Some brief remarks about "Duck Dynasty"

I don't watch "Duck Dynasty" but I get an idea of what the show is about from what I've heard. There are three reasons I think A&E's move to suspend Phil Robertson from the series is highly unfortunate.

First, the whole point of the show, as I understand it, is to showcase what redneck Christian fundamentalists are really like. A&E profits from people's fascination with (and perhaps identification with) the Robertson family. If Phil Robertson makes offensive and ignorant remarks about homosexuality, is this shocking news? What else is a reality TV show for except to give us glimpses of what real people are like? Now A&E is punishing the guy for being exactly the type of person that they are exploiting for profit. Why did they even air the show in the first place?

Second, why not trust the public to decide how they want to take Phil Robertson's remarks? Let the viewers decide if they want to send in fan mail or hate mail, or whether they want to support or pity or have mixed feelings about a guy who compares same-sex relationships with bestiality. I think the general public would not have supported what Phil Robertson said in GQ, and he would have effectively hung himself. But now that the man is being shut down, it creates instant sympathy for him. Even I'm feeling sympathy for him, even though I found his remarks to be offensive and troubling.

Third, GLAAD's successful crusade against the show only plays into the hands of conservative Christians who have been claiming for years that the "homosexual agenda" is all about taking away freedom of speech from people who uphold the belief that homosexual practice is sinful. I, for one, am tired of hearing from Christians who are practically begging to be persecuted by gays and lesbians so that they can justify being even more morally outraged against homosexuality than they already are. Score one for them thanks to this fiasco. As a straight ally who is trying to help my fellow Christians understand gay issues better from within the conservative church, this sure doesn't make my life any easier.

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?

Hymn of the month

My favorite hymn is "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" because every time I sing it, I think about the story behind it. It was written by a forty-year-old preacher named George Matheson. Matheson was born in 1842 in Glasgow, Scotland, the eldest of eight children and the only one with poor eyesight. He needed powerful glasses to help him see, yet he was a brilliant student with aspirations to become a minister. His very supportive sisters rallied around him and learned Greek, Hebrew and Latin so they could help him in his studies. By age twenty he was almost completely blind, and the woman he hoped to marry rejected him because she didn't think she could be married to a blind man. Yet his eldest sister was always at his side as he entered the ministry, assisting him at home and with his sermons. Soon Matheson became quite famous as a preacher, and many people didn't know he was blind because he could recite his sermons and huge portions of Scripture from memory.

Then came the day for his sister, the one he relied upon so much for help and companionship, to get married. The night of her wedding, while the rest of his family was staying elsewhere, Matheson was alone at the manse and experiencing "severe mental suffering." Some speculate that it was not just his sister's marriage, but the reminder of his own rejection from marriage years ago that caused him so much pain. In that moment he wrote this hymn, which he said took about five minutes. It turned out to be his most lasting legacy. Matheson died at age 64, having never married.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that follow'st all my way,
I yield my flick'ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

On having gay friends

Remember how it was when you were a kid and your mom talked about you in the third person to someone else while you were standing right there? Annoying, yes? Well, I'm about to do a similarly annoying thing--which is one of the difficult things about having a blog that is read by people on both sides of a divide. I would like to talk to straights about what it means to have a gay friend, which obligates me to talk about my friendships with some of you guys who read this site in that annoyingly objectifying third-person way. Sorry, I hope this is not too off-putting. Most of all, I hope the day comes when it will no longer be necessary to have to write a post like this.

But it is necessary to write this post. Because quite often when I talk about having gay friends to straights, I get the odd feeling that I wasn't supposed to bring that up, like talking about some unmentionable tattoo you got in your wild days. Or occasionally I'll be congratulated on my great condescension to befriend people who are "so different" and yet who are, of course, "sinners like ourselves"--a humbling lesson for us all as we go about being light and salt in a dark world.

In the former situation, I never manage to feel as embarrassed as everyone expects. In the latter situation I am embarrassed, because I just stand there taking undeserved credit while some well-meaning person goes on and on praising my supposed piety.

So allow me to clear the air and talk about what it means when I say I am friends with someone who is gay or lesbian.

For me, the first rule of friendship is that I have to like this person. I don't make friends with people I don't like (and neither should you, by the way). Fortunately, it's not difficult for me to find things I like about people who are thoughtful, honest, introspective, compassionate and courageous, which fits the profile of many gay and lesbian people I know simply because of kind of hardships they've been through. I also like people who think outside the box, have a sense of humor, and understand that life can be disappointing so that they appreciate how things like a good meal, good conversation or a decent movie can get you through the day. Now, you may not care for the crowd I hang with, and that's fine. My point is, being friends with someone who is gay should have nothing to do with heroism, condescension or even tolerance. When you're friends with someone, gay or otherwise, you should enjoy hanging with them.

You might object that loving people is more important than liking them, so shouldn't I be emphasizing that instead? I know that love is supposed to be biblical and all, yet I've become somewhat suspicious of that approach. I've noticed that we tend to justify committing all sorts of abuses and cruelties against people in the name of love (at least our idea of love), particularly against our gay friends and family members. Don't ask me why. All I know is that if you work on how you're going to "be loving" toward someone who is gay, you're liable to say or do something very un-Christian. But if you work on liking someone, you'll have a much better chance of being like Christ to them.

