Where does the difference lie?

Recently our family had an opportunity to do some emergency hospitality. A teenage girl needed a place to stay for about a week. She was pregnant and homeless and living on the streets. I found out about the need from my pastor, who found out from another pastor out of state, who found out from one of his congregation members.

For a long time we had been prepared to take someone into our home in an emergency. There were a couple of years when I was regularly corresponding with a gay friend whom I felt certain was going to end up on the street because of a volatile home situation. I always imagined the living room couch and extra bathroom stood ready for the day of his phone call. But this situation of a pregnant teenager was not at all what I had in mind.

To protect the privacy of everyone involved, I'm reluctant to say much more about it except that it turned out to be a tremendous blessing for two reasons. One, our young guest felt like a part of our family and became like a daughter to me. Two, I saw Christians come together to help her in ways that I didn't know was possible. Nobody judged, everyone lent a hand and gave a word of encouragement. The out-of-state congregation member kept in touch with us every day. Someone else was securing a job for the girl and a more permanent living arrangement somewhere across the country. Another person was buying the plane tickets to get her there.

I was on the phone with two doctors' offices and three crisis pregnancy centers, trying to secure an ultrasound appointment. Some of these places, I could tell, were Christian-run organizations. I didn't want the girl to be subjected to high-pressure tactics about what decision she should be making. She was a professing Christian, and I felt she had a better chance of making the right decision if she were given safety, space and the right encouragement. These pregnancy counselors understood that. There were no threats or condemning pronouncements, only helpful medical information, a chance to see the tiny beating heart on the ultrasound screen, and some free gifts like a baby blanket and tiny knit hat that she could take home with her. Nobody told her they were loving her in spite of her sin. Nobody told her that if she made the wrong decision she wasn't a Christian. Nobody told her that if she had an abortion she would be going to hell.

Apparently the Spirit of Jesus Christ still lives in the church. I was--I freely admit--shocked by the graciousness, the generosity, the compassion and the hospitality I saw in the random Christian strangers I came into contact with during those seven days. After years of being immersed in stories of the cruel, heartless, inhumane treatment of gay and lesbian people by their churches, I guess I'd been starving to see the gospel in action. For one week of my life I felt like I was a part of something great, the church of Jesus Christ working together as the hands and feet of a vast spiritual body to serve someone in need.

Now, in the aftermath, I am left wondering when can we transfer that generous, open-hearted love to the gay and lesbian people in our churches? I wonder when can I stop crying myself to sleep over another gay friend who tells me he would rather be dead than face a Christian father's hatred? I wonder when I won't have to go through weeks of torture because I hadn't heard back from a depressed gay friend who has been all but spit upon by his church, and can only imagine that he's lying alone in his apartment with a bullet through his brain?

Would it help Christians to imagine that a lesbian daughter who is contemplating a same-sex relationship is not much different than a pregnant teenage daughter who is contemplating an abortion? As a Christian parent, if your teenage daughter got pregnant, would you kick her out of the house? If you found out she had an abortion, would you tell her she is an abomination and is going to hell? The angry part of you might want to, but the sane part of you knows that she is a sinner, and desperate sinners commit desperate sins and this is why Jesus had to die for us. This is the situation where you most need to preach gospel hope, not drive a stake through her heart and walk away. And as tempting as it may be to point out the differences between the two situations ("My lesbian daughter defends her relationship! She wouldn't defend an abortion!"), isn't the real difference in our own heart attitude? Why is there such a difference? Why does there have to be?

The growing crisis at Christian colleges

This latest news about the existence of the "Biola Queer Underground" falls in line with other stories I've heard about recently. Faculty and administration of Christian colleges all over the country are learning that LGBT students exist on campus, and it is getting increasingly difficult to ignore these students or expect them to stay silent and invisible. The students of BQU are not demanding that Biola University change its policy against same-sex sexual intimacy. They are asking to be open about their identities without fear of repercussions. They want to talk about homosexuality beyond the let-me-show-you-how-it's-a-sin routine. And they want the school to invite speakers who can present different perspectives on homosexuality than what Biola's policy statement represents. It is an academic institution, after all.

