But despite Paul’s intention regarding the duality of flesh (human nature) and spirit, there’s been a literal rendering through Church history that the human body and its desires are bad, while the things of the spirit are righteous and good. Deny the one, exalt the other. As GLBTQ Christians we’ve often been treated to a double-dose of the churches inappropriated admonishment to “deny the flesh and pursue the spirit” as though the battle between flesh and spirit is engaged in a World Wrestling Federation level free-for-all in queer folk.

But as I think about my body, this fleshy capsule that serves as my earthly container, I’m finding something holy about it. Touch your skin. Right now. Touch the skin on your arm. What you feel through your fingertips; the warm of the skin, the hair, the muscles underneath, were the very same sensations Jesus felt when he touched the skin on his arm. God had flesh, blood, muscle and bone. God lived in skin. God lived in a body. Christ’s body. God’s body. It was just a standard issue human body but the Spirit of God inhabited that one flesh and blood body and it was holy. It takes no stretch in my mind to jump from there to the conclusion that my body is holy and your body is holy. The Holy Spirit of God is joined with our spirits and in that union held together in our bodies, it is holy holy holy. The temple of God with skinned knees and pimples.

Wrinkles, extra folds of fat and skin, protruding bones, weak limbs, ears that hear and ears that don’t, eyes that see and eyes that don’t, each strand of hair, our arms, our legs, our feet and yes, I’m going to say it, even our genitals are holy. Does any of that make you uncomfortable? Why? Could it be because of shame you carry that part or all of your body holds for you? Has shame that never rightfully belonged to you from sexual abuse rendered your body used and defiled in your eyes? Has being heavier or thinner than society has deemed the ideal made your body loathsome to you? Do you carry scars from an injury? Is there any residue reminders of an illness that ravaged your body? Are you physically challenged somewhere in your limbs? Do you see your body as spoiled and ruined because of places you once took it and things you once did? What is it that keeps us from accepting that the body you see in the mirror is anything less than holy?

God loves you and that includes your body. Every flake of skin and curve of your silhouette is loved by God. God traces the lines of those scars you carry and looks at them in love. God sees you naked from top to bottom and delights in the vessel that He designed and if time and life have caused some wear and tear; God loves all that too because God was there when they happened. He knows the stories each rough edge and crack holds and His heart is moved with compassion and tenderness for it all. A holy God created your body and spirit and soul and all of it, without exception is holy and all is for God’s glory and all this body does is a song and dance of worship to its Creator.

So tomorrow a little extra skin that served me well for many years but no longer is needed will be cut away and what will remain will be a line of stitches that will become a scar that will fade but never fully go away, and that’s okay. My body need not be perfect. There will always be other bodies that are more muscular than mine, more curvaceous than mine, more slender than mine. There will be prettier faces and straigher teeth and more cooperative hair. But there will never be another body that is more holy.

If you aren’t able to love the body you have, if you aren’t able to envision it as the holy vessel it is, then just remember until the day when you can that God is loving it and calling it holy and delighting in it and in you.

My summer reading has included two books; one by Barbara Brown Taylor and the other by Frederick Buechner and their writing and God’s own poking around at my heart, have been shaping my ideas and wonderings around body and holiness and embodying our faith. Below is a relevant excerpt from each but please, do yourself a favor, and get both books. They’ll feed your soul like a ten course meal.

An Altar In the World: A Geography of Faith, by Barbara Brown Taylor. This excerpt is from her chapter on “The Practice of Wearing Skin: Incarnation”

“Duke ethicist Stanley Hauerwas finds most Christians far too spiritual in the practice of their faith. Christianity ‘is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order to be a Christian,’ he says, ‘but rather Christianity is to have one’s body shaped, one’s habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable.’ In our embodied life together, the words of our doctrines take on flesh. If one of our orthodox beliefs has no corporeal value, if we cannot come up with a single consequence it has for our embodied life together, then there is good reason to ask why we should bother with it at all. The issue Hauerwas raises is not whether there is any such thing as purely spiritual holiness, but ‘whether there is anything beside the body that can be sanctified.’

In far more pungent language, Daniel Berrigan once said, ‘It all comes down to this: Whose flesh are you touching and why? Whose flesh are you recoiling from and why? Whose flesh are you burning and why?’