Second, I am friends with people I have stuff in common with. I'm a Christian so I have gay Christian friends. I'm conservative in my theology and many of my political beliefs, so I tend to have gay friends who are theologically and/or politically conservative. I'm a seminary grad, a former pastor's wife and currently an elder's wife, so I have gay friends who are involved in the ministry. You get the idea.

I bring up this obvious point because I have a feeling that some people, when they hear me talk about having gay friends, wonder how I manage to befriend that guy marching in the pride parade with only his army boots and a leather thong. Truth is, I probably don't have much in common with that guy so I don't end up befriending him. See how simple that is? Now, I did have a good friend (now deceased) who was an atheist and a frequenter of leather bars. But we shared similar political views, a dry sense of humor, a passion for writing, and various nerdy intellectual interests. We talked about those things, and once in a while we'd discuss atheism and religious belief, but we didn't talk about leather bars, which I knew next to nothing about anyhow.

Third, friendship is a two-way street. My friends are people who are helpful to me as I am to them, who encourage me as I encourage them, and who understand me as I seek to understand them. And unless they are atheist, we will even pray for one another. This brings us back to the problem with "love" because here is where I think Christians get tripped up. Sometimes when you determine that you are going to "love" another person, you subtly start viewing that person as someone who needs you, not as someone whom you need just as much. And since this person who is the object of your great loving affection needs you, your approval and your advice so much, that gives you the right to be stern, instructive and somewhat overbearing, particularly when you believe you know what is best for them.

On the other hand, if someone is truly your friend, then you ought to have the humility to recognize that you can't just say whatever the heck you want, because if you drive them away you are hurting yourself too. You will be more gentle, more respectful, and make a genuine effort to be winsome and helpful. If you hurt that person and they walk away, you won't smugly tell yourself that "that's just the collateral damage of speaking the truth in love." You would feel quite devastated, and you wouldn't rest until you made things right.

Now you might be saying, "This is all fine and good, but where am I going to find gay or lesbian friends whom I like, with whom I have stuff in common, and whom I genuinely value having in my life?" The answer is, you probably already have them in your life, they just haven't come out to you yet. So I suppose for most of you who are reading this, the best way to go about having gay friends is this: don't reject the friends you already have when they do come out to you. Stay the course. Remember that you like this person, you like hanging with them, and that's why you're friends. And if this friend has trusted you so much that he or she is willing to come out to you, your friendship with them should deepen, not grow more distant.

Where we're at with ex-gay ministries

Conservative evangelicals may want to believe that Alan Chambers' recent apology and the unanimous decision by Exodus International's Board of Directors to shut the organization down are all about caving in to the pressures of the "homosexual agenda." But for those of us who've been following the ex-gay movement over the years, it's just the last bastion to fall amidst an avalanche of evidence and testimony that ex-gay ministries don't work.

Back in June 30, 2007 I attended the first Ex-Gay Survivor Conference in Irvine, CA where I was with a gathering of people who testified not only to the failure of ex-gay ministries but the spiritual and psychological devastation such ministries cause. I had already been aware of the non-success of reparative therapy, that was nothing new. But being at this conference showed me that ministries like Exodus International were simply churning out a growing army of credible witnesses against its claims of orientation change. It would only be a matter of time before that number would reach a critical mass. Something was going to give, and with Alan Chambers' recent announcement about the closing down of Exodus International, it looks like that moment has arrived.

To be clear, this is not a case of ex-gay ministries producing both the success stories and the not-so-successful stories, with the not-so-successful ones grabbing more media attention. I'm in my thirteenth year of knowing gay and lesbian Christians and talking to them about their experiences, and I've never met a single person who credibly testified to having a successful orientation change. What's more, I've never even met someone who knew someone who had such a testimony.

I'm not talking about ex-gay poster boys and girls who are willing to testify to some type of "change" loosely defined. There are plenty of people around who talk glowingly of their "diminishing desires," opposite-sex marriages, and of leaving behind "the lifestyle." What I'm talking about is a credible orientation change from homosexual to heterosexual.

Shall I be more specific? A credible example of orientation change would be a man, who once could only get physically aroused by looking at naked men, who has changed so that he can now only get physically aroused by looking at naked women. Not only is the girlie porn giving him a physical response, but it has become a temptation. He may even be sneaking onto the Internet at night to look at it. Now if this accurately describes our transformed guy's behavior, then I would be willing to knight him a bonafide heterosexual male. Anything short of that is just a big pile of so-what.

When you hang out with a lot of gay Christians and hear them talking amongst themselves, you discover that going through an ex-gay phase in life is like a running joke with them. Been There, meet Done That. It's like being at a reunion of war veterans. How many years were you in it? How badly were you traumatized? How are you doing now? There are some who try to defend ex-gay therapy a little, saying they weren't too traumatized and they did grow spiritually from it. Then there are others who were so hurt they won't even discuss it. The one conversation you never hear is people reminiscing about their amazing experience of finding out what real heterosexual feelings are like.