Last year One Wheaton, a group of LGBT Wheaton students and graduates, expressed similar concerns about Wheaton College, about the fear and hiding and hurt they've experienced as students there. This year GCN (Gay Christian Network) executive director Justin Lee has been travelling and speaking at Christian colleges around the country in an effort to open up friendly and thoughtful dialogue over these topics. It is certainly needed.

What's happening at Christian colleges shouldn't come as a surprise. Over the last ten years I've noticed an interesting trend. An increasing number of high school students were tuning into gay issues not primarily because of the rhetoric they heard at church, nor because of the so-called "liberal media," but because they themselves had close friends who were gay or lesbian. Conversations were taking place, feelings were being shared, support was being given, and barriers were falling, quite often within the safety of a public school environment where anti-bullying policies were enforced or a Gay-Straight Alliance Club was present on campus.

The public charter high school my daughter attends is a good example. If anti-gay slurs or bullying takes place among the students, the administration is on it, fast. When students participated in the annual Day of Silence in protest of anti-LGBT behavior, some of the teachers took the initiative to explain the meaning of the day to their classes. There is a feeling of safety, openness, acceptance, and faculty and administration support on campus. These high school kids then graduate, expecting to move on to bigger and better things.

Enter the Christian college. Suppose my daughter were to make the transition from her present high school to one of the more typical conservative Christian colleges. She would be going from an atmosphere where the presence of gay students was accepted to a place where they were invisible and largely in hiding. She would be going from a secular campus where teachers and administrators understood sexual orientation issues and advocated for the dignity of every student, to a supposedly "Christian" campus where she would largely hear homosexuality talked about as sin, sin, and more sin. And by the way, in case you didn't know, it's sin. In short, she would feel like she had gone backward, not forward.

Wait, isn't this supposed to be a Christian college and therefore a place of greater love, understanding and grace than anything the secular world has to offer? At the very least, it's supposed to be a college, that is, an academic environment that is more intellectually sophisticated than high school, where advanced knowledge is explored and ideas are exchanged and debated.

Hence, the current crisis.

Christian colleges are also supposed to be a place where the future leadership of the church is trained up. In another ten years these college kids are going to be our pastors, elders, deacons, missionaries, counselors, and Sunday school teachers. They are the generation that is going to have to deal most seriously with the question, "Is same-sex sexual intimacy a sin?" because nothing short of their own cherished relationships with gay and lesbian family, friends, and fellow church members will be at stake.

It might be a good idea for Christian colleges to set up debate panels and invite speakers from the opposing side so that students can hear all the arguments. It might be a good idea to get your Ph.D.-laden faculty out there to model for students how to engage the opposing side with intelligence, fair-mindedness, and a spirit of brotherly affection. It might not be a good idea to hide behind a policy statement and trot out the same, tired, unchallenged rhetoric every time the subject comes up.

Because that doesn't fly when you find yourself confronted with actual arguments from actual Bible texts from actual Christians who think differently than you. And one day these college students most certainly will be confronted, except as leaders of the church when so much more is at stake. As they reflect upon these issues, someday, when they aren't forced to go to chapel or write that twenty-page paper, when their concerns revolve more around people and relationships and lives, they will probably gravitate toward the side that showed itself to be the most credible, most informed, most sound, and most loving.

I think we have our work cut out for us.

"Honor Thy Children"

First off thanks, everyone, for your patience while I took some time off from blogging to care for my five-year-old son post-surgery. He is now out of his surgical casts and is learning to walk again just like a baby. The house is a mess, my health is slightly neglected, and I spent way too much money on take-out and frozen food these past two months, but other than that we're doing great.

Okay, enough about me. For those of you who live in the Greater Los Angeles Area, I want to let you know about a unique opportunity to hear Al and Jane Nakatani speak at the Japanese American National Museum on Saturday, September 24 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. You can find more information at this Facebook page if you're interested. Or go to the JANM page and check out their Events Calendar.

