Odd Man Out

In less than a month, I’ll be returning to Chicago to spend another summer with The Marin...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:52:53 -0400

In less than a month, I’ll be returning to Chicago to spend another summer with The Marin Foundation. In the meantime, I’ve got a new post up on their blog called “Walking Away.”

Talking and writing about homosexuality these days is hugely important and hugely exhausting, and if I’m being honest, I think the conversation often brings out the worst in people, including me. In this new post, I talk about how God used a recent reading of John 8 to invite me back into a posture of grace and compassion. Check it out.

I’m biased to think coming out is the ideal outcome for sexual minorities—primarily for their...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:29:40 -0400

I’m biased to think coming out is the ideal outcome for sexual minorities—primarily for their sake, but also for my sake, and for everyone else’s sake. Nevertheless, I get why that’s not possible or practical for many people today.

In my new post over at The Marin Foundation’s blog, I imagine what it would take for every LGBT or same-sex attracted person to feel safe coming out, and I envision how the church could function as a support system for those people by examining how the earliest church functioned as a support system for the earliest Christians. Check out the post here: “Safe Havens.”

Portrait

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:00:46 -0400

A few weeks ago, I changed my Facebook profile picture to an image of me from a former life, a life when I was a trumpet player in the middle school band. Until a couple years ago, I felt a strong aversion to the picture.

The portrait itself is inoffensive: A chubby kid sits up straight in front of a standard gray backdrop. His cheeks are round and pink, his bangs are cemented in the upright position that was nearly ubiquitous on male foreheads in the ’90s, and his be-braces-acled teeth are as metallic as the polished cornet he’s holding with proper hand placement in front of him. He’s sporting a bow tie and a bright green blazer, as all of our school’s wind musicians did, and there’s a tuft of his white shirt sloppily peeking out at his waist, beneath the gold button of his coat. His smile looks 90% genuine, 10% forced. (Maybe 80/20.)

I don’t mind the image itself. The source of my discomfort with the picture for so long was my perception of the person it represented: Throughout high school and early college, I remembered that middle schooler as someone effeminate, uncoordinated, and un-self-aware. He lacked the neurotic self-consciousness to which I would later aspire as a means of giving no external indication to others that I was less heterosexual than my peers were. As a high schooler wearing a navy blue letter jacket (which, coincidentally, I earned through marching band), I was working only from the sort of uninformed behavioral stereotypes that prevail in the more conservative loops of the Bible Belt. My behavior monitoring never reached the point of self-harm or depression, but it was an ever-present factor in my decisions about how to dress and how to speak.

When I tell people the story of my sexual orientation, they tend to be surprised when I reach the high school years and confess I became significantly homophobic for a season. I guess it seems like I should have felt some empathy and camaraderie with the broader gay community, even if I wasn’t ready to identify with them, but my fear of my own sexuality manifested itself as an aversion to anything that might even tenuously associate me with that group that felt so alien and distant. Although my clique wasn’t excessively homophobic, I used “so gay” as much as all the other teenage boys, and I responded to any allusion to same-sex relationships with disgust that ranged anywhere from “Ew, gross!” silliness to crisis-level solemnity. In any case, you would have never heard me performing an exaggerated effeminate, flamboyant voice along with any other friends—I was afraid I’d be too good at it and that people would take note. My homophobia was a means of differentiating myself from (my perception of) the gay community, which was itself a means of differentiating myself from the part of me that was drawn to other guys.

It makes sense, then, that my homophobia would have extended to an aversion to my younger self, who felt no concern about the way others perceived him. The Brent in the green blazer felt utterly perplexed about his sexuality, and in his confusion, he assumed it was something that would go away or change in due time. In the meantime, he was close to his peers, both boys and girls, and he hadn’t decided yet that his mannerisms and inflection held enormous sway over his social and spiritual health. Fortunately, he had been mostly protected from bullying and harassment. Nevertheless, the Brent in the blue jacket was, frankly, embarrassed by the Brent in the green blazer, and he hoped no one remembered how that Brent had acted before he learned the acceptable way to behave.

I don’t want to understate what a big deal it was a few years ago when I realized I could actually stand to look at the picture of me in the green blazer. What started as “actually stand to look at a picture” gradually blossomed into my managing to love, admire, and even like what this kid had to offer: his humor, his creativity, his compassion. I learned to love him in the same way that all of my friends now and all of my friends then love(d) him, as someone who was as annoyingly energetic and inconsistent as every other middle schooler is but was also sweet and sensitive and full of life. This was, not coincidentally, around the time in my adult life when I allowed myself to take up knitting, realizing there are things in my life that are much more important for me to worry about than stereotypes and perceptions that are unconnected to character and virtue. When I was visiting my grandparents’ house a few weeks ago and found the portrait in a framed collage, I knew the time had come for me to introduce it to the Internet world.

This is not a post about gender, stereotypes, homophobia, or mannerisms, though each of those are important concepts worthy of discussion. This is a post about how insecurity and fear caused me to disdain a community of people, including myself, and how outgrowing that insecurity and fear enabled me to love. This is a post about how I allowed my preoccupation with the perceptions of others to distract me away from rooting myself in my sole identity as a beloved child of God. This is, indirectly, a post about how our desire to form young people into followers of Jesus should never, ever lead them to hate themselves or harm themselves, each of which are responses that should alert us we’re doing something wrong.

Most importantly—and self-indulgently—this is a post about a kid. So, friends, meet Brent. He’s in middle school, and he plays the trumpet while wearing a green blazer. He will talk your ear off and ask you questions until you’ve run out of answers, and I wouldn’t pick him for your basketball team, if I were you, though I would pick him for any delightfully nerdy academic event for which you might be in need of a brain. Some of his friends affectionately refer to his hairstyle as “The Alamo,” since he lives in Texas and has a hairline shaped like the historic landmark. He’s also gay, though he won’t be using that word for a long time. I think you’d be happy to know him.

Getting it Right

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:13:00 -0400

Much of what I write on this blog describes how I’d like to see our culture change to be more hospitable for sexual minorities. Lest I paint too dire a picture of our current situation, though, I want to give a few examples from my life of how I’ve seen people navigate this intersection of faith and sexuality well. The truth is that I’m surrounded by wonderful, compassionate, creative people, and it’s humbling for me to see how their ability to love well is slowly bringing about a new reality in which being gay doesn’t have to be a source of suffering or isolation. The examples I’m giving are small and specific, and they illustrate how important details can be in forming a culture of grace and hospitality. Here are real examples from my life of people who are, in my opinion, getting it right:

1. SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

WHAT HAPPENED: Some friends and I recently traveled together. When we were arranging our plans before the trip, a friend who was finding us places to sleep tacked this question onto the end of a text message: “Is you and [straight male friend] sharing an air mattress feasible? If not, that’s totally understandable and either you or [he] will stay with one of our friends.”

HOW HE GOT IT RIGHT: The text demonstrated a measure of sensitivity that’s often lacking in communities who don’t know how to support sexual minorities; he showed empathy by anticipating and acknowledging the potential awkwardness of my sharing a bed with another guy. On the other hand, the inquiry was entirely free from assumptions; rather than telling me he made the decision to put me elsewhere to save me from what might be a tricky situation, he asked what I needed and accepted the answer I gave. (Speaking of details, his use of the word “feasible” was a thoughtful little stroke of genius.) This is a friend with whom I’ve been honest and from whom I expect accountability and edification, so it was natural in the context of our relationship for him to ask me something like that. He cares about me enough to recognize situations that might be problematic for me, and he trusts me enough to respect my judgment in those situations.

As I’ve said before, one of the reasons it’s so important for me to feel safe being honest with my faith community is that I want them to check in on me. I trust these people, just like they trust me, and we’re committed to providing each other with encouragement and, when necessary, exhortation. I want them to confront me when I’m being stupid or selfish with my money, and I want them to confront me when I’m being stupid or selfish with my sexuality. This is only possible in an environment that welcomes transparency. When that environment exists, questions like the one my friend asked are welcome and lead to deeper friendship and mutual trust.

2. SELF-EDITING

WHAT HAPPENED: A friend and I were talking as we shared in some menial labor. As our conversation continued, he started to complain about something (I don’t remember what it was exactly): “The new policy they put in place at work is just so gay because—” After a brief pause, he continued: “Um, I mean, it’s just so stupid because…”

HOW HE GOT IT RIGHT: This was someone who had already directly apologized to me (when I came out to him, actually) for the way his frequent use of phrases like “so gay” may have made my life as a closeted gay person more confusing and frightening. Regardless of the sincerity of his apology and repentance, though, the truth is that it’s really tough to break old habits, and that means even the most penitent person may occasionally find themselves using words they have decided not to use. In the moment, this friend demonstrated compassion through the simple act of editing his speech and moving forward without drawing attention to the faux pas. I knew he was actively trying to avoid that kind of language, and he knew I knew he was actively trying to avoid that language, so there was no need for a tearful confrontation between us. He had already demonstrated an awareness of his mistake and an honest effort to change his habits.

I remember the first time I, as an openly gay individual, heard one of my friends accidentally use “gay” as a slur. We were driving in the car, and as soon as the word left his mouth, I snapped: “What did you say?” My friend was immediately apologetic and remorseful, which led to an unintentionally hilarious exchange in which we simultaneously fired out apologies at one another: him, for using the word, and me, for overreacting so quickly. The reality is that we’re living in a culture that’s presently trying to outgrow its homophobia. This means we need to be prepared to confront harmful language when we hear it, but it also means we need to be prepared to show grace and mercy when people accidentally slip up. This includes showing grace and mercy to ourselves, not dwelling on our mistakes.

3. COMING OUT ADVICE

WHAT HAPPENED: A friend who has decided to seek ordination was preparing to open up about her desired vocation to her parents, who participate in a faith tradition that does not affirm women in ministry. Feeling anxious about the conversation and how her parents would react to her, she approached me with a question: “I know it’s not the same as coming out as a sexual minority, but do you have any advice for me about tough conversations from your own experiences coming out to people?”

HOW SHE GOT IT RIGHT: This friend started by acknowledging the differences between our situations to show that she understood her experiences and my experiences were not the same. From there, though, she immediately moved to seeking areas of connection between us and identifying common emotions and struggles. Whenever you’re close to someone who’s a minority of any kind, there’s a fine line to walk as you relate to that person: On one extreme is over-identifying, where you ignore the differences between you and overlook what makes that person’s experience unique; on the other extreme is over-differentiating, where you isolate the person by drawing too sharp a contrast between you. This friend (not just in this conversation, but generally) made me feel at home while maintaining consciousness of those ways in which my experience is atypical. She respected my otherness without making me feel like an “other.”

Furthermore, she put me in the position of an expert, seeking me as someone with wisdom to share that was essentially unrelated to my orientation. I don’t mind at all answering questions about what it’s like to be gay; but this friend affirmed our resemblance by soliciting my advice for a situation that didn’t depend on my nontraditional sexuality. It’s probably true that most out gay people have a good deal of experience with difficult conversations, and my friend’s willingness to see that reality as an asset to her circumstances helped me to see how the knowledge I’ve gathered as a gay person might be helpful to people regardless of their orientation.

I would love to hear more stories from you about small, simple ways you’ve seen people get it right. What examples come to mind for you?

UPDATE: After posting this, I issued a tweet inviting other bloggers to share their own stories of how they’ve seen people get it right. They were happy to oblige, leading to a number of wonderful stories, which I’ve listed below. Make sure to let me know if you write your own:

gaysubtlety, “Nailed It”

queerconfessions, “That’s a Bingo”

David McFarlane, “Tonal Shift: Getting It Right”

The Registered Runaway, “Because Brent Said So”

Of all the writing I’ve done, I honestly think my new post over at The Marin...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:50:23 -0500

Of all the writing I’ve done, I honestly think my new post over at The Marin Foundation’s blog (now hosted on Patheos) may be the content I’m most invested in a broader audience reading and digesting. I’ve written before about demonstrating grace and sensitivity when talking about LGBT issues in a post called “Tread Lightly.” With Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day in the recent past and two major Supreme Court cases related to same-sex marriage in the near future, social media has become a bit of a minefield full of abrasive rhetoric.

In my new post, I make a simple request: “Think Ahead.” Rather than thoughtlessly speaking and posting reflexively to the Supreme Court’s decisions, let’s plan ahead how we might navigate our nation’s dialogue with clear-headed compassion. Check out the post.

more about Being Out

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:50:00 -0500

I recently issued the following tweet on my personal feed in response to a specific incident:

I think I had to encounter some of the negative effects of being openly gay to appreciate how much I never ever want to be closeted again.

I’ll preface this by saying I’ve been fortunate to never encounter the most negative effects of being gay. I’ve never been physically abused or threatened, I’ve not been explicitly rejected or abandoned, and I generally feel safe where I am. If that’s not been your experience, or if that’s not your context, take what I’m going to say with a grain of salt.

Though my experience has been mostly positive, there have been undesirable ramifications of my coming out over the last two years. I’m not keen on getting into specifics—I prefer to address them directly, on my own—but suffice it to say I’ve run into restrictions and attitudes that didn’t exist in my world when people assumed I was straight. There was a season when I was out to only a few friends and family members, and as we discerned together whether it would be wise for me to come out more conclusively, we wrestled with the knowledge that it would inevitably lead to new complications and obstacles. Because I had opened up to a circle of people who were involved in my life and who cared about me, I didn’t feel any moral or social obligation to make my orientation known on a wider scale. The essential question for us was whether the benefits of incorporating my orientation into the version of myself I allow everyone to see would outweigh the potential risks and costs.