You can say that I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd, and to be fair there are still plenty of ex-gay Christians out there who are true believers in the miracle that awaits them. But for these ex-gay loyalists, I find that the story is always about being on a journey toward a great hope. Maybe orientation change hasn't happened for them yet, but they have faith that they are well on their way, and what right do you have to take that hope away from them?

A conversation between ex-gays and ex-gay survivors reminds me of the sticky interaction between teenagers and their parents. A teenager who is just starting out on the journey of life has hopes and aspirations. He or she feels a bit touchy about having his or her decision to become, say, an art major criticized. He or she doesn't want to hear a lecture about "when I was your age" or "someday when you're older you'll understand." The parents, on the other hand, have been down that road already. They remember what it's like to have rosy ideals and remember also the disappointment of shattered dreams. They don't want to rain on their teen's party, but they don't want to have to say "I told you so" years down the line either. What can you do about a person with such aspirations except to let them continue on the journey and find out for themselves where it leads? The problem with this analogy is that it does break down at one point, which is that it isn't too hard to find successful art majors who have proven their parents wrong.

People joined, though I did nothing

Nine new followers joined while I was on hiatus. Thanks, guys. I'm glad this blog can still be a resource and help to many of you even when I'm on break.

Sharlene
Jonathan Hugus
Ronald S. Batson
Lisa S.
Tristan Fugatt
Leigh Miller
Theresa
Random Christian
Gay Christian

Thanks, also, to those of you who were praying for me. Some of the worst stress is over, and I'm hoping the rest of 2013 will be smoother sailing.

Ordinary people

The culture war is getting kind of lop-sided these days. President Obama has announced he is in favor of civil same-sex marriage. The military has dropped Don't Ask Don't Tell. A conservative lawyer has led the challenge against California's Proposition 8. Alan Chambers has backed away from Exodus's former claims that gay people can "change." And a veteran NBA player has come out as gay. All this may be an indication that saner minds are finally starting to prevail on this issue. Or it could mean that Satan is implementing a grand plan to blind weak and faithless minds through cultural influence and the secular media.

For a conservative Christian like myself who supports the more open stance society is taking toward gay and lesbian people, the issue is not about whether I believe or disbelieve the secular media, or whether I am choosing to go with or against the flow of our cultural times. I was in favor of civil same-sex marriage, critical of ex-gay therapy, and wanted the abolition of DADT all the way back in 2000, before our society and secular media were entirely comfortable with those ideas. So it wasn't that I capitulated to culture, society and media, but rather it feels like those entities, over time, became weirdly in sync with where I'm at on those particular issues.

Basically, what I believe has happened is that most of the younger generation (and many in the older generation) have become persuaded by the same observations and understanding that persuaded me some thirteen years ago: that being gay isn't a lifestyle choice, political ideology, or consequence of rejecting God. Being gay is something that people find themselves to be--and as a result some gay or lesbian people may have to make choices about their politics, religion or lifestyle that may or may not be in step with those who have never wrestled with having a minority sexual orientation.

My view used to be that perverts are gay, the immoral are gay, the rebellious are gay. The difference now is that I think people are gay. By "people" I mean the "people in your life" people. People that life insurance ads appeal to. People who buy Coke instead of Pepsi, or vice versa. The people we mean when we say, "people like convenience" or "people want a president who cares." Once you see that people are gay, that changes everything.

But the fact is, you can't see gay people as people unless you come to realize it for yourself. This is not something you are convinced of by simply reading a blog post. For instance, back when I still had the idea that only rebellious, perverted child molesters were gay, I would "push back" in my mind against anything I encountered that seemed to contradict my view. In early 2000 when my thinking was still in transition, I once saw a story about a high school kid, the quarterback and team captain of the school football team, who came out to his teammates as gay and was well received. I was annoyed that the secular media didn't highlight the moral issue of being gay and simply presented it as a touchy-feely, triumph-of-the-human-spirit thing. I pushed back at the story with my mind because it wasn't a Christian presentation, and I ended up rejecting the whole thing.

But upon later reflection, I realized that I missed the whole point of the story. Sure, there are moral issues about being gay when you approach it from a Christian perspective. But the more foundational question is, who is this person to begin with? Your standard issue pervert? Or just a high-school kid, feeling like he needed to be honest with his teammates, so scared he was shaking when he stood in front of them in the locker room and came out, finding relief once the truth was out and his family and friends accepted him.

Whatever moral journey that high school kid might take from that point on in his life, you have to recognize that it is a person who is going to make that journey. You have to ask yourself, what you would do if you were in his shoes? It is a question you only ask when you recognize that he is someone just like yourself.

And that circles us back to approaching this boy's story, and everyone's story, from a Christian moral perspective. When Jesus says "love your neighbor as yourself," he is saying that in order to fulfill our primary moral obligation to another person, we must first put ourselves in his or her shoes, so that we would know how to love them. We must first treat them like people. Because even Jesus recognized that neighbors are people.

