing to accept the responsibilities of being legally attached to another person, but do not, for whatever reason, want that relationship to be considered a marriage.

We should say at this point that it is not our intention to shame any of our friends and readers who have entered into same-sex marriages legally, religiously, or both. Today’s post is not meant as an argument against gay marriage, and if you’ve read many of our other posts you are likely aware that we believe all committed LGBT couples should be protected under the law and should be able to select the best available option for their particular situations and be informed by their faith traditions when making this decision. That said, we also believe it is important to ask ourselves whether the current progress of the marriage equality movement is in some ways hindering the freedoms of LGBT people who seek legal protection for their relationships, but do not want to enter into marriages.

From the beginning, we envisioned our relationship as something different from marriage. Part of this is influenced by the fact that we are part of a Christian tradition that teaches a traditional sexual ethic, and we strive to be obedient to all our tradition’s teachings. (If you’re thinking, “Why don’t you just go to a different church?” read this. We’ve already answered that question.) But the more significant reason is the conviction we share that God has called us in a very personal way to celibacy, and using the term “marriage” would introduce confusion regarding how we understand our celibate vocation. As we’ve stated in other posts, even in the unlikely event that our Christian tradition were to change its teachings on marriage and sexuality, we still wouldn’t be interested in getting married because we don’t see “marriage” as a fitting term for the ways we relate to each other. We don’t see our relationship as a romantic one. However, it is our wish to be considered each other’s next of kin in terms of health care, end of life, financial, housing, and other kinds of legal decisions, and an arrangement of the kind previously available through civil unions in some states would have met most (though not all) of our needs.

We’ve been counseled by friends to prepare certain types of legal documents (power of attorney, healthcare directives, wills, etc.) for ourselves, and we’re in the process of doing that. Still, those types of documents only go so far. They don’t solve other problems like access to retirement funds and access to assets (of which we currently have none, but hope to have someday) without a significant tax imposed when one of us reposes. They also don’t solve the problem that when Lindsey begins a new job this August, the health insurance policy offered by the job will require the two of us to be married in order for Sarah to access benefits. As Sarah–who experiences some significant health problems–does not receive health insurance through Sarah’s own job, and we’ve already had trouble trying to acquire it through the individual marketplace, this issue is particularly pressing. We’re not suggesting that civil unions are the panacea for all these issues, but we find it interesting that the message we keep hearing from everyone we contact for help is, “Why don’t you just get married???” The specifics of what a civil union does and does not provide for isn’t really the point here. It’s that phasing out civil unions narrows the conversation about how to make sure couples who can’t get married are protected.

Our own legal knowledge is very limited and perhaps an attorney can help us sort all these matters in one way or another. But it will likely be expensive, and many of our concerns would be resolved if, like other countries, the United States had some form of civil union in every state for both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. As things stand now with the marriage equality movement, it’s unlikely that civil unions will last much longer because they have become so strongly associated with inequality. If you’re wondering at this point, “Why don’t you go somewhere that performs civil unions and get one there?” the answer is simple. Civil unions are not recognized in all US states or internationally, and there’s no guarantee that eventually the civil unions currently being performed in Illinois, Hawaii, Colorado, and New Jersey will not be automatically converted into marriages at some point within the next few years. Where we live now, we do have the option of entering into a domestic partnership, but the rights associated with this legal relationship are minimal, and they are not recognized across state lines. We also have the option of legally marrying, but to do so would not only excommunicate us within our faith tradition but would also be an act of dishonesty since we do not understand our relationship as a marriage.

The most serious problem with phasing out civil unions and converting existing ones to marriages is that it forces all people within a particular state who desire a legally recognized relationship with their significant other to achieve that by getting married (with a domestic partnership option being available only in select places). We’re grateful for the strides that the marriage equality movement has made in terms of ending certain legally-sanctioned prejudices against LGBT people and couples, but at the same time we question the belief that “freedom to marry” means freedom for all members of the LGBT community. How is it freeing to know that the only option you have for full legal recognition is marriage when you don’t want your relationship referred to as such for religious or other reasons?

We’ve been told that we’re ungrateful to want a civil union considering how many people have struggled and fought for our right to marry each other. We’ve been asked, “Isn’t marriage good enough for you?” and we’ve even been told, “If you choose not to marry, any legal problems you face are of your own making.” All this from the same people who have claimed that American society before gay marriage showed no empathy or concern for the needs of LGBT couples. Please tell us, where is the empathy and concern for celibate LGBT couples, or do we not matter because many of us belong to conservative religious traditions? And what about all other groups of people who have benefited from the availability of civil unions? When fewer people could marry, more seemed to be interested in holding conversation about the needs of those who couldn’t marry. This dialogue included a diversity of concerns that reached beyond those of LGBT people wishing to marry their partners. How have we managed to forget that diverse needs require diverse legal options, and that marriage still leaves those needs unmet for many?

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