Finding a Place

As a gay Christian I have frequently felt myself thrown against an unseeing, unlistening wall of hatred whenever this issue is broached. After all, there are people in this world who believe God’s will is being done if gay people, their family or friends are harassed, attacked or even murdered. If you think that I am being paranoid please witness the actions of some evangelical Christians at the funeral of Matthew Shepperd last year. Matthew Shepperd was a 19 year old gay student at an American university. He was singled out and ‘befriended’ by two strong, tall youths; Matthew was only 5′2″ and slightly built. The youths took him to a field, hung him — as if crucified — from a fence, tortured him, beat him about the head with the butt of a rifle and left him to die. His murderers claimed that they were ‘insulted’ by his sexuality and the possibility that he might have found them attractive. The response of some Christians to this terrible death was to turn up at his funeral carrying placards saying “Matthew Shepperd — Faggot — Burn in Hell”. Doubtless they felt that he had received his due penalty … (Information: Radios 4 and 1, The Guardian, The Pink Paper)

This is an extreme example of ‘Christian’ homophobia, which even the most conservative of believers would probably be ashamed of. However, a psychological version of this exists in parishes throughout our own, comparatively liberal country. The Church is full of invisible gay people who remain silent. This is not because they are ashamed of who they are in God’s eyes — after all, God knows everything about us, our very words, before we have given them form. Most gay Christians will have taken their concerns about their feelings and sexuality to God before anyone else. We remain silent in the Church because we are terrified of the reaction that we will get from those around us. Perhaps we will face anger, disgust, tears, or worse, the icy silence of disapproval. The greatest fear is that the very place where we go for spiritual sustenance and support will close its doors to us, at least metaphorically.

The recent debates at Lambeth and in the House of Lords failed to recognise one very important fact, that being gay and being Christian are not mutually exclusive. Whatever one feels about scriptural teaching on homosexual relations we cannot deny that in God’s eyes we are all broken, sinful people. Yet he still loves us so much that he sent his only Son to redeem us. Christians must not fall into the trap of making gay people feel that that redemption does not include them. This is particularly important in the case of young people. In today’s agnostic world it is wrong to assume that people who reject religion are shallow and materialistic. Many people who care deeply about their environment and their fellow humans see Christianity, through its apparently rigid stance on such complex human and spiritual issues, as compassionless and absolute. Young people struggling with their sexuality as well as their faith feel they have nowhere to go. Through my fellowship with other Christians I know that most are deeply concerned, thoughtful people, who would be mortified if they knew that their words and actions helped to close that spiritual door. I therefore hope that this article will open up a constructive discussion on how gay people can be welcomed into the church, rather than lead to a debate on whether or not homosexual practice is compatible with God’s will.

The following is simply an outline of my own experiences in the Church, from 13 to 30. Despite any anger that comes across, I have experienced great love and understanding from my current church, and although the hierarchy do not share my views, they have been happy to enter into a dialogue with me about them, and I feel I am still welcome there. But then, I am very thick-skinned!

My ‘coming out’ in my church was prompted by the recent distribution of a homophobic leaflet written by the Evangelical Alliance. It urged its readers that if “God’s people” did not act then “this evil” (homosexuality, and by inference people like myself) would spread and contaminate our society. I felt that the manner in which it presented its argument made the assumption that people like myself would not read it, because we cannot be God’s people and have no place in the Church.

I do not know why I am what I am, and I have tried to be different, with painful consequences for myself and others. When the Evangelical Alliance’s leaflet was handed around at my house-group it took me back to being 13 years old. I had confided in a friend that I did not share her enthusiasm for boys. Her mother, who went to the same church as me, rang up all of my other friends’ parents to tell them that I was an “evil child” and that they should keep their daughters away from me. I was known in the school as a “lessie” from that day on, and preying at the back of my mind was the germinating thought that I must indeed be evil. (At this point my sexual experiences were, basically, non- existent.) Needless to say I soon rejected God for the sake of my sanity. I thought: is it any worse to believe God doesn’t exist than to believe that I am a child of Satan, through no choice of my own, or worse, that God created me to be damned? Fortunately, God has more wisdom and love than any of us, and despite my turning away he never abandoned me!

The only ‘choice’ I have ever made about my sexuality is to choose to deny it, to try to be ‘heterosexual’ and thus throw myself into degrading situations with men. At times I have felt Godless and hopeless. In my late teens/early 20s, I punished the self that society and Christians made me hate by allowing men to defile me. Maybe if I got drunk or stoned enough it would be alright. I cut myself, I banged my head against the wall, but hey, at least I was ‘normal’.