Be back soon

Sorry for my recent absence on this blog, guys, but I have a couple of major ongoing stresses I'm dealing with. Over the past weeks I tried getting started on at least three blog posts, yet I wasn't able to finish. I haven't forgotten about all of you.

Surprising twist in the Chick-fil-A saga

Some of you might remember how I wrote in my "Post-Chick-fil-A Reflections":

Talk to someone who's gay. They were right outside the restaurant picketing while you were standing in line at Chick-fil-A. You could have skipped the chicken sandwich and taken someone to lunch on neutral ground at Burger King. But don't just talk, listen and learn. Because when it comes down to it being gay is not a political agenda or a religious doctrine, it is a human experience. And once you find the courage to connect with another human being on that basic level, you will know that God loves them, because you will feel his love for them in your own heart.

Who knew that Chick-fil-A president and COO Dan Cathy had already begun to do exactly that with LGBT activist Shane Windmeyer? Windmeyer "comes out" with the story in Huffpost this week:

For nearly a decade now, my organization, Campus Pride, has been on the ground with student leaders protesting Chick-fil-A at campuses across the country. I had researched Chick-fil-A's nearly $5 million in funding, given since 2003, to anti-LGBT groups. And the whole nation was aware that Dan was "guilty as charged" in his support of a "biblical definition" of marriage. What more was there to know?

On Aug. 10, 2012, in the heat of the controversy, I got a surprise call from Dan Cathy. He had gotten my cell phone number from a mutual business contact serving campus groups. I took the call with great caution. He was going to tear me apart, right? Give me a piece of his mind? Turn his lawyers on me?

The first call lasted over an hour, and the private conversation led to more calls the next week and the week after. Dan Cathy knew how to text, and he would reach out to me as new questions came to his mind. This was not going to be a typical turn of events . . .

Read the whole story here and find out the surprisingly encouraging outcome. 

Review of Justin Lee's Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

For someone who keeps up a blog on the subject, I don't do as much reading on "Christianity, homosexuality and the Bible" as you might think. Frankly, it's hard to sustain interest when I see the same arguments rehashed on both the traditional and progressive sides of the debate. This presents a problem when I'm looking for something to give my straight evangelical friends. I'd like to give them a book that advances the discussion, but does so by connecting with them, not preaching at them. It doesn't help to belittle people, or tell them that believing the Bible is homophobic or the equivalent of supporting slavery. Most of my Christian friends are smart, sensible, compassionate people who would greatly benefit from someone who can speak to them in their language, who doesn't agree with them on every point but challenges them biblically to stretch their thinking.

Justin Lee is a gay Christian writer and speaker who has done just that. His new book Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate is honest, engaging, clear-thinking, reasonable, and very evangelical. He uses the narrative thread of his own life experience to explain what it's like to be gay and Christian in the church, and to be torn between two sides that are at each other's throats in a culture war.

I had trouble putting it down. The pages go fast because you feel like he's just telling you his story. But in doing so Justin also interweaves reflections about what it's like to be gay and Christian that are instructive for the rest of us. As you learn how he struggled to admit to himself that he was gay, how he came out to his parents and pastor, why he couldn't join the ex-gay movement, why he felt misunderstood by straight Christian friends, and how he wrestled through the key Bible passages on homosexuality, your eyes are opened not just to one man's struggle but to the much bigger problem of how the culture war is tearing the church apart and ruining her witness.

Somehow Justin is able to explain all this without being preachy or abrasive. His writing is personal and his tone is gracious. I mean genuinely gracious, not a graciousness that smacks of condescension. As an evangelical I appreciated how well he was able to speak to me in my language. He always seemed sane and sure-footed as he laid out the processes through which he came to his conclusions, even the controversial ones.

For me the real test came when I got to the chapter where he dealt with the Scripture passages. I must confess I was tempted to skip it. I have read so many boring, shrill or unconvincing exegeses of Genesis 19, Leviticus 18, Romans 1, and 1 Corinthians 6 that I rarely even bother to drag my eyes through it anymore. It says a lot that Justin actually kept my interest, due entirely to his humble, honest and respectful handling of God's word. He never treated the Bible with a cavalier attitude, never dismissed the tough passages with simplistic, one-sided answers. The one criticism I do have about this chapter is that he did not deal with Genesis 1-2, which I consider a key passage. But overall, I can say that I was surprised at how wholeheartedly I agreed with his conclusions. I'll let you find out for yourself what those conclusions are.

This is not to say that the evangelical world will embrace this book enthusiastically. In fact, I anticipate Torn will ruffle plenty of feathers, maybe because Justin has the ability to connect so well with evangelicals. What's more, he is not coming to the church and saying, "This is my story. Please be nice and accept me." Rather, he is challenging the church to rise above the culture war, heed her true calling, and embody the gospel that we claim to believe.

The fact that he does so as a gay Christian will no doubt be irksome to some. They will claim that there is no such thing as a gay Christian, and they will try to dismiss him on that basis alone. But I ask everyone who reads this book to judge for yourself whether you can say that Justin is an unbeliever, that his faith is false, that his submission to the Bible is a sham, and that his "agenda" is anything but a sincere Christian concern for the church he loves. If you've ever had doubts whether gay Christians exist, look here. I can say from my own experience that people like Justin are not rare. The rest of us in the church would be far wiser if we listened to them, and far richer if we embraced them as fellow citizens of the heavenly kingdom.

