Category Archives: Sexual Ethics

Beyond Right and Wrong

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The question of LGBT people in the Church is often framed as a “culture war” issue with two definitive sides. On one side, “progressive” groups advocate for greater acceptance of gay marriage and allowing for sexually active LGBT people to serve at all levels of Church leadership. On the other side, “conservative” groups exhort LGBT people to grow in holiness by resisting all manner of sexual sin, bearing their sexual orientations (and gender dysphoria) as a cross, and struggling to conform to normative expectations of the cisgender, heterosexual majority. Both sides are quick to pronounce their side “right” and the other side “wrong.” Needless to say, we find that the “culture war” approach does little more than wound a lot of LGBT Christians (and their allies) in the crossfire.

Here at A Queer Calling, we have tried to advocate for a different approach that moves beyond right and wrong. We focus on how LGBT people likely have queer callings that need to be actively discerned in the light of Christ. For us, the dominant question is “Where do we see good fruit sprouting as God guides and directs individual LGBT Christians?” We recognize that LGBT people are people above all other descriptors. We believe that God, who is rich in mercy, always wants all people to grow in holiness but does not ask people to address each and every issue in their lives at the same time.

The culture wars have a profoundly negative effect when they dichotomize spiritual direction. Mention your LGB status to a person strongly aligned with the “progressive” camp and he or she just may offer to officiate your wedding. Oh, you’re transgender? No problem, let’s connect you with the nearest trans-friendly physician to help you get started with gender confirmation therapies. Breathe a word about your LGBT status amid “conservative” groups and you’ll likely be issued a celibacy mandate and be cautioned against identifying with your sin. We’d contend that none of these automatic responses adequately conveys the nuances found in authentic spiritual direction where spiritual directors help individuals grow towards Christ in ways that are appropriate for particular people’s unique circumstances.

When time in spiritual direction becomes engulfed by questions of rightness and wrongness, little room is left for discussing, “What is God asking of me at this time in my life? At the present moment, what is God calling me to do or change so that I might draw closer to Him?” This can create a false sense that gay people need the strictest of guidance regarding sexual morality and straight people do not. In reality, virtually every Christian will grapple with questions of sexuality at one time or another. For bisexual Christians, this approach can oversimplify experiencing attraction to both sexes: “Just marry someone of the opposite sex, because heterosexual, married sex is right and gay sex is wrong.” Concerns related to sexual orientation may be conflated with uncertainty about gender identity, and vice versa. Focusing solely on which sexual activities are right and wrong can be painfully alienating to Christians with gender identity questions. Especially in conservative Christian circles, any kind of gender identity question can be viewed as a cause of forbidden same-sex sexual desire. Beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of gay sex do little to help, guide, or comfort a person who is coping with gender dysphoria.

Regularly, we have experienced pressure to make a public declaration either that “Gay sex is a sin” or that “Gay sex is not a sin.” It has been suggested more than once by readers that because we have chosen not to make such a statement, we are, at best, unable to make up our minds about our convictions, or at worst, secretive about them for some sinister purpose. Such theories about our motives leave us wondering why reaching a theologically correct belief about the rightness or wrongness of same-sex sexual activity has become the endpoint for discussion about LGBT issues in many Christian traditions. Often in Christian communities, one’s willingness to offer an apologetic for either a liberal or conservative sexual ethic becomes the litmus test for one’s faithfulness. We find that exceptionally problematic, so we ask: what might it look like to move beyond right and wrong, and into a space where the central concern is helping our brothers and sisters to grow in Christ-likeness? How might the discussion be different if we focused on vocations rather than mandates?