Such questions strike below the radar screen of the intellect, where far too many quesions of faith are both argued and answered. When I hear people talk about what is wrong with organized religion, or why their mainline churches are failing, I hear about bad music, inept clergy, mean congregations, and preoccupation with institutional maintenance. I almost never hear about the intellectualization of faith, which strikes me as a far greater danger than anything else on the list. In an age of information overload, when a vast variety of media delivers news faster than most of us can digest – when many of us have at least two e-mail addresses, two telephone numbers, and one fax number – the last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more God in their bodies. Not more about God. More God.”

Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith, by Frederick Buechner. The  excerpt below is from his mini-chapter on “Incarnation.”

“‘The Word became flesh,’ wrote John, ‘and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). This is what incarnation means. It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity, it is the way things are.

All religions and philosphies that deny the reality or the signficance of the material, the fleshly, the earthbound, are themselves denied.  Moses at the burning bush was told to take off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy ground (Excodus 3:5), and incarnation means that all ground is holy ground because God not only made it but walked on it, ate and slept and worked and died on it. If we are saved anywhere, we are saved here. And what is saved is not some diaphanous distillation of our bodies and our earth, but our bodies and our earth themselves. Jerusalem becomes the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven like a brdie adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). Our bodies are sown perishable and raised imperishable (I Corinthians 15:42).

One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.”

One of the many ways that we are attracted to each other is sexually. We want to touch and be touched. We want to give and receive pleasure with our bodies. We want too know each other in our full nakedness, which is to say in our full humanness, and in the moment of passion to become one with each other. Whether it is our own gender or the other that we are chiefly attracted to seems a secondary matter….

To say that morally, spiritually, humanly, homosexuality is always bad seems as absurd as to say that in the same terms heterosexuality is always good, or the other way round. It is not the object of our sexuality that determines its value but the inner nature of our sexuality.  If (a) it is as raw as the coupling of animals, at its worst it demeans us and at its best still leaves our deepest hunger for each other unsatisfied. If (b) it involves some measure of kindness, understanding, affection as well as desire, it can become an expression of human love in its fullness and can thus help to complete us as humans. Whatever our sexual preference happens to be, both of these possibilities are always there. It’s not whom you go to bed with or what you do when you get there that matters so much. It’s what besides sex you are asking to receive, and what besides sex you are offering to give.

I’m not going to comment further on what Buechner has articulated so eloquently because nothing I could write in response would ever add a drop of greater truth to it.

If you aren’t familiar with Frederick Buechner then learn about him and once you’ve learned a little about him, read some of his marvelously crafted and prolific writing that will reveal even more about the man, the preacher, and the writer. My favored recommendations include: Listening to Your Life, Longing for Home: Reflections at Mid-Life, Secrets in the Dark: A Life Lived in Sermons, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith (a collection of three of Buchner’s best known including: Wishful Thinking, Peculiar Treasures, and Whistling in the Dark)  and The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story.

Share your thoughts and reflections on the excerpt above, on anything else you’ve read by Frederick Buechner, or for that matter on anything that in recent days has graced your life and deepened your walk with God. The lines are open. Operators are standing by.

…..Straight in body

…..Straight in mind

…..Straight in heart

……....I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would restore all my lost friendships

…..And regain my parents pride

…..And give back my families respect

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would return me to my former ministry

…..And the admiration of the congregation

…..And the loving welcome of the church

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would replace the love I have for my wife with an equal love for a man

…..And we could legally marry

…..And we would be granted full rights under the law without fighting for them

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would mean no one would reject me for being who I am

…..And for saying what I believe

…..And for standing boldly as one who follows Christ

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill could take the world back in time,

…..Before I came out of the closet,

…..Before I said I was gay

…..Before I knew I was gay

…..Before inequality touched me

…..Before hate revealed its ugliness to me

…..Before anyone rejected me

…..Before anything was lost to me

…..Before I ever questioned God’s love for me

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking that pill would make me straight

…..And famous

…..And wealthy

…..And talented

…..And adored

…..And beautiful

…..And thin

……....I would not take it.

……....I would not take it.

……....I. Would. Not. Take. It.