Eleven new followers!

Esteban
The Colorful One
Aaron A.
Edgar Figueroa
Ursh
Mark Wells
Alison
Bradley
Clyde Jones
Thomas Daus
Nagini

Thanks for reading the blog!

Transgender musings

I've been mulling over a recent interview that Rachel Held Evans did with transgender Christian Lisa Salazar, whom I had the privilege of meeting this past January at the Gay Christian Network Conference. Over the years I've given some thought to transgender issues. For a period of time I exchanged emails with a male-to-female transgender friend who was the process of transitioning. She sent me articles from medical journals (most of which went over my head) and shared with me the human and spiritual side of trying to manage her life as a woman who faces all the challenges of presenting herself as female to the outside world. I'm grateful to her for opening up her life to me.

That doesn't mean I feel qualified to comment in any depth on transgender issues, which is why I avoid the term "LGBT" on this blog. There is, however, one basic issue that has always been clear to me as a non-transgender person. Namely, I have never understood myself to be female simply because of my biological make-up. I'm pretty sure that, for me, identifying as female is something that has been a part of me even before I knew the differences between male and female biology. Maybe I'm talking about having a "female soul," or maybe the scientists would call it a "female brain." But whatever you want to call it, it wasn't like I looked at my biological self one day when I was four years old and said, "Hey, I must be a girl because I have a girl body." Not really. I knew that my mom and my dad were different, both in their emotional make-up and in the way they related to me. And even though I was a classic tomboy who loved rough play and disliked hugs, I understood that at a baseline level I belonged to the girl-Mom camp more than the boy-Dad camp. I may have been a more boyish girl, to be sure, but I was a girl nevertheless. My experience was growing up and taking for granted that of course I look like a girl because I am a girl, and why wouldn't you look like a girl if you are one?

I share these thoughts because Lisa Salazar's experience was so different from mine:

Ever since I can remember, I experienced a disconnection with my body. This sense of disconnection at times bordered on revulsion on one hand, and sadness on the other. From my earliest memory, I felt something was amiss. I did not like to see my private parts and avoided looking down when I was naked. I distinctly remember sitting in the bathtub in three inches of water and carefully laying a washcloth over my genitals to hide them from my eyes as I played with my bath toys. I surmise I could not have been more that three years old at the time.  

This feeling that something was not right was not based on me having seen a girl's body and deciding I had extra parts. I was probably ten years old before I ever saw an image in a textbook of what a girl's body looked like. By the time I understood what some of the anatomical differences were, I was already estranged from my body. So where did this disconnection come from and what did it mean? 

Her experience interests me because I can relate to understanding my femaleness as an innate inner conviction, a fundamental starting point for my subjective identity. I know it wasn't the case that I simply looked down in the tub when I was three and chose to accept my anatomy, whereas Lisa didn't. What Lisa is describing is probably closer to imagining myself, as I am now, being transplanted into a male body and seeing how much I'd like it. I don't think I'd like it at all. "Disconnection," "revulsion," "sadness," feeling like something is "amiss"? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, that sounds about how I would feel. Except that for many people this confusion happens at a very young age and permanently impacts their psyche, their sense of security and self-worth. Those of us who have always taken for granted that we can look at our physical selves and literally feel comfortable in our own skins now realize that we have reason to be grateful for this happy circumstance. It is apparently not the case with everyone.

I often wonder why Christians aren't more accepting of the transgender experience. We are in constant battle against the evolutionists and atheists, who deny the existence of the soul and say human beings can be defined as simply a biological mass of highly complex cells. Why, then, when it comes to transgender people do Christians suddenly insist that the physical body is the be-all and end-all of male and female identity? Aren't we the ones who are always insisting that human beings are more than just erect-walking creatures of evolved ape-flesh? We teach that human beings have a soul, and that sets us apart from the animals. Why not realize that some people may have a soul that doesn't match their body? Perhaps a female soul got paired with a male body or vice versa. And while God did create us perfectly male and female in the beginning, after the fall many strange and tragic things now happen in the world. The secular transgender world may not agree with that conception of their experience, but as Christians we at least have theological categories that can help us understand the transgender experience in a way that would make sense to us.

Post-Chick-fil-A reflections

Now that everyone's done eating their Chick-fil-A sandwiches . . .

I remember election day in November 1994. All of us Republicans were convinced that Bill and Hillary Clinton had been driving our country into the moral sewer for the last two years, so we showed up at the voting booths in droves. I came home from work, grabbed my coat and went out in the rain to the local polling place where I blindly punched every chad next to every Republican name I saw. The result was that Republicans won control of both houses of Congress that year. At the time it felt good, it felt empowering, like we had a voice and made ourselves heard. So there!