It’s probably true for some sexual minorities that coming out to only a certain coterie of loved ones is the ideal outcome. (I’m biased to think not telling anyone at all about one’s orientation is inherently unhealthy and, to be frank, exhausting.) Nevertheless, I can say with full confidence my decision to be completely out—to everyone from my roommates to my grandma—was the ideal outcome for me, one I’ve not regretted at all since I took that irreversible plunge. By no means do I bring up my orientation or have “the talk” with every person in my life; in my case, being out meant writing this blog and no longer asking people to keep my orientation secret. I’ve essentially accepted that everyone in my life at least has access to that information, if it matters to them.

Whenever I do encounter some of those “negative effects of being openly gay,” my mind automatically starts to try and form the question of whether I’d be happier if I could somehow climb back into the closet, but I never even get the entire question out before I’ve already answered it: No, of course not. (In 2013, of course, the concept of climbing back into the closet is difficult to imagine even hypothetically in light of the Internet, social media, etc.) After spending half a dozen years compulsively monitoring my words and mannerisms and opinions to avoid betraying what I wasn’t ready for people to know about me, it’s difficult for me to exaggerate how pleasant it feels to be free from that anxiety and second-guessing. Actions as forgettable as bringing up some LGBT news item in conversation feel like huge privileges to me because I no longer have to calculate what other people might assume about me. (They don’t have to assume because they know!) Furthermore, actions as significant as working with The Marin Foundation or leading a chapel session at my school about homosexuality have unlocked an entire world of passion and gifting for me that was out of reach when I was too afraid to associate myself with that topic.

So, yes, incidents like the one that inspired my tweet are always severely disappointing and painful, especially for what they signify about where our culture is and how things need to change. But if I have to choose between living honestly with some negative consequences and living dishonestly without those negative consequences, my experience with both of those options leads me unequivocally to prefer the former. That I’m able to say that with such confidence is evidence of how blessed/charmed my life has been, to be sure, but I think most of us would agree that where we’d like to see our culture end up is an environment where people can be honest without worrying about whether that honesty might ruin their lives. In the meantime, those of us who can be out ought not to take for granted what a privilege that is, actively seeking to make it a possibility for every sexual minority.

If you’re the commenting type, I’m curious to hear about your experiences: Are you grateful to be out, or are you grateful that someone in your life came out to you? Or, do you regret coming out / regret that someone in your life came out to you? My experience has been positive enough to make me think the benefits of honesty (even if only the benefits for peace of mind) will nearly always outweigh its costs, but I know others have faced consequences much more severe than mine. How has your or someone else’s coming out affected you?

My internship with The Marin Foundation last summer was an unforgettable experience, one that...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 08:49:30 -0500

My internship with The Marin Foundation last summer was an unforgettable experience, one that stretched and challenged and improved me. I spent time with precious people, I engaged big questions about faith and sexuality more intensely than I’d had the opportunity to do before, and—most significantly—I had the absolute privilege of doing the kind of work that makes you feel alive because it so richly connects with who you are and what you care about and want to accomplish. When I think about last summer, I think about tables full of diverse groups talking about marriage equality and identity development and Chick-Fil-A; I think about hours and hours of phone interviews with sweet parents who poured out their hearts to a complete stranger for the sake of research; and I think about hugs, tears, and words of love flowing freely at Chicago Pride.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I jumped at the opportunity to work with The Marin Foundation again, and I’m happy to report I’ll be returning to Chicago this summer to do just that. This summer will be different from the last in a few significant ways. First, I’ll have a new role with the organization. Whereas I spent most of last summer working on the Parent Resource Initiative, my focus this year will be on teaching and community engagement. TMF provides a few different formal classes throughout the year for different demographics in the Chicago area, and I’ll be helping to facilitate one of those ongoing classes over the summer. I’ll also be more directly involved with TMF’s “Living in the Tension” gatherings, which were one of the most affecting parts of my experience last summer. Finally, I’ll do more writing for some of TMF’s online publications, and I’ll be doing some volunteer work with the Center on Halsted, one of the country’s preeminent LGBTQ community centers.

Second, because of my existing experience with TMF, I plan to use this summer to discern whether I might pursue long-term work with the organization in the future or how I might emulate what they’re doing elsewhere. As I said above, my work last summer confirmed for me that my interest for engaging the church and the LGBT community is more than merely a hobby or some passing fancy for me, and with graduation looming in the next couple years, I want to explore whether I could give a season of my life to engaging TMF-esque work directly. This is a really, really exciting development in my life, to say the least, so I’m thrilled to have another summer to try on different roles and discern what my place is in the broader conversation.

One piece that hasn’t changed from last summer is my need for support in a few forms. I had about fifteen people who committed to pray regularly for me last year, which was profoundly encouraging and beneficial. That some of my pray-ers were people I only knew through the blog was particularly remarkable to me, and I so appreciated the willingness of friends and strangers alike to pray for my summer. If you’re the praying type, would you consider committing to pray for me and letting me know you’re doing so? When I reflected over the work of bridge-building at the end of last summer, I commented, “Demonstrating [the love Jesus calls us to] for the sake of building bridges in our present cultural climate is much harder than I would have expected.” It’s exhilarating and stirring, of course, but it can also be frustrating and demoralizing. I need people to pray that God will empower me and the other staff to demonstrate the love of Jesus in all of our actions, that I’ll be able to serve effectively in my role (or that God will use my lack of effectiveness), and that God will continue to clarify my vision for my future vocation.

I also had no trouble reaching my financial goal for last summer, which just left me speechless and so humbled and grateful. The bad news is that my situation is essentially the same as last summer: TMF is still a non-profit, and I’m still a grad student, so I’ll need help to cover my travel and living expenses. The good news, though, is that I’ve got a potential head start in the form of airline benefits, so I’m hoping that will cover a portion of the cost. Nevertheless, various costs will remain (rent, food, public transportation, etc.), so I am in need of people who can help support me financially. I’ve said it a dozen times and will say it a dozen more: God is faithful, and God’s people are generous. If you feel inclined to give, please do so; but if you feel hesitant, then rest assured God will empower the people who need to give to do so with joy and confidence. When I said, “Every dollar counts” last year, I was mostly trying to be winsome and persuasive; but I learned that every dollar really did matter when it came down to it. If you’re one of the people positioned to give financially, the process is the same last year, and your donations are tax-deductible: Click here to go to TMF’s donation page, select the option for a one-time donation, and make sure to mark the donation as “on behalf of” Brent Bailey. That will insure the donation makes it to my fund.

Let me be honest: I typically have trouble asking people for help, but I find myself strangely comfortable asking you to partner with me. I think it’s because I so value the work of TMF, having seen the positive effects of their efforts, and I sense such a strong purpose and clarity in my role with the work they do. I still haven’t really gotten past the overwhelming gratitude I felt last summer about the entire experience, so the thought of returning feels like too much to ask; but this has always been about something much bigger than me, and I’m eager to do my part. If you’re curious at all about my experience last summer or my expectations for the coming summer, please contact me—I genuinely enjoy talking about it and want to spread the word. Also, if you haven’t had a chance to read the posts I wrote last summer, check out the index by clicking here.

Thank you for reading, for walking with me, and for helping me understand what it means to love God and love people.

in Response to Wes Hill's "Once More"

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:19:54 -0500

Let’s get technical.

Wes Hill recently published a piece over at First Things about why, as someone who thinks about his same-sex attractions “as a kind of ‘thorn in the flesh,’” he chooses to identify as a “celibate gay Christian” rather, I imagine, than merely referring to something like “a struggle with same-sex attraction.” The article was helpfully eloquent (as Hill typically is), but I found myself distracted by the phenomenon of the article itself—namely, that it’s a question audiences continue to ask Hill and that comments on the post continue to take issue with Hill’s self-identification. (It’s not just happening to Wes. This conversation is nearly ubiquitous in circles talking about homosexuality from a non-affirming perspective.)

In my experience, people who choose not to use words like “gay” and “bisexual” for themselves or for others are doing so because they desire (or want to walk alongside people who have expressed a desire) to avoid same-sex sexual activity. Identifying as “gay” sounds to many non-affirming ears like taking one more step down a road to sin: First you identify as “gay,” then you perceive your same-sex attractions as an essential and God-given component of your identity, then your perceptions of same-sex relationships shift from disordered to ordained, then etc., etc., etc. If you mean to abstain from sexual activity, so the thinking goes, why give sinful desires such a foothold by claiming they somehow constitute some component of who you are? (Hill explains well why he uses the “gay” label and points to three other articles that give other shades of nuance to the discussion.) Identifying as “gay” also sounds to many non-affirming ears like idolatry, since many perceive a cultural “gay identity” (something, from what I can tell, associated with flags and political action and certain behaviors) that could potentially compete with a Christ-identity for the Christian who labels him- or herself “gay.” I don’t want to suggest inaccurately that Christians of any orientation who reject sexual identity labels necessarily lack empathy or don’t take the experiences of sexual minorities seriously, and I rather appreciate the way they seem so quick to compare homosexuality to other behaviors they consider sinful—it’s a nice contrast to the way Christians often elevate the severity of sexual ethics. Nevertheless, I think those who condemn others for using a gay identity label are at an increased risk of conflating orientation with lust and of ignoring the vast differences in experience between gay and straight Christians.

First, orientation and lust: Ten years from now, I expect we’ll still be having rich and fierce debates about the morality of same-sex relationships, but I also expect we’ll have moved past the way many present-day debates talk about homosexual orientation in terms of lust and temptation as if merely acknowledging one’s same-sex inclination is necessarily the same as walking a road (even if only in one’s mind) towards sinful sexual activity. In my experience, many gay Christians do often trifle with lust initially as they seek to understand their sexual orientation, just as many straight Christians similarly trifle with lust; when sexual attraction first arrives, humans tend not to know precisely what to do with it. But I also think many Christians (gay or straight) who eventually decide to remain celibate manage to incorporate their sexual attractions into their experience of the world in a way they consider both honest and God-honoring. In other words, they learn what to do with their sexual attraction, just like every Christian eventually learns how to satisfy appropriately their desire for food or rest or possessions or affirmation. Hill points to a post by Melinda Selmys, who effectively demonstrates how someone who experiences same-sex attraction but perceives same-sex relationships as sinful can take ownership of her sexuality as a means of connecting to God and other people. She draws a clear distinction between orientation (which is amoral) and the kinds of temptation orientation tends to engender. Until we can all make this distinction, I think we’ll remain stuck thinking Christians who recognize a same-sex inclination as an enduring, central part of their experience and label that inclination “gay” are necessarily at odds with Christian communities who do not affirm same-sex relationships.

Second, differences in experience: I think comparing homosexuality to other behaviors can be theologically productive but is rather useless in practical terms. Here’s what I mean: Theologically speaking, I appreciate it when someone who considers homosexuality sinful is able to express how other behaviors, like taking more than you need or speaking falsely, are equally (or, in the context of life together, maybe more) problematic. Practically speaking, though, I don’t think there’s much to learn from comparing my experiences as a gay Christian to those of a Christian who struggles with greed or dishonesty, simply because I don’t want to downplay how drastically my experience seems to differ from the experiences of my straight peers. I don’t say this out of a masochistic desire to dwell on how strange I am, and I’d be the first to tell you how much more drastically my experience synchronizes with my peers’ in the most significant ways. But if sexuality is so centrally tied to who we are as people and how we connect with other people—I mean, people all across the spectrum of belief get that sexuality is a big deal—then living as someone whose experience of sexuality is atypical suggests my life is going to differ in some fundamental ways, and it’s helpful for me and for the people in my life to keep those differences in mind as we seek to connect with one another: like how how my well-intentioned interactions with women have often done harm because I did not consider the perceptions they might naturally generate; or how those gender-specific environments that provide a relaxing, head-clearing respite from sexual temptation for straight people (like locker rooms or all-male Bible studies) are sometimes the most confusing and charged environments for me; or how my earliest feelings of romantic attraction were sources of fear and confusion rather than delight and thrill; or how a compliment from a man is more likely to flatter me toward vanity than is a compliment from a woman; or how the Super Bowl commercials that make me uncomfortable may be different from the ones that make straight men uncomfortable; or how I feel an increased risk of misreading demonstrations of affection from both men and women. Each of these scenarios involves more complexity than simply a difference in orientation (e.g., locker rooms aren’t confusing because I’m gay but because I am, like many men, tempted to lust), but each of them remains directly tied to the fact that I’m gay and not straight. They also have the power to provoke feelings of intense isolation and loneliness, both because I feel different and because others may not realize how different I feel unless I make a point to assert those differences.

That’s why, I think, our particular cultural setting makes a “gay” label so very useful and accurate for same-sex attracted Christians, including even those who are abstaining from same-sex relationships. In another of the articles Hill mentions, Joshua Gonnerman describes this usefulness:

“While there are interesting questions about whether it is good that sexual identity exists in our culture, the simple fact is that it does exist; further everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Someone who meets me will be more likely to assume that I am struck by a beautiful actress than by a beautiful actor. So if I’m going to be classified—and we often classify for a good reason, in an effort to know something or someone—I would rather be classified truthfully.”