At times, we have caught a glimpse of what this kind of approach might look like. We have been blessed by spiritual directors who can see and affirm our willingness to do our best to live our entire lives fully informed by Christ and our Christian tradition. They understand that we are human and entirely fallible, and when we fall in any way they are ready to give us wise counsel that takes into account our desire to live as Christ calls us. Their recognizing that Christ-likeness is a goal for all Christians has leveled the proverbial playing field and helped us see that every person who seeks Christ needs help along the journey. We find ourselves growing in compassion towards people who would otherwise easily anger, frustrate, or disappoint us. Our spiritual directors have been able to see how Christ has used our relationship to help one another grow in holiness and trust that our primary spiritual struggles are not sexual. Both of us have had spiritual directors in the past who have constantly exhorted us to focus our entire spiritual energies on reigning in our sexual appetites, a focus that is not only inappropriate for our specific circumstances but is significantly alienating. Keeping Christ at the absolute center of spiritual direction creates a space for the Holy Spirit to exhort us to holy living while also giving us time to grow towards Christ. As one prayer from our tradition reminds us, we pray for the grace to “make a good beginning” because our earthly days barely make a dent when viewed against eternity.

We find it critical to speak about the need to offer all LGBT Christians authentic spiritual direction because the vast majority of LGBT Christians have exceptionally limited access to compassionate spiritual directors. While we are absolutely grateful to be able to receive authentic spiritual direction at this time, we are all too aware that our present situation is completely contingent on our current mash-up of local church community, spiritual directors, geography, and even the political climate within our Christian tradition. As evidenced by Maria McDowell’s reflection entitled “Fragile Repentances,” many LGBT Christians find themselves dependent on pastoral whim and on a few friends willing to vouch for their faithfulness. Our vocation to celibacy does not render us immune to the effects of poor spiritual direction. Many past spiritual directors have discounted our experience by stating singleness is the only appropriate form of celibacy for LGBT Christians. From our perspective, several other demographics (teenagers, divorced, widows, single, married) present in the Church do not have to worry as much as being judged by their spiritual directors as “good” or “bad” based on their behavioral track records.

One main function of a spiritual director is to be present as a human who can prayerfully carry the burdens of another person to God. We pray constantly that spiritual directors would realize the profoundly damaging effect that constant clangs of “RIGHT” and “WRONG” can have on a person. Beyond right and wrong, we find ourselves in a place where we can appreciate one another’s humanity, where all vocations are fragile, and where everyone must be nurtured with love.

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Expectations of Perfection

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As LGBT Christians in our late 20s and early 30s, we’ve seen many differences in the way people are urged to develop healthy senses of sexuality. Throughout our own journeys in uniting faith and sexuality, we’ve observed time and time again the way many Christian traditions assert that if an LGBT person is sincerely a Christian, then he or she simply will not make any mistakes in the area of sexual morality. This line of thought might come from a belief that it’s adequate to tell a faithful, LGBT Christian to avoid every appearance of evil and give no further counsel.

Why might cisgender, heterosexual Christians expect LGBT Christians to be perfect? Perhaps these expectations come from cisgender, heterosexual Christians trying to get their heads around the idea that “Yes, it is possible to be a gay Christian.” People willing to extend a gay person the benefit of the doubt at times draw what seems to be a razor-thin line that differentiates the “good” gays from the “bad” gays. “Good” gays don’t have sex. When some conservative Christians draw these lines, anything less than perfect abstinence falls short and is understood as evidence that the Holy Spirit is not at work in the life of that gay “Christian.” Here, we see indications of a bit of neo-Pelagianism creeping into the forefront: a faithful gay Christian should be able to provide ample evidence of faithfulness because that person is capable of reigning in his/her sexual energies.

An unhealthy obsession with perfection enters because the LGBT person trying to live a faithful life in the Church zooms in on doing whatever it takes to prevent sexual sin, no matter how extreme. This kind of expectation puts insurmountable pressures on LGBT Christians and leads many of them down the road of questioning their commitment to Christ, their suitability to be in a church community, and their right to continue to draw air. LGBT Christians live on a spiritual fault line where one action has the potential to separate them from the Church. The expectation of perfection creates indescribable fear where they can become terrified to talk with their spiritual mentors, dreading interactions as one would dread a terrorist attack. LGBT Christians can develop practices of rehearsing their parts of the conversation when approaching spiritual direction, if they go at all.