At the moment it also felt very "Christian," as if I and others were standing up for God's righteousness against the Clintons' liberal agenda. But now, in retrospect, I don't view that moment as being a proud highlight of my Christian life at all. I didn't grow from it, I didn't become more Christ-like from it, I didn't benefit spiritually from it. Rather I look back and wonder at my anger and impulsiveness, that I would rush out and vote for candidates about whom I knew absolutely nothing. And what was the long-term outcome of our collective impulsive action in 1994? Newt Gingrich.

Ten, twenty years from now, many of the people who stood in line at their local Chick-fil-A restaurant last Wednesday will feel a similar emptiness about it. It will be a forgotten or forgettable moment.

Why? Because there is nothing particularly Christian about turning out in droves to make a statement of self-interest about a piece of civil legislation. Any group can do it, and just about every group does. Sure, you can argue that these sorts of demonstrations aren't necessarily wrong in themselves. But in the case of Chick-fil-A--even if we could convince ourselves that the whole circus wasn't hurtful to the gay and lesbian community, damaging to the gospel message, and embarrassing for Christians in general--neither was there anything wonderfully Christ-like about it either. There was no revelation of the Jesus who ate with tax collectors and sinners, who stood next to the adulterous woman and dared anyone to cast the first stone, who hung parched and suffocating on a cross while praying for God to forgive his enemies.

But, you say, we are perfectly justified in opposing the gay agenda. They're the ones who are always organizing and protesting. They're the ones pushing for their legislation and their rights. And what about those liberal politicians trying to ban Chick-fil-A restaurants from their cities?

The call to follow Christ is not about meeting the status quo with the status quo: "They're pushing their agenda so we're pushing ours." "I have a right to support my cause." "When Christians speak up we always get slapped down. Well, I've had enough!" This is exactly the sort of mediocre thinking that ensures there will always be so many Christians who make so little difference.

The apostle Paul asks, "Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?" Jesus says, "If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers to the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" Peter says, "When [Jesus] was reviled he did not revile in return, when he suffered he did not threaten but committed himself to him who judges righteously." John says, "By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

Our sins have been wiped away. Glory will someday be ours. We have riches beyond measure in the heavenly places. We are heirs of the world to come. God is our Father, Christ is our brother, the Holy Spirit is our Comforter. Surely we can afford to let go of some of our rights and privileges in this passing world. Surely we can afford to let some of the love and grace we have received overflow in our lives to others. Surely we can afford to be more generous and less petty, more confident and less victimized, more humble and less resentful.

Talk to someone who's gay. They were right outside the restaurant picketing while you were standing in line at Chick-fil-A. You could have skipped the chicken sandwich and taken someone to lunch on neutral ground at Burger King. But don't just talk, listen and learn. Because when it comes down to it being gay is not a political agenda or a religious doctrine, it is a human experience. And once you find the courage to connect with another human being on that basic level, you will know that God loves them, because you will feel his love for them in your own heart.

Busted

Social Science Research, the journal that published Mark Regnerus's study, is being challenged by 200 science professionals, most of whom hold PhDs or MDs.

A closer look at Mark Regnerus's "Children of Gay Parents" study

If you're a straight Christian, you may soon be hearing about an exciting new study conducted by the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), headed up by someone named Mark Regnerus. This study concludes that the children of gay parents turn out to have more problems in their adult life than children raised by heterosexual parents in stable, traditional households. These results supposedly fly in the face of many previous studies that have been done, which have concluded that children raised by gay couples turn out no differently than those raised by heterosexual parents. In a more accessible summary of the NFSS findings, Mark Regnerus reports the following:

On 25 of 40 different outcomes evaluated, the children of women who've had same-sex relationships fare quite differently than those in stable, biologically-intact mom-and-pop families . . . . Respondents were more apt to report being unemployed, less healthy, more depressed, more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, smoke more pot, had trouble with the law, report more male to female sex partners, more sexual victimization, and were more likely to reflect negatively on their childhood family life, among other things.

What makes this study seemingly more credible is that the NFSS conducted their research using a national probability sample population--which is the largest population sample that has ever been used for such a study--with the help of over three-quarters of a million dollars in funding, according to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Already Christian bloggers are tuning in. Finally, a credible study has been done using a large population sample to give us accurate results. Could this be the study that confirms our suspicions that the liberal world of psychology and sociology has been biased in their studies of children raised by gay or lesbian couples? That they've been cherry picking their samples to manipulate a favorable outcome for the gay and lesbian community?

The actual study is a daunting read, but if you're interested in getting to the bottom of this I strongly recommend Jim Burroway's excellent critique of this study on Box Turtle Bulletin. And yet I would say you don't even have to look as far as Burroway's critique to know there is something wrong with the NFSS study. You can pick up the trail just from reading Mark Regnerus's summary article about this study on Slate.

For instance, read this statement by Mark Regnerus on how he surveyed his population sample:

Instead of relying on small samples, or the challenges of discerning sexual orientation of household residents using census data, my colleagues and I randomly screened over 15,000 Americans aged 18-39 and asked them if their biological mother or father ever had a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex. I realize that one same-sex relationship does not a lesbian make, necessarily. But our research team was less concerned with the complicated politics of sexual identity than with same-sex behavior. (My italics.)