My ability to connect with any given faith community depends upon my ability to understand them and their ability to understand me, and people seem to understand me better within the framework of “gay” (even as everyone from LGBT activists to ex-gay therapists decries the limitations of that shallow term) than they did when they thought of me as “straight.” “Gay” is, like any of the other ways we identify ourselves, a starting point, a place of introduction into the fullness of my hopes, dreams, flaws, inadequacies, and identity. As a starting point, it’s a concise, potent, and even provocative reminder that my perceptions and experiences are different from those of my straight peers. When a connection forms, I can explore through thick relationships within that faith community what God desires for me and how the community might encourage me toward those ethics. That connection is difficult to nurture, though, in contexts in which people reject my self-identification as “gay” and thereby risk framing my orientation exclusively in terms of lust or disregarding the uniqueness of the experiences that have shaped me.

(One other note, just for clarification: I don’t think Wes or many other gay Christians, regardless of their theology, would primarily identify themselves as a “gay Christian” instead of just a “Christian,” as if “gay Christian” were some new category of person or “Gay Christianity” were a distinct branch of practice. I know that’s the case for me: Only rarely will I actually say the phrase “gay Christian,” since in most cases I’m either talking about myself as Christian or as a gay person. The phrase “gay Christian” is merely a means of suggesting the two realities aren’t mutually exclusive, in the vein of “male Christian” or “brown-haired Christian.”)

A major component of my internship with The Marin Foundation last summer was working on their...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:35:07 -0500

A major component of my internship with The Marin Foundation last summer was working on their ongoing Parent Resource Initiative, a major endeavor aiming to create quality, balanced resources for Christian parents of children who come out as LGBTQ. For the first phase of the project, we initiated a huge research effort, interviewing parents across the country to hear their stories and parsing through all of the resources (books, websites, support groups) we could find to determine what parents’ needs are and whether those needs are being met. I had the opportunity to interview a number of parents, and two consistent themes became quickly (and nearly ubiquitously) apparent:

1. Resources for Christian parents of LGBTQ children are rare and difficult to find. In many cases, the books that do exist are heavily biased to the extent that they do emotional damage to vulnerable parents who are seeking empathy and understanding in a confusing time.

2. Christian parents often feel enormously isolated when their kids come out. One of the last questions we’d ask in each interview was, “Are you connected to any other parents who would be interested in interviewing for our research?” Nearly every parent responded with a “No,” and the loneliness these parents expressed broke my heart time and time again.

Although The Marin Foundation has completed many interviews, they want to hear more stories and are still seeking parents across the country who are willing to tell their stories. If you or anyone you know would qualify for the research, please, please consider signing up for an interview. From what I could tell, the interviews tended to be cathartic for the parents, since it gave them a chance to reflect on their experience in a safe setting. I’d imagine the vast majority of people who read this post won’t really connect with it, but I guarantee there are parents out there who are desperately seeking some kind of guidance and support. Countless parents will eventually benefit in a huge way from the resources that will result from this research.

To arrange an interview or learn more about the project, contact Laura Statesir at laura@themarinfoundation.org or 773-572-5983, or shoot me an email here on the blog at omoblog@gmail.com.

Family

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:00:42 -0500

“I want to go to college, TAMU or ACU, and either be an engineer or a minister, pulpit or youth. I want to marry a Christian wife and have at least 4 kids. I want to serve God always.”

I wrote that at church camp the summer after my junior year of high school. I was hurrying through questions about identity during a morning devotional, and the first question was broad: “What are some things you want for your life? What are your goals?” Evidently I wanted to go to college to be an engineer or a minister, I wanted to marry and have four children, and I wanted to serve God always.

Three years before that, the other eighth grade boys and I spent the spring in “True Love Waits,” a curriculum designed to help teenagers explore benefits of saving physical intimacy for marriage. A worksheet asked me to envision my life five, ten, and fifteen years down the road: How far along would I be in my education? Where would I be spiritually? Under “Family,” my answers were as concise as the answers of thirteen-year-old boys tend to be: In five years, I’d be “Dating.” In ten years, I’d have reached “Marriage.” And in fifteen years, I’d “Have children.”

Ten years later, I’m not married. I’m not married to a Christian wife, and I don’t have at least four kids. This is primarily but not entirely due to the fact that I’m physically and emotionally attracted to men, a reality I’ve recognized since before eighth grade but fully acknowledged only four years ago. I don’t remember ever receiving a clear call from God to marry a woman. I don’t remember any older Christians directly telling me it was imperative that I marry a woman and have children. Somehow, though, that became the inevitable outcome towards which my life was heading. It wasn’t that I felt pressured or obligated to find a partner, although questions from curious adults about my dating life were persistent. It was simply that, in spite of being drawn to men, I couldn’t and wouldn’t imagine any other outcome. Christians married opposite-sex partners and had children, and that was that. Growing up in a denomination that didn’t ordain ministers, I regarded celibacy as something only certain Catholics did. Same-sex relationships were a nonissue, the stuff of hushed conversations and snickers.

Throughout middle school and high school, my awareness of my orientation elicited a range of emotions. On bad days, it was agonizing, especially because my prayers that God would aim my desires at women were ineffective. On good days, it was merely puzzling, as I was still heading towards finding a wife and felt uncertain about how my private attraction to men would affect our physical and emotional intimacy. On very good days, it was trivial, since I optimistically assumed a change in my orientation was still only a few months away and then everything would make sense. My first year at college was when I stopped perceiving marriage as an inevitability, because that was the year I took a class with a professor from my denomination who was celibate. Celibacy provided a solution for the dilemma that had felt agonizing on bad days, puzzling on good days, and trivial on very good days: I’d avoid the complications of marrying a woman by staying single, and I wouldn’t ever have to acknowledge my orientation. Mere months later, I finally admitted to myself I had been exclusively attracted to men as long as I had been attracted to anyone, and I slowly began coming out to friends and family.

For many years, I presumed the way to submit my sexuality to God was to keep hidden that which made me different, to find a way to function within the limited confines of relationship patterns my faith community provided me. Hopefully you recognize my error, because of course we cannot submit anything to God if we keep it in darkness. We submit to God by bringing ourselves into God’s light, which requires a posture of humble honesty with ourselves and with other people of God. When I began coming out and asking candid questions about my sexual orientation, my relationship outcome was no longer certain, and it was extraordinarily painful for me and for people who cared about me to begin re-envisioning my future in light of the reality of my circumstances. But it also opened the door for conversations and, more importantly, prayers that were sincere and upfront, free from the interference of pretense and posturing.

I have no statistics, but my experience tells me the majority of Christians will eventually marry an opposite-sex partner and have children. Many Christians will not. This division is not synchronous with the division between Christians who are straight and Christians who are sexual minorities, because many Christians who are straight do not marry or have children, and many Christians who are sexual minorities do marry opposite-sex partners and have children. The kingdom of God includes those people who will not marry or procreate. It was the same professor who taught me not every Christian marries that also taught me Christians are the people who get to imagine the world different from how it is. God’s re-creating work is foundational to our identity as people who have been made new in Christ, so we see the world through eyes fresh with hope from the bigger picture of God’s activity through the story of history. One of the ways in which many Christians in our particular setting have failed to exercise their imaginations, I think, is in our concept of the family. We’ve perceived benefits of the heterosexual nuclear family structure to the degree that we no longer imagine healthy and satisfying relationships outside of that formal structure, and we’re unconscious of the way Jesus initiated a new family paradigm that was an absolute economic and social necessity for many of the people who left brothers or sisters or mother or father or children to follow him.

The casualties of this lack of imagination have been those people who don’t fit well into a network comprised of heterosexual nuclear families. This includes those sexual minorities who choose not to commit to mixed-orientation marriages, but it also includes people who don’t marry or can’t marry, people who don’t have children or can’t have children, and anyone else who does not follow a five-ten-fifteen year pattern of date-marry-procreate. The problem is not that we’ve catered our programming to the majority—that’s unavoidable for institutions—but that we’ve ceased to perceive anything outside of that majority as desirable or even viable. We didn’t err when we told our teenagers to wait for marriage before becoming physically intimate; we erred when we implied our teenagers were all necessarily waiting for marriage and that the only legitimate expression of their God-given sexuality was physical intimacy. We withheld other options in part, I suspect, because we revered heterosexual nuclear families and desired that outcome for our children, but we didn’t anticipate how isolated they’d feel when that didn’t happen for them or how readily they’d discover alternate options outside of the church. So long as we force people into darkness, we prevent them from submitting to God’s light. It wasn’t until I could be honest with myself and with others about my orientation that I could genuinely seek God’s will for me related to marriage—whether God would have me pursue a relationship with a woman (being entirely forthright with her about the particulars of our relationship), remain single, or pursue a relationship with a man.

My perception is that many young people growing up in churches today are encountering the same limited paradigm I encountered but that many others are beginning to acquire the skill of imagination, including an imagination for the atypical structure of God’s family. Such imagination results from many influences: It comes from churches that invite people to be entirely honest about their experience of the world, churches that promise and deliver a safe environment for people to submit the totality of their identities into God’s light. It comes from positive role models who do not belong to heterosexual nuclear families but who are committed to the sexual ethics of the faith communities in which they participate (and I’m including in this category those who belong to mixed-orientation families)—and it comes from an attitude of support, respect, and admiration for those role models from the other members of the church, free from gestures of pity or condescension. It comes from a holistic understanding of our sexuality that is much broader than (but still includes) what a husband and wife do together in their bedroom. It comes from conscious attention to the impact of our language and our assumptions, with less attention on which terms are in vogue and more attention on how our words can best honor the experiences of the specific people in our midst who are minorities. It comes from courageous, trusting love.

In these sorts of communities, I suspect we’ll each comprehend more fully how it feels to be (as in Ephesians 2) no longer foreigners and strangers but rather fellow citizens with God’s people, members of God’s very household.

Responding to Sin

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:45:17 -0500

Conversations with conservative Christians about homosexuality inevitably turn to how Christians tend to respond to homosexuality more harshly than they respond to other sins, and there’s an argument that often comes up that rather baffles me. It goes something like this:

“Yes, Christians are more vocal about homosexuality than we are about other sins, and we may hold people to a higher standard with regards to sexual sins than we do with other kinds of sin. But that’s because there’s a growing movement of people who are trying to change our perception of homosexuality so that we no longer perceive it as sin. We don’t have to be harsh on impatience because we all agree impatience is sinful. We don’t have to be harsh on greed because we all know greed is sinful. We have to be harsh on homosexuality because some people no longer perceive it as sinful, and that’s a dangerous movement.”

The argument doesn’t sit well with me for two reasons. First, I’m honestly not sure that everyone is so convinced about the sinfulness of other certain behaviors—behaviors like impatience and greed. I say this because of how apathetic Christians seem to feel about the near-ubiquity of these behaviors in many of our Christian communities. I can gloat about overeating at a church potluck even though our community agrees on values like temperance and selflessness. We laughingly identify someone as “the church gossip” even though our community agrees on the havoc gossip can wreak. When certain kinds of sin are more culturally acceptable, we’re much more likely to talk in shades of gray, with statements like “It’s an area for growth in my life” and “We all struggle in those ways. We’re only human.” When certain kinds of sin aren’t culturally acceptable, we’ll make the boundaries clear, and we’ll use language of “standards” and “holiness.” If we perceive a behavior as sinful in any sense, we should perceive it as destructive to the spiritual life and to the faith community; and if we perceive it as destructive, we should work to eradicate it regardless of its prevalence. Because we don’t respond to impatience and greed with any ferocity, I’m not convinced we actually—on a gut level—perceive them to be sinful, at least not in the forms that tend to show up in our church communities.

Second, I’m not sure where this line of reasoning leads. Suppose the movement in our culture and in Christian circles reverses direction such that most Christians generally come to agree that same-sex relationships are sinful. Then what happens? Do we add homosexuality to that list of things that we all perceive as sinful and don’t enforce for anyone (impatience, greed, gluttony, gossip)? I’m being a bit cheeky here, of course, but I genuinely don’t understand why Christians are so keen on getting ethics right if we readily admit we don’t follow the ones we’re pretty confident about. What’s really at stake in our doctrinal disagreements if we seem to ignore our doctrines anyway?

This is the part where I could say conservative communities should be soft on homosexuality because they’re soft on everything else, but I’m actually going to say quite the opposite. Here’s my suggestion: If your faith community believes homosexuality is sinful, then enforce it. Be completely gentle and compassionate, of course, but hold people to a sexual standard that only the very Spirit of God could enable them to keep. As in Ephesians 5:3, let there be “not a hint of sexual immorality” within your community. And then hold everyone to a standard of behavior that’s just as high with regards to everything else you perceive as sinful. Remove all impatient acts. Exterminate every trace of gluttony and gossip. As in Ephesians 5:3, let there be “not a hint…of greed” within your community. For the sake of integrity, set the bar high for all kinds of immorality.

And in the meantime, use our culture’s current debates about homosexuality as an opportunity to take an honest, fearless look at your church’s sexual ethics. Are members of your faith community generally succeeding in their efforts to live up to your standards? Does it seem like you’re asking more of sexual minorities than you are of straight people? How has your cultural setting affected your perception of God’s standards for sexuality? What changes is God calling you to make in order to invite you as an individual to experience fuller life in God’s kingdom? Use our cultural context as a catalyst for growth instead of seeds for division.

