Same headboard. Same but cooler brother. Same and still adoring sister.
Me and Randy playing with my new race car set on Christmas morning.
Yes. I wanted and got a race car set.
What do you mean you aren’t surprised?
What are you trying to imply?
Out on the golf course with my brother.
Yes. Race car sets and golf.
Seriously. Back off.
The point I’m trying to make is that Randy has always been the kind of big brother every kid sister wishes she could have; a big brother who spends time with you, plays with you, puts up with you, and lets you follow at his heels closer than his own shadow.
To this day it’s a bit of a mystery as to why my brother would let me do that given that I was….
just a little bit of….
an obnoxious little sister.
Hopefully the passing of years have found me less obnoxious (just a little less maybe?) but my brother has become no less the big brother that any kid sister could wish for. Are you getting the idea I still adore him?
When it was time to come out to my family, he was the first one I told and like a hundred times before he was there when I needed him to tell me he loved me and would be in my corner. Okay. And he also said he didn’t get the whole “gay thing” but that he just wanted me to be happy. Good enough. More than enough.
And eight years later when I was sucker-punched by love and D and I were to marry, he was the one who didn’t hesitate to walk me down the aisle and to stand beside me and with me in the love and support I’ve grown accustomed to from my big brother.
Just like any brother – sister relationship it hasn’t been all pony rides and caramel corn. We’ve had our moments. …..“You brat!” “You creep! …..“Shaddup!” “No! You shaddup!” …..“Mommmmmmmm!”
And then we made up. We always make up. That’s what real love does. It ruins you from holding a grudge.
I have another brother and a sister. He is strong, true, and good. She is generous, determined, and insane (which I mean in the best of possible ways.) Awesome. Amazing. Equally cool. But I’m not writing about them.
I’m writing about Randy because Randy was diagnosed less than a year ago with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. ALS is what Morrie in “Tuesdays with Morrie” had. There is no cure or treatment for ALS and the average life span for someone is 2-5 years following their initial diagnosis.
Randy’s ALS began as a slight limp in one leg a year ago. Today his mobility is limited to a wheelchair. In a time too soon to even imagine he’s going to be paralyzed and unable to communicate though his mind and intellect will remain untouched.
My brother’s going to die from ALS. As a family we’re devastated by the thought of our future loss while at the same time being so thankful that for now we’re all together. We’re thankful too that Randy not only has the loving support of an incredible wife, our entire family, and a network of caring friends who all will be journeying with Randy through this time, but he has the financial means to adapt their home to meet his changing physical needs and buy the equipment that’s so vital in helping him maintain a level of independence as the disease progresses.
Randy and our family realize this isn’t how it is for so many living with ALS who lack a wider network of support and have limited access to the equipment and resources that help ease even a little of the devastating burden of this disease.
To honor the brother who walked me down the aisle at my wedding ten years ago, I’ll be walking to support Randy this September with the rest of my family in a”Walk to Defeat ALS”, a three mile fundraiser that will raise money to provide equipment, resources, and support for people living with ALS and their families in Oregon and Washington.
You know I don’t ask for financial support to keep this blog going but now I’m asking that you’d consider making a donation toward ALS by sponsoring me in the walk. I know there’s a number of equally worthwhile causes that need support and one of them may well have personally impacted you or your loved ones as ALS has done me and my family. If that’s the case then continue to contribute in that direction. But if you have a few bills to spare, then consider my hand outstretched in your direction. I’m not above begging. Not for people like my brother and their loved ones like my family. Any contribution you can make, whatever size it may be, will make a tangible difference in the life of someone living with ALS, and if there’s no loose change in your own coin jar then get your friends to come over here and read this post. Your rich friends that is.
To learn more about ALS or make an online donation go to my personal ALS page here, or send checks made out to “ALS” to: Grace Unfolding Ministries
P.O. Box 1319
Danville, CA 94526
And finally, and yes I know this has been a long one but it’s not like you had anything else to do, here’s a short video clip from a recent gathering of family and friends as Randy talks to us about the financial and emotional burden carried by those living with ALS. Randy. Did I mention he’s my big brother. How cool is that? How lucky am I?