Wait. I thought this study was about comparing children who were raised in a same-sex-couple household with children who were raised by heterosexual parents. Because that's what all those other studies were about, right? And it is those studies that Regnerus claims to be challenging. But notice that the NFSS interviewed children whose parents "ever had a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex." That is quite different from interviewing children who were raised from a very young age by a same-sex couple in a stable family situation.

By asking this question, the NFSS sample is necessarily going to include many, many children of parents in mixed-orientation marriages. Let me explain what that is. A mixed-orientation marriage is when one of the parents is straight and the other is gay, but the gay partner chose to marry their opposite-sex partner in order to appear straight or fulfill social expectations. Quite often the straight partner didn't even know he or she was marrying someone who was gay. Mixed-orientation marriages are quite common today, but were even more common in a previous generation, that is, the generation who raised the now-grown children that the NFSS interviewed.

To explain further: according to the NFSS study, these grown children they interviewed whose parents "ever had a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex" were born between 1972 and 1993, a time when gay marriage wasn't available to their parents' generation, or was even on the radar screen of society. If you were a gay or lesbian adult in the 1970's, '80's or '90's, marrying an opposite-sex partner was the only option available to you aside from lifelong singleness. It probably never even occurred to any gay or lesbian person of that time that they might someday be able to legally marry a same-sex partner. So they entered into regular marriages, became unhappy, struggled with temptation, and quite often reached a breaking point when, out of desperation, they either had a gay affair or ended the marriage so they could be free to pursue a gay relationship.

So . . . if you were to take a random sample from a large section of the population born between 1972 and 1993, and ask if any of them had parents who "ever had a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex," chances are the vast majority of those who were aware of having a gay parent during their growing up years became aware of that fact because Mom or Dad had a homosexual affair, or it came out after a divorce that Mom or Dad was gay. The odds are very much against stumbling upon children who were raised by a gay couple, who were able to live like a married couple at a time when gay marriage was unheard of, and who somehow got legal custody of the children so that they were able to raise them for many years in a stable household situation. In other words, the odds are very much against the study coming across children of that generation who were raised in the very situation that interests us most.

Instead we are going to end up with a sample of children who grew under much more stressful circumstances than normal. Because for the majority of them the gay or lesbian parent in question had started out in a mixed-orientation marriage (probably unbeknownst to their straight partner), had at some point acted upon their homosexuality, or divorced before they could act out, and disrupted their family life as a result. The gay relationship in question may have lasted two months, two years, or two decades--who knows? The study doesn't say. We don't know if some parents' marriages survived, but there is a good chance that many of them ended in divorce. Divorce is already traumatic enough, but if the split came because one person was found out to be gay or lesbian, the feelings of hurt, shame, betrayal and anger would be that much more intensified.

Is it any wonder that children who grew up under such circumstances are more prone to being characterized as "unemployed, less healthy, more depressed, more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, smoke more pot, had trouble with the law, report more male to female sex partners, more sexual victimization, and were more likely to reflect negatively on their childhood family life"? Oddly, these children sound very similar to those who grew up in broken homes, or with step-parents, or with single parents. Oh wait . . . maybe it's because NFSS's "Has your biological mother or father ever had a romantic relationship with a member of the same-sex?" survey question naturally singles out children who grew up under those exact types of circumstances.

The study isn't so much about what happens when children are raised by gay parents as it is about children who grew up under traumatic circumstances. That is very different from a situation where children are raised from a very young age by two mothers or two fathers, who have always known the love and security that comes from a stable two-parent home--except that their parents both happen to be of the same sex.

Yet Mark Regnerus wants to pretend that his study is somehow relevant to the previous studies that centered around the stable-gay-couple parenting situation. In Regnerus's summary of his study published by Slate, he claims he can't figure out why his study came to such different conclusions.

Why such dramatic differences? I can only speculate, since the data are not poised to pinpoint causes. One notable theme among the adult children of same-sex parents, however, is household instability, and plenty of it.

"Household instability." I wonder how on earth that element came to factor so strongly into this equation? Could it be, perhaps, that Regnerus and the NFSS surveyed their population sample in a way that singled out children who were raised in unstable household situations?

And yet in the Slate article Regnerus goes on to suggest that it's really the previous studies that are guilty of bias:

So why did this study come up with such different results than previous work in the field? And why should one study alter so much previous sentiment? Basically, better methods. When it comes to assessing how children of gay parents are faring, the careful methods and random sampling approach found in demography has not often been employed by scholars studying this issue, due in part—to be sure—to the challenges in locating and surveying small minorities randomly. In its place, the scholarly community has often been treated to small, nonrandom “convenience” studies of mostly white, well-educated lesbian parents, including plenty of data-collection efforts in which participants knew that they were contributing to important studies with potentially substantial political consequences, elevating the probability of something akin to the “Hawthorne Effect.” This is hardly an optimal environment for collecting unbiased data (and to their credit, many of the researchers admitted these challenges). 