In the book Honor Thy Children, Al and Jane Nakatani tell author Molly Fumia the story of how they lost all three of their children. Their first son, Glen, came out to them as a teenager in 1977 and they essentially disowned him. Glen later died of AIDS in 1990. Their second son, Greg, who was straight, was shot to death in an altercation in 1986. So when their third son, Guy, also came out as gay, Al and Jane were initially horrified, but they soon learned to embrace him unconditionally. Guy was diagnosed as HIV positive, and as he went around speaking at schools and businesses about homophobia and HIV, his father Al accompanied him. Guy died of AIDS complications in 1994 at age 26.

Since then the Nakatanis have traveled around the country speaking out about homophobia, bullying, teen suicide and the importance of loving your children unconditionally. While their message isn't necessarily religious, they are often invited to speak at churches. I understand that at the September 24 event they will be presenting a short film that chronicles their story. If I can resolve a scheduling conflict, I'm hoping to be there myself.

Talking with today's young gay teens

Since my daughter will be attending high school this coming Fall, I took her to a welcoming event on the campus for prospective ninth grade students. Outdoor booths were set up featuring the swim and dive team, the ASB Club, cross country and track, varsity baseball--basically clubs and sports teams trying to recruit the incoming freshmen. As we were walking around I spotted the booth for the Gay-Straight Alliance Club and told my daughter to go on ahead. I wanted to stop and talk with these guys.

I figured the best way to scope out the bullying situation at a high school is to talk to the gay kids. They would be the most obvious target of bullying, and what they had to say would be a good litmus test whether a school is serious about the "no tolerance" policy they are supposed to enforce. We are in the Los Angeles Unified School District, famous for its inefficiency, bureaucracy and misuse of funds. But this was a charter high school and came highly recommended to us. I was curious to know what the Gay-Straight Alliance Club had to say about their school.

I had never talked face-to-face with gay kids so young, just teenagers. There were five girls manning the booth, which didn't surprise me. I've come to expect that such a club would either be male-dominated or female-dominated. I've noticed that even gay groups that intend to be co-ed get quickly lopsided either in the male or female direction.

The first girl who responded to my question about bullying had short cropped hair with green highlights. She said that the kids on campus were friendly and generally cool, and if there were any negative incidents they involved isolated individuals. She said one time in class a fellow student asked her point blank if she was gay. Everyone stopped and turned in their direction, and when she answered "yes" the onlookers said, "ooooooh." A giddy sort of response but that was about it.

An African-American girl wearing a rainbow headband then spoke up and told me just that day she had been harassed by another student for having two dads, to the point where she was reduced to tears. The hostile student was quickly dealt with by the school administration. Everyone in the booth agreed that having the administration's support was key to their sense of well being on campus. They felt that the administration had their backs and took seriously any bullying incidents that involved targeting kids because of sexual orientation issues. When they participated last year in the Day of Silence, they told me, even some of the teachers voluntarily talked to their classes about what the day meant and explained about the problem of bullying LGBT students. These teachers were able to give a voice to the participants who, because of their vow of silence, could not do any explaining.

I ventured to inquire specifically about their encounters with the religious clubs on campus. Did they feel any hostility from them? One girl spoke up, whose more confident demeanor made me think she was a senior. She said she was a part of the Jewish Club on campus and never experienced any problems from them. "But what about the Christian Club?" I pressed. "See, we're Christians and my daughter is interested in joining the Christian Club. But I won't let her if they're giving you a hard time." "Oh, the Christian Club is really laid back," the senior girl said. "I actually know some of them and they're really nice. They've never given us a hard time." I expressed my surprise. Really? "Yeah," she said. "But even if they wanted to give us a hard time, they wouldn't be able to. We're protected from harassment by law, and the school administration is good about enforcing it."