I received word from this blog’s host provider that they will be moving my account to another server sometime in the next seven days. This could potentially result in some downtime on my personal blog (The Passionate Plate), Sisterfriends-Together, and the SisterFriends Community Forum. Should you not be able to access either blog or the forum at some point during this week, know that I’m aware of the situation and that we will be back up and running as quickly as possible.
And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming…
[The following post serves no earthly purpose other than allowing me a self-indulgent airing of events from my life. I might as well just blog my shopping list for what it matters to anyone else.]
I was surprised to read recently that Portia de Rossi has legally taken on Ellen’s last name to become Portia DeGeneres. While I understand the motivation behind taking on your spouse’s last name for the sake of love, shared identity, and all that, what is totally beyond me is giving up a luxurious sounding last name like “de Rossi” for a clunky one like “DeGeneres.” Yes. I’m just that superficial.
Personally, I lean toward defaulting to a hyphen but now that I think about it, there’s just no good way to hyphenate their last names. De Rossi – DeGeneres. DeGeneres – De Rossi. It’s a hot mess either way. Okay, I reverse my original position. Good decision Ladies.
During one of those summers of my childhood when I grudgingly spent more Saturdays attending stuffy church weddings than I did playing outside and splitting root beer popsicles with Joey, my next door neighbor, I realized that every bride was required to trade in her last name for the last name of the groom. I found this whole tradition stupid and was determined that when I got married there was no way I would ever give up Cadonau, the last name of my grandparents and parents, a name that held all my family history, my heritage, and an important part of my identity. I love my last name. I love being a Cadonau. And yes, I realize now that my objection was weakened in that my grandmother and mother had both given up their family names to take on the Cadonau name. Did I mention I was young at the time and my train of thought often ended before the caboose?
At some point along the way I told my Mom of my intention to never give up our family name and in a perfectly mom-inspired moment she said, “When you get married you’ll love your husband so much that you’ll want to share his name.” Hey! Now that I think about it, could my aversion to giving up my last name possibly be what made me gay? I wonder if the Family Research Council has ever considered this as a first sign of homosexual tendencies in young women. Makes as much sense as some of their other theories.
As it happened D had the very same feelings about giving up her last name. She loves her last name because she loves her family history and heritage as much as I do mine and so I don’t ever remember us considering any option other than going with a sweet little hyphen linking the two together. We never took the letters of our last names and tried to mix them into some new amalgam because we had way too many vowels to contend with and while some couples create a completely original last name I just couldn’t see myself as Anita PixieDust or Anita RedMoonRising. Oh come on. If you’ve ever spent anytime around lesbians in Berkeley you’d know how painfully close to reality those names are. There’s every chance that right now some Bay area lesbian couple is saying, “Hey! PixieDust…that works!” And to the two of you, you’re welcome. I aims to please.
So we hyphenated. My last name first. Her last name last. And the reason for settling on that order? Is it because I’m the tool-belt lesbian in our relationship? Well. Yes. And while that explains why there are 14 holes behind every framed picture hanging in our living room, it doesn’t explain the order of our last name which was determined by an evening of saying Cadonau-Huseby, Huseby-Cadonau out loud until we mutually agreed that Cadonau-Huseby sounded better to the ear. Score! I win!
Just kidding. A little bit anyway.
So if you’ve never legally changed your name there’s a whole process you have to go and if memory serves me correctly (which it seldom does) it involves a mess of legal forms, a repeating announcement of a name change request placed in the local paper for a month, and then a formal appearance before a Superior Court Judge who upon determining the name change isn’t motivated by some nefarious purpose such as alluding the Feds, stamps the forms and grants your request.
