Tag Archives: social issues

Silencing: The Beginning of Persecution

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

In the initial post of this series, Jake asks the following questions:

“Compared to the discrimination that our LGBTQ family has felt over generations, being denied rights, being denied love, being denied salvation, being denied access to God or the body of Christ, and worst of all being denied their own identity… does having a real estate reality show cancelled really add up to discrimination?  Is being asked to not pray [meaning, lead prayer at a banquet sponsored by the President] symmetrical to the death threats, hate crimes, actual murders, denials, and mockings that gay and transgender and questioning people experience every day?”

Reading Jake’s list of the ways LGBTQ people have been discriminated against might be jarring for some. Many a good Christian will say, “But I’ve never thought about killing an LGBTQ person. I would never kill or physically harm an LGBTQ person. I’m not persecuting them at all.” However, we believe the beginnings of persecution are much more subtle than wishing active harm on another human. We’ve observed that LGBTQ people who want to share their stories frequently get met with shouting, finger-pointing, name calling, and Bible thumping. For example, once when Sarah was talking with a friend, Sarah’s friend shared about how her priest gave a homily about treating LGBT people with respect and dignity. Almost immediately after describing the homily, she launched into a rant about how that message was uncalled for and the priest was a flaming liberal. When Sarah tried to suggest that the priest’s homily sounded like a nice reminder of the importance of treating every person like a human being, Sarah’s friend cut Sarah off mid-sentence. She expressed unwillingness to listen because from her vantage point, if Sarah thought it was possible to be a lesbian and a Christian, Sarah was not worth listening to and was certainly a heretic.

Silencing. “I’m right, and you’re wrong.” Stiffening necks. Pursed lips. “I have God on my side, so I don’t have to give you the time of day.” Flashes of anger in the eyes. Hands curling into fists, even if involuntarily. Immediate shifts in posture.

We’ve seen these all before. The patterns repeat themselves the instant we mention that we are LGBT. Conversation takes on the character of defensive combat. Topics discussed not even five minutes before are forgotten as adrenaline floods the body and emotion overtakes reason and civility. The more we try to explain ourselves, the more likely we are to hear “Shut. Up. I’m not interested in hearing your story,” with a sneer that indicates our perspective is little more than a fairy tale, or “You have nothing to contribute to this conversation. You’re just deceived and trying to deceive others.”

We are bemused by many stories where Christians in America claim they have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. Often, someone has rescinded an invitation to speak in a teaching capacity where a person has the potential for reaching a large audience. In crying persecution, this person is effectively saying, “Everyone should listen to me.” But while advocating for his or her own desire to be heard, that person seems to have little to no appreciation that every day, he or she is silencing others. When a person claiming to follow Christ presents “biblical” teaching by comparing LGBT people to those who engage in bestiality, it’s almost instinctive for LGBT audience members to try and curl up in a ball, take up as little space as possible, and remove themselves from the situation as discreetly and expediently as they can. This kind of comparison when used by Christian “teachers” dehumanizes, vilifies, and demonizes LBGT people. Furthermore, it obfuscates any true Christian teaching by packaging orthodoxy with hatred.

There is a marked difference between being silenced and losing an opportunity to speak your views to a national audience. Freedom of speech in America means that you will not lose your liberty over something you say. It does not mean that you are entitled to escape the social consequences of what you’ve said. Children who brag the playground that they can throw the football the farthest should not be surprised when their classmates take them up on the challenge. Articulating one’s view about contentious social topics like LGBT issues and having those views challenged by others who disagree does not amount to persecution.

It’s telling that consistently and repeatedly, we get the message from others that we have no business telling our story. On our blog, we’ve processed negative messages from people telling us to shut up by stressing it’s not easy to tell a story, asking whose story counts, wondering why people act as the language police to force us to use particular scripts, musing on whether the church extends conditional welcome, and sharing about how we sometimes feel betrayed. We’ve discussed that when people say things like, “Our kids should not encounter a gay couple on the television in our living room,” we feel less than welcome to visit their houses. At least seven of our 128 posts on this blog to date deal with our responses when others tell us that we shouldn’t be speaking at all. That’s 5.5% and is an exceptionally conservative estimate.