I would never take a pill that would make me straight because

……....I love being who I am

……....I love being whole and free

……….I love seeing the world from where I stand

……....I love knowing God from this place

……....I love feeling passion burning in me for equality

……....I love being part of a people who are courageous and relentless

……....I love being one in Spirit with every queer youth

…………..With every gay man and woman

……………With every bisexual man and woman

…………..With every transman and transwoman

……………With every ally and friend

……………With everyone who questions, doubts and searches

……….And I love being one in Spirit with you

……………Bound in hope, and faith, and love

……………Bound in God

If there was a pill I could take that would make you straight

………..And taking that pill would end all your confusion and anxiety

……….And remove your fear that God has rejected you

……………I would not take that pill even for you.

You are gay.

…..You are not wrong.

…..…..You are not sinful.

…..…..…..You are not evil or perverted.

…..…....…..…You are not unworthy.

…..…..…..…..…..You are not a mistake.

…..…..…..…..…..…..You are not to be ashamed.

You are gay.

…..God loves you.

…..…..God holds you.

…..…..…..God stands with you.

…..…..…..…..God delights in you.

…..…..…..…..…..God calls you “My own.”

If there was a pill that could make me straight

…..And make you straight

…..And you

…..And you

…..And you

……....I would not take it.

……....I would not take it.

……....I. Would. Not. Take. It.

…..…..…..…..…..

How Does It Feel to Be a Heart?

.
Once a young woman asked me,
“How does it feel to be a man?”

And I replied,
“My dear,
I am not sure.”

Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”

And this time I replied,
“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.
My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,
‘How does it feel to be a heart?’
For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere!”

In the current debate over marriage, there are times when it seems that those who oppose marriage equality, worship gender, or more specifically, the combination of genders. Over and over “one man and one woman” is lifted up, defining what it is that constitutes a real marriage, family, relationship, and love. One man and one woman wins it all in this odd little contest bent on narrowly defining what is most primal and essential for all humans; to be loved and to love.

I find it inconceivable to think that God is as obsessively concerned with the genitalia of two human beings in convenantal love as are so many of those who attempt to speak in God’s name. Rather it reads in I Samuel 16:7 that “man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.” Where I believe God’s attention is drawn is to the heart, the intention it holds and the actions that flow from it. Gay or straight, bisexual or transgendered or so queer no other definition will do. Wouldn’t it be grand to drop it all and known as Heart?

To my knowledge Jesus never said, “Do not engage in any sexual behavior until you enter into a heterosexual marriage,” but you’d never know it based on how the church deals with the question of Christian sexual ethics. Just don’t do it until you say ‘I do.‘ Period, end of story, and now let’s open our hymnals to page 473 as we sing together. That’s the full extent of the teaching and preaching I took from 38 plus years in the church. It’s what I heard at summer camp, in youth group, in Bible college and from the pulpit. My point for the moment isn’t to tackle this singular one-size-fits-all rule of sexual ethics, but to highlight how inadequately Christian teaching has been in addressing the sexual/sensual aspect of our humanity and thus failing to minister to the believer in their wholeness. As a result, were we a sisterhood of straight Christian women gathered here, a conversation on Christian sexual ethics would be just as challenging and needful for us to undertake. Unquestionably, there’s added complexity for us as queer believers in attempting to construct a paradigm (model) for queer Christian sexual ethics, but I’d propose before we leap into the gayer particulars our starting point begins where it would for any believer.

There are so many directions we can go with this and were I academically predisposed like Bon the chances are I’d begin by sketching out an outline to assist in developing a coherent flow and structure. As it is, I’m probably going to be shooting more from the hip and along with the comments you add, we’ll plow through a conversation on (queer) Christian sexual ethics until we’re all screaming “Enough already!”

So let me start by free-flowing some questions or discussion points that come up for me and then I’d like to encourage you to jump in with your own. We’ll combine it all, see what areas seem to most interest everyone and then we’ll take it from there, A to Z.

• Does the Bible (Hebrew and Christian Testaments) provide any absolutes in relation to sexual ethics? If so, what do we know in terms of the conditions and considerations behind those absolutes and are those same conditions and considerations applicable today?
• What sexual sins does the Bible directly address? Define ’sexual immorality’ as used in Scripture.
• Have any sexual mores changed in value in the time between antiquity and our contemporary culture? Are there behaviors once viewed as acceptable that are now judged as an offense, or vice versa?
• When discussing a code of sexual ethics to apply to our own lives are we able to base them on a clear set of Biblical sexual ethics?
• What specific passages, if any, are to be considered by Christians when discussing sexual ethics?
• Is sex outside of marriage sin? Is abstinence from sex the only moral option for single people?
• Is celibacy the only moral option for queer Christians?
• Does the limited availability of legalized marriage for gays and lesbians have any impact on creating a standard for queer Christian sexual ethics? Is monogamy the only moral option for partnered/married queer Christians?
• How should Christian lesbians negotiate sexual behavior and sexual desire while dating?