New Year's Resolutions, Part II

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:58:05 -0500

I believe Christians are getting better at talking about sexuality, and I want to help us continue purposely framing our discussions to be as productive and meaningful as possible. For that reason, I’ve written New Year’s resolutions for conservative Christians—since those are the circles in which I mostly run—related to the questions we ask about sexuality. For Part II, I want to suggest questions we ought to begin engaging, if we haven’t already. An underlying assumption here is that your church is talking about sexual minority issues and seeking to move forward in relationships with LGBT people, which may not actually be the case in your context. The common thread between these questions is that they try to steer away from contentious political and social arguments in order to address the most critical issues facing LGBT individuals in conservative communities of faith. I want us to address some of the assumptions dictating church practices in order to discern whether those are reasonable assumptions we’re applying consistently. I think discussing these questions together may help conservative Christians feel more free to love and support others in ways that both honor their convictions and honor the experiences of others.

So, if the church in 2013 wants to discuss sexuality in ways that will benefit us and allow us to love more effectively and discern God’s will more clearly, I think it’s time to engage the following questions:

1. Is an openly LGBT person who chooses to pursue celibacy necessarily spiritually unhealthy?

If you speak with someone who’s been out to a conservative community of faith for any length of time, I guarantee they can tell you about a time when someone made them feel as if they’re spiritually unhealthy, regardless of whether they’re practicing that community’s sexual ethics. This happens in at least two ways. First, those who are openly LGBT face subtle acts of emotional violence in the form of others condescending or patronizing them, often in ways that sound like (and are probably intended as) genuine concern or accountability related to sexuality. They receive much more attention in this area than their straight peers do, indirectly implying they need more attention in this area. I’m not talking about gentle check-ins with LGBT youth about their overall health, which may be wise in light of the disproportionate statistics surrounding LGBT youth and depression/suicide. I’m talking about sending subtle messages that lack empathy, messages that narrowly define LGBT people by their sexuality and draw attention to that difference as a spiritual crisis: “I’m praying for you and that particular struggle,” or, “How are you doing with, you know, that part of your life?” Second, they often face overt discrimination in the form of restrictions that limit their full participation in the community of faith, restrictions unrelated to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Openly bisexual men find themselves prohibited from teaching children’s classes; celibate lesbian women face meetings with special discernment committees before filling leadership roles.

These inconsistencies betray an underlying bias against LGBT individuals: that nontraditional sexuality or gender identity necessarily reflects spiritual illness or weakness. The problem is that I don’t think our bias reflects any theological reasoning. It’s a result of our slavery to cultural taboos and ignorance instead of critical convictions based on scripture, tradition, reason, or experience. If we had legitimate evidence to believe LGBT people were farther from God, unable to demonstrate the Spirit’s gifts, or even less spiritually mature—or if particular individuals were refusing to submit to a church’s sexual ethics (but see question #2a)—we might have reason to treat them with special attention; but as it stands, I think fear and discomfort motivate our actions more than anything else, and neither fear nor discomfort are Spirit-given gifts. The unstated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that exists when churches allow known sexual minorities who are mostly closeted to participate more fully than their out siblings suggests the crisis is not a person’s sexuality or gender identity but rather the church’s consternation about how to respond to minorities that leads to our inconsistent behavior.

So, let’s turn our attention to the central question: Is an openly LGBT person who chooses to pursue celibacy necessarily spiritually unhealthy? If we believe they are, why are they? Is it an effect of their orientation or the cause of it? And if we believe they’re not, is there anything other than our own resistance to change and controversy that’s motivating us to treat them differently? (I’ll admit I’ve rather lost my patience with those who offer “the way things are” as reasoning for why our practices can’t always keep pace our beliefs.)

2. Should same-sex relationships be a marginal or central issue for Christians?

In other words, “Is it okay for Christians to disagree about same-sex relationships?” I’ll revisit an old post from Richard Beck, who offers a simple case study: “Why is Killing Okay but not Sexuality?” Beck responds to a certain speaker who implied “the traditional Christian sexual ethic was a boundary marker that couldn’t be crossed if one wanted to be a Christian” by asking whether there’s any reason Christians tend to be okay with ambiguity on certain ethical teachings but not okay with ambiguity on others: Why do Christians seem okay sharing pews with people whose views on killing vary dramatically (a pacifist and a veteran, for example) but not with people whose views on same-sex marriage vary?

People in theological circles will talk about “central” and “marginal” issues. Imagine a target: At the center are “central” issues, issues on which people really, really need to agree in order to identify as Christian and to be part of the “in group” in a faith community. Towards the edge are “marginal issues,” areas that deserve theological reflection but are not deal-breakers; disagreement on these issues is okay and even encouraged as people develop spiritually. Most issues fall somewhere in between, and conflict arises when people place certain issues at different places on the target. So, for example, Christians generally agree that naming Jesus as Lord is a central issue for people of faith—it’s one that’s very directly related to what it means to be a “Christian,” as people have historically defined that word; and most Christians will also agree a person’s choice of Bible translation is a marginal issue—a decision that someone’s faith can inform, but not one that’s going to affect one’s status as a “Christian” in the eyes of other Christians. But there are other issues we tend to disagree about, and sometimes messily so. Same-sex marriage is one of those issues. For some people, same-sex marriage is a marginal issue: It’s an important question, and it’s one that someone’s faith should absolutely inform, but someone’s position on same-sex marriage does not affect their status as a Christian. For many conservative Christians, though, same-sex marriage is closer to a central issue: If someone supports same-sex marriage (or even suggests homosexuality is a marginal issue), that belief disqualifies them from identifying as Christian and from participating in a given church. (Although this post is meant for conservative Christians, I’ll also point out that many progressive Christians also make same-sex marriage a central issue in the opposite direction: If you don’t affirm same-sex marriage, that disqualifies you from identifying as Christian.)

I think Christians need to discern whether same-sex relationships are a marginal or central issue and why we ought to classify them thus. In the process, I think conservative Christians should pay special attention to the reality of our particular cultural setting: Is our culture’s move towards full affirmation leading some to give unreasonable weight to the issue from a defensive position, or does our culture’s move mean Christians need to over-emphasize traditional sexual ethics as a means of separating themselves from the culture? I also think we need to address the question of marginal vs. central on two levels:

a. Each particular church should be aware of whether this is a marginal or central issue as far as participation in that church is concerned, particularly those churches that don’t answer to higher governing bodies. There are many times when people leave churches amicably because they realize their personal convictions no longer line up with the teachings of that church, and that makes practical sense to me. There are other times when people are surprised to find themselves suddenly unwelcome or excluded because their convictions don’t line up with the church’s unwritten laws, and that causes reasonable confusion/distress/anger. Whenever a church places any certain doctrinal issue towards the center as far as church participation is concerned, it needs to be able to explain why and apply that emphasis consistently. (See Beck’s post about boundaries.)

b. Individuals should give thought to whether this is a marginal or central issue as far as one’s relationship with God is concerned. Early in 2012, Alan Chambers—who’s the head of Exodus, the world’s largest ministry that seeks to help Christians abstain from homosexual activity—made waves when he made a comment about how he believed people involved in ongoing same-sex relationships could still receive God’s grace and forgiveness, later clarifying he believed the gift of salvation was a permanent gift: “If someone ever knew Christ, they still do.” The waves he made were fascinating: Some conservative Christians seemed genuinely shocked that Chambers would suggest people involved in same-sex relationships could ever be on good terms with God, especially as far as eternal salvation is concerned. Other conservative Christians, though, seemed genuinely shocked that the first group was shocked, wondering why group #1 believed these relationships (which they, too, perceived as sinful) were somehow any more sinful than any of the other ways in which people sin, knowingly or inadvertently, or should prevent people from receiving God’s grace. It was one of those bizarre moments where lots of people looked around in confusion, saying, “Wait, I thought we were on the same page here!” It drew into sharp relief the variety of ways Christians perceive the spiritual implications of behaviors they consider sinful, and it drew the particular behavioral question of same-sex relationships into a broader discussion about grace and how and when people are saved. How important is it that any particular Christian get the issue of same-sex relationships right, and why is it so important or unimportant? If someone earnestly, sincerely gets the question of same-sex relationships wrong, what does that mean for the person’s relationship with God? Is this something a legitimately dedicated Christian could conceivably get wrong? Is this even a “right vs. wrong” discussion?

Let me reiterate that my goal with raising these questions is to focus Christians’ discussions on issues that actually affect the lives of LGBT individuals within their faith communities. Many Christians are treating LGBT individuals as if they’re spiritually ill, and many churches do contain members with wildly diverse views on sexuality. Let’s avoid using the comment thread on this post to discuss the questions I’ve raised here—they’re a much bigger discussion, as far as I’m concerned, and that discussion belongs in another setting. Here’s what I do want to hear from you in the comments: What other questions do you think conservative Christians need to address, or how would you clarify the questions I raised above?

Part I, where I outline questions the church shouldn’t be asking, is here.

New Year's Resolutions, Part I

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:54:00 -0500

Christians are getting better at talking about sexuality, and I want to help us continue thoughtfully framing our discussions to be as productive and meaningful as possible. For that reason, I’ve written New Year’s resolutions for conservative Christians—since those are the circles in which I mostly run—related to the questions we ask about sexuality. For Part I, I want to examine questions I’ve encountered that are no longer useful and offer suggestions for alternative questions that address more directly what we’re actually trying to discern together. As a friend pointed out, some of these questions I’m criticizing are unavoidable for LGBT individuals and their friends/relatives on a personal level as they seek to understand themselves and understand God throughout their identity development, so I’m not suggesting every person needs to avoid ever wondering about these things. Rather, I’m suggesting these questions have become fruitless within broader conversations among Christians trying to discern how to move forward with LGBT people. From what I can tell, the problem is not the questions themselves but how we’re using them: The common thread between the three is that I suspect we tend to overestimate how much each one will be able to inform our understanding of sexuality and our response to LGBT people. They’re not as useful as we think.

So, if the church in 2013 wants to discuss sexuality in ways that will benefit us and allow us to love more effectively and discern God’s will more clearly, I think it’s time to retire the following questions:

1. “Is sexual orientation a result of genetic or environmental factors?”

Let’s start with a big one. The Christian movement has a notoriously poor relationship with science, insofar as we’re great at embracing science we like and dismissing science we dislike. Unfortunately, this question brings psychological research into the spotlight, and it can lead us in two dangerous directions. First, it can draw us into a tenuous dichotomy that calls genetic things “of God” and environmental things “of the world.” Christians who don’t affirm same-sex relationships tend to embrace research that emphasizes environmental factors, while Christians who do affirm tend to embrace research that points to genetics; and passionately so, in each case. In either case, I think we’re being small-minded and—pardon my flowery language—blind to the absolutely beautiful wonder of our existence as complicated people who are biological and spiritual and chemical and relational. We’re also ignoring the power of both God and sin to work through both our genes and our environment. Regardless of where psychologists land on questions of causation (and my hunch is that it’ll be a “both-and,” because how could something so physical and emotional be limited entirely to nature or nurture?), I don’t want us to trap ourselves into thinking genes exclusively point to God and environment to sin, a dichotomy that seems to exist in our discussions of sexuality only.

Second, it can fool us into expecting an answer to this question will provide answers to many other questions, like whether sexual orientation change is possible (see question #3) or whether God assigns sexual orientation to people (see question #2) or whether homosexual orientation is natural, whatever that means. Answers to these subsequent questions are unrelated to causation, though, even if we did know for sure what makes some people gay and other people straight. I think we’re generally less concerned with causation in other qualities that make people different (question #2), and our noisy interest in the question of causes for homosexuality may be indicative of the church’s discomfort with the rapidity of our culture’s changing norms for sexuality and same-sex relationships. People on both sides of the debate give the question more weight than it deserves in order to build up their positions, but I think the answer here will be mostly irrelevant to the major questions that plague us. People will largely accept any scientific evidence that supports their positions as long as such evidence, however insubstantial, exists.

Ask instead: “What are the factors that have formed me into the person I am, especially related to my sexuality, and what are the factors that have formed my understanding of God’s will for my sexuality?” Sexuality is much more complex than the object of one’s physical attractions; it encompasses a bigger picture of human relationships, biological impulses, cultural norms, etc., etc., etc. I think we’ll get much farther if we stop seeking a one-sentence explanation for sexuality and begin to interrogate it as the result of innumerable factors, some of which come from God and others from our inability and unwillingness to live in God’s design. I’m less interested in why I am attracted to men than I am in how my culture, including the Christian subculture, has taught me I should interact with other men and women (and whether that’s holy), or in what sort of ideals I’ve striven to attain in my sexual ethics (and whether those are ideals worth striving toward), or what I perceive as normal and healthy (and whether I’m appealing to reliable sources for those definitions), or why I believe what I believe about God’s design for sexuality (and whether it’s true to God’s nature and history).

2. “Does God make people gay?” or “Does God assign a specific sexual orientation to each person?”