Now please understand, we are not trying to say that we are experiencing persecution on a personal level or are being treated worse than other folks who are also engaged in this discussion. We are experiencing attempts at silencing. But we wonder, what tactics of silencing must one employ before he or she crosses the boundary into persecution of the other?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Every “Scandal” Has Its Story

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As a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, frequently we receive caution that we should avoid inciting scandal. People have all sorts of advice: we should not refer to ourselves as a couple and instead choose the more neutral language of friend or roommate, we should avoid describing ourselves as LGBT, we should constantly stress our commitment to celibacy, etc. We take significant time to reflect on how we’re being received by other people even as we simply try to live our lives. We do not pretend for an instant that we’re above having our way of life challenged, but we often wonder if, in a number of situations, people allege scandal rather than inviting conversations about how we’ve offended their sensibilities.

Let us be perfectly clear about something from the outset: we tend to be incredibly discreet. There are certain environments where we’d never introduce ourselves as a couple. We’re not people who have LGBT pride symbols plastered all over our cars or our clothing. We like having low profiles. Even on this blog, we do take some steps to protect our comparative anonymity by not disclosing our last names, specific Christian tradition, parish, priest, location, employers, and other highly identifiable information. We don’t mind being discreet because we see this as an essential part of being safe in a world that can be all too hostile to LGBT people.

However, at the same time, we find ourselves ready to spit nails when people constantly exhort us to be even more discreet in an effort to avoid scandal. We’d like to spend some time reflecting on what people mean when they tell us we should avoid scandalizing others. We know that our presence in many church communities is challenging, and some might say that it borders on scandal. Yet, we have to wonder about the degree to which we are actually stepping near scandal’s boundary. Because of the different ways we’ve been accused, we wonder if people are quick to cry “Scandal!” every time they see something that offends their personal sensibilities or varies from how they would attempt to navigate sensitive intersections of doctrine, morality, and shifting social norms.

One basic assumption many people make is that no one knows we are LGBT unless we tell them. Unfortunately, this assumption is completely false. We’ve talked a bit about this assumption when we asked if we are protected by celibacy. For example, people nearly always assume that Lindsey is a member of the LGBT community because of Lindsey’s physical appearance. It doesn’t matter that Lindsey has perfected different versions of pronoun games, is comfortable avoiding discussing anything related to LGBT concerns in church settings, and works extremely hard to focus on growing spiritually. Lindsey knows that cultivating close friendships with people in a local church can lead to accusations of sexual misconduct, even if all Lindsey has done is talk excitedly with a fellow parishioner in a private conversation observed from a distance by other parishioners. Lindsey has gotten so accustomed to protecting information about LGBT status that we haven’t even disclosed on this blog how Lindsey prefers to identify — a trend that will be continuing for the foreseeable future.

Often, we wonder what people are thinking when they tell us that we have a propensity toward scandal. Are they really concerned that seeing a couple like us will lead others into sin? Are they worried for their own souls, the souls of other parishioners, and the souls of people who see us each day? Are they concerned that we’re a kind of “sleeper cell” that is waiting until the time is right to advocate for radical shifts in how our Christian tradition understands marriage, sexuality, gender, and other human relationships? Do they think we’ll lead other people to confusion about what our Christian tradition teaches relative to marriage and sexuality? If so, wouldn’t they have an obligation to raise these concerns with us directly or with our priest?

