As the BMC volunteer/ Kaleidoscope coordinator I know I’m supposed to be filling my mind with thoughts about Brethren and Mennonite stuff in North America, but I keep finding my mind wander to secular issues or world politics.
Maybe it’s because I’m bombarded with emails about the latest state marriage law campaign. Maybe it’s because I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that moving a measly 500 miles south to be here in Minnesota resulted in my loss of a long list of civil rights and protections. Or, maybe it’s because of last week’s news story out of Uganda about proposed legislation that would impose the death penalty on the crime of homosexuality (Read the NY Times article). That story certainly makes the connections between religious beliefs and secular laws.
Do negative stories motivate you to action, or paralyze you with frustration? Just in case, here’s a happy world news story, about young queer activist meeting in Scotland last month for the International LGBTQ Youth and Student Organization’s General Assembly (www.iglyo.com).
So there’s a group of really cool, really hip folks getting together some focused actions to start good conversations at the upcoming Mennonite convention in Columbus this summer about queer folks. It will apparently involve wearing lots of pink. We’re like the gay Mennonite version of the Obama campaign, that’s how cool and tech-savvy we are. To join just go to: pinkmennocapmpaign.ning.com
Tuesday was quite the night. I found my way to Grant Park (coveted tickets for the official campaign event in hand) and joined the crowd of a hundred thousand gathered to scream, cry, hug, and jump our way into a new spirit of hopefulness that is solidifying around us.
Besides Obama’s victory, there was another vote that meant a lot to me on Tuesday, and left a lingering bittersweetness to the otherwise perfect night: Proposition 8 amended the California constitution to define legal marriage as exclusive to opposite-sex couples, overturning the decision of the Supreme Court and ending the right of California same-sex couples to the legal protections of marriage for the near future.
There’s a reason BMC changed its name from the Brethren Mennonite Council for Gay and Lesbian Concerns. And I’m not talking about bisexuality — though that calls for a blog post of its own. I’m not talking about sexual orientation in any capacity, actually. Throw out homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, homoflexibility, pansexuality, heteroflexibility, etc. I’m talking about gender. Not sex, not sexual orientation, not sexuality, but gender. I’d like to repeat one bit of that — not sex, but gender - as in transgender.
Perhaps it’s all those Sociology courses I took in college finally getting the best of me, but I’ve reached the limit of how many times I can read sex and gender being interchanged in the Church of the Brethren and Mennonite Church. [Sex refers to one’s biology, whereas gender refers to one’s presentation and identity] I’ve reached the limit of the number of times I can listen to person after person group transgender rights in with homosexuality — as if they are one and the same. These are more than pet peeves and slight annoyances; they are untrue, sometimes even harmful statements.
I’m ready for the lgbt community to finally include its full range of identities. If a group claims to work for lgbt rights, their work can not only focus on homosexuality, or sexual orientations in general. Discussing sexuality and sexual orientation are important matters, but ignoring the fact that the discussion often leaves out transgender individuals harms us all. Doing so creates a dishonest movement, claiming total equality, but working only with sexual orientations. Especially when gender variance continues to flourish in our youth, we should be eager to share resources provided by the BMC office (and elsewhere). I deeply appreciate that, while acknowledging there is still a long way to go, BMC includes the transgender population in the community it serves.
The shameful lack of comprehensive sexuality education in the Brethren and Mennonite communities fuels a lot of this ignorance. It feels as if we are forcing our youth to remain naive about their own bodies, urges, and identities in order to preserve our own intense misunderstandings about the world (after all, we all know decent sexuality education leads to promiscuity, abortion, and homosexuality). I am worried that our denominations seem afraid of the fact that the more we teach our youth, the more they might explore. This exploration is seen as an undesirable and inappropriate process, but I see it as finally allowing our youth to grow outside our unhealthy boundaries and experience a world that seems beyond our control.
