Coming Out Strong

Having just finished my first year working with a predominantly African-American population of public high school students, I’m painfully aware of racial differences in how we conceptualize sexuality. Socially it is not ok for these teenagers under ANY circumstances to be thought of or known as a gay male in our high school community. It isn’t the least bit trendy or exotic as it is slowly becoming even in rural midwestern communities. The few “out” gay male students I knew of are flamboyant to the extreme and surround themselves with close female friends as a sort of first line of defense. i think they cling to stereotypes only because they have no concept of a black gay man who is acceptable in society.

It’s a strangely different story for lesbians or bi girls. These girls are out and proud and are pretty much accepted. I’m guessing because the popular media (music, tv, movies, music-videos) that these students live and breath worship lesbian sex as exotic and highly erotic. It’s amazing to me to observe lesbian girls discuss their sexuality openly with both guys and girls listening and asking questions, sometimes genuinely trying to understand. I’ve never witnessed an equivalent discussion about male homosexuality.

My point is that lgbt issues are NOT only a white issue. It’s just that it is not always talked about in open and constructive ways in African-American communities. From my perspective, it’s almost like the only reason white folk can even begin to deal with sexuality in the often academic way we do is because we don’t have to deal with issues of racism and classism.

Does that make sense to anyone? Comments?

I’m not out to most of my students–not because I have to fear for my job, but because most of them wouldn’t know how to deal with having a gay teacher. And at this point, I’m not strong enough to add that to the list of baggage I already deal with as a teacher who is early in his career, emotionally and experience-wise.

Eventually, I do hope to be more open with them–not add it in the syllabus obviously, but be honest if they ask. Just like straight teachers share about their families, I would ideally like to share about my partner…and cat. Then maybe I could be at least indirectly supportive of both out and closeted gay students who pass through my classroom.

Hi all,

It’s great to see this blog up & running. A (very) short intro to me: I’m currently halfway through medical school at the University of Chicago. My partner and I have now been together for six years - we had a commitment ceremony a year ago.

I think that LTH, HTS is really about Christians who are good people and feel like good people wanting to continue to feel like good people. They may have heard something about the injustices that queer people have undergone, but in general their worldview is pretty clear on heterosexuality being the only possible expression of sexuality. So the idea of “loving the sinner, hating the sin” feels to them like a way of continuing to feel like they love everyone without really changing their ideas about sexuality.

The thing that just doesn’t work about it is that people can’t be separated from their sexual natures in the way that people can be separated from a “sin.” A sin is usually something you DO, usually knowing that you shouldn’t do it because it will cause others harm (I’m sure there are more profound theological examinations of sin, although I actually find the concept a rather weak way of thinking about behavior.) But someone’s sexual nature is a part of who they are that runs deep into so many areas of their life and being. “The sin” (presumably a certain sexual act) is just one small part or facet of that person’s sexuality - it becomes kind of ridiculous to fixate on “it.” So to me, LTS HTS seems like a very primitive way of talking about queer sexuality that shows only the very faintest notion of what such sexuality even is. For example, my relationship with my partner includes eating together, sleeping in the same bed together, kissing each other hello and goodbye, relying on each other for emotional comfort, sex, being each other’s main confidant, lying on the beach together, on and on… notice that sex is just one aspect of a whole relationship, a relationships that cuts through every area of life. Supposedly “the sin” in all that is exclusively the sex part, but that seems to me like trying to pick one little area of a whole picture and claiming something about that piece that ignores its relation to the whole.

Sexuality is integral to humans relating to each other. I’m not sure most straight people even understand that, probably because the way it affects their relating has always been so taken for granted that they’ve never had to think about it. That’s the main reason why, to me, the church hasn’t even really begun to address the issue of queer sexuality. The only teaching they have is a ban on gay sex (”the sin”) but they’re absolutely silent on sexuality itself.

We recently received a comment from Debbie that I thought I would address with a new post. Debbie is concerned that our “agenda” of lgbt equality and an inclusive church and society is only a rich, white person’s agenda. She suggests that it is not an agenda that is supported by many Anabaptist churches of color or churches in the global south.

Debbie raises an important issue of how we, BMC and the larger lgbt rights community, talk about and think about race, class, and sexuality. Debbie is right that most of BMC’s constituency is white though there might be a little more diversity when it comes to class. Debbie is also probably right in suggesting that there is not a lot of support for lgbt equality among Brethren and Mennonite churches made up primarily of people of color and those in the global south (as it happens, there are also quite a lot of rich, white churches that don’t support our aims).

