Category Archives: Marriage

Is celibacy the same as singleness?

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Continually, we interact with people who posit that the idea of gay Christians being called to celibacy is absolute madness. Arguably, the most common objection centers upon the cruelty of consigning LGBT Christians to lives of singleness that are characterized by loneliness and an absence of any intimate connections. Yet this objection conflates celibacy and singleness and makes negative assumptions about both.

We think this conflation comes as people define celibacy as “not marriage.” If you’re not married, then you’re single. Therefore, since celibate people do not enter into sacramental marriages, all celibate people are single. Our culture values using the presence or absence of marriage as a way to define a person’s state in life. Many people regard “getting married” as an essential coming of age ritual that marks a person’s ascendence into adulthood. Because of this, people often see singleness as a temporary state, and since most celibates are single by societal standards it gets assumed that celibates are isolated people who are missing out on an important part of adult life. Taking some time to look in the thesaurus, single has synonyms of “individual, lone, separate, simple, isolated, separated, and solitary.” There is a reasonable amount of positive associations too (original, distinguished, undivided, and unique), but in our experience, people dominantly focus on how living a celibate life features an almost definitional struggle against loneliness.

In the modern world, we’ve lost a sense of vocational diversity. Within many Christian traditions, celibacy has all but disappeared. For those traditions that still preserve a sense of celibacy as a vocation, celibacy is often tied to the priesthood or joining a monastery. Marital imagery dominates discussions of the monastic discernment process. When a person begins visiting a monastery regularly, people will speak as though the individual is dating the monastery. Becoming formal novice at a monastery is regarded as the engagement period before one takes vows to be “married” to the Church. This focus on marriage as a formal commitment overshadows the communal reality of joining a monastery. Monastics do not enter a random cloud of every person called a monastic; monastics join the life of a particular community, entering into a web of diverse relationships with particular people. As arguably the oldest expression of Christian celibate vocation, monastics live their lives richly connected to one another in community. Many monastics we know see themselves as richly connected to the world through their intercessions.

Focusing so much on marriage vs. singleness as a dichotomy seems to place relationships in a hierarchy. At the top is one’s marital relationship. Friends and acquaintances occupy second and third place. For people who view relationships this way, to forgo marriage requires a massive sacrifice as one is expected to give up not only a hypothetical spouse, but also partnership, companionship, intimacy, and even love itself. Furthermore, unmarried people are encouraged to explore virtually all opposite-sex relationships with any emotional depth to discern the “marriage potential.” With such a cultural emphasis on marriage, it’s not terribly surprising that relationships between sexually abstinent people are devalued and dismissed as to their ability to offer partnership, companionship, intimacy, and love.

We’d like to state again that we regard celibacy as a mature vocational pathway that people enter rather than a default state of life that unmarried people live because they “can’t” marry for whatever reason. Our experience suggests that celibacy is most sustainably lived in an intimate community where members share life with one another. There’s a reason why monasteries have been an enduring expression of how one can live out a celibate life. Our own celibate vocations opened up to each of us fully after we started exploring the possibility of sharing life together. We’d also contend that celibate people living their lives as single in the world develop a knack for finding a meaningful community of like-minded people along professional, personal, and affective lines.

Lindsey has been actively cultivating a celibate vocation for years. While Lindsey’s discernment began in the context of a celibate relationship, the bulk of Lindsey’s learning came as Lindsey lived as a single person in the world. Lindsey sought out meaningful relationships in diverse places. Over time, Lindsey developed a sense that some friendships are “singular friendships,” that is to say that these friendships exist in a category of 1. Lindsey was amazed constantly by the depth within these friendships and the uniqueness of each friendship, even one to another. By the time the two of us met, Lindsey had four singular friendships, all of which continue to this day.

As a final thought, we think it valuable to note that historically celibate vocations have had tremendous diversity. Celibate people are not easily categorized by black-and-white thinking. For every person who has lived a celibate life in a monastery, an untold number of people have lived celibate lives in the world. Some celibates live alone as hermits while others live in large communities. There are also plenty of celibate people who live in small groups. Christian traditions have affirmed value in a celibate vocation by blessing people as priests, consecrated religious, consecrated virgins, monks, and friars. We hope our blog can be a community among people living celibate lives in the world right now so that others can better see the rich diversity of this vocation.

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.