This summer’s Annual Conference was my first experience with a Brethren Conference of any kind. I showed up at the Richmond Coliseum with my mindfull of fears and worries of what might happen when a group of lgbta people start walking around with large reminders of the exclusion the CoB so deeply practices, by brazenly displaying 11×17″ photos of lgbt and allied Brethren. I felt really proud of all the work that went into BMC’s Picture Project — the gathering of photos and stories was just so tremendous. Here’s adescription of the project from the BMC website:
We were primarily interested in photos from CoB lgbt people and our families; both those who have left the Cob, and those who remain yet struggle. We also included some non-lgbt allies who have either already left the church because of its exclusive practices, are just barely hanging on, or who daily struggle to remain a part of the church and wanted to express their solidarity. We received over 80 beautiful pictures that we enlarged and mounted. We invited supportive individuals at Annual Conference to carry a photo with them at all times at Conference. Our goals were two-fold:
a) to challenge the exclusionary practices of the church by making visible the presence of CoB lgbt families and allies.
b) to encourage individual conversation with other conference-goers.
Growing up in the CoB, I heard every year about BMC’s presence at Annual Conference. I was always eager to hear what creative and moving way BMC staff and supporters would use space never given to them. I’ve been inspired over the past few years to pay more attention to the CoB as I learn more and more about the policies banning BMC from having a space at Conference. For me, it has been a situation in which the more I learn about the struggle for BMC to do seemingly simple things at Conference such as providing information for passersby and staffing a BMC booth, the less hope I have for the Church of the Brethren to right its wrongs. I’ve become hesitant to believe promises for change, and as this year’s Conference grew closer, I prepared myself for the worst: no one will carry posters around with them, BMC materials will be taken from booths and thrown away or not allowed, and people won’t show up for the BMC witness. I was ready for Annual Conference to be the last straw for my relationship with the Church of the Brethren.
It almost pains me to say it, but I’m afraid I’m sticking around for a while. Due to three main reasons (meeting wonderful and genuine allies, learning more and more stories of lgbt people in the Church, and conversations in the exhibit hall), I just can’t help myself. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’m not completely separating myself from the Church of the Brethren; at least not yet.
Now back to those reasons…
I met wonderful and genuine allies at Annual Conference. Family members and close friends of lgbt people in the Church stood out to me as an amazingly powerful presence. The Picture Projectcertainly got people involved, and I believe it allowed people a chance to speak out in a manner as moving as it was loving and influential. Some of the allies who joined us in the witness have been advocates for lgbt rights for years, even decades. I deeply respect those individuals who would challenge their own privileges and work to create change.
The more I learn about lgbt people who have, at one point in time, associated with the Church of the Brethren, the more my anger grows. It’s a strange kind of anger, however, that makes me feel equal parts motivated and discouraged. It’s an anger toward the CoB matched with the respect I feel for the lgbt Brethren population. The actions of the Church of the Brethren in the lives of some of these individuals have been so detrimental that I am amazed we can call ourselves a “Peace Church” with a serious face. The stories of lgbt people in the CoB are often filled with a deep love of a Church that frequently rejects them outright or demands their silence. Many are forced to distance themselves from the Church which had always been a presence in their lives. The strength one must possess to journey through pain, frustration, and betrayal truly astounds me. I have become aware of a great number of individuals who have braved the trail before me, and for that I am grateful.
Sitting in the exhibit hall, I was able to discuss the Church of the Brethren in all its liberal glory. Or rather, the hopes for the future. I was able to meet and get to know some individuals involved with Womaen’s Caucus, On Earth Peace, and VOS … and I picked up on the strong energy to believe that change is possible in the Church of the Brethren. For the first time in my life, I thought to myself, I really want to believe that the Church can change. The commitment formerly present in a few has now sparked in many, and may one day spread even more. I am not yet ready to commit to the thought that the Church of the Brethren will change for the better, or even that it has the ability to make that incredible turn around. I will, however, commit to stickingaround for a bit longer. I want to see where this is going…
Lawrence King?s young life tragically ended in his junior high computer lab in Oxnard, California. Larry, who identified as gay and sometimes dressed in a ?feminine? manner, made the mistake of asking his fellow student, Brandon McInerney, to be his valentine. Apparently the idea of this was so abhorrent and shameful to the fourteen year old Brandon that he brought a gun to school, walked into the classroom, and shot Larry directly in the head.