We can, and do, appreciate that these concerns have some merit when considered exclusively against the backdrop of a Church besieged by the culture wars. Unfortunately, the emphasis many churches place on the current political and social climate frames the conversation in terms of LGBT issues rather than LGBT people. Focusing on the culture wars places all the responsibility on LGBT people to address the fears of cisgender, heterosexual people. When a person perceives himself or herself on the “right” side, that individual can fall into a pattern of avoiding questions about his or her own discomfort. It seems to us that many cisgender, heterosexual Christians think they deserve a free pass on these questions because they aren’t actively doing anything that violates their sense of orthodoxy.

Many Christian traditions have written or unwritten sets of “standard minimum expectations” for people who are members of those specific traditions. In our own lives, we’ve found it all too easy to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to people who seemingly disregard these expectations. To illustrate how we’ve had to navigate our own senses of being scandalized by others, we’re going to highlight two examples. The first will likely resonate with our readers from a more generally evangelical background, and the second will likely resonate with our readers from liturgical backgrounds.

We’ve both belonged to local churches where it was the norm, presented almost as a requirement, that all members of the community participate in some midweek ministries. These midweek ministries might be anything from Bible studies to service ministries to prayer groups. Once after Lindsey had joined a community that required all members to attend a weekly small group, Lindsey learned that an administrator paid by the church who had been a long-standing member had never been involved in a small group. This person had been around the church for years and surely knew better. Lindsey was completely shocked and appalled that the church would knowingly employ such a person who made it crystal clear that one could regard small groups as optional. Other people Lindsey approached were equally flabbergasted by the situation. Later, Lindsey learned that there was much more to the story: this person was busily attending to parents who were battling some very serious illnesses. To say Lindsey was crestfallen upon realizing how quickly Lindsey had rushed to judgement is an understatement. One never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

Switching gears to discuss an example that might be reasonably common in liturgical traditions, in Catholic and Orthodox churches a person might encounter a situation like this one that Sarah remembers: At one of Sarah’s past parishes, a family that regularly attended consisted of a single mother and her three small children. The family would leave immediately after service every Sunday so the mother could get to work. One day, a friend of Sarah’s invited this family to stay after the service to enjoy lunch. The mother declined the invitation, commenting, “Thank you, but I have to get to work. I had enough to eat at breakfast.” In liturgical traditions where there is some type of fasting requirement before receiving the Eucharist, this sort of comment might seem curious, especially if the person making the comment had communed earlier that morning. Sarah’s friend who had invited the mother to lunch wondered aloud, “Didn’t she receive the Eucharist the morning? Doesn’t she keep the fast at all?” After getting to know this mother better, Sarah and Sarah’s friend found out that on Sundays the mother had to work two shifts at two separate jobs. Sunday breakfast was the only time she had to eat a decent meal all day, which was necessary because both jobs required her to be on her feet for hours at a time. Once again, one never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

When we consider the question of scandal in these contexts, it seems natural to reflect also on the question of gossip. Is the person caring for elderly parents obligated to disclose the gory details of her struggle to ensure her parents had what they needed? Is the person preparing to work two 8-hour shifts required to explain to everyone why she needs to eat breakfast and forgo the Eucharistic fast? To be sure, it seems reasonable that a person might discuss with a pastor or priest how he or she believes it is best to navigate these difficult situations. However, is it really up to members of the congregation to assume that they know exactly what’s happening? There are instances in which allegations of scandal are misplaced, sometimes even leading the accuser unwittingly toward gossip and other forms of uncharitable speech and action.

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.

Christian Formation and the Cost of the Culture Wars

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A reflection by Sarah

About five years ago, I taught a course called Christian Beliefs at a Catholic university. During each class period, we would discuss a different topic that connected in some way to the ideas presented in the Nicene Creed. On the first day of class that semester, I gave the students index cards and asked that each fill his/her entire card, front and back, with as many responses to the following question as possible: “What do Christians believe?” I taught that course twice and have not since been assigned to teach another like it, but being the pack rat that I am, I kept those cards and flipped through them last week while planning an activity for my current freshmen. I had almost forgotten just how troubling the responses where.