Defining Marriage

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Since releasing our “Defining celibacy” post over a month ago, we’ve received over one hundred questions about its content from our readers. These inquiries fall into three general categories: 1) questions about how our definition of “celibacy” differs from how many people would define “marriage,” 2) questions about how we would define “marriage,” and 3) questions about how we understand our specific kind of celibate vocation relative to other celibate vocations. We are eager to respond to each of these in time, and today we hope to make a beginning at dialoguing with our readers on numbers 1 and 2.

In today’s post, we make our first attempt at exploring how one might define the vocation of marriage. We are adamant that celibate vocations are best defined by celibate people, and we are equally convinced that the vocation to marriage is best defined by people who are married. We believe it would be inappropriate for us to discuss what marriage is without asking for the input of those who are married. Over the past several weeks, we’ve been collecting responses to the questions, “How would you define the term ‘marriage’? What does ‘marriage’ mean to you?” via our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and through personal conversations with people we know who have been married for varying lengths of time. We’ve communicated with younger couples and older couples, gay, straight, and bisexual couples, religious and nonreligious couples (some with one person of each), couples who have experienced divorce and are currently in their second or third marriages, and couples who have been married for decades. We’ve also spoken with a number of married pastors who have shared with us what topics they find important to raise in pre-marital counseling sessions. What we’ve come to realize is that there are perhaps as many definitions for marriage as there are married couples, and sometimes within a marriage the two partners will have different understandings of the term.

Some of our respondents focused on how marriage provides a way for two people to enjoy life together and become the best they both can be:

“Marriage, to me, is loving someone enough to give things up to help them achieve their life goals, knowing they will do the same for you. And having fun and having intellectual conversations along the way. So marriage is living each day knowing you’re helping making yourself and someone else a better person.” –Shae

Other respondents emphasized emotional intimacy, physical attraction, and commitment as key elements in defining marriage:

“I feel like I’ve found the person who is enough like me that we can truly understand each other and different enough from me that we can have our autonomy and entertain one another. We are also very physically attracted to each other, which, for us, feels important. I think the institution of marriage is neat because once you’ve found someone you truly enjoy and trust, you can make a decision to take on the world together. We make each other better, more productive people. It’s an accountability system in a way. Ideally, marriage also provides you with a partner who cares more about you than anyone or anything else in the world. I have an immense feeling of emotional security as well as physical security in my marriage. We also pick up the slack for each other in areas like household chores and bill paying. We are a team. My favorite thing about being married is having a best friend that I can share intimacy, intelligence and laughter with…but who is soothing and present for me when I’ve had the worst day in the world and just need kind words and for someone else to make me dinner. Which he does.” –Mary

A large number of respondents defined marriage within the context of their specific religious traditions:

“I’m Catholic, so I believe that marriage requires not only a lifelong commitment, but also openness to children. That is essential to the way I believe God intends married couples to serve the world. Whether they actually have children or not isn’t the point. It’s that they’re always open to bringing new life into the world, providing a home for children who were brought into the world by other people, or both. In my faith, that’s what marriage is. But I understand that isn’t how everyone understands marriage. Openness to children isn’t a foundational element of marriage in all religions, or even in other Christian traditions. If somebody isn’t religious, or is Protestant, or is Hindu and decides that being open to children isn’t a necessary part of their marriage, I’m not going to tell them they aren’t really married. That’s just wrong. I think married people need to respect that there are many ways people in the world talk about marriage.” –Anne Marie

We were also honored that a few readers trusted us with deeply personal details of struggles in their marriages, claiming that these trying times have made their marriages stronger and have proven to them that marriage is truly “for better or for worse.” One reader shared with us that after weathering the challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder, job loss, and financial troubles, she and her husband were dangerously close to ending their marriage, but found the strength within themselves to fight for each other and the life they share:

“[My husband] and I have both agreed that if one feels neglected by the other we must wave our flag high at that point and retreat to devote ourselves to one another again. We don’t wait until it’s late in the game either, we find time for one another immediately. We have stayed together and come out stronger through things that would tear most people apart. I can honestly say because all of the horrible times I love my husband more now than I ever did, because he (like I) decided to run this race with me. We have a bond that love cannot even begin to define. I know that no matter what happens, he’s going to be beside me. I’ve thought a lot about prearranged marriage, and while I am thankful that I did get to choose my mate, I know why so many prearranged marriages lasted, while so many “loving” marriages of today don’t last. People today are so ready to give up. They toss in the towel at the first stumbling block, if that. People actually enter marriages with the thought that if they don’t like it they can always get divorced…No one is held accountable to stay married…I’m not saying I’m against divorce and I realize there are certain situations where it cannot be avoided, but the rapid rate of divorce is despicable… If I had to define marriage I would say commitment, along with perseverance and hard work which can lead to an unbreakable bond.” -Kristen

We selected the above responses from the 37 we received in total. If we’d had time to discuss this topic with more people, we’re sure we would have encountered an even greater diversity of ideas about the definition of marriage.