Those are the bullet points I came up with in 15 minutes. Now it’s your turn to contribute and while you do I’m going to watch the visitor hit stats go through the roof!

In recent days many of us have heard reports from a study conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden that used MRI and PET scans to compare the brains of 90 people (25 straight men, 25 straight women, 20 gay men, 20 gay women), and found that the brains of gay men were more like those of straight women than of straight men and that brains of gay women tend to be more like straight men than straight women. The areas of similarity involved the size of various portions of the brain, and how a particular section of the brain (the amygdala) was connected to other regions of the brain; in gay men and straight women the connectors are more strongly tied to areas involving emotions; for gay women and straight men the strong connectors lead to the part of the brain that controls motor functions. I think it’s interesting but not all that important in the faith-based conversations of homosexuality.

Whenever homosexuality is the topic among people of faith, whether in friendly conversation or in heated debate, you can anticipate that at some point the question of choice will bounce to the top often in some variation of “Does a person choose to be gay or are they born that way?” While conservative Christians argue that gays and lesbians have chosen a sinful homosexual lifestyle, most gay and lesbian Christians answer back that being gay was never a choice for them. The conflict breaks down to pitting biology against choice. If homosexuality is genetic then same-sex attraction could be understood as an intrinsic and natural characteristic for a certain percentage of humans and thus an argument could be made that homosexuality is a matter of biology rather than moral choice or sin. On the other hand, if homosexuality is a deliberate, or even unconscious choice, then the line of reasoning goes that what can be chosen can be un-chosen, leading some gay and lesbian Christians into ex-gay ministries that for far too many set in motion the soul-wrenching hamster wheel of gay/ex-gay/ex-ex-gay and tragically there are times when the wheel doesn’t stop spinning until someone is ex-alive. We’ve lost so many good and young lives because they were led to believe that which they’d never chosen could be unchosen, leading them to try time and again to be what they were never meant to be in the first place.

There are things each of us know about ourselves that are unquestionable truths of our lives. One of those absolute facts, like day follows night, is that I never made a deliberate choice to be gay. That’s not to say I had no choice at all in the matter. I did. I made a long list of choices. I chose to trust my relationship with God. I chose to believe there was another way to understand the few Scriptures that were being used to condemn homosexuality. I chose to not see myself as sick or sinful but as beloved and holy. I chose to place my assurance in God and not in those who claimed to speak for God. I chose to love. I chose to live boldly. I chose to live openly as a Christian and a lesbian. These are the choices I’m accountable for and the ones I gladly take full responsibility for having made.

That’s my story and I’m sticking by it, but it’s my story and not necessarily shared by every other queer roaming the planet. In fact, I know it’s not because there are plenty of queer people who claim choice in their sexual orientation. This can be problematic for those GLBTQ Christians who’ve made the “it wasn’t a choice” line of reasoning a key component to their discourse on homosexuality and religion. I would have had a hard time of it myself in the early days of my own reconciliation journey had I heard there were gays and lesbians who actually chose to be gay and lesbian. *

As I realize how true what I’m about to say is, I can catch a glimpse of how far I’ve come in digging through the onion layers of my own internalized homophobia, and what I’m going to say is this; it no longer matters to me whether sexual orientation is rooted in nature or nurture, whether it’s genetic or environmental, learned or innate. It no longer matters to me because I don’t believe a person’s sexual orientation matters one iota to God anymore than it matters to God whether we’re left-handed or right-handed. Where I believe it matters to God is how we choose to use our left or right hand to bring either harm or healing to another human being. The action of our dominant hand, regardless of which hand it might be, is where God pays close attention. In the same way, whether we’re gay, straight, or bi, God’s interest isn’t in the object of our affection but in the expression of our affection. God cares about our motives and intentions and how we tend to the well-being and wholeness of others and that includes in sexually intimate relationships.

So what are your thoughts on all the whole nature-nurture, choice or non-choice rigmarole?  I wait expectantly. In the meantime, this seems to be leading us toward the bigger conversation around the much requested topic of queer Christian sexual ethics but give me a day or two to pull that puppy together!