I came away from that conversation with the feeling that perhaps times are a-changing. Gay kids saying that the Christian Club kids are "nice" and "laid back." (If there was a Christian Club booth around--and there wasn't--I might've gone over and high-fived them on the spot.) A school administration in a conservative Hispanic/white/Asian suburb of L.A. taking a hard-line stance against sexual orientation discrimination. Young lesbian teens and children of gay parents who were out to their teachers and classmates, who still had to deal with the occasional obnoxious kid but understood their legal rights ("It's called AB 537 in the California Education Code," they informed me. "You can find it on the GSA Network website.") I was impressed. Yeah, I'll let my daughter go to this school. I felt sure of it, even though I didn't stop by any more booths that day. I'd already found out all that I needed to know.

Photo-genetic

I can't stop looking at this blog. The "Born This Way" blog features childhood photos submitted by readers that reveal something about their LGBT identity, some at a very young age.

As a parent I have observed the extent to which all three of my kids came "prepackaged." The 13 year-old who doesn't like to express her feelings was once an eighteen-month-old who used to hold in silent tears whenever she fell and scraped her knee. The ten-year-old who folds her own clothes without being told and has all her stuffed animals organized at the foot of her bed was the one who already knew how to dress herself in color-coordinated outfits at age two. (As for my four-year-old who owns a hundred toy cars and trucks, trails dirt into the house, knocks holes in our dry wall, and gives me the big-brown-puppy-eyes-look when he knows he's in trouble--I can only imagine what ten years will bring.)

All this to say: the idea that sexuality comes with the package when a child enters the world has never been a difficult concept for me to grasp. Yet still I find myself surprised and fascinated by these photos and the short essays that accompany them. While I know that not all gay men and women fit the stereotypes, it's apparent that many who do fit them more closely expressed themselves early on.

Talking to my kids about the "h" word

For those of you who might have missed this YouTube, this is one of the great moments that has come out of the recent public discussions on gay teen suicides. Check it out.

So let's advance the discussion beyond what school administrators should be doing and what gay teens can do for themselves. What about regular old parents who send our kids to school? I'd imagine that how we raise our kids has everything to do with being a part of the solution. I've had other parents ask me (significantly lowering their voice at this point) whether I discuss the issue of homosexuality with my children. My answer: of course. With one child in middle school and another one about to enter middle school next year, I know that they might learn about other kids coming out as gay. I want them to understand what that means and how to respond to it.

I started laying the groundwork long ago by introducing our kids to a few of my friends who were gay when they were small. I didn't mention anything like "this person is gay" but I just let the kids get to know them for who they were. They would also hear during our family prayer times that I wanted prayer for friends of mine who are planning to come out to parents or who got kicked out of their churches. As the kids got older they'd ask why someone would get rejected by family or friends for being gay. What's gay? That's when I'd explain. That was also an opportunity to say, "Remember Mr. So-and-So who helped you with your science project? He's gay. Do you also remember Mr. So-and-So who gave you those nice chairs? He's also gay."

Most parents start wigging out at the thought of explaining homosexuality to their grade-school-aged kids. I'm not sure if it's because they think they have to talk about gay sex, or because they are afraid they'd be planting doubts into their kids' minds about their own sexuality if the existence of homosexuality were acknowledged. For what it's worth, here's how I've approached it.

First off, you don't have to talk to your kids about sex acts. Particularly if you are raising your kids as Christians, they are probably fairly sheltered and naive about that kind of stuff anyhow. Even when kids make crude sexual jokes in grade school, they don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about. Whether it's gay sex or straight sex, it's all gross and unfathomable to them anyhow, so don't feel an obligation to address it. Besides, sex is not really the issue here.

The issue is feelings. Talking about feelings is a good place to start if your seven or eight year-old asks about homosexuality--or just sexuality in general. I point to the story of Cinderella or any other well known prince and princess story. Kids understand that there's a special loving feeling that attracts a man and a woman in such stories. I explain that some people have those kinds of loving feelings except it's between two men and two women. I also explain that people who experience homosexual feelings can't help it and don't know where the feelings come from, so it's not like they're trying to be different on purpose.