I have a couple clear and wonderful memories from that day back in November 2002 at the Alameda Superior Court House. The first is waiting downstairs in the lobby until we were called to appear before da Judge. Both D and I were fairly giddy that day and with good cause. We already knew from the vows we made each other on our wedding day a few months earlier that we would be together until death do us part, but in taking on each other’s name it felt like we were taking one more step in sealing our commitment as well as knowing that from that day forward whenever we signed or spoke our last name it would be making a public proclamation that we were a committed couple. No longer would anyone mistake us as friends, room mates or girlfriends. And so we were all a’twitter (which predates tweeting for those of you too young to spice your vocabulary with expressions from ancient times) sitting on a bench off in a corner of a dark wood-paneled lobby waiting to see the Judge, and as is more often than not the case we were looking like two women ridiculously in love with one another. Sitting side by side holding hands, talking in whispers and giving each other warm goopy love eyes. (Reading that just now either elicited a gag or an Awwwwww from you depending on your tolerance for goopiness.) Let me clarify for the record that we’re usually a little more reserved in public displays of affection but this was a special day and besides that, the lobby was empty except for one woman who happened to walk by us at some point and smile in our direction.
The other memory I have is entering the court room along with a dozen other people who had filed similar name change requests. We sat for a few minutes in the front two rows of the otherwise empty court room until we were directed by the bailiff to stand as the Judge entered. We stood and as a big wooden door swung open in the front of the court room the woman who had passed us by earlier in the lobby entered wearing the long black flowing robe of the Judge.
D and I sat down again with the others and waited while one after the other were called to stand before the Judge and each time, she would ask them a series of questions concerning their reasons for changing their name. “Are you changing your name to avoid any standing charge of criminal action? Are you currently involved in any legal litigation under your existing name? Are you a registered sex offender? Is there any other information I should be made aware of pertinent to your request for a legal name change?” After receiving a volley of “No. No. No. No.” from each applicant the judge would sign a document, hand it to the applicant and so order that their name change had been granted.
Though we were as giddy as we’d been down in the lobby a strange solemnity fell over us as we stood before the Judge. It was like being a fourth grader who having done nothing wrong still finds their palms growing clammy and sweaty when called to the principal’s office. So there we were, standing side by side with adolescent sweaty palms when the Judge looked toward us and said through a smile, “Having stumbled upon the two of you downstairs it’s quite apparent why you’re appearing before the court today requesting that your last names be changed. Your request is hereby granted. Congratulations to the two of you and best wishes for your future!”
So while exchanging de Rossi for DeGeneres is a little like exchanging a wagyu steak dinner for a Spam sandwich on white bread, I get it. Congratuations Ellen and Portia DeGeneres.
Oh, and before I forget….
___ Fuji apples
___ Sliced turkey breast
___ Sweet potatoes
___ Milk
___ 60-watt lightbulb
Okay. Here I am. Back in the blog saddle and continuing where I left off. And where I left off was posting larger versions of the images above with the promise I’d be following them up the next day with a post and perhaps in some augmented time continuum this actually is the next day rather than the next week. Let’s go with that and continue where we left off yesterday.
One thought kept running through my head on the tearful drive home from having come out to my parents some 15 years ago. “I want a do-over I want a do-over I want a do-over.” It wasn’t for lack of planning I wanted a do-over since I’d been praying, pondering, planning, and practicing what I would say to my parents for weeks and when I walked into their house that morning, short of presenting them with glossy color handouts and a bullet-point outline flashed on the family room wall with an overhead projector, I was ready.
The plan was to begin with a direct statement. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’ve come to realize I’m gay.” From there I’d go on to explain the process I’d been through to reconcile my faith and sexuality. I’d recount highlights from some of the conversations I’d had with affirming straight clergy and gay Christians. I’d go on to explain how through prayer and study of the Scriptures I’d arrived at a new understanding of the passages I’d previously viewed as condemning of homosexuality. Finally, I’d wrap up my coming out presentation with what I considered the central theme of the morning; that being that my relationship with God continued to be the foundation of my life, that I loved them as always, and that I remained the same daughter they had always known and loved.