First, a bit of context: there were twenty students in the class, mainly from Christian backgrounds. Thirteen identified as Catholic, five identified as Protestant, and two identified as atheist/agnostic. Of the thirteen Catholic students, ten had attended a Catholic high school. Eight of those had been through twelve years of Catholic education. Three Protestant students and one atheist/agnostic student had received education at Christian high schools. Given this information, one might think most of these students would have no trouble generating a list of Christian beliefs that would include many of the religion’s core tenets.

As I perused these index cards last week, I was taken back to the shock I experienced as a second-year teacher reading the responses my class had provided. A few were easily predictable:

  • “Christians believe in Jesus.”
  • “Christians believe in Jesus as the savior.”
  • “Christians believe that Jesus died for our sins.”
  • “Christians believe that baptism washes away sins.”
  • “Christians believe you need to ask Jesus into your heart to go to heaven.”

But those accounted for such a small percentage of student responses. When asked “What do Christians believe?” almost every student in the class included at least two of the following on his/her list:

  • “Christians believe gay people are going to hell.”
  • “Christians believe gay people are sinners.”
  • “Christians believe gay people are pedophiles and shouldn’t be priests.”
  • “Christians believe that if you’re gay, you can’t have sex.”
  • “Christians believe that you have to choose to be straight if you love God.”
  • “Christians believe abortion is a sin.”
  • “Christians believe abortion is murder.”
  • “Christians believe in protecting unborn babies.”
  • “Christians believe you have to be pro-life.”
  • “Christians believe you have to vote pro-life.”

Most students who listed two or more of the above had written perhaps one other statement of belief on their index cards. One responded, “I know Christians don’t like gay people or women, but that’s all I ever learned in Christian school. I don’t know what else to list.” Another produced only four items on her card, indicating that Christians believe in Jesus as savior, gay people as sinners, abortion as murder, and Genesis 1 as a literal account of a six-day creation. A significant number also included statements defining Christian beliefs against certain actions, groups of people, or other kinds of beliefs:

  • “Christians don’t believe other religions are true.”
  • “Christians don’t believe you can be gay.”
  • “Christians don’t believe it’s okay if you kill your baby.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in Muhammad.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in terrorism.”
  • “Christians don’t believe in committing sin.”

I remember taking these cards home after class that day and puzzling over them. Had my students just blown off the assignment? Or were they really unable to think of any other theological issues as core tenets of the Christian faith? At the beginning of the next class session, I initiated a discussion about the responses. I asked everyone to work together in small groups and describe in detail their thought processes during the index card assignment. As I drifted from group to group listening to the conversations, what I heard surprised and saddened me. I heard stories of students who were taught to say a few words for the unborn every night at bedtime prayers but had no idea how to describe the Holy Spirit, students whose high school religion courses had covered morality backwards and forwards but had never touched on Scripture or Church history, students who had attended Catholic school since kindergarten but had no idea that Jesus was God until they had read the first chapter of our course textbook, and students who were becoming (or had already become) so disenchanted with the shallow messages they were receiving at church that they were considering leaving Christianity entirely. It became clear that my students hadn’t blown off the assignment at all. In fact, they had taken it very seriously, and many had articulated carefully all the tenets of Christianity they had ever known.

I handed each group a copy of the Nicene Creed and explained that for the rest of the semester, all our readings would center on theological exploration of different parts of that statement of faith. I asked groups to spend a few minutes looking through the Creed and jotting down some questions they had about what they read. It didn’t take me long to see how eager most of the class was to learn. They posed some excellent questions: What does it mean to say that Jesus is one in being with the Father? What does that weird “light from light” phrase mean, anyway? Why do Protestant churches that use the Creed recite the part about belonging to one holy, catholic, and apostolic church? I remember hearing one young woman say to her peers, “I’ve recited this every Sunday of my life, but never really stopped to think about what it means.”