[Picture of two lesbian students and their daughter]

“Olivia loves two mamas”: US students from California Universities march to commemorate Matthew Shepperd’s death

I reached a half way point by labelling myself bisexual and choosing to have a monogamous lifetime relationship with a man. He was gentle, kind, understanding — we are still friends. We got engaged. We foolishly lived together, although it was hardly living in sin … One of his reasons for breaking off our engagement was that being best friends was not enough for a marriage. He felt I could not fulfil his very modest needs, and was using him because I could not face up to my sexuality.

This is not meant to be a confession. I am simply trying to point out the spiritual and emotional dangers of trying to squeeze yourself into the mould that the world demands of you.

It is very easy for happily married straight Christians to tell you how you ought to live your life. (They frequently do!) The Evangelical Alliance’s leaflet which I mentioned earlier talks about the “ homosexual lifestyle” and “homosexual relationships” as if they are only about sexual intercourse. Gay Christians are asked to live, not only a life of celibacy, but one of absolute loneliness. If we ask for the companionship that is taken for granted by heterosexuals we are seen as trying to “deviate from the teaching of Scriptures”. I know that individual straight Christians also have to cope with singleness. However, there is a significant difference. They at least are allowed to hope for some earthly comfort. If a gay person turns to another person of the same sex for companionship the church judges that they “have automatically cut themselves from the Anglican communion” (The Great Lakes Conference of Anglican Bishops of East Africa, Kampala, 98 — as such high prominence was given to the views of the African Bishops at the last Lambeth Conference I trust it is not out of context to quote them here). Although Paul the Apostle sees marriage as a falling off for those who cannot control themselves, our Christian culture celebrates marriage because it is seen as so much more than sexual union. The same applies to committed gay relationships.

I honestly do not know if I think homosexuality is sinful or not. I know that Paul and the writer of Leviticus believe it to be so, although they may be writing in specific contexts. However, I pray for guidance in all that I do, and I believe that I am now living the best life that I can. Does the devil intercept all my prayers? We are all sinful human beings: why is my ‘sin’ as opposed to arrogance or gossiping, the only one that seems to count? Why am I not allowed to seek to walk with God?

At times I feel invisible and lost within the church; I am an undesirable who has no right to be there. It’s only my increasing faith that God is good, and full of love, compassion, patience and forgiveness that has enabled me to keep attending. However, when I went on an Alpha course, one and a half years ago, I was so scared of what would be said to me if I confessed that I believed I was a lesbian that I put before my group the hypothetical case of an embryonic Christian struggling with ‘his’ sexuality, who had reached a conclusion that ‘he’ was gay, and was also celibate. The response of one of the committed Christians was that this friend — and therefore myself — was devil-possessed. The only answer was to pray to be healed, and if there was no healing it was because healing was not genuinely desired. Would any Christian say this to someone with cancer? I knew a boy when I was an undergraduate in London who threw himself off the top of a high-rise flat because he could not cope with the stigma of being gay. At a time of great anguish and much prayer I was fortunate enough to hear Desmond Tutu speak on the radio early one Sunday morning. He said that it was terrible that the church had made gay people feel that they were not God’s creation, and that of course they were. This was a very important moment for me: for the first time since I was 13 I was finally able to lay that nagging doubt aside. I have since had the opportunity to read his forward to “Aliens in the Household of God”, which in parts sums up how I have felt within the church (although I have also experienced great love and sustenance there). Like Archbishop Tutu, “What I found most attractive about Jesus Christ was just how he identified with those [who have been deprived, discriminated against, oppressed and marginalised]. It was heart-warming that he actually sat at table with those whom society of the time considered scum, those whom it despised and vilified — the prostitutes, the sinners and tax-collectors. What Jesus did was to say they belonged, they were insiders too, not strangers, not aliens.”

This article of course makes me define myself in a way I do not on a daily basis, as society makes gay people label themselves generally. Normally I see myself first and foremost as the mother of my daughter. My relationship with my girlfriend is not about sex. It is governed by the same restrictions I would now apply, as a Christian, if I were going out with a man. The only lesbian ‘lifestyle’ that I have is about friendship and support. It is about us rearing my daughter and planning a safe and loving ‘family’ environment for the future. The saddest thing for me is seeing my girlfriend struggle with her idea of an alienating religion, and finding no door open. When my little girl asks why the person who loves her most after me does not go to church with us I cannot tell her that it is because the church hates us and thinks we are evil, so I make up some excuse about her ‘having things to do’.

This article first appeared in Issue 60 of Christis (in the early summer of 1999).
This is just one of many articles making up an ongoing debate on this issue in Christis.
Homosexuality and its treatment in a spiritual light is possibly one of the most problematic issues facing the modern churches.

However, despite the pain that I have experienced, and perhaps have caused by speaking out, I hope that by raising these issues and discussing them openly and compassionately in the church we can create an environment where everyone feels welcome and loved, without individuals feeling that their personal convictions need be compromised.


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Finding a Place

Personal experience of Christianity’s attitudes to differing sexualities