This reminds me that we continue to have a lot of work to do to reach out to all parts of the church. We can always use a reminder to look inwardly to see where we can do better at addressing all types of oppression, not just that which may affect us personally. And I hope that we continue to do that. I hope that we aren’t happy if we just make more room in church and society for ourselves and don’t look around at how our own privilege affects others. I am reminded that the language we use is often exclusive as “lgbt” and “queer” are not necessarily terms that would be used by people of color who might prefer to identify using other language, like “same gender loving.”

I am afraid that this is not just an issue for rich white folks though sometimes it may feel a bit like that. I hope those churches of color and those in the global south do not think that only rich white people can be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or same gender loving. I hope that the lgbtq and sgl youth and adults in those congregations don’t feel alienated by their own community but rather included, and loved, and affirmed. I hope that those who face the harshness and irrationality of racism, classism, sexism, and ethnocentrism are also able to see the similarly harsh and irrational nature of heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia. I hope it goes the other way too and those who suffer from heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia can see and work against the harshness and irrationality of racism, classism, sexism and ethnocentrism in ourselves and in society.

Any one have more thoughts on this?

Thank you Katie for commencing the topic of LTS, HTS. I cannot count the number of times I have felt personally saddened at hearing this phrase from non-accepting and understanding mennonites and other christians. To expound on what I mean, I think that I must share the multiple thoughts that come to mind when I hear this. The phrase itself allows for the following analysis. First of all we must accept that EVERYONE sins, so this phrase is meant for everyone including the pastor who preaches every sunday, the nice little old woman teaching sunday school, and the elderly twins in your home church who never married. However, how often is this phrase actually used for these people? I think that I have only known of it being referenced to people continually living in what the church calls sin or those who have committed societal immoralities such as theft, murder, or rape.

I remember, many years ago, while visiting family friends in Lancaster, PA at a church service the pastor and congregation asked a man to stand up and speak about his sin and his forgiveness. I remember him talking about sinning because he had sexually assualted a woman, a friend, and he was now asking for god’s forgiveness and for forgiveness from his congregation. As a child, I did not completely understand what was going on or what he meant, but that image of this man asking for forgiveness has never left me. Whether someone is christian or not and believes what he did was a sin, he had done much worse than that by violating someone’s body, privacy, and personal rights as well as breaking a law. In that moment, his congregation was accepting to love him and commit themselves to him and his recovery (as some might say) while hating the very act that he committed. Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin. What a perfect example of how this should be used. Love the violator, Help him heal.
So, how is it that when churches say LTS, HTS for queer persons, how in any way is this comparable? How is it at all possible that someone can correlate a brutal illegal crime with loving someone of the same sex, or consensual sexual relations with someone of the same sex?

Looking back at when I was in college, I think of the cliques that I was not immediately involved in of mostly heterosexual white men and women, made up of pseudo-jocks, athletes, incredibly intelligent persons, and your average joe/jane. The majority of these well known people were liked, not for their looks alone , capabilities, or brains, but mostly because they knew how to have a good time. I’m talking about constant partying every weekend, drinking like we were in a bad water crisis, pre-marital sex, even the occasional non-consensual sexual assualt. All this, from those who our church deems sexually moral simply because outside of their clique and others around them, everyone thinks that they are the good little mennonite boy or girl who occasionally has fun with friends. Unknowingly, the church is Loving the Sinner and secretly accepting the sin, because they are not doing anything to stop it. Yet, when the church finds out someone is queer and in a relationship, the mere fact that they are in a relationship means that they are sinning because they are engaging in some sort of physical behavior. However when the “good little mennonites” are in a relationship they may still be having sex and the church does not know this because their sexuality allows for physical actions that may not be sexual that are not sinful (as deemed by the church). So basically I’m trying to say that there is not equal treatment between queer and heterosexual relationships when it comes to what the church sees.

So when I hear LTS, HTS I am filled with sadness, anger, and sometimes a painfully sick feeling in my stomach. I think it is unfair how the church uses the term for some and cannot for others, I think that when someone says this I know that I cannot and do not want to be around them nor would I ever want to attend their church, and I think that it’s simply a cheap answer for a church that will not study the issue and get beyond their fears of understanding and acceptance.