When reading the responses, we began to notice many commonalities. It became clear to us that every married person who responded expressed love for his or her spouse. Other similarities we noticed were assertions that marriage involves doing life together, being present for one another, and experiencing shared intimacy. Among our respondents who affiliate strongly with a religious tradition (mostly Christianity), the eternal nature of the marriage commitment and emphases on shared faith-based values arose frequently. Responses received from married pastors who conduct pre-marital counseling showed a common theme of focusing on conflict resolution and the practical aspects of living out a marriage commitment. Some indicated that “family” and “children” were among the most essential topics, but these were not the majority. Likewise, we noticed that the majority of our married respondents in general did not include “children” or “openness to children” in their definitions of marriage.

Thinking back to our aforementioned “Defining celibacy” post, you might be wondering if all this information has caused us to reevaluate the vocation we feel called to live together. It’s true that many qualities mentioned in these definitions of marriage are also present in our relationship. More than one reader has suggested that when we describe our understanding of our shared vocation, we are actually talking about a “celibate marriage.” If married people tend to agree that marriage involves commitment, intimacy, being willing to work through difficult situations, and sharing a set of values, couldn’t our relationship be considered a “marriage” of sorts? Perhaps. But here’s another bit of food for thought: every item we just listed is also present in other types of human relationships. Perseverance, closeness, willingness to stay when things get complicated, and so on…one could find all of these qualities just as vibrantly in monastic communities as in marriages. Furthermore, many of these characteristics describe healthy church communities and also relationships a person might have with very close friends or his/her “family of choice.” Would we feel comfortable defining all relationships with these characteristics as “marriages”?

Our first try at defining celibacy focused on vulnerability, commitment, radical hospitality, and shared spiritual life. Could all of these aspects also be present in the vocation of marriage? Absolutely. It could be that these four characteristics are at the heart of all vocations, but manifest differently in each. We do not believe that defining a term must necessarily mean defining it against another in every possible way, especially when related to people’s senses of calling in life. We’ve found that if someone asks us to define “celibacy,” more often than not, that person anticipates that we will discuss celibate vocations in terms of how they are different from rather than similar to marriage. However, when we say that vocations allow people to reflect the Kingdom of God, we expect that all kinds of vocation will have certain commonalities.

In the future, we would like to explore more deeply some of the differences we see between marriage and our celibate partnership. One major point of difference that keeps coming back to us is our sense of call to serving the broader world rather than focusing as much on service to a narrower sense family. We do consider each other “family” and have made a decision to expand our family in the future, but we have no idea what that means or who it will bring into our lives. Within our Christian tradition, the majority of married people would contend that openness to children is an essential element of marriage. This is not to suggest that marriages in other traditions (or nonreligious marriages) with other definitions of the term somehow fall short of “true marriages,” but to say that we have a particular framework from our faith tradition that impacts our understanding of what a marriage within that branch of Christianity would look like. While we aren’t opposed to the idea of welcoming children into our life in some capacity, we don’t feel that God is calling us to the specific work of raising children. We would like to explore other ways of opening our home to people with various needs who have no other place to find support, and we see that as an essential part of our celibate vocation. Feel free to ask questions about this, as we intend to address it further in future posts.

Discerning vocation can be, and often is, a complicated task. It is helpful to get to know people living out diverse vocations as we discern the best language for describing our particular type of celibate vocation. We learn just as many lessons from married couples as we do from monastics and individuals pursuing other varieties of celibate vocations. We think that because marriage is such a dominant vocational pathway in our society, many people have cultivated an expansive definition of “marriage.” It is our hope that by discussing the celibate vocation, our readers will come to a deeper appreciation of the diversity within celibate vocations.

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.

