Haters and Homophobes, Perverts and Sodomites

May 18, 2009

Now that I have your attention…

A rabbi gathered his students around him one day and asks, “How do you know when the night is almost past and day is about to break?”

“Rabbi, is it when you see a tree in the far distance and you can tell that it’s a tree?” ventured a young student.

“No,” answered the rabbi.

“Rabbi, is it when you see a dog coming just over the hill and can recognize that it’s a dog?” guessed another.

“No,” the rabbi said again. “It is when you look in the face of every man and every woman, and see that they are your brother and your sister. When you can do that then you know the night is nearly gone and a new day is about to dawn.”

Sometimes the differences between us are so great that instead of just finding ourselves traveling on different roads in different directions, we end up on the same road bound on a collision course with one another. At such times the impact jars us into  forgetting what we hold most fundamentally true at the center of our being and faith. We forget that as human beings living on the same planet we are all bound and connected to one another in ways both seen and unseen. We forget that every human life without exception is of incalculable worth. We forget that everyone we see, those we love as equally as those we despise are rooted in the same Spirit and born of the same God. We forget because sometimes remembering asks too much of us. When we’re fed up or worn down to the bone we don’t want to remember that every man and woman is our brother and sister because that would lead us to do everything in our power to treat one another with human dignity and to extend understanding, forgiveness, compassion and love, even in those times when the other does not want, will not receive, or will never return what we have extended ourselves to give.

I’ve seen much in recent years coming from the church and directed at the church that’s been heartbreaking at best. It’s not only on the issue of homosexuality that we find ourselves opposing one another as humans and as Christians but if we were ever forced to choose a single issue as the paradigm for how divisive our conflicts can become and how bloody the battlefields can flow, homosexuality would come in head and shoulders above all the others. In no other conversation we engage in should we be more committed to being mindful in our dealings with one another and yet all the symptoms of massive forgetfulness are glaringly present among us and the other. And when I say us, I mean we who are GLBTQ Christians and we who are straight Christians who believe homosexuality to be sin and when I say the other I mean we who are GLBTQ Christians and we who are Christians who believe homosexuality to be sin.

We are all us. We are all the other. We all forget.

• We know we’ve forgotten when we’re convinced we possess the whole truth so that we have nothing to learn from the other.

As GLBTQ Christians we have nothing to learn from the ex-gay or the conservative Christian or anyone who does anything but fully support, affirm and embrace the life, ministry, and relationships of gays and lesbians. As evangelical Christians we have nothing to learn from the gay or lesbian Christian and their witness of faith as long as they continue to practice what we know to be sin. We have the real truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and the other is nothing more than uninformed, misled, or deceived.

• We know we’ve forgotten when we stop listening.

Because we have the whole truth in our back pocket there’s no need to listen to the other. Oh sure. We make every appearance of listening to them. We posture ourselves into listen position. We become silent. We lean forward. We look intently at the other and even throw in the nod of a head to emphasis what a good listener we are, but all the while our external body is clothed in signs of listening, our mind is racing to construct an eloquent rebuttal that will begin at the first pause in the conversation, a rebuttal that often has nothing to do with responding to what was just spoken but everything to do with what we want to be heard by the other.

• We know we’ve forgotten when we presume to know the others motives and intentions better than they do.

When the other says or does something we don’t understand and that makes no sense to us; when certain actions they engage in don’t seem to mesh with the words they proclaim, we seldom pause to wonder what’s going on with them or to ask them directly why it is they believe what they believe and even if we asked and paused long enough to listen, when all is said and done we’d just as likely tell them they’re wrong, that their motive wasn’t the love they profess guiding them but lust or intolerance. What they have to say in their own defense is rendered invalid in our assumptions. They are filled with hate. They are justifying their sin. They are motivated by lust and self. They are driven by ignorance and fear. They are intolerant. They have an agenda. We presume and they presume and in all the presuming we come to believe the worst in each other without ever coming to know their heart and the joys and fears and faith of the one who stands on the other side.

• We know we’ve forgotten when we ignore the individual in preference to the generalizations and stereotypes.

It can require too much effort to deal with the other side as a collective of individuals and to invest ourselves in hearing their side of the story and what has led them as individuals to believe what they believe and stand for what they stand. In the ongoing conflict we fall into a rhetoric of the masses, referring to the other as though they were a monolithic entity without heart and soul and spirit. The gays. The church. Those gays. Those conservative Christians. We make blanket characterizations and sweeping generalizations of the other, even as we grimace under each slanderous stereotype that’s hurled in our direction. We are all the pot calling the kettle black. At time we are all the one walking through life pointing out the splinters in our neighbor’s eye while the log jammed in our own gets more deeply lodged with every foot fall.

• We have forgotten when we label and name-call.

Once the generalizations and stereotypes are in place the name-calling ensues. They are homophobes, bigots, and haters. They are perverts, sinners, and sodomites. I have many faults (the emphasis on many is mine) only name-calling is not one of them. Maybe because I was one of those kids on the elementary playground who suffered the brunt of name-calling. Fatso. Four-eyes. Slowpoke. Maybe because I went out of my way in high school to avoid the hallway where the mean kids puffed up their own egos by verbally demeaning anyone who wasn’t quite as hip, slick and cool as they saw themselves to be. For whatever reason, I have no tolerance for name-calling on any side of any issue. Name-calling ends any chance at understanding. It closes every door on dialogue. It never builds up. It only belittles and destroys. It wounds the soul and spirit both of the one who hurls the name and the one who gets smacks in the face by it. Even if they don’t flinch at its impact, something has been taken from them and from us.

I’m not saying I don’t understand the pain, anger, and frustration that leads those of us who are GLBTQ Christians to name-calling. Sometimes the onslaught is so unrelenting in our pursuit of equality, the rhetoric so brutal and it’s consequences so tragic that there seems no outlet big enough to release our pain and indignation and so rather than turning to fist we turn to words. I get it. I understand it. But it doesn’t make it right. Not on either side. Ever. Not if we’re talking about Fred Phelps or Carrie Prejean or judges who find in favor of marriage equality or whatever queer most offends the sensitivities of the most non-gay affirming conservative Christian or political pundit.

When you look in the face of every man and every woman, and see that they are your brother and your sister…then you know the night is nearly gone and a new day is about to dawn.

Isn’t that what we all want? Don’t we really just want a new day to dawn upon this earth when all people are treated with dignity and every human being knows beyond a shadow of a doubt they are loved and worth that love? A day when the church swings open the doors to welcome everyone as their brother and their sister, giving no regard to the differences between them because all they can see is the grace of God and the love of Christ that embraces them all?

The only chance we have for such a new day dawning is if we stop forgetting what we really know in the marrow of our bones; that every man and woman is our brother and sister and our spirits are woven together within the fabric of the Spirit of God. If we could only practice mindfulness, being attentive to the Truth of the Spirit over the truth we each think that we alone possess.

Posted in Christian Unity, Equality, Love and Grace