Reflections on PRIDE: Identity, Bi-erasure, and Christian Faith

Every PRIDE month is a mixture of complicated emotions for me. I’ve just finished The Book of Queer Prophets, and the chapter ‘Notes on Passing’ by Erin Clark voiced much of my discomfort. Although I often proclaim my queer identity every year around PRIDE and National Coming Day (October 11), I struggle with the question of being ‘queer enough’. Being in a heterosexual marriage to a cisgender man means I often ‘pass’ as straight. This is generally a privilege as it affords me access and power, but it is also often painful.

When I have publicly proclaimed my Christian faith, I have never had anyone criticise me, challenge my convictions, or say I was shoving it in their face. The same goes for when I discuss my identity as an immigrant. But for some reason when I talk about my queer identity, people from across the spectrum have found it appropriate to tell me my identity is invalid because of my marriage, to question whether I’m actually queer because of my lack of open same-sex relationships, or to say I don’t need be so vocal about this aspect of my identity. Still others completely ignore my revelations, their silence speaking volumes. This is all erasure, and it is painful beyond description.

When I began the discernment process to be ordained in the Church of England, I had to read through and assent to ‘Issues on Human Sexuality.’ Written about 30 years ago, I can’t say it’s aged particularly well, but I do believe it was quite progressive for it’s time. In my reading of the document, I saw a clear acceptance of gay and lesbian couples. While this was promising, the discussion on bisexuality was much more problematic, suggesting that sexuality was a choice and I had made the ‘right’ one. My sexuality never really came up during discernment, most likely due my ‘passing’ status. And perhaps it was cowardly of me to not mention it, but I naively believed it shouldn’t make a difference. With hindsight I can see how naive it was, because when I made clear my affirmation of the LGBTQI+ community, finding a curacy for me was made more difficult. This shock of reality was also incredibly painful.

PRIDE month is painful for me because I am so often denied my queer identity. It’s painful because there are many who claim this integral part of my identity contradicts another integral part of my identity: my Christian faith. It is painful because I have to constantly carve out my queer, Christian space and announce that I am both worthy of my ‘queer card’ and a beloved child of God. It is painful because I have to constantly explain that I am not hypersexual, or in love with every single person I meet. It is painful because I have to constantly remind myself that as a previously divorced woman with a history of promiscuity and alcohol abuse, who has contemplated and attempted suicide, my sexuality is not a reason I would fall out of relationship with God. In fact, nothing of my past or my identity could ever cause God to love me any less.

I hate that I have to be vocal, but I know I have to be vocal. God called me as the queer, complicated human that I am, and I firmly believe I was called to be a vocal opposition to homophobia and injustice in the Church. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said he ‘could not worship a homophobic God and would not go to a homophobic heaven.’ I share his sentiments and add that I will also speak against a homophobic Church.

God is love, so love is holy. Love is not an abomination, but a pure offering, the truest form of communicating with our Creator. Our Creator who lovingly knitted each and every one of us in our complicated humanity, who created our innermost beings.

Yes I am Queer, and yes I am Christian. I am also God’s most beloved child.

And so are you.

On Equal Marriage (or why Christians should support equal rights)

So many Christians quote the Bible as their reason for not wanting equal marriage to exist. There are several issues with this homophobic stance, both in secular and religious realms. To start, I’ll address the issue from a secular American standpoint, which is more logical and less spiritual.

In the 1^st Amendment, Americans are guaranteed the freedom of religion. Therefore, Americans are free to practice their religion and free from having any government institution instill one religion as being superior to another. Even though the majority of Americans are Christian, they don’t have the right to force their religious beliefs on other people. Furthermore, there is a fine line between discussing beliefs and forcing your beliefs on another person. Discussing would be, for example, “I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God who died to redeem us from our sins.” Forcing, on the other hand, would be something like “I believe you’re going to hell for being gay.” The first statement is perfectly acceptable, whereas the second is unacceptable and intolerant. All this brings me to the religious explanation for why equal marriage shouldn’t be protested by Christians.

People who call themselves Christians are meant to be followers of Christ. As a follower of Christ, I believe I should follow the words of Christ. At no point in the Bible does Christ say homosexuality is a sin. I think if it was so important, Jesus would have found time to talk about how sinful homosexuality was, but He didn’t say anything along those lines so I can’t imagine it’s that important for a Christian to spout those beliefs. Instead, Jesus spent most of His time telling people to love God above all and to love thy neighbor as thyself. If these are the two most important laws for Jesus, then I think Christians have a responsibility to spread more love and less hate. There are so many members of the LGBT community who turn their back on Christianity because of the countless number of Christians who have turned their backs on the LGBT community. This has to stop.