9 Things We Wish Straight Allies Knew

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We know many straight people who are interested in actively supporting the LGBT community. Some people choose to be allies by simply being our close friends, other people choose to be allies by lobbying for legislation that can mitigate harms being done to the LGBT community, and still more people choose to be allies through different mechanisms. Some of our friends have felt compelled by their Christian faith to learn more about LGBT issues and concerns to be agents for positive change. So many of our straight allies have worked to educate themselves when encountering LGBT people with unfamiliar stories. Yet at times, we feel that messages regarding what makes a person an ally are given with the assumption that all LGBT people have the same needs, views, and life experiences. From our perspective as a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, here are 9 things the two of us wish our straight allies knew.

1. We are individuals.
LGBT people are just as diverse as the rest of the population, so there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to being supportive of all of us. What one LGBT person might perceive as supportive, another may see differently. This is also true of LGBT Christians. For example, many LGBT Christians are grateful for allies who advocate for change in their denominations’ theologies of marriage. However, there are also LGBT Christians who are in complete agreement with the teachings of their respective Christian traditions on this matter. There are LGBT couples who desire that their relationships be recognized as marriages within their denominations, and there are LGBT couples who understand their relationships as something different from marriage. Because we are individuals, it is helpful to ask us what we would find most supportive instead of assuming that all of us have the same feelings, needs, opinions, and theological positions.

2. Our stories belong to us.
Regardless of sexual orientation, every person has a story. Stories are powerful and dynamic. They come in many varieties: childhood stories, coming of age stories, coming out stories, faith stories. They hold vital pieces of ourselves, so to share one’s story with another person is to become vulnerable, entrusting that person to safeguard a precious gift. Please remember, especially with stories related to our coming out processes and faith journeys, that these stories belong to us even if we’ve shared them with you once. Not every LGBT person is comfortable with his or her story being used for political purposes. If you’re going to share our stories with other people, cultivate real relationships with us where you can stay current on how our stories are developing over time.

3. We are glad to answer your questions.
We really mean that. Of course, the two of us can’t speak for every LGBT person, but at least from our perspective, questions are welcome. We would much rather answer questions about our way of life, our self-understandings, and our faith than be told what we should or shouldn’t be doing by people who haven’t walked a mile in our moccasins. We have many straight ally friends who are constantly posing new questions to us. Often, these questions challenge us to think more deeply, and to become better Christians. However we have also encountered many allies who seem to think they know everything that is best for LGBT people. They’ve done a lot of reading, talked to a lot of people, and formed their own conclusions. We would like to stress that we appreciate all the researching and communicating our allies do on a regular basis, but what you have read, heard, and seen from other people and sources does not give you the right to make blanket statements about what all LGBT people should do in a given situation.

4. We aren’t just LGBT. We are people, first and foremost.
Our self-understandings as lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, queer, etc. are very important to us. However, our identities also have many layers. We are sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, teachers, engineers, church members…but we are also people, and that is what matters most. We are not just your “gay friends” or “transgender friends.” We are human beings made in the image and likeness of God. While we are glad to talk with you about LGBT issues, our lives do not involve thinking constantly about our sexual orientations. Start conversations with us in the same way you would with other straight people you know. Ask us about our trip to the art museum last weekend, or our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, or the time we spent volunteering with the local wildlife rescue. There are far more interesting subjects to discuss with us than how we feel about the most recent case of a gay couple being denied a table at a restaurant. The more you talk with us, the more you’ll probably see that our lives aren’t very different from yours.

5. Gay marriage isn’t the only issue.
It seems almost anytime a straight person realizes that we are members of the LGBT community, that person’s conversation with us ultimately ends up at the topic of gay marriage. Sometimes, that person will self-identify as an ally and begin telling us how ardently he/she supports gay marriage and how deeply shameful and oppressive he/she thinks it is that gay relationships do not have legal recognition in every U.S. state. We’ve written on the issue of legal recognition before, so clearly we see it as an important topic worthy of serious discussion. But gay marriage is not the only issue of concern for LGBT people. We’re also concerned about the discrimination we can encounter in our places of work, the fact that our LGBT statuses could prevent us from being offered a lease on an apartment, and the reality that we could be refused services at a local business on the basis of our sexual orientations and gender identities. But much more significant than any of those issues are the experiences of LGBT people in countries with far fewer freedoms. There are countries, like Uganda, in which being gay can land a person in prison with a life sentence. There are also places in the world where gay people face the risk of being killed. In the grand scheme of things, we believe situations like these call for a much more urgent response, including constant prayer from the entire Body of Christ.