The former question is woefully unclear with the result that people can argue right past each other without ever discussing the same things, so I’ll address the latter, which is more precise. I’ve noticed many Christians have a fairly predictable pattern: Whenever someone possesses any quality or condition that makes them unique, our judgment about whether it’s a favorable or unfavorable attribute determines whether we’ll identify it as a blessing from God or as a symptom of broken humanity that God can redeem for God’s glory. So, if someone is particularly attractive or intelligent, we’re likely to recognize God as the source, but if someone develops a severe illness, we’ll probably recognize our imperfect world as the source. I’ve grown weary of discussions about whether God assigns sexual attraction, seeing as they tend to be little more than reflections of each person’s position on same-sex relationships: If same-sex relationships are sinful, then nontraditional sexuality is a symptom of a broken world; but if they’re not sinful, then nontraditional sexuality is one of the many ways God sews diversity into creation.

Furthermore, I don’t think a conclusive answer to this question would get us any closer to sexual ethics, which is usually where the conversation leads. People often use their answer to this question as support for their position on same-sex relationships (“God made me this way, so it can’t be wrong,” etc.), but since our answers are mostly speculative anyway, I’ll reiterate what I said above: Whether someone believes God assigns sexual orientation is usually a reflection of, and not evidence for, their position on same-sex relationships. There are passages in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament) that don’t share any of our modern squeamishness about attributing to God things we’d label “bad,” so the idea that God could make people gay while prohibiting same-sex relationships has never been particularly noisome to me; similarly, if sexual orientation (straight or otherwise) is not part of the identity God creates for each person, I don’t think that would necessarily tell us anything about God’s will for sexual minorities. If we’re going to talk about sexual ethics, we’ll have to find our evidence elsewhere.

Ask instead: “Is God glorified through my sexual orientation?” When the disciples ask Jesus whose sin caused a certain man’s blindness—a negative quality, it would seem, as far as they’re concerned—Jesus essentially dismisses the question, saying sin wasn’t the cause, and reframes the discussion: “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). In one of my seminary classes, we were talking about how we should respond to people who try and attribute natural disasters to God’s punishment on some particular group, and our professor concluded the debate by pointing out it’s just as arrogant to claim absolute knowledge that God didn’t do something as it is to claim absolute knowledge God did. Since we’re often less than certain about what God does and does not do—and since neither conclusion clarifies our discernment on sexual ethics—I think we’re making better use of our time when we explore together whether our sexuality (or our response to natural disasters and their victims) glorifies God. Regardless of whether God designs certain people to be gay, our primary aim should be God’s glory.

3. “Can God change someone’s sexual orientation?”

At best, this question is so much theological pontification, approximately as useful as asking whether God can make a rock so big even God can’t pick it up. At worst, though, this question can be a weapon wielded against those who have chosen not to pursue change in sexual orientation or who advocate against such pursuits on behalf of others. The question forces one of two responses: Either one answers, “No,” which sounds like a heretical diminishing of God’s miraculous power; or one answers, “Yes,” implying any lack of change is a result of human faithlessness or impatience. Don’t get me wrong: People asking this question are often asking it from a place of compassion, especially when they ask it to people who would actually prefer their orientation to change. But it disregards the difficult reality that is impossible to avoid in a life of faith: that God does not always do what people think God should do or want God to do, regardless of whether God is capable of doing that thing. As long as people have been in relationship with God, it’s been tough to swallow this particular characteristic of God’s involvement with us, and we rather think by now we should be able to predict and explain how God will behave in any situation. When “What God Can Do” becomes the foundation of our relationship with God, it can free our imaginations to allow God to work as miraculously as God wills, but it can also lead to perpetual dissatisfaction and frustration, paralyzing our faith and hope in a God who doesn’t behave as we’d like.

Ask instead: “Does God tend to change peoples’ sexual orientation?” or “Has God changed peoples’ sexual orientation?” or “Does God promise someone should expect a change in orientation?” These questions depend on our knowledge of how God has behaved among us rather than on some people’s conjecturing about how God should behave among us. They’re rooted in the reality of God’s promises and probably give us a better idea of what we should expect and what Christians ought to paint as our ideal outcome for people. The questions necessitate our honesty and fearlessness, if we have any hope of accurately assessing what God does and does not do, and they require us to listen to stories from those people who can be completely transparent about their experiences as sexual minorities. If we’re feeling particularly adventurous, I think the question “Why might God choose not to change someone’s orientation?” is probably more interesting than any others I’ve mentioned and could get us thinking about a much bigger picture.

Again, my goal with criticizing these three questions is to help us avoid framing our conversations in ways that are less helpful than we might expect them to be. What questions do you think have outlived their usefulness? And are any of the questions I mention here more useful than I suggest?

Part II, where I outline questions the church should be asking, is here.

Responding to Hate

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:50:45 -0500

I don’t want to write this post, so I’ll keep it short.

A few summers ago, a friend and I spent a Saturday following a certain well-known group of protestors as they made their rounds throughout our city, picketing various events. Their signs and chants were as malicious as we’d always heard they’d be, and their brazen indifference to the objections of their opponents made their message all the more infuriating. As we drove away from one of their protests, I expressed my exasperation to my friend. ”The main reason I hate this group is that—” I began, before he gently stopped me: “Hold on. Did you hear what you just said?”

I did hear. I immediately recognized that my word choice made me sound a lot like them, and I’ve since been keenly aware of the way this certain group’s pronouncements of hate and judgment often inspire similar statements from their victims and detractors. I genuinely don’t know how Christ calls us to respond to this group. I don’t know. But I feel very strongly that Christ does not call us to respond with equal measures of hatred and hostility. This group claims to speak on behalf of God, and they often attack people when they’re at their weakest and most vulnerable. Both of these actions are reprehensible, but neither of them is grounds for Christians to act reprehensibly. Ever since this group announced its plans to picket the funerals of victims of the Connecticut school shooting, I’ve seen some Christians spew venom strong enough to match the venom of this particular group, and the only result is that the overall amount of hate in the world increases.

So, how ought Christians to respond to them? Scripture gives examples for how to respond to oppressors and those who do injustice. (This group’s tendency to attack victims and people who are grieving suggests we might perceive them as oppressors.) Scripture also gives examples for how to respond to false prophets and false teachers. (This group’s tendency to attribute their false proclamations to God probably puts them in the category of false prophets or teachers.) In neither case does scripture prescribe vulgarity or threats of violence from those who follow Jesus. When that’s our response, this group succeeds in its mission to increase hate in the world.

I’ll offer a few thoughts to start a conversation about how Christ would have us respond to this group. It occurs to me that the best way to thwart the plans of a group aiming to make noise and draw attention to itself is to ignore the group actively (including, for example, omitting their name in blog posts about them, or better yet, not writing blog posts at all). I’d wager a guess that the only people in the country who actually support them are those within the organization, so writing Facebook posts about your disdain for them accomplishes little and only gives them a larger platform. With that being said, anyone who’s been on the receiving end of the silent treatment can tell you that disregarding someone is its own form of violence and hate, so we ought to think seriously about whether such a course of action demonstrates love. On the other hand, Christians ought to be concerned that those who are not Christians might think this group really does represent God well; perhaps our best response is to counter their messages not by attacking that group but by proclaiming God’s love and promises just as loudly, against which this group’s untruths will not stand. Directly confronting the group itself seems to be entirely fruitless, as they’ve made it clear they’re not open to correction or criticism. Is there any way to show love to oppressors or false prophets who spurn the stern exhortations of other self-professed Christians? We should remember in our discussions that the response of those who are geographically close to the group as they protest (an infinitesimally small portion of the population) may need to handle the crisis differently from how everyone else in the country should on behalf of the organization’s victims.

MLK said it best: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” I’ve pulled my hair out trying to discern how the love of Christ calls me to respond to this group, but I’m at a loss. Let’s tackle this together. How does Christ call us to respond to a group that proclaims hatred in the name of God to vulnerable, hurting people?

Lament and Hope

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:01:45 -0500

I’ve perceived a growing weariness—in some cases, bitterness—among many of my gay Christian friends toward the broader conservative Christian community, and I’ve been feeling it as well. It’s tough to pin down the source of the melancholy.

Perhaps I’m exasperated things haven’t happened more quickly. There’s been increasing momentum for the gay rights movement in the Western world, and I suppose I expected that would translate into increased empathy and understanding among Christians towards their LGBT neighbors. I don’t want or expect the church to change its values merely from a desire to keep up with cultural trends, but I did think this might be an opportunity for us all to learn how to love better in light of our increased understanding of different kinds of people.

Or perhaps I’m impatient with people who ought to know better (or, at least, it sure seems like they ought to know better). Again, I’m not talking here about people’s beliefs about marriage; I’m simply disheartened with people who have been carelessly abrasive towards LGBT people long after they can reasonably excuse it as ignorance or, well, carelessness. To be sure, we’re much, much better now than we were in the past; but I would have expected Christians to be trailblazers in loving people, as they typically are.

Perhaps I’m still feeling more alone than I should. There are many more LGBT and same-sex attracted Christians than there are out LGBT and SSA Christians, but the way many churches often fail to accommodate sexual minorities (and, really, social minorities) and idolize the traditional nuclear family narrative sometimes makes me feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t fit. It feels like many church leaders tend to aim for what’s easiest rather than doing the difficult work of making room for different kinds of people, and that’s disappointing for people whom “what’s easiest” excludes.

Perhaps the problem is that things actually have gotten better to the extent that they’ve drawn into sharper focus how bad things were and how much better things will be. Although my life experience has been mostly positive, I can say with certainty that life is better now than it was, say, five years ago, and it wasn’t until I experienced fuller life that I could recognize the relative emptiness of my life before. Even as things have gotten better and continue to get better, there remains the weariness of knowing things still aren’t there yet. Sometimes it feels like there should be more straight Christians actively pursuing that “better,” that things are only going to improve when greater numbers of people in the majority add their voices to the roar of those minority voices crying out for change. Feeling stuck in the middle between “what was” and “what will be” can be exhausting.

There are times when we’re supposed to cry out prophetic woes to the church, and there are times when we’re supposed to cry out mournful groans to God. For those whose prophetic voices are growing hoarse, consider this your permission to lament to God: No, things are not as they should be. Yes, that ought to make us discontented.

Fortunately, it’s a good time of the year to lament. Advent draws into sharp focus the severe pain of waiting for what we hope—in the sense of “expect”—God will do. We know (even if it’s sometimes hard to believe) the story of a world gone awry does not end with things as they shouldn’t be, and we know God hears our cries for help. Those realities neither invalidate nor deaden our pain, but they do redeem it in the context of God’s bigger story: It doesn’t end this way. In the meantime, we cling to those whiffs of what is to come: those moments when someone does understand and empathize, or when people lay down their weapons in a culture war, or when someone musters up the courage to come out to a faith community that immediately responds with love. Those moments are, like a star hanging in the sky over Bethlehem, signs that alert us to the good that is coming (that is already here!) and reminders that the season we’re in is nothing more than a season. They give us reason to continue hoping when we might feel tempted to despair, and they let us know we’re not hoping in vain.

So, today I lament and hope: Because things are not as they should be, and because—probably sooner than any of us would imagine—God is making and will make things right.

Questions for those who leave comments: If you share this melancholy, what is it you need to lament to God? If you don’t, how do you avoid it in the midst of a world that isn’t as it should be?

A Guide To Enjoying Weddings Without a Plus-One

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:57:29 -0400

I’m in that season of young adulthood when engagements and weddings are nearly ubiquitous in my life, and because I’m single, I frequently attend weddings without a plus-one. That I genuinely enjoy weddings (i.e., celebrations of lifelong partnerships) in spite of my relationship status seems to make me a bit of an odd duck among some of my peers, and while I was watching two more of my friends tie the knot this past weekend, I began thinking about what I love so much about weddings.

From those reflections, I’ve created a guide to enjoying weddings without a plus-one. It’s intended very specifically for people who attend weddings alone without the goal of acquiring a partner but with less-than-100%-confidence in their status as singles, people for whom the joy of celebrating two friends committing their lives to one another might provoke feelings of confusion, fear, insecurity, doubt, or jealousy. I’m hopeful it addresses some of the broader areas of uncertainty that singles face—whether they’re single temporarily or permanently—in a culture that often feels designed for couples, a problem Christian communities often unwittingly magnify. While I absolutely don’t want to downplay the seriousness of the pain and disappointment many singles experience, the guide is quite blunt, since I tend to be straightforward about my own experiences. My conviction is that singleness (temporary or permanent) is a gift and that singles are are an essential part of any community, so this guide reflects an attitude of emphasizing what singles have and offer rather than what they lack. I should offer the additional disclaimer that most of the weddings I’ve attended recently have been within my denomination (meaning they’re relatively subdued) and in the South (meaning they’re fairly old-fashioned—charmingly so, in my opinion), and my perceptions may be a bit skewed.

So, before you write a “1” on that RSVP card and mail it in, familiarize yourself with the following tips for enjoying weddings without a plus-one:

1. If you know anyone else going to the wedding, go with them.

Undoubtedly, the most intimidating tasks for the solo attendee involve finding seats, both for the ceremony (especially if there are no ushers) and the reception. You can avoid both of these crises if you arrange in advance to come with others. Meeting up with other single friends is a given, but don’t hesitate to make plans with couples or families you know who are attending. There are couples who will unknowingly make you painfully aware of your status as the single in the group, and there are other couples who will include you so seamlessly it won’t be clear who’s including whom. Go with a couple from the latter group. If they have kids, they’ll probably appreciate the extra childcare you provide.

