Tag Archives: sexual ethics

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.

The Celibacy Mandate

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In our post addressing 7 Misconceptions about Celibacy, we highlighted the misconception that celibate people are only celibate because of oppressive, conservative religion. Unfortunately, the idea that Christianity in particular tries to suppress the sexuality of LGBT people has significant evidence in its favor.

Last week on Twitter, we saw a friend offer this tweet:

We know better than to consider this kind of biting comment an isolated instance. In too many Christian communities, insults directed at LGBT people are accepted as a part of Christian discourse. Many LGBT people feel as though they need to try and mimic the normative experience of heterosexual people before even setting foot in a church near them. Some “Christian” advocates will attend Gay Pride events to suggest that “God has a better way” where LGBT people can become straight or celibate. Many LGBT people (rightly) perceive that some conservative churches “reach out” to the LGBT community in order to encourage LGBT individuals to excise their sexualities.

Straight Christians will frequently quote Bible verses (and official Church documents, if applicable) that explicitly condemn homosexual acts. This kind of approach draws a line that an LGBT person can never pass over if that LGBT person wants to remain “acceptable” to the Church, and to God. In these contexts, celibacy can be experienced as an unfunded mandate where the LGBT person is left to his or her own devices to figure out how to live a celibate way of life. These contexts rarely provide a person with a positive definition of celibacy.

To say it very succinctly, we hate this kind of celibacy mandate.

To put a bit more flesh on our objection, we believe this kind of celibacy mandate prevents the Church from developing a framework for a life-giving, generous approach to celibacy outside of religious life. This celibacy mandate excuses the Church from all responsibility to help LGBT people integrate their sexualities within a broader, embodied sense of self. After all, the counsel for managing one’s sexuality boils down to, “Don’t have sex.” You can fit “Don’t have sex” 8 times within 1 tweet on Twitter. It is far too simplistic a message to be the sum total of all advice the Church has to offer an individual seeking life in Christ.

Another thing we have observed is that often, Christian communities telling LGBT people that they must be celibate have very underdeveloped views of both celibacy and marriage. In many of these communities, the vast majority of the congregation is happily heterosexually married with children. If statistics are to be believed, several of these families might be comprised of people who have remarried after securing a divorce. We would call these churches “American Dream” churches. In an “American Dream” church, marriage is frequently treated as a rite of passage: Boy meets Girl. Girl and Boy fall in love. Boy proposes to Girl. Girl (and Boy) plan wedding. Boy and Girl get married in some venue using a self-designed service presided over by a clergy person of their choice. Girl and Boy live happily ever after. When something important like your wedding is a necessary adult rite of passage, then it seems heartless and even cruel to deny anyone access to this kind of event.

We would rather be a part of a Church that encourages every person to find abundant life in Christ. We are grateful to be a part of a Christian tradition that has a rather clear theological vision for marriage. In our Christian tradition, it does not make a lot of sense to view marriage as a necessary rite of passage. At every parish we have attended, we see people of all ages actively trying to discern their vocation. We are blessed to know other people who think that God is not calling them to work out their salvation within the vocation of marriage.

It’s worth mentioning that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches are frequently portrayed as issuing the celibacy mandate to all LGBT people. However, we think that the popular perception of these liturgical traditions overlooks a lot of how they present a theological vision of marriage and celibacy. We do agree that the liturgical churches could do a better job of presenting a more holistic view of their teachings on marriage and celibacy. And honestly, we wouldn’t be surprised if LGBT Christians in some Catholic and Orthodox parishes experience a sense of an unfunded celibacy mandate within their local communities. We challenge those parishes to do better.

Consider the following scenario. You are a straight person. You have grown up all of your life with messages that in order to find yourself fully in Christ, you must get married. Failure to marry is evidence that you lack faith, are completely undesirable, and have no gifts to offer your community. You try to comply with the expectations, entering into various dating relationships, but nothing seems to work. Eventually, you reach an age at which your church offers various mixers so adults above a certain age can meet and greet. Pressure from your family mounts. Finally, they have no choice but inform you that you will be entering an arranged marriage in 3 months or face shunning from your faith community.

We know that scenario sounds nuts. It was supposed to sound nuts. But that’s how we imagine churches might behave if they issued a marriage mandate. Minus the bit about entering into an arranged marriage, we know several middle-aged Christians who are single who have felt a ton of pressure from their faith communities to get married. However, instead of presenting marriage as a mandate, many Christian communities spend time talking about what a marriage might look like, how God can bless people through marriage, and what the Church can do and is doing to support families. Christian churches are constantly describing marriage as a possibility for people in their congregation. The ideal of marriage is almost never presented as a mandate, a demand from a holy God, or an oppressive burden.

We think that many LGBT people encountering the Celibacy Mandate live that nightmare scenario as it relates to being celibate. What is most tragic, in our opinion, is that many Christian communities who believe that celibacy is the best vocational choice for LGBT people tend to avoid talking about celibacy as a possibility that can be absolutely life-giving.

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.

Good Luck Charlie, Susan and Cheryl, …and Sarah and Lindsey

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Last Sunday night, the Disney Channel made news by including a same-sex couple in an episode of Good Luck Charlie. By Wednesday morning, various organizations such as One Million Moms had succeeded in broadcasting this 1-minute clip across diverse news outlets. More pointedly, by Wednesday morning, the news had hit our Facebook feeds where knee-jerk reactions and commentary reigned supreme. Some of our LGBT friends were celebrating Disney’s inclusiveness, and a good many more of our conservative Christian friends expressed outrage over Disney’s broadcasting “the homosexual lifestyle” into their living rooms.