To cope with this pressure, LGBT Christians can acquire a lexicon of various code-switching phrases to try to discuss sexuality safely… but may consistently feel under attack when a member of the clergy decides to read more into that choice of words than the person intended. For example, if the LGBT Christian is talking about concerns involving a close friend, some spiritual directors might assume the person has a sexually active relationship without ever asking if this is the case. Additionally, we’ve noticed that many spiritual directors are more comfortable with particular lexicons. These spiritual directors might encourage people to say they “experience same-sex attraction” rather than saying that they are “gay” or “lesbian,” sometimes going so far as to tell them, “Identifying as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ is denouncing your identity in Christ!”

Expectations of perfection may also emerge because many providers of pastoral care tend to view sexual sin as a type of sin that is around forever and must always be carefully contained. Some of this attitude may stem from how Christian traditions emphasize purity and virginity, especially when encouraging youth to wait until marriage before having sex. Any sexual sin in an LGBT person’s life can lead to extreme consequences within his/her faith community. Once as a young college student, Sarah sought counsel from a priest about how to develop a healthy relationship with a woman after they had experimented with some above-the-waist touching. The priest provided a stern directive that Sarah should never speak to this woman ever again and avoid her in every situation possible because Sarah’s salvation was at risk. Within the same week, one of Sarah’s heterosexual male friends sought advice from the same priest after engaging in sexual intercourse with his girlfriend. Sarah’s friend later told Sarah that the priest’s counsel was simply, “Obey the Church’s teaching that sex is reserved for marriage, and avoid situations like this one with your girlfriend in the future.” When LGBT people have spiritual directors bellowing over them that failure to be perfect endangers their salvation, it should come as no surprise that LGBT Christians can become so focused on trying to be perfect that they begin to hate themselves for being human.

Cisgender, heterosexual people can (and should!) encounter a lot of grace in navigating questions around sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression. Most LGBT Christians are not so fortunate. Part of adolescence involves exploring, finding yourself, and figuring out how to get up when you fall down. No one expects a teenager to have instant control over the hormones raging through his or her body, and everyone can acknowledge the need for gracious support as young adults work to discover themselves in Christ. There’s a certain collection of behaviors that we tend to associate with people at different stages in sexual development. It’s good to match our words of advice with a healthy understanding of a particular person’s likely stage in sexual development. LGBT people need to be afforded the same courtesy as cisgender, heterosexual people. To expect LGBT Christians to prove their faithfulness over and over and over (and over….) again by remaining without sexual sin is to tie up heavy burdens on people without any willingness to lift a finger to help them manage the load.

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My Failed Celibate Relationship

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A reflection by Lindsey

I’ve had a lot of different opportunities to learn about my vocation to celibacy. My partnership with Sarah provides a fantastic place to discern how God is calling me to live a celibate life. Additionally, I spent time cultivating celibacy as a single person. But the first place I explored living a celibate life was in a romantic relationship.

When I was first beginning my journey of reconciling my faith and sexuality, I found myself inexplicably drawn to a person I shall call Carey. Carey was several years older than me but lived a life richly connected to Christ in a local faith community. Carey’s pastor was supportive and accepting, encouraging Carey to pursue life in Christ. Despite our age gap, we seemed to be in similar life stages and exploring closely related callings. We could talk easily, and we grew closer and closer. It wasn’t long before I found myself desiring a relationship with Carey.

But there was a problem… or so I thought. Carey was earnestly and stridently convicted that gay sex is a sin and could not be approved under any circumstances. How in the world could a relationship work out? My own views on how to reconcile one’s faith with one’s LGBT status were in flux, and I didn’t want to be trespassing on Carey’s ethical conscience. We had several conversations about the perceived tension and came to the conclusion that it was possible to pursue a relationship that didn’t involve sex. Through a series of unlikely events, I ended up flying to visit Carey a few weeks later. We hit it off with a good deal of instant chemistry.

Carey and I started a strong relationship forged on mutual respect and shared commitment to Christ. We explored different ways to share a prayer life that worked even when we were separated by many states. Our common faith tradition anchored our time spent together. Carey had a bit more experience within our tradition and taught me quite a lot about how to live a way of life aligned with particular aspects of our tradition. We tried to pray early and often, ever growing towards a more complete prayer life in our tradition.