Are you imposing on these families? I don’t like the question, because it somehow implies they’d be better off without you or that they’re doing you a favor, when in reality the way Christian community works is that everyone (even those people who have traditional nuclear families) benefits from their relationships with the larger, nontraditional extended family. Forming those nontraditional relationships comes easier to the singles in the group, and they serve an essential function by pulling people away from some kind of last-name idolatry. The kingdom of heaven is hardly a place where everyone shows up in their own family minivan; it’s not difficult for me to imagine Jesus extolling the virtues of the carpool. Go with other people, and for the evening, the three (or four or seven) of you are, in a very non-metaphorical way, a family.

2. Feel free to cry throughout the ceremony.

Weddings are usually sweet and beautiful, especially if you’ve read Revelation; and you do have a heart, after all.

3. If you’re not dancing, you’d better be having super important conversations.

…by which I mean to say there are at least two excellent ways to avoid spending the entire reception feeling dejected, and both capitalize on your autonomy. The first is to seek people out for meaningful conversations, since there’s a good chance you’ll be around people you haven’t seen in awhile. Conversations at weddings tend to be flyby catch-ups, brief updates about the kind of information you can find on a Facebook profile; but when there are tables and chairs and hours available, it’s a great opportunity for more substantial dialogue, and you can be the one who raises the standard for interactions with the people you encounter. It’s easy for couples and families to close themselves off from a broader social scene accidentally or stick to shallow chats, and single people can be a catalyst for connecting people in relationships that draw them outside of themselves.

The second involves rocking the dance floor with your incredible moves. Oh, you don’t have incredible moves? Then you’ll fit right in on a wedding dance floor, where your fellow dancers will consist of people like the bride’s 14-year-old cousin and the groom’s middle school English teacher. Seriously, though: I grew up in a denomination in which people considered dancing to be inextricably tied to sexual sin, and it’s only been in recent years that my people have started to recognize there is such a thing as righteous dancing, the kind of self-unconscious celebration that has nothing to do with sex other than the fact that it acknowledges our bodies are important and useful. That tends to be the kind of dancing I see at a Christian wedding, and there’s nothing like the “Cupid Shuffle” to eliminate any lingering feelings of discomfort related to your relationship status, especially since dance floors are the great levelers of all those demographic distinctions that might otherwise divide us. One of the gifts of singleness is the freedom to connect with a huge variety of people from all walks of life, and dancing helps break down the walls that prevent those connections, so make the most of the opportunity to make friends (even if the friendships last only a few hours) with a diverse mixture of people. (Yes, dancing can involve sexual immorality, so don’t do that kind.)

4. Don’t get anywhere close to drunk.

No, I don’t think Christians ought to be getting drunk in the first place; but in my experience, Christians are often at an increased risk of drinking too much when they’re with other Christians who are drinking, since it feels like a relatively safe atmosphere in which to cut loose. Are you ready for some real talk, singles? One of the benefits of having a significant other at any social event is that they can tell you when you’ve got something in your teeth, or when your political jokes have stopped landing, or when you’ve maybe had a few sips of alcohol more than you ought to have. This kind of social accountability is an important function of marriage, but for singles, that accountability only exists when you’ve got particularly close (or particularly forthright) friends nearby. If you choose to drink at a wedding, there might not be anyone to tell you when you’ve passed a limit, and you need to be fully aware and in control of yourself. (Don’t get me started on drinking if you drove yourself to the wedding.)

Does this mean you shouldn’t relax and enjoy the festive atmosphere? No, but it does mean you have to be smart, especially if the situation already has you feeling particularly tense or emotionally vulnerable (conditions that mix particularly poorly with alcohol). This proactive thinking doesn’t just cover intoxication; it translates into a general attitude of being respectful and responsible with yourself and with other people, avoiding the temptation of allowing yourself to become a burden to others. There’s a fine but crucial distinction between inviting someone to share your burdens (which Christians are supposed to do) and becoming a burden to others (which Christians ought to avoid). Single people need to learn to depend on others and to ask for help, but they also have the unfortunate duty of actively doing for themselves the kind of maturing that marriage often does automatically for people, especially since we live in a culture where it’s acceptable to live as an adolescent until you have a spouse. If you’re a single 25-year-old, you don’t have to pretend you’re a 37-year-old, but you also don’t get to pretend you’re a 17-year-old.

5. If you’re feeling any resentment or sadness, don’t work through it during your conversation with the newlyweds.

…because it has nothing to do with that particular couple. You need to admit and process those feelings—God created us as feeling creatures for a reason, and if you’re in pain, there’s nothing to be gained from denying that pain—but if you have to work through those feelings at the wedding itself, please, please, please do so in the many hours of the evening in which you are not talking to the couple rather than the five minutes in which you are, because your pain is entirely unrelated to their happiness, and on the day of their covenant ceremony, they ought not to feel as if they’ve done something wrong. (They haven’t.) It’s wrong for married people to condescend to singles with an attitude of superiority or privilege and treat singles as if they’re necessarily unhappy or unfulfilled, and it’s equally wrong for singles to blame any unhappiness they do feel on the married people in their lives. Both vocations are equally valid and meaningful in God’s kingdom.

6. Participate in scheduled activities.

Yes, we can all agree it’s gross when the groom throws the garter. (You don’t even get the luxury of pretending you don’t know where it’s been.) Those who plan the wedding may choose to include any number of an endless list of wedding traditions that are only enjoyable in the rarest of circumstances, and many guests will require extreme measures of prodding and persuading in order to participate. (Many of these traditions will even draw special attention to your singleness.) Nevertheless, remember the wedding is not about you or any of the other guests. It’s 2012, and gone are the days when people have to include certain traditions for the sake of keeping up appearances. You can safely assume the traditions matter to someone involved in the wedding planning.

Use the freedom your singleness grants you to make a big deal out of the traditions that evidently matter to someone. If everyone agrees a dollar dance is silly, then everyone can sit tight in their chairs and be cool and not participate, and at least one person in the room can be supremely disappointed. But if everyone agrees they can make the dollar dance fun, then they will, and you can be a source of momentum for making that happen—the life of the party, as it were. I don’t mean you have to take over and tell everyone what to do; it’s enough for you to participate yourself and do so ungrudgingly. Even if everyone else in the room is too cynical (or too distracted) to recognize the beauty of any particular tradition, or ritual, or rite, or act of worship, the single person can breathe new life into any given activity and set an entirely new tone for the room, throwing dignity out the window so that other people recognize they might be holding onto their own dignity a little too tightly. You’ll have a better time, and most of the others will, too, and a particular someone will be so happy to see what they envisioned coming to life with joy and energy.

7. Find ways to be helpful after the couple leaves.

If finding seating is the most uncomfortable task for the solo attendee, leaving is probably the most emotionally perilous, especially if you didn’t or couldn’t follow step #1. An empty car can feel especially empty if you leave immediately after watching the happy couple depart in a limo for, you know, potentially 60+ years of life together. Here’s more real talk: Many of your married friends will need to rush home after the ceremony to put kids to bed or put a spouse to bed or do anything else because married life just takes longer, but you’re under no such compulsion. If there’s any work to be done after the wedding—gathering centerpieces, wrapping up food, transporting gifts—volunteer your time and services. If it’s a small, low-tech wedding, it’s entirely possible that the newlyweds’ families may be looking forward to the cleanup time to relax and laugh and reflect privately with one another after the guests depart; if this is the case, it’s probably best you go ahead and hit the road. But if it’s a large wedding with a lot of work to do, I can almost guarantee the families will eagerly put you to work, and you’ll save an already-exhausted group of people from spending ten hours putting tortilla pinwheels in plastic bags. Believe me when I say leaving immediately after seeing the couple off (when you’re conscious of how you don’t have what they have) is profoundly more bleak than leaving after helping to move 300 chairs (when you’ve been able to demonstrate love to a family in need of those with time to give).

Human beings are created in the image of God, whose very nature is love. That means the nature of humans is to love, and love requires an object. Those who are married and/or have children have the benefit of constant recipients for their love, but singles will feel consistently frustrated and ineffective if they don’t find other people towards whom they can direct their love. Fortunately for singles, our world is and never has been lacking in people who need to receive love, and while wives and husbands and dads and moms are busy spending significant amounts of time showing love to their immediate families—as God is calling them to do!—singles have the privilege (and it’s as much a privilege as loving a spouse is) of dedicating their love to God and to the world who needs them.

When Reconciliation Gets Boring

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:43:58 -0400

Pardon the generality, but mine seems to be a generation that loves demonstrations, both the negative and positive kind. (See, for example, Time’s awarding “The Protester” its 2011 Person of the Year award, in light of the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement; the more than 10 million users of Change.org, a site that manages online petitions that have produced significant results; and the innumerable options of various causes to support by clicking “Like” on your Facebook newsfeed.) We like making a point, and we like doing it with creativity and panache. Businesses have taken note, and everything from purchasing shoes and glasses to drinking certain soft drinks can carry implications for social change.

Those with a bent toward demonstrations may already be aware of this week’s Spirit Day, an annual day of solidarity with LGBT teens and protest against bullying. Although the observance began only two years ago as a response to the epidemic of suicides related to anti-gay bullying, it’s rapidly grown to the point that countless celebrities and other people of influence participated last year and will again. The concept is superbly simple: Wear purple (since purple is the color on the pride flag that corresponds to spirit) on Friday, October 19, and find a way to communicate that your attire is a symbol of your support for LGBT teens. Spirit Day is a particularly low-commitment example of a growing number of annual LGBT-themed protests and demonstrations that capitalize on my generation’s affection for short-term activism (or, if you’re cynical, “slacktivism”), and it may come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I feel ambivalent (Do I ever feel otherwise?) about such rallies.

To be sure, demonstrations have an important—essential?—role in raising awareness for any sort of social movement, insofar as they effectively communicate the message a group is trying to communicate. There are only so many ways to draw attention to any particular topic subtly and unobtrusively, meaning one must occasionally surrender subtlety to make noise and start conversations obtrusively, especially when the issue at hand is something people seem keen on silencing. For Christians involved in our culture’s (and our faith’s) ongoing LGBT discussions, demonstrations are a convenient opportunity to alert the people around you to your awareness of the existence of LGBT people and your interest in LGBT issues, much in the vein of my previous post about “Safe People.” Participating in a demonstration can represent a huge step in any given person’s journey, and the action might be inexpressibly meaningful to others in that person’s life. I’ll probably never forget fighting back tears in a campus bathroom on last year’s Spirit Day when two different individuals sent me texts that included pictures of the purple shirts they had donned that morning in support of the cause.

The main danger I see with any demonstration is the risk of poor communication, such that the demonstration’s recipients perceive a different message from what the demonstrators mean to say. This was, in my opinion, the tragic flaw of Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day in August: Some ate Chick-Fil-A because they disliked gay marriage, and others ate Chick-Fil-A because they liked free speech, and others ate Chick-Fil-A because they disliked the backlash against Chick-Fil-A, and all of this poor communication and disunity somehow translated into outsiders hearing an unequivocally anti-gay message. (On that note, the less-publicized Kiss-In a few days later was equally muddled and ineffective to the point of being detrimental.) Spirit Day defines its message as an opportunity “to stand against bullying and support LGBT youth,” but it’s almost inevitable that people on both sides will hijack the day to make it about any number of other causes or questions or debates that are only distantly related to standing against bullying and supporting LGBT youth. Any time you participate in a protest, you run the risk of outsiders hearing something different from what you’re trying to say, and you have to decide whether the risk of that potential misunderstanding is worth the reward of what you might effectively communicate. That risk nearly always dissuades me from participating in any given demonstration, much to the chagrin of my inner activist.

Demonstrations also involve the danger of cloistering, since they provide a too-tidy visual for who’s on your side (Us) and who’s on the other side (Them). This became sickeningly clear to me a few years ago when I stopped by a Westboro Baptist Church protest at military base, where even the geography of the situation—WBC on one side of the highway, patriotic counter-protestors on the other side—drew a sharp division between the conflicting groups. The vitriol of the Phelps family (“Thank God for dead soldiers,” read one sign, in addition to variations on their infamous “God hates _____” format) met its match with the vitriol of the flag-wavers (I won’t repeat some of the vulgarity they shouted), and I found myself incapable of imagining a scenario in which either group would ever empathetically listen to those across the highway. When Spirit Day arrives, there will be many who purposely wear purple, but there will be many who won’t—most because they’re unaware or indifferent, but some out of an intentional decision not to participate—and you won’t have any trouble recognizing whether someone actively supports this particular cause. Whereas life usually leaves room for gray areas and spectrums of opinion, demonstrations like Spirit Day force people (at least people who are aware) to make a decision in one direction or the other.

For all the pros and cons of demonstrations, I’d wager the most significant social change comes through ongoing relationships, through the substance of regular conversations and shared experiences and slow influence. Whereas demonstrations might communicate poorly, relationships foster richer communication by putting people in the same room and giving them the chance to talk and listen and clarify over a period of weeks or months or years. Whereas demonstrations might push people farther apart into stricter polarities, relationships emphasize areas of overlap and resemblance because they depend on love and connection. If you ask people why their beliefs on LGBT issues have changed in either direction, you can usually expect them to answer in the language of relationships, talking about friends or family whose life experiences slowly challenged their preconceptions about LGBT people. (You’ll rarely hear anyone explain how a parade or a boycott opened her eyes to the virtues of an opposing position, even as those efforts might put additional pressure on someone.) Demonstrations and relationships are entirely different animals: Although demonstrations require a sort of brazen chutzpah, relationships require more persistent courage and patience, a willingness to take seriously the arguments of opponents even as you stand firm in your own convictions. There’s also a different power dynamic in play: When I lead a demonstration, I set the tone and run the show, forcing others who might engage to do so on my terms in my territory. When I live in relationship, I have to submit to the natural give-and-take of human interactions on a level playing field, and I lose the authority that a megaphone might grant me.