—-

*Afterword:

Despite having no personal experience in choosing my sexual orientation, I can readily accept the claim of others to have chosen theirs in light of the variances between being exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual [Refer to my post on Fluidity and the Sexuality Scale]. The large space in between allows for the possibility that these individuals could maintain choice in self-identifying and then living as gay, just as it allows for those individuals who maintain they were once gay and now choose to self-identify and live as straight or in their terminology, now identify as “ex-gay.” I don’t believe however that someone who is exclusively heterosexually-attracted can choose to be gay anymore than someone who is exclusively homosexually-attracted can choose to be straight, unless that choice is made with a willingness to settle for a painfully conflicted life where external actions and internal inclinations are at continually odds with one another.

The funny thing, funny strange more than funny ha-ha, is that in most of creation diversity’s met with awed wonder and appreciation. We celebrate God’s creative hand in the natural world and then we go even further and attempt to extend that creativity by trying through science to redesign or combine what already exists to make a unique version of the original. New varietals of florals and vegetation, hairless cats and dogs with bigger ears. Just the other week I roasted a mountain of brilliantly-colored purple, orange, green and white cauliflower, white being the only one in the cauliflower rainbow that wasn’t scientifically engineered. I’m sorry to report that science has a long way to go before changing the flavor as successfully. I’ll give you an update when they find a way to alter its taste to more closely resemble caramel-fudge lattes.

Yes, we applaud diversity but when it comes to sexual orientation, not so much. I find it both interesting and appalling that even in our contemporary world, after all the research and knowledge gained into human sexuality there are still those segments in our society that argue that the natural inclination for every human being is to be joined with someone of the opposite sex; who insist that heterosexuality is the exclusively right and good sexual orientation and all others are deviant expressions of human sexuality. This tendency to suggest that God splashes diversity in every nook and granny of the world except human sexuality baffles me.

Of course, if you’re gay then you know there’s an equally natural alternative to heterosexuality and if you celebrate your sexuality as part of God’s creative work in you then you’re probably pretty clear that being gay isn’t a rip-off version of being straight. It just is what you is.

But that’s not all there is and I’m going to have to go along with Alfred Kinsey on this one. Based on a study he conducted Kinsey suggested that there’s a wide spectrum in human sexuality, spanning the gap between being exclusively straight (0) to exclusively gay (6). His scale also provides for asexuality for those individuals who have no sexual attraction to either sex. Me, I’m a 6. It’s all gay all the time. I like men and I appreciate an attractive man but I’m not sexually or emotionally attracted to the man. Hook me up to a sexual attraction monitor and I’d be flat-line. But that’s me and not all lesbians. Others who self-identify as a lesbian might occasionally have dreams or sexual fantasies of the opposite sex. I’ve known a Tupperware party worth of married women who found a certain amount enjoyment with their husbands even while they knew their primary sexual attraction and emotional connection was to other women. And there are solid 0’s in the straight world who think only straight as an arrow thoughts and others who have passing daydreams or sexual fantasies about being with someone of the same sex.

For some reason though there are many of us, both gay and straight, who cling to either/or. Either you’re straight or you’re gay. But then what about those wacky bisexuals? What are we suppose to do with them? Well, the same people who oppose homosexuality will most often paint bisexuals as promiscuous, as though being attracted to both genders means being involved sexually with both sexes at the same time. And I’ve heard some equally negative brew-haha coming from gays and lesbians. It’s not uncommon for bisexuals to be thought to simply be confused by the gay community. She’s really a lesbian but she just doesn’t know it yet. He doesn’t want to own being gay because he wants the option of being in a socially acceptable relationship with a woman. Don’t ever trust a bisexual because they’ll just leave you for someone of the opposite sex. Why do we do that? Or maybe the better question is why do we need to do that? Does the reality of their attraction to both genders threaten us in some way, as if their equal attraction to men might suggest that we too could be attracted to men and if that’s the case then maybe our opposition is right and we’re just choosing to be gay? I don’t know. I’m just guessing here because I don’t really understand what the resistance is to bisexuals even though I’ve heard negative remarks about bisexuals from a few gays and lesbians while at the same time hearing some really painful stories of rejection and negative stereotyping by bisexuals. Ultimately for me it just highlights that there’s room for all of us, gay and straight to work on our welcome and acceptance to the other which is just about any and everyone who isn’t us.