Our discussions about celibacy involved a lot of boundary work. We thought about the counsel given to unmarried heterosexual couples and tried to implement that in our lives. We also talked a lot about what dating heterosexual couples did with each other that did not count as sex. I found myself constantly right up against the boundaries. But I wasn’t driven to the boundaries because I wanted more; I was driven to the boundaries because they defined our limits about what we were willing to share together.

However, from my perspective, our boundary work related to defining sex seemed to bubble over into boundary work in other areas. Every bit of additional boundary work seemed to pull us apart rather than bring us closer together. Night prayer became attached to going to bed, specifically to Carey’s bedtime, a boundary that didn’t work very well with us living on different schedules in different time zones. We started praying separately. Our own tradition became an exclusive marker of faithfully living a Christian life. It became very easy to devote large chunks of conversation to being critical of people in other Christian traditions. We experienced even more conflicts when we talked about politics, especially as we started reading authors referenced by politicians from the other side of the aisle. Fighting politically is never fun. Towards the very end of our relationship together, our boundary work also expanded to only being friends with other LGBT couples in which both parties earnestly believed gay sex is a sin. For my part, I struggled mightily with this idea because I couldn’t see how boundaries in our relationship manifested any differently from those of dating LGBT couples who earnestly believed in trying to save sex until marriage.

I’m not sharing the unraveling of my relationship to point fingers at Carey, or to point fingers at me. I think both Carey and I found ourselves in over our heads because we had never stopped to think about what it might look like to cultivate a celibate vocation together. We had a pretty good handle on what abstinence entailed. Yet, over a year after we broke off our relationship, I had experienced a great deal of conviction that my relationship with Carey did not serve me in cultivating a celibate vocation. We never broke our rules about physical boundaries set to make sure we remained abstinent, but I felt slightly betrayed by my body and its capacity for surprising sexual connection.

I also felt misled by my Christian tradition. Early on in our relationship, Carey found a small book that detailed some of the authoritative teaching discussing LGBT people and their relationships. The practical counsel of the book boiled down to a belief that as LGBT people grew in their capacity to love one another, they would then make the God-honoring choice to refrain from homogenital acts. In the aftermath of my failed relationship, I found myself rather angry. How could the wisdom of my Christian tradition give me but two commands? There was the lofty call to “grow in love” and then the very specific directive to “avoid homogential acts.” I felt that in my relationship with Carey, eventually we tipped the balance towards the latter rather than the former.

Since failing in my first celibate relationship, I’ve become ever more convinced of the need to define celibacy in the positive. I have tried to live my life by the axiom, “Human beings have meaningful relationships with other human beings,” trusting God to show me places of rich connection. I began visiting different vowed celibate people to learn a bit more about how they lived their lives. I learned how to take myself out on dates, exploring different ways to appreciate myself as a beloved child of God as opposed to thinking that every significant friendship would eventually blossom romantically. I’ve become a big advocate of the idea that it’s worth spending time discerning what the vocation of celibacy might look like in a particular individual’s life before encouraging that person to jump into a celibate relationship. I’ve known other people who have experienced failed celibate relationships, and it’s almost uncanny how my friends’ relationships have mirrored the relationship I shared with Carey. I do not wish a failed celibate relationship on anyone, so I speak out about the need to be mindful when cultivating a celibate 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.

Avoid every appearance of evil?

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When it comes to the relational life of a celibate, LGBT Christian, many spiritual directors are quick to challenge a person to avoid every appearance of evil. It can be all too easy for a celibate, LGBT person to be perceived in such a way that suggests that person is living a life far removed from a traditional sexual ethic. We’ve observed that the exhortation to “avoid every appearance of evil” is often applied to cisgender, heterosexual people differently than to LGBT people.

We are not trying to suggest that this counsel is only given to LGBT Christians. Cisgender, heterosexual people are frequently exhorted to avoid every appearance of evil… or more specifically, the appearance of sexual immorality. Men and women are encouraged not to spend time together behind closed doors. Married people are cautioned against having exceedingly close “best friends” of the same gender as their spouses. In churches that practice prayer ministry, men often pair with men and women often pair with women because of perceived emotional connection and comfort. Male pastors are exhorted to avoid giving female members of their congregations rides home at odd hours. Youth workers and teachers receive counsel that an adult should never be alone with a child.