That was my plan and in theory it sounded feasible enough but in reality, not so much. It all pretty much panned out as the illustrations above suggest with none of us really hearing what the other was saying and none of us really saying what we truly meant to say. I babbled. They winced. I rambled. They stared. Like deer staring down headlights approaching at 80 miles an hour on a narrow mountain road. I’ve relived that morning a thousand times and though I know my parents and I did the best we could at the moment, I still can’t help but long at times for a world where you could wind back the clock, wipe out the past, and begin all over again.
Dad and I never really talked about that day again and in time the two of us arrived at an unspoken agreement that we’d let the elephant in the pink toto do the macarena while we settled with knowing that however wide the gap was between us, he was my father, I was his daughter, we loved each other, and nothing would ever change that.
It was a different story with Mom. From the day I’d come out to her I’d wanted little more than to talk to her and know I was really being heard by her and as time went along I came to understand my mom was longing for the same thing on her side of things.
For years I playfully teased Mom about her overuse of the gas and brake pedals when driving. Each time she’d catch a glimpse of a red light ahead I’d begin jerking back and forth in the passenger seat while chanting “Gas. Brake. Gas. Brake. Gas. Brake.” Our early conversations were much the same. Talk. Stop. Talk. Stop. Talk. Stop. In those early months following my coming out we each tested the waters now and then, awkwardly and tenuously sharing a little bit of what we were thinking and feeling but then backing up the moment we saw any expression cross the others face that so much as hinted an argument or rebuttal might be close at hand, but in time we came to a place in our relationship as mother and daughter that we really listened to each other and heard what was being said. Maybe it was nothing more than the settledness that the passing of years brings or maybe it was nothing more or less than love, that finally allowed us to listen to each other and be heard by each other without the need to refute, defend, or protect ourselves from some imagined assault on our lives or our beliefs. For all our listening neither of us did much changing in our views and our convictions but that was never the point anyway. It was just about loving and respecting each other enough to really listen and try to understand what was held in the heart of the other, and in that, mission accomplished.
That’s my story. I don’t know what yours is. Maybe you have loved ones in your life who have really listened and heard you or maybe you’ve been silenced and shut down at every attempt. Whatever the case, I’d like to throw out the following question for you to consider and then respond to in the comment section: What would you tell them (parent, friend, pastor, spouse) if they could really listen? What would be the one thing you would want them to know and understand about your life, your relationship with your partner, your faith, about being gay, about homosexuality, or about anything that matters to you as a GLBTQ Christian? Imagine the person in your life you most want to understand just walked through your door and said, “I have nothing to say. I will not argue. I will not lecture. I will not go on the offense. I’m only here to listen. I want to understand because I love you. Talk to me.” There they are, sitting quietly in front of you, the posture of their body and the expression on their face communicating nothing but warmth, openness and love. What would be the first thing you would say? What would you tell them? What words would you want them to remember when all the words you’ve been holding onto for so long had spilled out?
I’m hoping that a number of you give some consideration to this question and then share your response below in the comment section (remember you can contribute anonymously!) What I’d then like to do is take your contributions and create a series of posts that would essentially be directed to the parents, adult children, spouses, and friends of GLBTQ Christians who I know are following this blog because they’ve written to say, “We’re here! We’re not queer! Get use to it!” My hope for providing such a series is twofold: 1) That straight loved ones of some other queer could gain insight and understanding from what we would share and 2) That those of you who have yet to be heard by your loved ones, would know you’ve been heard by some other queer’s parents, children, spouse, or friends and in that you might grab a little healing for yourself.
I apologize for not following up on yesterday’s post as I promised but my plans to spend the day hunkered down in front of my computer blogging didn’t go as planned. Instead I spent the day doing the most important thing I could ever do; being a helpmate and support to my beloved. Her mom’s cancer has now advanced to the stage that we met today with several health care professionals to begin the process of preparing her to move from nursing care to a nearby hospice home soon where she’ll spend the remaining days of her life. While it’s obviously difficult to know her death is drawing close we’re also grateful knowing her last days will be spent in a beautiful place surrounded not only by her family but by a staff of dedicated and skilled people committed to her comfort. There’s such a sense of relief in knowing her journey into God’s loving hands will be gentle and that compassion and love will be with her each step of the way.