Because we both value intellectual integrity, our first course of action was to see what Disney actually broadcasted. The 58-second clip shows a dialogue in which Taylor comes over to Charlie’s house for a play date. Our conservative Christian friends were particularly aghast because Taylor has two moms. If, on the off chance you haven’t already seen the clip, we’d encourage you to watch it for yourself:

After watching the clip, Lindsey was especially bemused that conservative Christians were more concerned about the morality of Taylor having two mommies than about the way Amy (Charlie’s mom) seems to belittle and dismiss Bob (Charlie’s dad) at every opportunity. Somehow, it’s perfectly acceptable to Christians that Disney places a laugh reel right after Amy goes after Bob by saying, “Are you sure that I’m right and you’re wrong? Always.” Sarah noted that this clip is nothing more than two parents bringing their child to a play date. The show does not use the words gay, lesbian, or sex. Bob resolves his confusion over Taylor’s mom’s name by simply remarking, “Oh! Taylor has two moms.” There are no public displays of affection of any kind, between any characters in the clip.

But, there’s a world of difference between what actually aired on Disney and how conservative Christians have reacted to the event. Yesterday, Sarah’s friends took to filling Sarah’s Facebook inbox with messages after Sarah commented about the event. Sarah received messages like the following: (1) “I love you, but I don’t agree with your lifestyle choice. I just don’t want my daughter exposed to that lifestyle.”; (2) “I have no problem with you gay people, but you shouldn’t get to take over everything even television. It’s not fair to innocent children.”; (3) “I’ve always liked and respected you, Sarah, but putting a gay couple on children’s television is just a ploy to indoctrinate them with liberalism and gay marriage.”; (4) “I don’t agree with homosexuality, period. The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. Live your life the way you choose, but don’t put it on my kid’s TV show.”; and (5) “Please don’t take this personally. It’s not about about you. I just want my kids to grow up normal, you know? You and Lindsey are celibate. Why should this bother you?”

Why did we take the time to type out some of these messages? We’re not interested in ratting out Sarah’s friends or gaining sympathy for ourselves. We started this blog with the intention of sharing our story, and the things we post here are things that have actually happened. Sure, yesterday’s comments were fueled by reactions to a lesbian couple on a children’s television show. But, comments in the past (and if trends hold, comments in the future) can be triggered by something as simple as walking through a doorway together into a person’s church, family reunion, or living room.

We have an odd sort of situation. If people just meet Sarah, it is very rare that their gaydars ping. The second people see the two of us together, unfortunately it’s all too clear that we are members of the LGBT community. Lindsey has never had an especially strong gender-conforming appearance and, as such, negotiates a good deal of behind-the-back gossip. When we walk into our home parish together and stand together in the front row, we know other parishioners are aware that an LGBT couple stands in their midst.

There’s another odd dynamic at play. To use a Bostonian saying, we’re both wicked smaht. Sarah regularly gets asked to help our friends’ kids and teenagers conjugate Latin verbs, finalize essays, and solve assorted math problems. Lindsey is frequently pinged if a kid ever needs help with math or science homework. And there’s the occasional situation in which Sarah pings Lindsey because Sarah has been assisting with a math homework set that has turned to physics. In these situations, to use an expression of ours, no one gives two figs about our sexual orientations, our gender identities, our relationship status, or our tendency to tag-team when helping kids with diverse problems. To the parents and their children, we become an available combined brain that’s more reliable than Wikipedia and more conversant than Google…. at least when it comes to high schoolers and their homework.

The different dynamics at play remind Lindsey of past experiences in some Christian communities. As soon as Lindsey disclosed anything related to LGBT status, Lindsey was no longer welcome in lay ministry but could warm a pew and could tithe. If you have ever been in that situation personally, we’d venture a guess that you bristled. That reaction is totally normal and totally okay. If you’re a reader who doesn’t understand why that kind of statement might make people bristle, here’s the deal. That statement says, “We’re not interested in getting to know you as a person, but we’ll gladly fill out a receipt for you.” And now, we’re back to Good Luck Charlie. You see, many of the friends who sent Sarah assorted Facebook messages, who don’t want their kids “exposed to the gay lifestyle,” are the same people who send their kids to Sarah (and occasionally Lindsey by proxy) for homework help.

As we’ve shared before, our vocation to celibacy does not make us immune to discrimination. We are just as much members of the LGBT community as people who are currently sexually active or who desire to be sexually active some day. We could very easily be in exactly the same situation as the couple featured in Good Luck Charlie if we were ever to bring a child over to another child’s house to play. Enabling two children to play together is, fundamentally, an act that invites relationship rather than the exchanging of services. When our friends tell us that they don’t want a gay couple broadcast into their living room by television, we immediately question whether we would even want to visit their house for dinner. After all, if a person is threatened by a 58-second display of another’s humanity, how could we possibly feel comfortable being present for 58 minutes to eat dinner… or 30 minutes to play a board game… or 3 days to help them recoup from surgery… or… or… or… The activities people share when they are honestly in relationship with each other are myriad and endless.

It’s especially challenging when so many people who are reacting to the seemingly benign relational exchange in Good Luck Charlie begin their reactions with “I like you and I respect you, but…” We find it incredible that, for some people, the only time they will utter the words, “I like you” in our general direction will be before they issue a scathing critique of our way of life. Are they really rejecting our commitment to radical hospitality that spurs us to be available when their kids need help with their homework? Do they object to our commitment to eat dinner together every night barring truly extraordinary circumstances? Do they want to pathologize our relationship with Christ and with our church family? How could it be that, even though we generally open our lives up to those around us, these “friends” have seen nothing worth praising or viewing as positive?

Sometimes it seems that where many straight, conservative Christians are concerned, LGBT couples have so many strikes against us before ever setting foot in the door. We can only say, “Good luck, Susan and Cheryl. Thanks for your courage in searching for suitable playmate for Taylor.”

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.