Nevertheless, the most off-putting problem with the kind of slow reconciliation I’m describing—regardless of your particular issue or your particular position on that issue—is that it’s unglamorous or, to put it bluntly, boring. There will be sporadic breakthroughs and moments of startling harmony in this kind of work, but there will be many, many more moments of overwhelmingly sluggish progress, exasperating ignorance, and hope-stealing resistance. The real work of reconciliation often means having the same conversation again and again with different people, constantly pushing yourself to continue to engage and ask and listen, and regularly reminding yourself every person is on a unique journey with a unique schedule. When reconciliation gets boring, it’s easy to lose hope in the power of God to work through the process, and optimistic engagement with the other side may devolve into caustic accusations and shallow name-calling.

I thought The Marin Foundation’s I’m Sorry campaign this year was an excellent example of how a demonstration can function within the ongoing work of reconciliation. The main event, of course, involved wearing shirts and holding signs at Chicago Pride, but in preparation for that demonstration, the organizers asked everyone who would participate to spend time giving serious thought to why they needed to apologize (so their participation wouldn’t be meaningless) and to how they could actively make the situation better (so their participation wouldn’t end with the last parade float). The event itself fell in line with a number of ongoing projects The Marin Foundation utilizes throughout the year, like Living in the Tension gatherings, to have difficult conversations and make significant progress in the lives of people who seek to be reconciled. During the campaign this summer, one woman asked me with some skepticism, “What’s the point of a demonstration like this if you’re just going to leave after today and let the situation remain as bad as it is?” With joy, I was able to tell her that the Foundation wasn’t leaving, that it was committed to the ongoing work of bridge-building in that specific community. Because of the relationships that existed within the community, I suspect the demonstration ran a much lower risk of poor communication or polarization.

On Friday, I’m going to wear a purple shirt. It’s not going to save any lives, it’s not going to change any hearts, and I doubt it will conclusively heal the animosity between the LGBT and Christian communities. But it has the potential to be—like all of the most effective demonstrations—an opportunity for those who have committed themselves to the ongoing work of reconciliation, boring as it may be, to reiterate their active involvement and invite others to come along.

Safe People

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 10:11:11 -0400

When I decided to start coming out a few years ago, it was difficult to determine who would be safe people to tell. This wasn’t because I lacked close friends or family members I could trust; it was because I was in a conservative Christian setting, an environment where it’s often difficult to gauge who might be prepared to handle a coming out with sensitivity and grace. Over the course of my lifelong journey through churches and the Christian school I attend, it’s been exceedingly rare (but increasingly common) to hear people discussing LGBT issues, and it’s been even rarer to hear people discussing them with any noticeable air of comfort or familiarity. Many people in these settings are relatively unexposed to LGBT issues or people, so they’ve never had any opportunity or real motivation to learn what to say or how to say it. Nevertheless, I’ve learned that one’s level of familiarity with LGBT issues is often entirely unrelated to how effectively one can respond to a coming out or love and support an LGBT person. People’s eagerness to learn and understand always pleasantly surprises me, and I’ve grown to admire those people whose gut reaction to something unfamiliar (like a coming out) is to love first and ask questions later.

National Coming Out Day is October 11. It’s meant as a celebration of coming out and of the visibility of the LGBT community, and it often provides impetus for those who are considering coming out to take that important step. I’ve written before about my experiences coming out, but I thought it might be helpful for me to speak to those on the other side of the coming out conversation. More specifically, for those who desire to walk with their LGBT friends and family but don’t know how to make themselves known as available and ready to listen, I want to describe the qualities I’d look for if I were a closeted gay person seeking safe people. I write this because I’ve talked to closeted LGBT people who feel completely alone at Christian schools, and I’ve also talked to Christians who want to support LGBT individuals but don’t know how to advertise themselves as such, and it breaks my heart to think of the beautiful opportunities we’re missing for connection and sharing between those people. Unfortunately, it’s still impossible to predict with perfect accuracy who will be safe—it’s an art, not a science, and many of the people who have treated me best didn’t fit these descriptions initially—but the people I’ll describe here are the people I would probably feel most comfortable seeking out as confidants and friends.

(I should point out that when I say “safe” people, I’m using it informally to refer to people I’d feel comfortable sharing with as peers and friends. The word “safe” is often formal, technical jargon, particularly at schools and universities, to identify certain professionals who have completed training to know how to best respond to LGBT individuals; but in this post, I’m mostly talking about those who would serve as nonprofessional allies. I hope it goes without saying that if you mean to present yourself as an ally to LGBT individuals and invite their openness, it’s absolutely essential that you do so from a place of humility, compassion, and empathy and never out of a desire to manipulate, coerce, or control.)

1. They aren’t afraid to raise the issue.

If you’ve ever been disoriented or lonely in a culture where your language wasn’t the native tongue, you’ve probably experienced that peculiar jolt of affection and familiarity you feel when you overhear a stranger using words and phrases you actually recognize. As a youth group student and even a freshman in college, I often went weeks or months without hearing Christians mention homosexuality or the gay community, so my ears perked up whenever anyone even vaguely alluded to LGBT issues. Without a doubt, someone’s willingness to broach LGBT issues in any sort of positive or empathetic tone is the clearest and most visible indicator they might be prepared to listen to me talk about my sexuality. They may do something as noticeable as leading a Bible study about homosexuality or as simple as posting a link on Facebook to a story about sexual minorities; but in environments where nontraditional sexuality receives no attention, even the tiniest statement of knowledge or interest can communicate a loud-and-clear message (accurate or not) that this person is the safest person in the room. It’s helpful but not essential that they use current, appropriate language when they do bring up the issue; to be honest, many of the people who might be coming out in Christian settings won’t be familiar with current, appropriate language (or may even intentionally reject such language) anyway, so getting a certain phrase wrong probably won’t turn people off.

Unfortunately, when these people intentionally raise questions about or draw attention to the LGBT community, they’re often victims of aggressive backlash from those people in the community who aren’t comfortable with LGBT-related discussions. (In many settings, this population comprises the vast majority.) Introductng the topic requires enormous courage and may involve offering oneself up as a target for an entire community’s animosity or fear about a broader social movement, and in some settings, the person who’s willing to broach the subject may even become fodder for LGBT-related rumors. Nevertheless, in particularly silent contexts, an action as small as posting on Facebook can be a beacon of hope and solidarity for those sexual minorities who feel hopelessly alone, and I can’t overemphasize how helpful it might be for certain people to discover proof of the existence of others around them who care about these issues.

2. They avoid making assumptions.

This is much more subtle, but I usually expect people who avoid making assumptions about me, my life, and my desires and expectations will react well to my coming out. If you’ve never attended a conservative Christian school, you may not fully understand how palpable and ubiquitous is the pressure for students to find a spouse and marry him/her as soon as possible. The pressure for me as an undergraduate was palpable at church, too, where conversations with older Christians would inevitably lead to questions about my romantic life, with the assumption that, as was the case with many of my peers, romance was really what I was hoping to discuss anyway (or that advice was really what I sought). I have no doubt these Christians who asked about my dating life were well intentioned and genuinely concerned with helping me obtain something that obviously brought immense joy and satisfaction to them (i.e., a spouse and children), but implicit in their inquiries was an apparent lack of openness to the possibility that my life would move in a different direction.

When I started coming out, I naturally migrated to those people who seemed aware that forming a heterosexual nuclear family was not every person’s immediate goal. It seemed more likely those people would be capable of discussing nontraditional sexuality well, and I expected they possessed the imagination necessary to explore with me what my life might be like as I discerned God’s will. Sometimes, this meant I gravitated toward people who were single or who themselves identified as less-than-heterosexual, but it also meant I noticed those who didn’t default to questions about dating and marriage, people for whom romance seemed uninteresting or unimportant. I never felt like I had to explain (or, to be more accurate, make up excuses) to them why I wasn’t pursuing anyone, and I appreciated the lack of pressure I felt from them. People who avoid making assumptions about others—about what they desire, about what they expect, about what’s “normal”—send the message they’re conscious of the variety of shapes a person’s life might take.

3. They (mostly) don’t ask invasive questions.

I include the “(mostly)” qualifier because I’ve heard a few anecdotes from people who were thankful someone else had the boldness to ask, but the general consensus seems to be that it’s not a good idea to inquire into the sexuality of someone who may be LGBT. It’s not uncommon for someone to have strong suspicions about a friend or family member’s sexuality and to wish that friend or family member felt safe coming out so that they could receive support and love, but it’s dangerous to force someone else to come out (or to force them to be dishonest in order to avoid coming out) before they consciously decide they’re ready to do so. The woman who asks her friend if he’s gay out of a genuine desire to know him more fully might encounter a reaction of shock, offense, or embarrassment that damages trust rather than opening a door for self-disclosure, regardless of whether he is actually gay or desires to share that part of his life with her.

So, safe people generally won’t ask invasive or direct questions like, “Are you gay?” or, “Is there something you want to tell me about your sexuality?” They also won’t rely on heavy-handed or leading references to nontraditional sexuality, since those indirect allusions can often be more unsettling and frightening to the closeted LGBT person than direct questions would be. Instead, those safe people who suspect a loved one is LGBT will lean into both qualities I describe in the above paragraphs. First, they’ll find subtle, natural ways to bring up nontraditional sexuality or to mention other relationships with LGBT people, not only in that individual’s presence but as an ongoing passion and interest. Second, they’ll avoid making any assumptions about that person (either that they’re straight or LGBT) in order to be unfazed if and when that person does begin to open up about sexuality. They’ll regularly express unconditional love and invite self-disclosure by practicing self-disclosure. Those actions lay a foundation for trust and open-mindedness, and they avoid making the other person feel pressured (“I guess I have to come out to her so she’ll quit bringing it up!”) or too self-conscious (“Is it that obvious I’m a lesbian?”).

I hope it’s been clear throughout that these qualities are valuable for any Christ follower who wants to support and walk with other people gently and compassionately in any situation. I believe Christians should be proactive in addressing difficult issues, open to the diversity of narratives that can honor God, and gentle with the tenderness of others’ lives, and I believe such an empathetic posture demonstrates an abiding joy and peace resulting from trust in God. When LGBT individuals make the weighty decision to come out, they may find themselves naturally drawn to those individuals who, in their qualities of joy and peace, embody the very nature of the God who loves us as we are.

Bullying the Bullies

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 09:27:15 -0400

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and as someone who spends time thinking about faith and sexuality, that delights me for two reasons. First, I think bullying prevention is an absolute theological slam dunk. I’m well versed on disagreements about the biblical perspectives on same-sex relationships, but I believe one of the most consistent themes throughout the entirety of the scriptures is God’s heart for those whom society oppresses, marginalizes, and, yes, bullies. Like many of my all-too-ready-to-fix-the-world-by-supporting-causes peers, I genuinely appreciate opportunities to participate in demonstrations or events that encourage productive dialog about significant issues. Nevertheless, because my enthusiasm lies in the arena of sexual minorities and the Christian faith, I often find myself participating half-heartedly in secular rallies that don’t quite capture the statement I want to make or second-guessing every step I take out of fear for how my message will be received by certain communities of people. When it comes to the crisis of bullying in our country, though, I have no hesitation extending my full support to prevention efforts—especially as they relate to anti-LGBT bullying—and I’m convinced Christians should actively seek to prevent bullying regardless of what they believe about nontraditional sexuality. (I’ve argued this before: “Why I Need You to Stop Saying ‘Gay.’”)

Second, I’m enamored with a recent cultural shift that has slowly started making bullying prevention cool by celebrating the diversity and individuality of those who are frequently the victims of bullying. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what has changed, and it’s even harder to define exactly how the change happened; but somewhere along the way, people learned to revel in their nerdiness and stand up for society’s misfits. I choked back tears when Mitchell, one of the gay characters on Modern Family, delivered the following gem to bullied kid Manny: “This is the funny thing about growing up. For years and years, everybody’s desperately afraid to be different in any way. And then suddenly, almost overnight, everybody wants to be different…and that is where we win.” In spite of myself, I tapped my foot along when the ragtag chorus on Glee sang an original song celebrating their status as school outcasts. I blew up all my social media outlets trying to share the video of hundreds of students at a Houston high school performing a musical anti-bullying PSA. And I beamed when I heard the recent story of the overwhelming support for the Michigan girl who was elected to her school’s homecoming court as a cruel joke. As bullying became an epidemic in our country, many of the people who shape culture decided to make prevention cool, and their influence is slowly trickling down in the form of vocal support for victims.