When the exhortation is given, it’s frequently used to help pastors and other adults working in the church avoid accusations of sexual immorality. Indeed, we consider it wise to hold pastors to a higher standard than the rest of their congregations in matters concerning sexual ethics. A sexual scandal is a surefire way to shut down a local church and discourage its members from ever participating in a church community again. Similarly, “avoid every appearance of evil” can be provided as sound advice when unmarried heterosexual couples are trying to navigate important boundaries. Thinking about perceived impropriety can help some people consider what their boundaries should be. The exhortation is writ large where an unmarried dating couple can ask themselves questions about whether their own conduct is likely to create potential for accusations and to conduct themselves appropriately. For example, it might look completely scandalous to drive one’s significant other home at 4 o’clock in the morning, so the couple might decide that they would like to end their time together by midnight instead. There’s flexibility for the unmarried, heterosexual couple to figure out how to negotiate those boundaries. However, when the exhortation is applied to LGBT people, it seems to suggest that every relationship the LGBT person has carries with it the risk of misconduct accusations capable of bringing scandal upon or even shutting down the local church.

When it comes to a spiritual director in a Christian tradition with a conservative sexual ethic advising an LGBT person interested in living into the fullness of that tradition’s teaching, we think “avoiding every appearance of evil” often enters into the conversation because many spiritual directors may associate particular behaviors with being LGBT. An LGBT Christian ought to avoid any hint of immoral behavior. For churches that are inclined to present LGBT Christians with a celibacy mandate, many other situations might be regarded as little more than a “near occasion of sin.” Sometimes it seems the mere mention of one’s LGBT status can trigger up the absolute worst associations for spiritual directors.

There is a point at which a spiritual director’s discomfort with the broader LGBT community can trigger certain auto-tapes. If you yourself are a spiritual director who defaults towards using specific scripts around LGBT Christians, we’d encourage you to read a bit more about why these scripts are not helpful. We think that “avoid every appearance of evil” comes into spiritual direction with LGBT people because it’s a convenient bumper-sticker kind of answer that does not offer a positive vision for how LGBT people can live. When LGBT Christians start asking questions about how to apply that counsel to their lives, they might get answers like 1) Avoid cultivating friendships with people of your same sex, 2) If you need help paying for housing expenses, always have at least two roommates, 3) Do not find yourself alone with a person of the same sex or of the opposite sex, and 4) Only develop a close relationship with a person of the opposite sex if you regard that person as a potential spouse. This sort of “practical” advice can easily be interpreted as “Don’t develop close relationships with anyone. It’s best for you if you figure out a life-sustaining way to be a hermit.” In the end, it’s not so practical at all, and it can lead to feelings of isolation and a sense that the Church has no empathy for the life situations faced by LGBT Christians.

Now what about us? We’re a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple who has lived together for quite a while now. Do we look like we’re up to no good? Maybe. But making that sort of assertion means zooming in on our relationship to think about what we’re doing behind closed doors. You might say that you wouldn’t ever find it appropriate for heterosexual people of opposite sexes to live together before marriage. But let’s think about that for a second: as a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple we are not interested in cultivating a vocation to marriage. We are very interested in cultivating a vocation to celibacy. So a more appropriate line of questions might begin with, “Do our lives show evidence that we are committed to a vocation of celibacy?” For this reason, we make earnest recommendations that Christians investigate what their traditions teach about celibacy in order to help spiritual directors recognize if and how a person is cultivating a celibate vocation. As we’ve mentioned time and time again, we do not think it’s appropriate to define celibacy merely as the absence of sexual relations, and instead we see celibacy as life marked by radical hospitality, vulnerability, shared spiritual life, and commitment.

(Concerning the scriptural verse often used as the basis for this exhortation, Sarah thinks it worth mentioning that the Greek word often translated as appearance in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 might be more appropriately rendered as form. If you’re a Greek geek, check out for yourself what others have written on that topic here, here, and here.)

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.

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.