But will bringing up homosexuality raise questions in a kid's mind about whether he or she is homosexual? Sure, my kids have asked about that. I just tell them that most people are heterosexual and chances are they are too, so don't worry about it. The reason I tell my kids that is not because I know for sure that they will turn out straight, but because there's no point in speculating about something when it's too early to tell anyhow. Encouraging them not to worry about it is the best way for them to avoid mind games, which can get in the way when it comes time later on to evaluate honestly whether they are gay or straight or bi or whatever. I also tell them that if they do come to an awareness of being gay at some point, I will love them just the same and nothing will change, so that's another reason not to worry. Since they already see how much I care about my gay and lesbian friends, I trust that they know I'm not just speaking empty words.

Because we raise the kids as Christians, of course they ask me about what the Bible teaches. I simply explain to them my personal view, which I've explained many times on this blog and you're welcome to skip this paragraph if it bores you. I tell them that because we live in a fallen world, some people find that their feelings are directed toward people of the same sex instead of the opposite sex, so it's true that homosexuality doesn't fit into what God had originally planned for humanity. But then, none of us can live up to God's original plan for us as human beings, so we shouldn't be singling out gay and lesbian people as if we're somehow doing better than they are. What's more, even though the Bible teaches that marriage should be between a man and a woman, it also teaches that loving one another is the most important thing, and since gay couples really do love each other, how condemning do you want to be of that? I just try to impress upon them that being true to the whole of the Bible's teaching quite often means that the answers don't come easily.

There is a payoff to having all these at-home conversations (which, by the way, should never become preachy or overbearing, but should happen gradually over a period of years). For one thing, your kids should know that you will always love them, that you've thought ahead to all the different scenarios of how they might turn out and you've already decided that nothing will stand in the way of your love for them. For another, with all the hatred and bullying that goes on in our schools today, you want your kids to be a positive influence, a voice reason and understanding among their friends, even their Christian friends. I may not be able to control what the other kids do, but as a parent I have to focus on raising my own kids to contribute positively to society. You do your part and hope that other people are doing theirs.

Family talk

Every evening during our little family prayer meeting, we pray for each other and for any friends we know who are in need. I often ask the kids to pray for gay friends I know who are having troubles with their families or churches. One evening last week it was just me with my two older children at the prayer meeting. They were asking why parents who find out their kids are gay get so upset.

"Because it makes the parents angry and afraid when they find out," I tell them.

"Why?"

"Well, especially Christian parents. Because some Christians believe their kid chooses to be gay. Other people believe that if their child turns out gay it's the parents' fault, so they get angry at the kid because they feel responsible somehow. But we don't really know why people turn out gay. It's still kind of a mystery."

My ten-year-old asks, "Mommy, what would you do if you found out one of your kids is gay?"

The seven-year-old looks at me too.

"I would love you just the same," I say. "Besides, I don't think that being gay or not gay is the most important thing. The most important thing to me is that you believe in Jesus."

The two kids jump up. Apparently, it is a fist-pumping moment for them.

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

They bounce around on their queen-sized futon.

"Believing in Jesus is the most important thing!"

"Jesus is more important than gay!"

"Yeah!"

After they settle down, we talk about it some more. For their age they have tremendous spiritual understanding, and they've come such a long ways. I'm very proud of them.

"I've stood around too long"

Why are these two straight, high-school seniors wearing pink? To intimidate school bullies, of course. Read their story here.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Painful admissions

A Catholic high school senior writes about his struggle to accept himself as gay and sends it as his application essay to all the Jesuit universities to which he is seeking admission, even while he remains closeted from his family and friends. The result: Every university not only accepts him, but welcomes him, many with handwritten letters saying they would be proud to have him as a student. Perhaps the times are a-changing. But I also understood why they were impressed when I read it for myself.

I feel alone. I am alone. No one knows about my secret because I have lied to everyone in my life for so long that it only seems natural to keep it hidden.