As it turned out, we had a wonderful semester. Truly this was one of the best groups of students I’ve taught in my career so far. And even though one young man informed me crassly that the best part of the whole term was the day I mentioned that nude baptisms were performed in the early Church, I’m hopeful that most students left the course at least somewhat more knowledgeable about basic Christianity than they had been previously. What saddens me is the reality that a group of young Christians in their late teens and early twenties—most of whom had been Christians their entire lives—were in need of such a basic introduction to their own religion. I see this need emerging again and again in my theology courses, but I’m less surprised by it now after having gained a few years of teaching experience.

The fact that such a reality is possible in a classroom filled with students raised in the Church makes me gravely worried for the future of Christianity. It becomes clearer to me every semester that we as a Church have misplaced our priorities. And it’s not always the students from conservative backgrounds who exhibit this lack of basic Christian education. With some regularity, I encounter students who identify as liberal Christians but know only about Christian principles of social justice and little to nothing about the theology that undergirds those principles. If you look at how Christian leaders are portrayed in the public eye, it never has anything to do with affirmations of the Trinity, the power of the sacraments, or the hope of resurrection. More often than not, Christian leaders that most people see publically (especially in the media) are combatting behaviors and social norms perceived to be contrary to the Christian faith. It seems that anyone can create a list of items that Christians are against: gay marriage, abortion, war, capitalism, poverty, etc. It’s no wonder these are the first sorts of things that come to mind for a lot of young people when they try and list core tenets of the Christian faith. It’s regrettable that Christianity is becoming more defined by boundaries of the culture war than by the good news of Christ. We lose people because we lose the opportunity to invite them to follow Christ as one of his disciples.

As a student of church history, I’m all too aware of the fights people have fought with a desire to keep Christ at the center of the Church. But as issues like homosexuality, abortion, and freedom of religion become the defining issues of American (small-o) orthodoxy, I have to wonder if we’ve placed the culture wars at the center. Every day at work, I see the consequences of these religious battles as I look into the faces of the next generation. I can’t help but sound off from my corner of the universe, entreating all Christian leaders of every tradition to return their focus to Christ. Surely, the attractive pull of the Gospel has the power to guide us all into the fullness of life in Christ… while also having the power to bring the next generation along with us.

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.

LGBT Media Visibility and the Traditional Sexual Ethic

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Today, LGBT people are more visible in the media than ever before. Many would argue that the LGBT community still does not have enough media visibility. Oppositely, many other people would argue that LGBT issues have too much visibility in the media. Still, some don’t think that it’s important for LGBT people and characters shown on television, in magazines, in movies, etc. to be associated in any noticeable way with their LGBT statuses. Those found in the latter two groups tend to be people who hold to a traditional sexual ethic–often people who mean well, but aren’t sure of how best to approach LGBT issues. However, one could make a strong argument that many of the people campaigning to reduce LGBT visibility in the media are not simply conservative Christians who value traditional teachings on sexuality, but instead are those who hold an anti-gay perspective. Either way, in the eyes of these crusaders, any LGBT media visibility flies in the face of a traditional sexual ethic.

Let’s start by backing up just a bit: we’re sure that nearly all of you, our readers, could identify some instance of the media showcasing sexuality outside the boundaries of a traditional sexual ethic. Some of your examples might even showcase LGBT people and concerns. However, a significant portion of media that feature LGBT people does not say anything about sexual morality. For example, Honey Maid released a 30-second commercial in March 2014 called “This is Wholesome.” The commercial features some different families: a biracial family, a family headed by a single dad who loves his tattoos and drumset, and a family of two gay men and a baby.

In the commercial, the gay couple is featured for 5 seconds. There are zero references to sex. There is nothing sexual that the two men are doing. The men don’t actually show affection to each other; they are showing affection to their baby. There’s nothing to indicate, one way or another, that these characters are having sex. There’s nothing to suggest that the characters are legally married. The words “Dad” and “Husband” don’t appear in the commercial at all.