Sitting at her bedside this afternoon, we told her about the decision Judge Vaughn Walker handed down today in California that found against Prop 8. She immediately smiled at hearing the news and said what a wonderful time we live in, that her children were alive to see the day when gay and lesbian couples were finally able to marry. What a joy it was to look at this dear woman and say “And you’re alive to see this day arrive too. No one will ever again tell your daughter and I that our love doesn’t matter and our marriage isn’t real.” Her response through the nausea and pain? “I’m so happy.”
So are we Mom. So are we.
Anita, D, and D’s Mom on our wedding day, April 6, 2002.
You can read Judge Walker’s decision here. There’s also an excellent summation of the central findings in this post on Queerty.
I’ll say more about these tomorrow but I give them to you today for your consideration. Talk amongst yourselves. Or to yourself if that’s the only person who truly understands you.
I’m putting together a post for tomorrow but in the meantime I thought I’d share a few video clips with you that I’ve found to be hopeful, meaningful, and a breath of fresh air. All of these have been around the internet for a while and so you might have already seen them, but whether you’ve watching them for the first time or the tenth, enjoy! (The first clip takes a little longer to start and if you have a problem viewing any of the clips here, just double-click on the video and that will take you to its home page on YouTube.)
Here is the testimony of Philip Spooner, an 86 year old veteran of WWII who spoke on behalf of Maine’s marriage equality bill on April 22, 2009. Just try and convince me that listening to this dear man doesn’t make your eyes spring a leak.
Kathy Baldock is a evangelical Christian and a straight ally of GLBTQ people. I’ve been saying all along that being gay and Christian isn’t a contradiction and neither is being an evangelical and an ally.
This captures the moment from a few weeks ago when marriage equality passed in Argentina. You don’t have to understand Spanish to experience the joy of the moment. It’s pure goosebumps in any language.
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” – Luke 10:38:42
Yesterday during the children’s sermon I brought a picnic basket to the circle and opened it up to show the children each item I had packed for D and I to enjoy for lunch after church. I pulled out the blanket we would sit on, plates, utensils, napkins, cups, a cheese board and knife, storage bags to put any leftovers in, a tube of sun block, a bottle of insect repellent, paper towels, disposable wet towelettes, and stain removal for the food I always seemed to spill on my clothes. It was only after everything had been removed from the basket and piled in front of the children that I came to the “shocked” realization that in the distraction to pack everything I thought we might need for the picnic I had forgotten the most important thing of all….the food.
Jesus didn’t call Martha out because she was doing anything wrong. She was just doing what she believed was essential to extend hospitality to a special guest. Jesus was coming and she wanted him to know his presence in their home was honored. She wanted to be sure their humble home was clean and that when he arrived everything would be in place to meet his needs and make him comfortable. Fresh water and clean towels needed to be prepared to wash and dry the road dust from his feet. The table needed to be set with a warm home-cooked meal and the best of wine to nourish him and his traveling companions. And then were all the people who would pass through their home during Jesus’ stay that would need to be welcomed and fed a little something before they went on their way.
While there was nothing wrong in any of the things Martha was doing, the problem was that in doing them she had become distracted from the one most important and essential thing of all and that was simply being….being with Jesus, being quiet and still in his presence, being available to hear God speak. Martha was living a distracted life and much of the time so are we. Not only are we distracted by life’s demands and all the duties that come with being a responsible grown-up in the world but we’re all too often driven to distraction with the idea that doing more, making more, and giving more will make our lives more meaningful and our worth more valuable in this world and to God. All these distractions make us forget where our real value lies and what really matters.