Along with there being a diversity in human sexuality, there’s also remarkable fluidity for some people in the area of their sexual orientation. I’ve received some amazing emails from young people in their teen years who want to know if because they’re attracted to their same-sex friend that means they’re gay. My response to them after the initial “Wow, how courageous of you to write and share this with someone” and “It’s not my place or within my ability to answer that for you” is to talk to them about how our feelings and attractions aren’t always black and white nor or set in stone for all time. What a stress on kids to feel like they have to label themselves with the first conflicting feeling they experience especially when our adolescence and young adult years are one hormonal onslaught of of conflicting and changing sexual feelings. The intense crushes we have in our youth don’t seem particularly concerned with gender. One day a teenager can be crushed out on the cute quarterback and a few days later get a shiver when her best girlfriend hugs her playfully around the neck. I try to encourage them to not rush to a conclusion, that if their sexual orientation is in question now it will in all likelihood become clearer to them one day. Either way, I want them to remember whether they come to see themselves as queer or straight, that God loves them and nothing will change that. I’d offer the same words to any adult who was questioning their sexuality; to the woman who’s been married happily for 30 years but in recent weeks or months has been having feelings for another woman at her church. Go slow. Give yourself time. Maybe these are just natural passing feelings. Maybe not. Either way, while you’re questioning your sexuality, you don’t need to question God’s love for you. It’s there with you as it’s always been and will remain with you always. No matter what.

Human sexuality. Fluid. Diverse. Miraculous. Mysterious.

One of the messages that comes at us in a dozen different ways is that God’s original intent was for all people to be heterosexual but somewhere along the way those of us who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual were broken or damaged. To these folks, there’s no such thing as a normal homosexual; only a malfunctioning heterosexual in need of God’s Fix-It Shop. There are those of us who at one time or another have bought into this message, investing massive amounts of energy trying to figure out what made us gay. We question our own life experiences and turn everything upside down and inside out to see if we can find the clues to why we like the girls rather the boys. The internal message is if something caused me to be gay then something can undo it and I can be fixed, cured, or changed and the church provides us with methods for treating our brokenness; Christian counseling, prayers of healing, and ex-gay ministries.

To those who see my sexual orientation as damaged goods, thank you for playing and be sure to collect your consolation prize at the door. That’s my short inside voice only answer because speaking only for a lesbian of one, I’m not a damaged anything. That’s not to say I haven’t had my issues since by virtue of being one human living among a world of humans I’ve had my fair share of being hurts and disappointments but I’ve done the therapy, let go of any of the past that needed to stay in the past, seen the underbelly of my psyche, and can say both gratefully and assuredly, I’m one emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically healthy individual today. Oh yes, and I’m gay. And my hair is blonde (more often than not), my eyes are blue, I’m nearsighted and right-handed. I’m not a defective straight person and in fact there is nothing straight about me; there’s no heterosexual blood flowing through this body. What I am is a perfectly normal gay person. What I’m saying, all that I’m saying, is that from a personal perspective my life doesn’t match the message. Neither does history support the notion that attraction for the opposite sex is the one and only natural and intended inclination for all humanity, and this, my friends where I gracefully position myself on top of my soapbox, waving farewell to those who have to walk their dog and change their laundry while I regurgitate some historical trivia that further messes with this message.

One of the big myths we confront in the area of human sexuality is the notion that heterosexuality is not only the norm, what is most common for sexual orientation, but normative, the standard of correctness for sexual orientation. Growing up surrounded by heterosexuals (those straight people are everywhere!), I’m more than willing to concede that heterosexuality is the predominant orientation but by no means is heterosexuality the exclusive sexual orientation of humanity or heterosexual relationships the ideal model upon which to judge all others.

I’ve already addressed little bits and pieces how human sexuality was understood in ancient Israel and first-century Palenstine under the category of Homosexuality and the Bible in the posts on Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1, and at Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:9-10. Summarizing, in the ancient world a man who had sex with another man was the same man who went home to his wife and children. The lines between same-sex sexual activity and opposite-sex sexual activity were more than blurry, they overlapped one another. The understanding was that the person who engaged sexually with someone of the same-sex was thought to be someone who had been simply been unable to fully satisfy his sexual appetite with the opposite sex. He wasn’t driven by abnormal sexual passions for another man, but by abnormal sexual passions for more and more sex however he could get it. Understood this way, homo-eroticism was an extension of the norm but not oppositional to the norm. If this sounds confusing, it should because we’re conditioned by our world view and not by that of the ancient world which was literally, a whole other world and culture on to itself.