6. Celibacy and self-loathing are not synonyms.
Frequently, well-intentioned straight allies assume that if an LGBT person is celibate, he or she is trapped in a state of self-loathing. Secular allies can be quick to tell celibate LGBT people that we are allowing ourselves to be manipulated by religious dogma. Christian allies can be just as quick to offer the message, “Jesus loves you no matter what. I can support you in accepting that it’s okay to have sex.” Sometimes, allies make assumptions about the sexual activity statuses of LGBT couples; if a person is in a relationship, this must mean he or she is sexually active or intends to become so in the future. These kinds of attitudes and remarks can be exceptionally wounding, and just as hurtful as the common message we get from many conservative Christians: “You can’t be gay and a Christian.” When straight allies either state or imply that we are repressed because of our celibacy, the message we hear is, “You can’t be gay without having sex.” Asking more questions about our way of life is a much kinder, more compassionate approach.

7. Not all LGBT people want to be activists and educators.
It’s true that some LGBT people feel drawn to the roles of activist and educator. However, not all are so inclined just by virtue of our sexual orientations and gender identities, and we do not “owe it to the LGBT community” to fill those roles. Many of us want only to live our boring, daily lives in peace. Please do not assume that if there is a local protest regarding a marriage amendment that all your queer neighbors will be penciling that into their calendars. And please do not expect that we will want to make the national news if we experience discrimination in some aspect of our daily activities. When we share an experience of hurt or injustice with you, “Which news outlet should I call first?” is not the appropriate question to ask. Forcing us into the spotlight over said incident is not doing us or the broader LGBT community any favors. A better question to ask might be, “How did you feel when that happened?” or “What can I do to support you as you process this?”

8. Pronouns matter.
Many LGBT people can feel exhausted by having to play pronoun games. We sincerely appreciate friends who care enough to learn our patterns of pronoun use. For some of us, respecting pronoun preferences can be as simple as asking, “What are your preferred pronouns?” Yet for others, the pronoun questions are not so simple. Transgender and genderqueer people might relish in having a safe place where others use the right pronouns but could also fear being outed in public. Some genderqueer people prefer avoiding pronouns all together. Be willing to ask questions, practice using appropriate pronouns, and understand why certain people might feel like they have no choice but to try and play pronoun games.

9. We are grateful for your support.
We know many LGBT people who probably wouldn’t make it without support of straight allies. The two of us have been tremendously blessed by some of our straight friends who have committed to travel with us as we adventure through life. As we reflect on the people who have been most supportive and just generally wonderful friends, we can identify an incredible number of straight allies. Some of our straight allies were the first people to know our LGBT identities. Many of our straight allies have helped us feel safer and more welcome in various church communities. We have been so blessed by sharing our lives with some of you for 10 years or more. Thank you so much for seeing us not simply as your LGBT friends but as members of your family.

Whether you are an LGBT person or a straight ally, we’d love to hear from you in the comments. What do you wish straight allies knew?

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.

Choosing Celibacy: Why I’m Glad I Waited

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A reflection by Sarah

There’s a story that celibate gay people are supposed to tell with regard to how and why we became celibate. It’s little more than a variation on the ex-gay narrative that dominated the discussion about LGBT people in the Church until recent years. It goes something like: “I lived the gay lifestyle, was a slave to promiscuity, did a lot of drinking and drugging, and then years later, realized something was missing from my life: Jesus. I repented, began seeing a Christian counselor, and ultimately God helped me to stop having sex.” That’s not the story you’re about to read. That story, excepting the substance abuse bit (a topic I might address in the future), is not mine.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a certain type of popular article emerging on the Internet: different riffs on the theme, “Reasons I’m Glad I Married Young.” I have a number of friends who married immediately after high school graduation (some during high school) and many more who tied the knot during college or within a year of graduating. My younger sister met her future husband in college and married last June, just three weeks shy of her 23rd birthday. My parents were high school sweethearts and married two months after my father’s college graduation. I have no opposition to people embracing the vocation of marriage at early ages if they feel so inclined. I’m happy for my friends who have felt called to this pathway, and I wish them many joyous years of life with their spouses and children. But reading articles like this one and this one tends to evoke a consistent reaction in me: “I’m glad I waited until my late twenties to choose celibacy, and to begin a celibate partnership of the forever kind. I’m glad that I did not commit to this vocation at an earlier age.”