I have heard Christians claim to “love the sinner, but hate the sin” when referring to the LGBT community. The problem with that argument is that homosexuals can’t separate themselves from homosexuality because that is who they are. For example, if being blonde was deemed abominable in the Old Testament, people would tell me I’m going to hell even though I was born blonde and didn’t choose it. Of course, I could always dye my hair to hide the fact that I’m blonde, but even if it isn’t visible I’m still inherently blonde because I was born that way. So there are plenty of people who try to hide being gay in an attempt to fit into society without being judged, but the fact remains they are who they are. Of course there are those who would say people choose to be gay. To those people I would ask, “When did you choose to be strait?” Sexual orientation is NOT a choice.

To end my rant, I’ll address the argument that equal marriage will destroy “traditional marriage”. How exactly does one define “traditional marriage”? If we’re looking to the Bible for that definition, we see that Abraham slept with his wife’s servant, Issac was forced into a marriage with a woman from his father’s tribe, and Jacob had two wives as well as concubines. So if we look to the fathers of the Abrahamic religions, then adultery, arranged marriage, racism and polygamy would all be considered “traditional marriage”. However, we’ve come a long way from the days of Abraham. We’ve also progressed from the ideas of Paul, who would be greatly angered to hear of a woman speaking her beliefs without the permission of her husband. In a modern world of equality, it just makes sense to embrace our LGBT brothers and sisters. Loving all people regardless of who they were born is the Christian thing to do. More importantly, it’s the HUMAN thing to do.

On Leviticus 16-18

The Lord told Moses to tell Aaron not to enter into the Holy Place inside the veil like Aaron’s sons did, otherwise Aaron would be killed like his sons. Then the Lord gave instructions for an offering that Aaron had to make for himself and for the people of Israel. At the end of the chapter, the Lord says every year there shall be a day of atonement, as described, when certain sacrifices are made.

This chapter explains the origin of a ‘scapegoat’. Aaron is to bring two goats, one is chosen for God as a sin offering and one is chosen to be put in the wilderness. It seems the goat for the wilderness carries the sins of the people and is therefore cast out, just as a scapegoat today bears the burden of blame and is usually made an outcast in society.

The Lord told Moses the proper way to deal with the blood of animals. Blood was seen as life, so blood was very important. It was important that blood was not used to worship goat demons nor could it be drunk. If someone drank blood, that person would be cut off from the people. The Lord reminded Moses that Israel should not worship the way of the pagans, but should instead follow the laws of God. The Lord went on to explain sexual activity that was considered unclean. These activities included incest, sex during menstruation, adultery, male homosexuality and bestiality.

Chapter 18 of Leviticus is quite controversial and is quoted very often in today’s society. It’s the reason some Christians are against equal marriage and the reason some LGBT people are against Christianity. Before I address homosexuality in this chapter, I want to start with common ground. I think most people would agree that bestiality isn’t a good thing to do. There’s no way that a dog, horse or any other animal can agree to consensual intercourse, so it is actually a form of rape, which is wrong. On the other hand, many women have sex during menstruation and don’t view it as wrong. Some people might feel uncomfortable dealing with blood, and those people don’t have sex during menstruation. Neither one is really viewed as morally superior nor inferior, it’s just about a comfort factor. Moving to incest, in the modern Western world most people don’t agree with incest and there are usually laws against it. However, just a few hundred years ago incest was rampant especially among royalty. When modern science discovered the medical dangers of incest it started to become unacceptable. Honestly, the issues with incest can bring us closer to understanding the issues with every other sexual act mentioned.

Incest causes so many birth defects, which means it is hard to create viable progeny. At the time of Moses, they didn’t know the dangers of incest, but it could perhaps be argued that they wouldn’t be able to create as large of an amount of offspring if they stuck to relatives only. Women who are menstruating cannot reproduce and bestiality doesn’t produce offspring. Adultery could produce a child, but that child would belong to someone different from the woman’s husband and therefore the line of the husband couldn’t be continued. And finally, without the miracles of modern science, homosexuality cannot produce children. When looking at the Old Testament, it has to be understood that God wanted Israel to go forth and multiply. They wouldn’t be able to do that if they were all homosexual, or only having sex during menstruation or having sex with animals. The reason homosexuality is seen as wrong in the Old Testament is because it didn’t produce children. In modern society, procreation is no longer the sole purpose of marriage, especially since the world is so overpopulated, so equal marriage should no longer be an issue.

These are my thoughts on Leviticus 16-18.