I am a hypocrite. I am a liar. And I am superficial. When the subject of homosexuality comes up around my friends or people that I know, I bash it right alongside with them. Most of the time I bring up the issue of homosexuality just to put it down. I began to actually despise homosexuals to the point that I hated all gay people, regardless of who they were. I began to drive myself crazy. I examined every movement I made and I examined every word that came out of my mouth with the utmost scrutiny to make sure that it was as straight sounding and acting as possible. The fear of discovery consumed me. I COULD NOT LET MYSELF BE GAY!

But then the turning point came. Read the rest of his essay here, which his mother has posted on her excellent blog in support of her son. Her touching story of how she and her husband accidently learned of their son's sexual orientation because of the essay, and yet still accepted him with open arms, can be found here.

"Is my 13 year-old son gay?"

"Concerned Dad" thinks his 13 year-old son has been viewing gay porn on the Internet. Already the whispers are starting among family members. The son's denying it. Dad's pretty sure he's lying. Mom feels uneasy. What should they do? Advice columnist Cary Tennis of Salon tells Dad to chill, and back off.

[W]e straight people have to really step up on this whole homosexuality thing. We walk around like we're the normal ones and everybody else is, like, different. But just think about it. Like, on a gut level, remember when you were 13? It was weird, right? Getting hair, and having urges, and wondering about girls and jobs and the future, and wondering, wondering, wondering. Can you imagine what it's like for a kid as these natural processes, spiritual and biological and utterly beyond his control, are taking him on a strange ride that he didn't really buy a ticket to but he's on anyway, as he's trying to grow up and conform and figure out what he supposed to be doing, what it's like for him to realize that the way he's developing, just, by the way, is utterly freaking out the adults, so they're having conferences in the kitchen and they're looking at him funny and not believing what he says, and now he's lying about what he's looking at because he has no idea what's going to happen to him if it turns out, horror of horrors, that he might actually be gay, that it's a scary, weird problem that he has to hide from others, especially those in his own family? Can you imagine what that's like? Can I?

And we straights wonder why gay guys sometimes wait until their 20s or 30s or 40s to come out to their families? Or never come out? Or prefer not to mention it or make it a topic of national discussion or get a little testy when we [straights] assume that in our latterly discovered enlightenment we will treat every gay guy as regional spokesman for, like, Gay America, and we bring up the gayness of others as if we were the ones who--naturally, because we are so wise in other areas such as the conduct of foreign policy and stewardship of the environment--will take it upon ourselves to decide for them how they ought to act and what they are entitled to and whether they can live together and get married and visit each other in the hospital? And whether what they do and who they do it with is a sin? As if we could speak not only for the powerful white Christian heterosexual majority of America but for God himself? Jesus! If I was gay but had the benefit of knowing how we straight people think, would I ever come out? I'm not so sure. I might prefer to just keep the whole thing between me and a few friends.

It gets even better. Read the rest of the column here.

Gay Restorationist

Sadly, Gay Restorationist stopped blogging last May. Nevertheless I'm adding this short-but-sweet blog to the sidebar for the quality posts you can find there, written by a 25 year-old gay man who is grappling with his homosexuality and his ultra-conservative Church of Christ upbringing. One of his best posts is called A Letter, written to his father but never sent (as far as I know). I've linked to it before on my Musings On website, but in case you haven't seen it, here's how it begins:

Dad,

I’ve given much thought in recent months about our relationship. I’ve wanted to call you, tell you everything that’s going on in my life and in my head. I’ve wanted to open myself up to you in hopes that you could understand what, exactly, I am doing and thinking (and correspondingly, why I am doing and thinking those things).

But I haven’t called to talk. I haven’t written, and I decided not to talk to you when I was visiting home. I can think of a few possible reasons why (but, frankly, I’m not sure which is the real reason):

I think I haven’t talked to you because I’m afraid of losing you and Mom again . . .

Read the rest of the letter here.