At this point, you might be perplexed. To many, celibacy seems like a default condition in life. It’s the temporary state that traditional Christianity teaches a person is supposed to maintain until marriage. It only becomes permanent once a person reaches his/her marriageable expiration date and becomes a bachelor or old maid, or less often, once a person embraces a call to religious life. Many view it as the state of life for those who are too young to have sex, those of age who are simply waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right, and those who don’t have a prayer of ever experiencing sexual activity in their lifetimes. And if you’re young, society tells you that you’re supposed to avoid the last category at all costs. If you’ve been reading any of our other posts, you’re probably well aware that Lindsey and I don’t see celibacy this way. We believe that celibacy is as much a commitment to a way of life as is marriage, and that in order to make such a commitment, either as a single or with a partner, one needs to be prepared.

I wasn’t born prepared for celibacy any more than my sister was born prepared for marriage. In fact, if someone had told me as a teenager that I would eventually end up living a celibate lifestyle, I would have thought that person was a few apples short of a bushel. Even by age 19 when I had begun to consider the possibility of a monastic vocation, celibacy was still more of a faraway possibility than a realistic pathway for working out my salvation. During my time as an undergraduate and, to a lesser extent, as a master’s degree student, I visited several monasteries and attended a number of retreats aimed at vocational discernment. There was something about the way nuns loved and gave selflessly to the world that captivated me. The witness of several sisters I had known personally spoke to my heart in a way nothing ever had before. But I never could conceive of myself actually becoming a nun.

In many ways, I desired what the sisters had, but every time I visited a community and started to head home afterward I thought, “This way of life isn’t for me. There’s something about it that just doesn’t fit.” I attempted to discuss this with friends, spiritual directors, and other people I trusted. Everyone seemed to have the same set of questions: “Is it the celibacy thing? The fact that nuns can’t have sex? You can’t see yourself living a life without sex, can you?” Though I knew all along that it wasn’t the “not having sex” part that was bothering me, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the problem was. The way the sisters cared for each other and the people they served, the spiritual life they shared in community, the generosity that was so apparent in every moment of every day at the monasteries…though I’d had a couple of less-than-pleasant monastery visits, in general I could think only of the positives. Still, it was all too easy to reach the premature conclusion that if I didn’t feel called to join a religious community, God wasn’t calling me to a celibate vocation after all.

In the midst of all my monastery adventures, I was also engaged in another type of exploration. Though I can now remember being attracted to other females from as early as age 8 or 9, the idea that I might be “one of those girls who likes other girls” hit me hard for the first time around age 17 when I was a senior in high school and was dating a boy. It took me a few years more to realize that “lesbian” was the most fitting term for describing my sexual orientation, and slowly I began dating other women. My first sexual experience with another woman came during my senior year of college. The relationship I had with this person was significant on many levels, and I’ll always value the ways in which our emotional intimacy helped me to learn about loving and being loved. Throughout most of my twenties, I pursued a number of romantic relationships, many of them having a sexual element. Some were more serious than others, and some included aspects that I am not proud of, but I can say with confidence that each of these women had something to teach me with regard to becoming more fully human and coming to understand Christ’s love with greater intensity. I struggled a great deal with the conflict between my positive experiences of love shared with other women and my perception of the celibacy mandate I heard constantly from clergy and lay members of the Church. While I am now grateful for the celibate vocation I eventually committed to cultivating in partnership with Lindsey, I am also thankful for many aspects of the intimate relationships I experienced before making this commitment. Those two feelings are not mutually exclusive.

All things considered, why am I glad that I waited to choose celibacy? The answer is simple: because when I did choose this way of life, I was ready to embrace it fully—its beauty, its mystery, and its challenges. Taking the time I needed to mature and prepare for this vocation was absolutely necessary–even though during the process, I wasn’t always aware of that for which I was preparing.