It is tempting to gasp, express dismay, and then convince oneself that this is an isolated incident that is tragic but, thankfully, an anomaly. However, this dismissal ignores the disturbing statistic from the 2005 California Healthy Kids Survey that 28% of gay and lesbian students report being threatened or injured with a weapon, a rate that is five times that of other students and consistent with national findings. In such an environment, it is no wonder that social engagement, educational aspirations and overall academic achievement can suffer. Students who experience harassment because of sexual orientation or gender expression are more likely to skip school, drop out, reject college, suffer from depression and substance abuse, and under perform academically.
Both the Mennonite Church and Church of the Brethren have included language in their sexuality statements that expresses sorrow at the violence and hatred directed towards gay and lesbian people and calls for understanding and even the pursuit of civil rights (note: bisexual and transgender people are not included in the statements ? the obsession is with ?the homosexual.?) Such sentiments, however, have had little impact. This year BMC proposed a booth for the exhibit space at the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference that would focus solely upon providing education related to lgbt hate crimes, job discrimination and housing discrimination. The request was denied, with the committee citing homosexuality as ?an issue which causes passionate divisiveness in our denomination.? It is a telling comment when violence directed towards lgbt people is understood as ?the issue of homosexuality.? Is anti-Semitic violence the ?issue of Judaism??
In practice it is difficult to interpret pious denominational words as little more than an exercise in cheap grace. What efforts have any of the denominations made? What can they point towards in terms of fulfilling this promise? Where have they made a difference? I can think of no instance where the Mennonite Church USA, the Mennonite Church Canada or the Church of the Brethren has spoken out to challenge lgbt directed violence, discrimination or the violation of human or civil rights. Indeed, denominational officials from Mennonite Church Canada were vociferous in their opposition to marriage equality. The courageous congregations and the few pastors who have taken seriously this message of non-violence and understanding have found themselves becoming targets of discipline, derision and hostility.
Lawrence King is dead. May he find a peace that was denied him in life. Brandon McInerney, age 14, will probably spend most of his life in prison. Thousands of young lgbt kids have just gotten the message to be very careful about coming out or displaying any type of gender non-conformity. All are victims of a tragic homophobia that is reinforced by the policies and practices of the Mennonite and Brethren denominations. It is up to each of us to end this shameful complicity. Speak up, come out, talk to your friends, challenge your congregation, demand that your pastor break silence, organize your campus, ask more of the larger church, and get involved in the movement for lgbt justice. For the sake of other young people like Lawrence King and Brandon McInerney, it?s time.
So occasionally I get sucked into writing on this other blog, and recently I’ve been discussing the topic of sexuality and how the church approaches it. I feel pretty strongly that the church’s problem in dealing with sexuality through history have come because the church has the wrong fundamental approach to the whole thing - that rather than think of sexuality as a part of being human that has the potential to connect us to each other and to the Divine, it all starts from (and usually ends at) coming up with the right set of rules/boundaries/prohibitions to contain and control sexuality. It’d be interesting to go into why this has happened, and continues to happen, but for now I just want to focus on whether/how it can be changed.
Because - I feel like most Christians are all tied up inside over the whole thing. Yeah, most of them can grow up and get married and probably feel less angst about it than they did as teens & single young adults - but certainly many people don’t fit into this cookie-cutter pattern. And yes, celibacy is probably a respectable option if you’re called to it. I’m not dissing marriage or celibacy. But I just think the church really misses out on this whole huge part of what it means to be a human and what that can tell us about God, how it connects us to the Divine. I can’t imagine how one can fully know, accept, and love one’s own body unless one fully knows, accepts, and loves one’s sexuality (as it truly is, not just as you think it should be) - and I really can’t see how one can foster a connection to the presence of God/sacredness/the Divine while being disconnected from one’s body.