Hmm, yes, we need better methods, don't we? Better methods that produce "unbiased data." Especially if participants know they are "contributing to important studies with potentially substantial political consequences." Apparently, Mark Regnerus well understands these political consequences, as he writes in Slate:

This study arrives in the middle of a season that’s already exhibited plenty of high drama over same-sex marriage, whether it’s DOMA, the president’s evolving perspective, Prop 8 pinball, or finished and future state ballot initiatives. The political take-home message of the NFSS study is unclear, however. On the one hand, the instability detected in the NFSS could translate into a call for extending the relative security afforded by marriage to gay and lesbian couples. On the other hand, it may suggest that the household instability that the NFSS reveals is just too common among same-sex couples to take the social gamble of spending significant political and economic capital to esteem and support this new (but tiny) family form while Americans continue to flee the stable, two-parent biological married model, the far more common and accomplished workhorse of the American household, and still—according to the data, at least—the safest place for a kid.

Regnerus is surprisingly articulate about the "social gamble" of supporting same-sex marriage against the "safest" and "more common and accomplished" traditional parenting situation, considering that he claims his study is "unclear" about the political implications for same-sex marriage. Somehow, I don't believe that he is unaware of the political implications of his study at all.

On the other hand, Regnerus's offhand remark that the NFSS study "could translate into a call for extending the relative security afforded by marriage to gay and lesbian couples" is very much on the mark. Making same-sex marriage legally available gives gays and lesbians an option other than a mixed-orientation marriage which, years down the line, often results in the type of strained and broken family situation that traumatizes children in ways that the NFSS research has brought to light. Studying how children fared who grew up in such situations in the '70's, '80's and '90's only confirms that we need to get away from the old way of relegating gays and lesbians to the closet, and seek out new solutions such as legalizing same-sex marriage more widely in this country, for the health, security and safety of children.

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.

It's that time again . . .

Welcome, new followers!

Anton

Chad D.

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mone

Michael Olan Webb

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sf_tanis 

Obama 2012

I was already going to vote for him, but this certainly helps.

The local gay Christian Bible study

When I mention to my straight friends that I attend a gay Christian Bible study, I sometimes get the feeling that they think I went to someone's house where half the guys were fornicating in the upstairs bedrooms while the other half sat around shirtless, leering at one another. Doesn't matter that I said "Christian" or even "Bible study." The only word some people hear is "gay," and that will often send their minds off in a certain misguided direction.

It's possible that I've presumed too much on what people know about gay Christians. So first off, yes, gay Christians do exist. And also, being Christians, they are interested in studying the Bible. Why do they have "gay Christian" Bible studies? you might ask. Because most evangelical churches don't welcome gay people--at least the ones that they know about--so if gay Christians want to be part of a Bible study quite often they have to form their own. It's admirable when you think about it. If you were told you were no longer welcome at your church, would you be so committed to studying the Bible that you'd go out of your way to form your own group to do so?

What's it like going to a gay Christian Bible study? Well, it's usually at someone's home or apartment. You need to get there early because sometimes the place is packed and you will be forced to sit on the floor. At one study I attended I walked in late, having fought through traffic in the rain. I found myself crowding into a small living room with about fifteen other people, and someone was nice enough to offer his chair to me. Copies of song lyrics were distributed, and we started off with a praise and worship time. I noticed a couple of open laptops on the coffee table. People who couldn't make the drive were Skyping in.

They were studying through the Gospel of John verse by verse. We took turns reading out loud from chapter 6, and the leader guided the discussion by asking questions. One of the verses seemed to support a Calvinist view of election and there was lively debate over that. We noticed that different Bible translations put the verse in slightly different lights. Which translation do you have? the leader asked someone. ESV, came the answer. Any others? People called out KJV, NIV, NAS. What about The Message? Anyone here use The Message? There was a friendly sort of tension in the room. Everyone knew who it was that didn't approve of dynamic equivalence Bible translations. If you guys are okay with it, I'll go ahead and read what it says in The Message, the leader said, taking one last cautious look around. Apparently, the coast was clear for a brief lapse into liberalism.

We wrapped up our time by sharing requests and praying together as a group. The fellowship time was a bit cramped, trying to make it through the crowd to the kitchen for soda and store-bought cookies. Then someone broke out a birthday cake and we all sang in honor of the recipient, who was obviously surprised. Aren't you glad you came tonight? people called to him. We were afraid you weren't going to be here.

People hung around until close to 10 pm. The Bible study leader gave me a lift to my car since I was parked two blocks away. He was in the Army Reserves, grew up Southern Baptist, and had recently returned from his second deployment to Iraq. He mentioned that some of his Christian friends had been unfriending him on Facebook for being gay. All I could think was that if my son grew up to be like this guy, I'd be very proud.

So that is what a gay Christian Bible study is like. A bunch of Christians, who are gay, get together to study the Bible. They ask questions, debate a little, and try to keep the peace between the traditionalists and progressives within the group. But in the end, they support and care for one another. In other words, it's not a whole lot different from any other Bible study. Just like, I suppose, being a gay Christian isn't a whole lot different from being any other Christian.

Poem of the day

Suspended

I had grasped God's garment in the void
But my hand slipped
On the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
Must have upheld my leaden weight
From falling, even so,
For though I claw at empty air and feel
Nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.

--Denise Levertov