Then we come back to this story and see Jesus lifting up the sister who’s doing nothing more than being in his presence and in doing so is receiving what she will never lose and can never be taken away. Looking at Jesus Mary knows she is loved. In welcoming her in his presence she knows Jesus considers her and the relationship they share as being of great worth. As she listens to his words she knows who she really is; that she is a beloved child of God, the apple of God’s eye, and precious in God’s sight.
Creating space and time for God each morning isn’t for the purpose of making our requests that God do something for us or through us in the hours that follow, but for the purpose of connecting our spirit with the Spirit of God so we can then go through our day remembering who we really are in God. There’s no one living in this world who doesn’t need reminding but as GLBTQ people we need to be reminded more than most of who we really are in God’s eyes since hearing who others have concluded we are is only the morning newspaper or a click of the TV remote away. Every day we’re hit with words that diminish our worth as human beings, the value of our relationships, and our identity as those equally loved and cherished by God and so we need to fix our minds and hearts on what we know in Christ so we can move through the day in the truth of our lives rather than in the lies of others.
So who are you really?
Hey, don’t ask me.
There’s only One who can tell you so tomorrow morning, be still, be quiet, and listen.
After my last two posts and because it’s Sunday I thought we all might be in need of a little prayer so here’s one from Thomas Merton that speaks well for the desires of my heart as I hope it does for yours. May it be a comfort for all who need comfort, assurance for those who need to be assured, and a nudge for all of us to continue to seek after the One who first sought us.
O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
And that fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.
I’ve never written much concerning my personal views on ex-gay programs* aside from one post years ago and a random comment here or there along the way. There have been a number of reasons for my reluctance, the primary one being that I don’t have anything good to say about their ideology, theology, or integrity, and so I’d rather spend my time, energy, and words on the good that’s to be found in God, in ourselves, and in the world. Which isn’t to say I question the necessity of closely examining and critiquing any organizations, including the church, but I’ve always believed such work is best undertaken by those with first-hand knowledge and experience.
And this little lesbian has never participated in an ex-gay program. Never registered for one of their conferences. Never looked through the yellow pages for a counselor in reparitive therapy. Never worshiped in a church with an outreach ministry committed to “providing healing and restoration for the homosexual.” The closest I ever came to any type of ex-gay anything was in reading a handful of ex-gay stories back in the days when God and I first started talking seriously about my own sexual orientation and even back then when I was raw and hurting and struggling internally I couldn’t find any connection between my life experience and those detailed by individuals who had left the homosexual lifestyle. I no more related to their lives than had I been reading about the life of the Japanese Fire Belly Newt and I say this with no disrespect intended to the Japanese Fire Belly Newt or to anyone who self-identifies as ex-gay.
Seriously. If you were sexually traumatized as a child, neglected by your dad, lacked nurturing from your emotionally unavailable mom, acting out sexually with multiple women throughout your twenties, abusing drugs or alcohol or yourself in your thirties, and had turned your back on a relationship with God, and then going through an ex-gay program brought you to a place of healing and wholeness then I’ll accept what you tell me as your story. I won’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through at any point in your life but I respect that this is your story of what happened to you and if that’s the path that led you to a fulfilling relationship with God, got you out of yourself, and restored you to the world then I’m not about to question you here or to deny that what you’re saying is true for you. But here’s the deal and we both know what it is. You believe homosexuality is a sin. I do not. And so we either agree to disagree and stay with what we have in common or we wish each other well and return to our respective corners. For my part I choose to hope that the grace of God could allow us to navigate our way toward a cordial way of relating with one another being that in the end we all eat from the same bread and drink from the same cup.
Just as I’ve never been involved in the ex-gay movement, I’ve never been around any formerly gay people, but I have been around a number of GLBTQ Christians who spent years of their life in ex-gay programs and lived to tell the tale. I know men and women who were so emotionally and spiritually beaten down by one ex-gay program or another that they ended up spending years in therapy healing from the mess of their experience. I know knew one gay man who after years of going in and out of the doors of a particular ex-gay program at the insistence of his religious parents ended up committing suicide when the thought of living only to try and fail again became too painful to bear.