So here’s my radical proposition: I think we queers have a special mission, here and now in history, to take this message of sexuality into the church. Being queer has allowed us the pain, the chore - but also the opportunity - of having, by necessity, to break outside the box that the church has always placed around sexuality, to venture out into strange & unknown &, to many, scary territory of sexuality without clearly defined rules/limits/prohibitions/customs to contain & define it. We’ve learned things that few straight Christians get the chance to learn. And the church really needs our message and vision now, a lot, or else it will keep getting more and more dead.
What do you think? Do we queers know something about sex & sexuality that straight Christian don’t, and if we do, should we really go through all the pain & annoyance of trying to convince them that we have something they need?
Well folks, it’s been a while since I’ve written here. I’ve been mostly away from the ol’ BMC office and studiously attending my classes, learning the trade of cooking. All this has gotten me out of my head a little and I spend a lot less time at a desk, thinking about the injustice of homophobia and discrimination in church and society and more time thinking about stocks and sauces and tempering chocolate. But tomorrow, I have the day off, so I thought I’d change things up a bit. I thought I would take a little time to think about Martin Luther King Jr. and see what new thing I can learn from him.
The more I read and hear the speeches, sermons, and writings of MLK the more radical and relevant they seem not just in his time, but in ours. I can’t help but mentally add homophobia when he speaks of racism. His inspiring words ring true today as we still live in a world filled with war, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, materialism, and poverty.
BMC is consistently denied exhibit space at denominational events.
A close friend of mine was recently asked to wait 10 years for the Church to be ready for her to be an out lesbian and accepted in ministry.
Brethren and Mennonite listservs frequently opine that “within a few generations, LGBT acceptance won’t even be an issue.”
Denominational staff people have suggested that the youth and young adult population of today’s Church need not discuss LGBT issues, because being LGBT simply “isn’t an issue” for that demographic.
For at least nine years, BMC volunteers have been sponsored by United Church of Christ Partners in Service and/or Lutheran Volunteer Service.
These are just a few reasons why I feel underwhelmed by the overwhelming sense of false support for LGBT individuals within the Brethren and MennoniteChurches.I was raised to believe that any one person could make a difference; as long as I stood up for myself, I was doing the right thing.As I stand up as a lesbian and a member of the Church of the Brethren, I wonder where the support has gone.
We have reached an interesting place in the Brethren and MennoniteChurches.Support for LGBT individuals seems to be spreading throughout both traditions, and at times I am even surprised by the number of people willing to claim an ally identity.All too often, however, I feel perplexed by individuals who personally whisper their support of LGBT individuals, yet remain publicly silent.When times are tough (and times are always tough), these individuals abandon their progressive leanings and remain silent.
Being an ally is a powerful identity.Being a good ally is even more powerful.I am frustrated and disappointed with the repeated experience of allies not exhibiting the kind of bravery necessary to create real change.How many of us belong to congregations who “support” LGBT individuals, but have yet to join the Supportive Communities Network and really come out to their denomination and local community?Granted, this is not an easy task.In fact, LGBT individuals face an enormous risk upon coming out to family, friends, and their congregations.Without facing this risk with courage, we would never see change.Allies also face a risk when choosing to stand up for equality and justice.Taking this risk is what creates an amazing ally.As Anais Nin stated, “…the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”What is stopping us from taking the risk of making our support public?
I call allies to action.Move your congregation to join the Supportive Communities Network.Speak up at meetings when the vote could easily be turned to a landmark victory for LGBT persons within the Church.Be that voice of dissent, unwilling to budge on issues of equality and justice.Remaining silently supportive is a detrimental act for the movement, and it is causing a great amount of hurt to individuals, families, and the church as a whole.Start the change.Do not allow yourself to relax and wait for equality and justice, because every day the chance for action passes us by.Most of all, stay committed to your beliefs when difficulties arise; for an ally is hardly an ally if they are unwilling to act.
We can no longer wait for a great revolution of change within the Brethren and MennoniteChurches.The change must start now.