Yet, many people were incensed that Honey Maid would dare to produce such a commercial. Organizations like One Million Moms were quick to argue that this commercial promotes sexual perversion. We wonder how it’s possible to see LGBT people on television and immediately associate this media visibility with an “attempt to normalize sin.” This same organization accused Disney of “pushing an agenda” when it included a lesbian couple on an episode of Good Luck Charlie. When we watched that particular clip, we did not see any references to sexuality, but found other aspects of the scene that should have been very distressing to people who value marriage, love, and respect.

We can appreciate that some straight people with a traditional sexual ethic feel their beliefs are under attack from many corners of society. However, we’d encourage our readers with a traditional sexual ethic to consider the following observations before holding LGBT media visibility as uniquely problematic.

Media can tell the stories of real people. We’ve noticed that people who are against LGBT media visibility tend not to be aware of any LGBT people in their circles of friends. The idea that your kid might have a friend at school with two moms or two dads is not some hair-brained notion from Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, or DC. It’s the lived experience of real people from all across America and in other countries as well. Additionally, celibate LGBT people are also just as real as non-celibate LGBT people. Some celibate LGBT people even have partners. (And if you’re finding our blog for the first time, take this as evidence that celibate, LGBT, Christian couples do exist.) If a person asserts that LGBT people should not be visible in the media because LGBT people practice a “sinful sexual lifestyle,” then that person is reducing the identities of LGBT people to “sex” while simultaneously denying that LGBT people have just as much diversity in their sexual ethics as straight people do.

Media can give invisible people and groups a sense of belonging and worth. One of the most powerful things about books, television, and movies is how they can resonate with a person’s sense of identity. Most LGBT people, at some point in their lives, experience profound alienation — feeling different, unwanted, shut out from society, and worthless. In these moments, LGBT people can struggle to see themselves as God’s beloved creations. The presence of a visible LGBT person in the media can ease the route of self-acceptance and promote emotional health. For example, Lindsey grew up absolutely enthralled by the space program. Because Sally Ride’s launch date occurred two days after Lindsey’s birthday, Lindsey always felt an affinity towards Sally Ride. However, Sally Ride was not a visible member of the LGBT community until after her death in 2012. Lindsey started asking questions about sexuality and gender identity just as Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell had come out, but neither Ellen nor Rosie were people Lindsey especially looked up to. If Ride had been visible as an LGBT person at the time Lindsey started exploring sexuality and gender identity, then Lindsey is reasonably confident that the coming out journey would have been much easier.

Media rarely showcases a traditional sexual ethic, even where straight people are concerned. We hope that this point is relatively straightforward, but we wanted to call attention to the LGBT-straight duality. It’s become increasingly common to see more and more heterosexual sexual activity in the media. Yet, even though people with a traditional sexual ethic are bothered by these developments, one doesn’t see nearly the level of outrage regarding a heterosexual sexual encounter as the ire that manifests when LGBT people are simply visible in the media without any kind of reference to sex. Sarah has been told by multiple acquaintances that they would rather see a heterosexual extramarital affair scene on shows like Grey’s Anatomy than any character on any program identified as an LGBT person. Some have even gone so far as to say that “Adultery is just wrong. But being gay is both wrong and disgusting.”

From our perspective, this last comment is the most telling about how some people view LGBT visibility in the media. We wish straight friends and acquaintances would see that by offering such remarks, they make us feel unwelcome not only in public, but in their own living rooms. Saying that LGBT people should not be visible in the media is not much different from saying that we shouldn’t get to exist at all. We wish these people would afford us space to tell them what celibacy and our self-descriptions as LGBT mean to us. And we wish these people would see us, first and foremost, as human beings.

We’d love to hear from our readers about your reactions to our observations as well as your perceptions of the positive and negative impacts of increasing LGBT media visibility.

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