Hey All,
This is David and I’ve found my way her through Katie’s generous request for my occasional input. As many of my close friends may tell you, I tend to blog sporadically so I may appear, disappear and reappear all over again. I am 25 years old and currently live in Chicago, IL with my partner Philip. I graduated from Goshen College in 2002 and have wandered around since then through a few jobs and graduate school. I am very happy to say that I am officially graduating from DePaul University with my M.A. Degree this month after a drawn out unofficial year off. I’m not sure what my input on here will look like, but I’m excited about this new venture that katie has started!

If you’ve been perusing the categories section, you may have noticed this jumble of letters and wondered, what is LTS HTS? It means “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” It gets used so much in the church that I decided to just abbreviate it here.

If anybody feels inspired to write about their thoughts and feelings on LTS HTS, I welcome some comments, or even a post. I’ll wait a bit to write more about it.

For some more of my thoughts on the language of like this: check this out. Like a lot of my other stuff here, it was at young.anabaptistradicals.org first because that is where I was writing before I started this blog here.

I posted this first bit a little while ago here at young.anabaptistradicals.org but I’m adding more at the end to update the situation.

The US House of Representatives just passed hate crimes legislation that would extend hate crimes protections to be based on gender, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity in addition to current protections for race, religion, color, and national origin. It still has to go through the Senate and then face veto by you know who.

The thing that really blows me away is that people are actually against this, and that those people happen to call themselves Chrisitians. Now, if folks have a problem with the idea of hate crimes protections in general, eh, I would be happy to discuss that. But the idea that some groups of people should get protections while other groups (groups which happen to experience a disproportionate amount of hate crimes) should not is completely ridiculous. As it happens, the religious right is coming out en force against hate crimes protections for lgbt people. I linked this article about this (really, check it out, it’s a good one) in an earlier post.

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This might come in handy the next time you hear or see anything that seems a little bigoted (or a lot bigoted). It was made by Willie Hewes. I don’t know her but she knows her anti-gay rhetoric up and down, side to side, and diagonally. She also creates comics and writes a blog, you can check her out here. She inspired me to make a knock-off version of it of things I’ve heard around the Mennonite and Brethren churches and elsewhere (in addition to the ones she used here, which I’ve also heard plenty of times). Here’s my version (I posted it inside the mothership because I haven’t figured out how to make a table here yet).

Wouldn’t it be fun to print off a bunch of BINGO cards and take them to your next district/conference meeting or the denominational assemblies in Cleveland or San Jose and pass them out to your friends? Whovever gets 5 in a row first can shout “ANTI-GAY BINGO!” in the middle of the meeting. You could then take your card up to the moderator and ask for a prize. That would be a riot though maybe not everyone there would find it as amusing as I do.

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Former BMC board member Adam Hostetter sent this video linkto the office (aka the mothership) and said it would be okay to share here. It is a wonderful story and the video is great. I’ll copy and paste the text that goes with it but I’ll just link up the video and you’ll have to go to the Stories for Change website to see it.

Taboo Underoos Video
“Some things felt right and normal to me when I was a kid, and as I grew up, I realized my “right and normal” wasn’t quite so. This story is about coming back around to my own “right and normal” and feeling FABULOUS about it.”

This also was first posted at YAR (young.anabaptistradicals.org), but I hope it will get some good discussion going here.

I’m going to do a spin-off from the speech I pointed you all to in my last post. So here is the conundrum. I grew up Mennonite. I went to a lovely, nurturing, happy, rural church (East Union Mennonite Church) where I was baptized at 16. I went to a Mennonite summer camp (Crooked Creek Christian Camp) for quite a few years and loved it. I went to many a Mennonite churchwide assemblies as my parents were youth leaders for many years and when I was in high school. I went to a Mennonite high school (Iowa Mennonite School) where I learned lovely things about Mennonite history and faith along with the English and Trig. I served for a year with Mennonite Central Committee (SALT) in South Africa. I spent four formative years at Goshen College. I highly value every one of these institutions as they have played a major part in my formation. Those institutions represent an integral part of almost my entire life. The problem arises when I realize that every single one of these institutions would discriminate against me if I were to want to work for them or even volunteer for them as an openly queer Mennonite.

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