While I never went through the doors of an ex-gay program the voices of the ex-gay movement came through my families door, imparting their outrageous theories of homosexuality and its causes, their lies about the homosexual lifestyle, and their theology of deliverance and change. My annoyance isn’t because of what they put me through their teaching because I never took anything they said seriously. I heard what they were putting out there and it was so far from the truth of my life as a Christian, a woman, and a lesbian that all they said would have been laughable were it not so pathetically tragic. No. My issue with the ex-gay movement is what they put my mom and dad through in those first days and months following my coming out, since as evangelical Christians my parents turned to Christian leaders among them like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and then read literature and watched videos from groups these men recommended like Love Won Out and Exodus International.
These ex-gay groups preceded to tell my parents I was broken, rebellious, and deceived. Their description of the homosexual lifestyle caused my parents to imagine the worst of what I might be doing at any moment and fueled their fear that the daughter they had joyfully watched grow up to embrace the Christian faith was now going to hell.These ex-gay organizations didn’t hesitate to tell my parents they knew more about me than my own parents did because they knew all all about homosexuals, but the lies they told my parents that continue to trouble me to this day, long after my parents and I found a way to navigate our love around our differences, long after my mom came to tell me she was happy for the love I shared with D, and long after both my parents have passed away, are the lies that burdened my mom and dad unnecessarily. Lies that caused them to believe in some way they had failed as parents and to feel guilty they had done something to contribute to my “broken, sinful condition.” Did something happen to me as a child on their watch? Did they neglect me in some way? Should they have disciplined me more? Should they have talked with me more? Did they fail to affirm or encourage my femininity when I was young? Was Mom nurturing enough? Was Dad involved enough?
My parents and I had a number of painful conversations in those early days but the one I most remember is when my mom in a voice weighted down with dread at what my answer might be asked, “Did Daddy and I do something that made you this way?” All I could say to her at the time was that she and dad had been wonderful parents and just as they never did anything to make me gay there wasn’t anything they could have ever done to make me not gay.
I’m not saying that any particular ex-gay organization or even James Dobson in all his self-appointed expert wisdom caused my parents to go to a place they wouldn’t have gone to on their own. As I said, my folks were raised within the conservative Christian church and so their theology and worldview was formed and grounded there. No, their struggle to reconcile having a gay daughter would have already been difficult enough for them but what the ex-gay movement did through their broad brush strokes of the “gay lifestyle” and their dishonest general characterizations of gay people only deepened their worst fears. These were Christian professionals after all, experienced and trained in dealing with homosexual people, Christian therapists and pastors who regularly ministered to gay people and through prayer and counseling had witnessed countless people healed and delivered from the bondage of homosexuality and sexual brokenness. The words of these trained professionals, medical experts and Christian therapists was salt in the open wounds my parents already carried and I continue to hold them to account for adding so much as one needless moment of fear or guilt or shame to my parents lives.
Again, if you’re someone who in your own words, “has left the ‘gay lifestyle’ through the grace of God” then all I can say is good for you and I say that sincerely. In at least the grace of God we can agree if in nothing else. But to those ex-gay organizations and leaders who continue to perpetuate dishonest characterizations and lies about GLBTQ people or make claims of change that are disingenuous at best, then shame on you. Really. Shame on you.
*I primarily refer to what are commonly called “ex-gay ministries” as ex-gay groups, organizations or programs throughout this post. I have chosen to do so intentionally as I simply can’t attach the word “ministry” to anything that in my view has caused so much spiritual harm to so many lives.
August 16, 2010 
Hopefully the passing of years have found me less obnoxious (just a little less maybe?) but my brother has become no less the big brother that any kid sister could wish for. Are you getting the idea I still adore him?
Posted in Storytelling 
8 Comments »
Sweet Hope Cookies
Recent Comments