That influence only moves so quickly, though, and the harsh reality remains that we’re facing a legitimate bullying crisis, especially with reference to LGBT youth. That point was made clear to me when I came across a site that tracks the frequency of anti-LGBT words and phrases (including “Faggot,” “No Homo,” “So Gay,” and “Dyke”) on Twitter and was painfully unsurprised to see their weekly rate of occurrence numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Stats on LGBT youth and suicide, harassment, violence, and homelessness remain disturbing (start here, for example), and I’ve heard countless anecdotes from people who identify as gay or whom others merely perceived as different about the pain of persecution and intimidation throughout middle school, high school, and even college. It’s essential that we separate the safety of the victims of bullying from any perceived political movements or religious ideologies; to get tangled up in discussions about sexual ethics and marriage laws is to miss the point, because the point is that youth (and many adults) feel unsafe and unloved.

Unfortunately, as much as I celebrate our culture’s gradual cool-ifying of bullying prevention, I’m uncomfortable with the way the anti-bullying narrative often takes the shape of retributive bully-shaming, whereby the victim of bullying receives support and encouragement while the perpetrator of bullying suddenly becomes the new victim of (seemingly deserved) negativity and scorn. Thus does Mitchell’s above pep talk to Manny end on a note of winner-loser competition, does the Glee number essentially boil down to a dismissive message of, “You’ll be sorry once I’m famous,” and does the headline to which I linked frame the high schooler’s experience as enjoying the “last laugh” in the controversy. We’re getting better at recognizing the harms of bullying and standing up for victims, but I fear we’re prolonging a cycle of harassment when we start throwing vicious language at bullies and essentially write them off as hopeless lost causes. In fact, the label of “bully” may now carry as much shame and disgrace as any of the discriminatory pejoratives we would hear from the lips of a so-called “bully”—and it may be worse, since the “bully” label includes a certain sense of having been earned. If anyone deserves to feel abused and mistreated, so the thinking goes, it’s the people who have abused and mistreated others. We feel justified bullying the bullies.

For example, you may have heard the story of Jennifer Livingston, a news anchor who responded on-air to a viewer’s letter that expressed disapproval of her appearance. Her statement was eloquent and poignant, and it deserves the national media attention it has received. Livingston has also received an outpouring of encouragement, but it’s distressing how quick many have been to lambaste and demonize Kenneth Krause, who wrote the letter to her. Make no mistake about it; I disagree with Krause’s perspective and his decision to send the letter, but the outpouring of vitriol he’s received simply adds more negativity into an already painful situation. I’m thinking here about comments to the original YouTube video, where individuals have labeled Krause everything from a “coward” to an “idiot” to a “jerk,” or an article on Jezebel (admittedly, a site known for abrasive language and content) that names him a “concern-trolly d-bag,” an “asshole,” and someone “made of slime.” Criticism and ridicule have, once again, begot harsher criticism and ridicule.

Christians who work to prevent bullying have the opportunity to do something different by actively working to protect and affirm victims of bullying while simultaneously recognizing and embodying God’s ever-present, unconditional love for every single person, even for the perpetrator who bullies others. The compassion Christians show the world begins with humility, the unassuming confession that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:8). Even in the process of dying for the ungodly, of course, Jesus showed compassion for his tormentors, famously praying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). John 8 portrays Jesus literally standing up against those who, in their positions of power, would publicly shame a woman for the sake of proving a point, but he does so in the gentlest means possible. (He reserves harsher criticisms for another setting.) Christians don’t get to choose sides and call certain people “bad guys,” believing as we do that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:23-4). (Forgive my cliched examples throughout, but I really think we’re dealing with spiritual baby food here.) In a world that often protects victims by shaming bullies, we have the chance to demonstrate radical love through our extension of mercy and grace to every person.

Here’s what I would love to see: I would love to see Christians—and especially those Christians who are eager to pursue tangible reconciliation with the LGBT community but who feel like their hands are tied with certain religious convictions about sexuality—take up the cause of bullying prevention, making noise and using the wonderful creativity God has given them to express words of hope, safety, and belonging to those who are victims. I’d love to see them use National Bullying Prevention Month as an opportunity to reiterate to the world through our actions how seriously we take matters of oppression, violence, and injustice because of how seriously God takes them. I’d love to see them set an example for others (especially for young people) of how to handle disagreements (especially in this political season, and especially online) with respect and generosity. And more than anything, I’d love to see them work to eliminate our country’s crisis of bullying while extending compassion, empathy, mercy, and healing to its perpetrators.

Talking About Same-Sex Marriage

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:30:00 -0400

There are people in your life who disagree with your position on same-sex marriage. If you support same-sex marriage, there are people in your life who cannot in good conscience support that significant shift in our country’s concept of family. If you oppose same-sex marriage, there are people in your life who cannot in good conscience deny gay couples the privileges straight couples enjoy. If you’re completely apathetic on same-sex marriage and have grown weary of the fuss, there are people in your life who perceive the issue as hugely significant and central.

As we enter election season for the next few months, it’s inevitable you’re going to run up against someone whose beliefs about marriage equality are different from yours. You may read a hasty comment a coworker posts to Facebook; you may overhear a conversation between the couple behind you in the checkout line; or you may get into an ugly, bitter argument at the dinner table with someone who’s never before expressed any sentiments related to the issue. In most cases (at least the first two in that list), there will be no reason for you to engage, and you already know this. But there’s a strong possibility you will find yourself involved in a serious discussion (or many serious discussions) about same-sex marriage in the next few months, and I’m already seeing how negative and hostile those discussions can become when we don’t approach them carefully and deliberately. In order to encourage productive, healthy discussions about a topic that’s important and personal to me—and, to be honest, to try and train myself to handle these discussions better—I suggest the following policy when it comes to discussions about same-sex marriage: Share face-to-face, honest conversations with people. Let me explain each piece of that statement.

First, share face-to-face, honest conversations with people. I’m a staunch advocate for in-person conversations, both because of what I learned with The Marin Foundation and because of what I’ve experienced with responses to this blog. Quite often, when you encounter opinions that conflict with yours, it happens in the context of social media. When your friend expresses an opinion online with which you take issue, the knowledge that everyone else can see what s/he wrote makes it tough to allow the statement, noisome as it is to you, to float out there in cyberspace uncontested, and the ease of expressing oneself online dramatically amplifies the temptation to respond impulsively and thoughtlessly to what you read. Even if you take great care with your response and state your view effectively, though, you’re still butting up against the limitations of communication that’s strictly verbal and lacks the nuances of nonverbal expression, and I’m skeptical discussions occurring in the medium of a Facebook comment thread or a Twitter exchange will accomplish any good for anyone.

As intimidating as they are—and they can be enormously intimidating—I have no doubt face-to-face conversations are the most effective way to cover this sensitive ground. If discussing same-sex marriage is important to you, it should be important enough to merit a medium that facilitates effective communication. If you take issue with something a friend expresses online or in passing, resist the temptation to continue the discussion in that medium; instead, immediately request and plan for a face-to-face meeting with the person. If someone tries to trap you in a debate online or in passing, make the conscious choice not to engage, and if you’re willing, graciously and non-condescendingly suggest a face-to-face meeting. (I’m again noticing Andrew Marin’s influence: I can distinctly remember Marin saying, whether it was in a public speech or over lunch, something to the effect of, “People may try to force you to debate or answer pointed questions, but you never have to engage. You can always choose not to engage.”) If you’re uninterested in a face-to-face meeting with the person, seriously consider what’s motivating you to engage online. Otherwise, sit down at a table with the other person, and take joy in the opportunity for connection with another human.

Second, share face-to-face, honest conversations with people. I suggest complete transparency in your discussions for two reasons: On the one hand, vulnerability tends to be disarming and inviting. It’s not difficult to go to the library and find eloquent, reasoned arguments for and against same-sex marriage; but if mere rhetoric itself were all the other person lacked, you could save yourself an hour by simply slapping a copy of those eloquent, reasoned arguments in an email. Be completely honest about why you believe what you believe or why you’re voting the way you’re voting. Speak from your heart, and don’t merely recite the arguments of philosophers who stand on your side of the divide. If you happen to be a sexual minority and feel comfortable talking about that part of your story, explain what you’ve experienced and what has shaped your perceptions. Regardless of what you’re sharing, your willingness to be honest represents an extension of respect and trust, and extending respect and trust tends to elicit respect and trust from the other person. If you can stand to take the risk, the bold motion of letting down your defenses can entirely change the tone of a conversation and lead to better understanding and communication.

On the other hand, vulnerability forces you to be entirely upfront with yourself about why you believe what you believe, and it leaves absolutely no room for false pretenses of nobility in your reasoning. I mean to say that, if I’m completely truthful with myself, I’ve done a lot more work on some of my opinions than I have on others. It’s scary for me to admit many of my beliefs come less from intellectual exertion and more from gut-level inclinations, but honest discussion requires me to be upfront with myself before I can be upfront with others. So, don’t say, “Based on my studies, I’m convinced the biblical arguments in opposition to same-sex marriage are more faithful and responsible to the text than are the arguments in support of same-sex marriage,” if what you actually mean is, “Although I’ve not given much study to the issue, I’m comfortable relying on the ancient faith traditions I’ve received from my ancestors and see no reason to alter the church’s traditional sexual ethic,” or, “Same-sex relationships fall right in line with a whole host of progressive issues that give me pause, and I’m uncomfortable with many of the changes I’m seeing,” or even, “I just think same-sex relationships are icky, and that’s all there is to it.” Don’t say, “My informed understanding of human nature and sexuality leads me to believe same-sex couples deserve the same privileges opposite-sex couples receive from the government,” if what you actually mean is, “I care deeply for my gay brother and want him to have the same opportunity for a lifelong relationship as anyone else,” or, “I don’t personally know anyone involved in a same-sex relationship, but I’ve never had a problem with gay characters on TV and see no reason to deny them marriage rights,” or even, “I’ve got something to prove to my parents/church/society and need a controversial cause to support, and this one fits the bill.” If you’re uncomfortable expressing your true motivations because of what those motivations say about you, it’s probably worth your time to revisit your beliefs. But if you’re comfortable with the reasoning behind what you believe, express it with confident transparency, and make it very clear why you take the position you take.

Third, share face-to-face, honest conversations with people. I’ve encountered many people who have no interest in dialog with regards to same-sex marriage because they don’t want to legitimize the arguments of the opposing position, a position they perceive as harmful or sinful. And that’s okay—I completely understand why some are unwilling, due to either their own convictions or even their own emotional health, to share a discussion with someone whose worldview repulses them too much. Nevertheless, if you know you’re unable to engage another person in a dialog that recognizes the validity of that person’s worldview for the sake of understanding and growth, don’t tell the other person you are. Don’t invite someone into a “conversation” (or accept an invitation into a “conversation”) if what you actually envision is a sales pitch for your perspective, a meeting whose success you measure in terms of the other person’s eventual conformity and assent. Such tactics lead to feelings of distrust and betrayal and almost certainly will not achieve their intended purpose. If what you want is to change the other person’s mind, give them fair warning about what they should expect before they agree to meet with you. (You know as well as I do it’s a rare person who will actually accept an invitation from someone who claims to want to change his/her mind, but that doesn’t justify your misleading someone about your intentions in order to corner him/her with your arguments.)

If you are up for a conversation, though, anticipate it as an opportunity to grow in your comprehension of the other person’s position and to further develop your own opinion. Take seriously the issues s/he raises, and ask questions with the purpose of understanding more (and not with the purpose of poking holes in his/her argument). Above all, give the person the benefit of the doubt: that s/he is intelligent and compassionate, that s/he is working hard to get this right, and that s/he possesses some particular insight you lack. If, at the end of the conversation, it’s difficult for both of you to determine a “winner,” that’s a good sign you both came ready to listen to each other and to connect richly with each other. Conversations are not competitions.

Fourth, share face-to-face, honest conversations with people. It’s impossible to sit down at a table across from an ideology, a stereotype, or a political party, so don’t approach conversations about marriage equality as if you’re debating The Gay Community or The Christian Conservative Movement or The Institution of Marriage. Talk to a person, and pay close attention so that you might understand why his/her opinions may not completely match up with your expectations of what that person should be saying or feeling. I earlier mentioned you should be transparent about your motivations and your perspective; expect the other person to do likewise, and then listen to what s/he has to say. Try to avoid assumptions and hyperbole, the kind of speech that goes too far, like, “If you oppose gay marriage, you probably think we should force all gay people into electroshock therapy to try and make them straight!” or, “If you support gay marriage, you’ll probably be trying to legitimize bestiality in the next election!” Remember that very few people’s beliefs synchronize perfectly with any particular institutional doctrine, and keep the conversation in the context of the beliefs of the two people who are actually talking to one another.

Insofar as you have an existing relationship with the person, keep the conversation in the context of your relationship. If you’re talking to your sister, remember that you’re not talking to Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. You’re not talking to Dan Savage or Dan Cathy. You’re talking to another human who may feel conflicted or ambivalent, who may be surprised at how much his/her views have changed on the topic, and who is trying to piece together a worldview that works. You may disagree severely with the other person, but that doesn’t invalidate the relationship you share with each other. Remember that LGBT issues are human issues and that the people talking about LGBT issues have their own histories and baggage. Keep conversations humane.

Although the election will be over in November, marriage equality as a political issue is not leaving the stage any time soon, so it’s vital we learn to discuss it with sensitivity and grace. The policy I prescribed may sometimes feel arduous, but I’m convinced it’s significantly more beneficial than any impassioned-but-shallow squabbles or awkward, timid silence. I suggest we share face-to-face, honest conversations with people and, by so doing, grow in our understanding and love for one another.