As separate entities the words homosexuality and heterosexuality and all those words mean to us today simply didn’t exist; not in antiquity, not in the Middle Ages, and not when buffalo roamed freely on the American continent. Leaping ahead centuries to 1901 there was no mention of either in the Oxford English Dictionary although in that same year in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, heterosexuality is finally included, being defined as, and you’re going to love this, “Abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.” I just had to empathize that in bold because it’s too precious to miss, but entertainment value aside this definition reflected accurately the societal view of the time that procreation was the primary imperative for sexual activity which meant that sexual attraction for someone of the opposite sex or sensual pleasure as a driving force for sexual intimacy was considered unnatural, aberrant, and a perversion. Does any of this sound familiar?

Homosexuality doesn’t appear until 1909 in Webster’s New International Dictionary. It was defined as a medical term meaning “morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex” and yet in that same year the term heterosexuality is absent. Not until 1923, fourteen years later, does heterosexuality find its way into Websters as “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.” As John Katz’s wrote in The Invention of Heterosexuality, “the advertising of a diseased homosexuality preceded the publicizing of a sick heterosexuality.” It wasn’t until 1934 in the Second Edition of Webster’s was heterosexuality lifted from an abnormal state to being viewed normative as “the manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality,” while homosexuality in the same volume was defined as “eroticism for one of the same sex.” In regards to heterosexuality, no longer was procreation required as the motivating factor for opposite sex attraction, and now that it was coming to be established as the norm every variance from that norm was judged against it.

I find all that interesting but more than that, I find it serves as a strong witness to the fact that heterosexuality as an ideal model for sexual orientation and homosexuality as an aberrant from of sexual orientation is a relatively new concept. There’s nothing in human history that’s black and white about human sexuality or sexual orientation. That’s the point. Heterosexuality as sexual attraction for the opposite sex without procreation as the intended goal was once considered abhorrent. Now it’s not. Our understanding of human sexuality has changed and so when people hold up heterosexual relationships as a monolith to sexual orientation and intimate relationships, they’re not wielding a truth with the weight of history behind it. They’re holding up the dominant contemporary world view with all it’s prejudices and cultural acceptabilities.

Now wake up and go for a walk. I’m heading out for a four mile stroll myself.

Blog out!

D and I met in 1999. In the summer of 2001 we registered as legal domestic partners in the State of California. Six years ago today D and I were married. In the photographic images above D is the radiant dark-haired beauty. I’m the dewy-eyed, bottle-enhanced blond with the goofy grin stuck on her face. My cheeks were sore for three days.

On our wedding day I held more love in my heart for D than I even thought I had the capacity to hold. I loved her with all I had within me to love, but love’s an amazing thing. Amazing because where I once loved her with all my heart, the more time I spend loving this dear soul the more my heart opens to holding even more love than it could once contain, not only for her but for the God who brought her to me. Every day I fall one notch deeper in love with D and with every new plunge I put my hands to my heart and say “Thank you God.”

There are a whole lot of folks who attempt to diminish our relationships and offer a wide range of replacement words and Paul Cameron inspired explanations for our love. Lust. Unnatural affections. Perverse desires. Lesbians bonding with each other to replace the maternal nurturing their mothers failed to give them. Gay men bonding with each other as a substitute for an absent or emotionally unavailable father. Only two weeks ago while visiting the evangelical church where I served for a number of years, I was approached by someone who had been a close friend and ministry colleague who dismissed my relationship with D by saying with a smirk, “Unless you have a penis you can’t have a wife. Do you have a penis now?” Just so you know, I had a dozen random one-liners that zoomed immediately through my head but went unspoken. Deep breathing, lip biting and gnashing of teeth helped. Obviously I was offended by her comment but then I think straight couples should be equally offended if the main validation of a marriage boils down to possessing defined anatomical equipment rather than oh, I don’t know, let’s say love, commitment, fidelity, kindness, and mutual respect for a start.