When Lindsey and I first decided to become partners, all the missing pieces from my active vocational discernment period began falling into place. The notion that celibacy might be the way God was calling me to live reemerged, and this time it made sense in a way it never had before. It no longer felt like a distant possibility or an order handed down from a tyrant. The very first hour we began to envision what life together might look like, I remembered wise words I had heard from a nun during a monastery visit eight years prior. I had asked Sister Elizabeth, “When did you know for sure that God was calling you to this vocation, and in this specific monastic community?” I’ve never forgotten her reply: “I knew when I visited the monastery and felt an unmistakable sense of joy.” From day one of my partnership with Lindsey, there has been no expression more fitting than “joy” for what we experience together—whether we are taking an exciting road trip, praying Compline, visiting our favorite cupcakery, wringing out laundry due to the washing machine’s malfunctioning mid-cycle, or arguing because of a misunderstanding. But even as powerfully as I feel that joy now, I am equally convinced that if I had attempted forcing myself into celibacy within the wrong context for me or at a time when I was not prepared, profound depression and emptiness would have been the most likely result.

I am glad I waited to choose celibacy because I believe it is a gift—or at least it can be. Waiting allowed me the opportunity to listen as God gradually, in His own time, invited me to discover it and begin unwrapping the layers. Waiting also gave me several years to reflect and reach the conclusion that celibacy is not simply the default state for the unmarried—that it is a way of life one must actively choose, and defining it as “the absence of sex” limits the meaning of all celibate vocations. All too often, Christians encourage celibate LGBT people to forget the experiences of their non-celibate pasts, viewing these as times of sin to be regretted and pushed aside. I believe this approach is unhealthy and detrimental to the development of a mature spirituality. Because I waited to choose celibacy, I am able to look fondly upon all previous stages of my emotional, spiritual, and sexual development and know that each period of my life thus far has brought with it new wisdom, insight, and lessons taught by others far wiser than me.

The decision to embrace any vocation is just that—a decision, and one that requires careful thought and formation within the context of a supportive community. Sometimes, I wonder what might happen if the Church were to take as much responsibility for guiding and directing those God calls to celibacy as it does for those God calls to marriage. But perhaps that’s a question for another time.

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When Legal Recognition MATTERS

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One evening not too many weeks ago, Sarah was having trouble breathing. Typically, one puff from the inhaler and all is well. But that night was different. Sarah couldn’t hold coherent conversation, was having trouble lying down, and labored with every breath. Lindsey tried to assess the situation. After watching Sarah’s symptoms develop and worsen over the course of the evening, Lindsey made the call to drive Sarah to the nearby Emergency Room.

It is times like these when legal recognition matters.

As a couple dealing with chronic health conditions, we are no strangers to navigating various healthcare webs. Health can play up just about anywhere or anytime. Because Sarah has severe asthma and other health problems, we tend towards choosing to see a doctor when we deem it necessary. In dealing with healthcare professionals, we have had significantly more positive experiences when seeing a provider who can recognize our relationship than when seeing one who cannot and will not.

We were in the middle of an impromptu day trip somewhere in the State of Virginia. On the side of the road, we saw an old train station that had been turned into a museum. Intrigued, we decided to stop and visit. It was a combined railway station and post office from 1910. In this building, a placard over one door reads, “White” while a placard over the other door reads, “Colored.”

It is in places like this where labels matter.

Now, before we take this post too much farther, let us say directly that we do not think it is appropriate to compare the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s with current movements to expand legal rights of LGBT people as though the two are exactly the same. There are many important points of difference, and the few points of similarity that do exist are not our reason for sharing these two stories in the same post. We began with these stories because they are experiences we have shared as a couple. Being in the two different environments–the emergency room and the train station–evoked various reflections that influence how we see questions of legal recognition for LGBT people.

As members of a sacramental Christian tradition, we have no intention of advocating for our church to recognize our relationship as a sacramental marriage. We have no problem with being known simply as “Lindsey and Sarah,” and we enjoy participating in the life of our parish together. A sacramental marriage in our tradition crowns two people as martyrs to one another, laying down their lives for each other in an act of sacrificial love. A sacramental marriage is not about legal name changes, the ability to file taxes together, qualifying for health insurance, gaining access to medical records, coordinating treatment across diverse providers, combining incomes when trying to qualify for a mortgage, and managing end-of-life care. Those functions get housed in the civil (legal) sphere.