In my reading the other day I came across these words of St. John of the Cross:

Some will spiritually acquire a liking for other individuals, which often arises from lust rather than from the spirit. This lustful origin will be recognized if, on recalling that affection, there is not an increase in the remembrance and love of God, but remorse of conscience. The affection is purely spiritual if the love of God grows when it grows, or if the love of God is remembered as often as the affection is remembered, or if the affection gives the soul a desire for God – if by growing in one the soul grows also in the other. -The Dark Night

This is what defines the rightness of a relationship, the presence of God’s love, not an appendage, and this is the very thing that’s blown me away from my first days of falling in love in D. I find my thoughts often turning to God and my heart filling with reflections on God’s love for me even in the midst of being so loved by D. As I grow deeper in love with D I grow deeper in love with God and while they’re two separate relationships, they’re bound together by Spirit, the love in my heart and the love in her heart born out of the same source, the love of God. I don’t know my marriage with D is good because it feels good, but because it is good and blessed and holy.

To D I say Happy Anniversary my love, my wife. May you know every moment you live that there’s someone who cherishes you beyond measure and considers you one of the finest jewels of all God’s creation. Thank you for saying “Yes.”

I can’t really tell you the exact content of my gay thoughts. It’s not as though I’ve been sworn to secrecy or anything, it’s just hard to pinpoint gay thoughts specifically since they’re often so jumbled up with regular thoughts they can’t be untangled from all the rest of the clutter housed in my cerebral cortex. At any moment I might be compiling my grocery list, planning the children’s sermon for the following Sunday, reprimanding myself for not emptying the litter box on trash day, pondering a deep thought about my place in the world, giving a quick shout out to God for a stunningly beautiful day, and wondering how it was that the driver in front of me managed to misinterpret the yield to traffic sign on the freeway on ramp with come-to-a-complete-stop-and-then-pause-for-a-ridiculously-long-time-before-accelerating. With all this static humming along there’s this strand of a gay thought weaving in and out.

Gay thoughts aren’t always specific thoughts with feelings attached more than they’re just an awareness of being gay. Unsolicited mail arrives at a lesbian household addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Lesbian. A lesbian goes to buy an Easter card for her wife of 6 years but only after scanning each card to be sure there’s no mention of being the luckiest man alive. The lesbian couple out on their anniversary hesitate momentarily to consider the elderly couple at the table next to them before reaching across the table to hold hands. While out grocery shopping one lesbian says to the other “Honey, would you grab another carton of milk?” and a shopper near them glances up from her grocery list with the familiar Are they? look on her face. Nondescript little encounters in the middle of life that tap you on the shoulder to say “Hey, you’re gay.” When I first came out I felt guilty for thinking gay so much. I wondered if they were right when they accused gay people of being obsessed with being gay. After all, I had seldom thought about my sexuality all those years when I assumed I was straight and now it was nothing but gay gay gay and I worried that my life had gone out of balance.

If you’re of the GLBTQ persuasion you probably know what I’m talking about, but if you’re straight, not so much. That’s because heterosexuality is a place of privilege that affords straight people the privilege of not thinking about their sexual orientation, just as being white in America allows me the privilege to not think all that often about being white, and I say white rather than Caucasian because I went for a walk in shorts the other day and I overheard a nearby child whispering something to her mom while glancing in my direction about the Pillsbury Dough Boy looking like more like a girl. It’s been a long winter.

My point, and I do have one, is that human sexuality, whatever the form it takes, is intrinsically fundamental to our identity. Gay people might understand that better simply by virtue of not standing in a place of privilege but gay or straight makes no difference; rather than being a compartmentalized element contained within us, our sexual identity weaves through every facet of our beings as does our spirituality, intellect, physicality, emotions, gender, ethnicity and race. It simply can’t be separated from who we are in our humanness and given that it’s totally understandable we’d think about ourselves as sexual beings just as we think in terms of all the other bits and pieces of our lives.

This is why Hate the sin, Love the sinner gets such a negative response. Listen, I get what people mean when they say that. Good people, loving people (some more so than others) say those words and I believe they say it with the best of intentions. Homosexuality is a condition, a thing, a sin. The homosexual is a person, a human, a child of God. They view the two as separate, but the thing is, homosexuality is the way our human sexuality leans and it’s not a thing outside of us but it is a thread in the fabric in our lives. From our perspective if someone hates the homosexuality in us, then they hate a part of what is us just as it would be if they said “I hate the way you think, I hate the color of your skin, I hate the shape of your legs.”

And by the way, my legs are just fine. Buttermilk biscuit dough white but fine all the same, thank you very much.