Lindsey is often bemused when thinking about how monasteries secure various legal rights that enable them to care for members of their communities. Could you just imagine the scene of an atheist father and a newly-Buddhist mother barging into a Catholic monastery to demand that they alone have the right to plan the funeral of their son who has recently fallen asleep in the Lord? Chaos and madness would ensue. Could you imagine an Orthodox nun tasked to take a very ill member of the community to the hospital only to drop the patient off at registration and have no access to any information about her during her stay? It does not happen that way. Somehow, some way, laws exist in most places to protect the fidelity of the monastic vows and the relationship of each individual sister or brother to the community. …and if those laws do not exist, many Christians rightly call forth “Persecution!”

Society has a lot of automatic systems that just seem to “kick in.” There is a lot of support when parents are trying to make sure that a new baby is appropriately recognized as a member of their family, when monasteries tonsure new members, and when two individuals get married. Along the way, additional benefits accrue–often, without the recipients of the benefits even being aware. A call to one critical agency can set a Rube-Goldberg-type legal machine into action. It’s unlikely that anyone (except maybe some attorneys and the IRS) actually knows the full process by which a newly married couple formally receives all of the 1,000+ legal rights and responsibilities associated with that status.

Many people will argue that marriage or a similar type of legal recognition for same-sex relationships is unnecessary because a same-sex couple can use alternate contractual structures such as securing a Power of Attorney. Both of us know different LGBT couples who have tried to navigate the complex gamut of legal procedures required to use these alternate contractual structures. Several attorneys and multiple thousands of dollars later, they have a piecemeal collection of documents that they hope will safeguard their relationship when legal recognition matters most.

The problem of securing legal protection to care for and provide for loved ones is not unique to LGBT couples. Oftentimes, singles and heterosexual couples who have not yet married face similar problems. One of Sarah’s friends once shared a story in which he was denied bereavement leave from work when his fiance’s mother reposed. His workplace cited that they could not grant him bereavement leave because he was not yet married and had no familial relationship to the reposed. It did not matter that months later, the reposed would have been his mother-in-law. If this event had occurred when he was married, his workplace would have taken him at his word that he needed leave time for his mother-in-law’s funeral. In America, people who are related through blood, adoption, or marriage have a privilege that people who are related by choice do not. (Common law marriages try to bridge the gap in at least some of these instances when a man and a woman share a house for a number of years.)

When we think about it, we see that many Americans do not have the security of knowing the people they choose to share life with will be legally authorized to be there when their presence matters most. The only exception to this is if the people with whom one chooses to do life happen to be one’s family of origin, one’s (opposite-sex) spouse, or one’s monastic family. Any other relationship is relegated to a second-class status. In a way, it is like those signs that hung over the train station doors. It is discrimination based on one human being’s label for his or her relationship to other human beings: family of origin and family by marriage have access to the full range of rights and privileges, and family of choice often gets stuck with the leftovers. More than a few times, Lindsey has had no choice but to remain silently in waiting rooms with no updates when Sarah has been seriously ill or undergoing a medical procedure. Doctors have actively denied Lindsey the ability to see Sarah in a surgical recovery room and access to any sort of aftercare instructions. Once, when Sarah told a physician, “My partner, Lindsey, is here to take me home afterward,” the physician said, “That doesn’t matter. I asked if you were married and have a spouse here.” That same physician later requested contact information for Sarah’s parents even though Lindsey was less than 15 feet away. Because of various legal mechanisms, lack of a legal title negates any level of relationship that two people have to one another.

Given this reality, we ask: what option does an LGBT couple who do not regard their relationship as a sacramental/religious marriage have for ensuring that they are legally protected? Many Christian denominations have promoted the idea that allowing LGBT people to marry legally will have a detrimental effect on how that particular denomination can articulate an understanding of marriage. Therefore, these denominations assert the importance of limiting the legal definition of marriage to one man and one woman. But for all the concern about protecting the institution of marriage and ensuring that there will be no misunderstanding regarding their doctrines on the religious nature of marriage, there is little to no empathy for the lived experiences of so many LGBT couples when one partner has been denied the basic privilege of caring for the other in times of emergency.

For this reason, we tend to believe that all Christian denominations have a responsibility to define marriage theologically in whatever way they deem appropriate while also working to protect LGBT people from undue discrimination in various social contexts. We do not claim to know the best solution for accomplishing this particular work of justice. But, we find these questions critical, and we are grateful that currently, we live in a place where we have some legal options to ensure that we can care for one another. Not every LGBT couple is so fortunate.

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.