Open Hands Vol 14 No 1 - Bisexuality Both/And Rather Than Either/Or

Open Hands Vol 14 No 1 - Bisexuality Both/And Rather Than Either/Or

14

1

1998

Summer

Both/And
Rather Than
Either/Or
BISEXUALITY
Vol. 14 No. 1
Summer 1998
What Might Jesus Think?
Test Your “Bi-Q”
Personal Stories
How Little Gender and Orientation Tell Us
2 Open Hands
Vol. 14 No. 1 Summer 1998
Resources for Ministries Affirming
the Diversity of Human Sexuality
Open Hands is a resource for congregations
and individuals seeking to be in
ministry with lesbian, gay, and bisexual
persons. Each issue focuses on a specific
area of concern within the church.
Open Hands is published quarterly by
the Reconciling Congregation Program,
Inc. (United Methodist) in cooperation
with the Association of Welcoming &
Affirming Baptists (American), the More
Light Churches Network (Presbyterian),
the Open & Affirming Ministries (Disciples
of Christ), the Open and Affirming
(United Church of Christ), and the
Reconciling in Christ (Lutheran) programs.
Each of these programs is a national
network of local churches that
publicly affirm their ministry with the
whole family of God and welcome lesbian
and gay persons and their families
into their community of faith. These six
programs—along with Supportive Congregations
(Brethren/Mennonite), and
Welcoming (Unitarian Universalist)—
offer hope that the church can be a reconciled
community.
Open Hands is published quarterly.
Subscription is $20 for four issues ($25
outside the U.S.). Single copies and back
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Member, The Associated Church Press
© 1998
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc.
Open Hands is a registered trademark.
ISSN 0888-8833
Printed on recycled paper.
BISEXUALITY
Both/And Rather Than Either/Or
Toward a Christian Understanding of Bisexuality 4
BEN ROE
Definitions, science, faith, and the imago Dei.
How Bisexuality May Shape Queer Theologies 7
ROBERT E. GOSS
Bisexuality as “transgressive metaphor” in doing theology.
The Holy Leper and the Bisexual Christian 8
AMANDA UDIS-KESSLER
Jesus’ holiness dissolves categories, boundaries, and divisions.
PERSONAL STORIES
Capable of Monogamy With Either Gender 11
BENTLEY DE BARDELABEN
Lesbian—NOT! A Christian for Gender Independence 12
DONNA RILEY
No Tidy, Carefully Labeled Box 13
KATE
A Bisexual Couple’s Story 14
JOHN AND MARY
Twenty-Five Years With a Woman 15
Followed by Twenty Years With a Man
EUGENE BRINK
Pastoring Bisexual Men on Line 16
JIM WOLFE
Parable of the Good Lesbian 17
Cultural and Political Bisexuality
LAURIE AUDE
Test Your “Bi-Q” 18
A Sexual Orientation Worksheet
BEN ROE
Using the all-encompassing Klein grid, how bisexual are you?
Summer 1998 3
Publisher
Mark Bowman
Interim Editor
Chris Glaser
Designer
In Print—Jan Graves
Program Coordinators
Mark Bowman
Reconciling Congregation
Program, Inc. (UMC)
3801 N. Keeler Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
773/736-5526
www.rcp.org
Allen V. Harris
Open & Affirming Minstries
(Disciples of Christ)
1010 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10028
http://pilot.msu.edu/user/
laceyj/
Ann B. Day
Open and Affirming
Program (UCC)
P.O. Box 403
Holden, MA 01520
508/856-9316
www.coalition.simplenet.com
Bob Gibeling
Reconciling in Christ
Program (Lutheran)
2466 Sharondale Drive
Atlanta, GA 30305
404/266-9615
www.lcna.org
Dick Lundy
More Light Churches
Network (PCUSA)
5525 Timber Lane
Excelsior, MN 55331
612/470-0093
http://www.mlcn.org
Brenda J. Moulton
Welcoming & Affirming
Baptists (ABC/USA)
P.O. Box 2596
Attleboro Falls, MA 02763
508/226-1945
http://users.aol.com/
wabaptists
Editorial Advisory Committee
Howard Bess, W&A
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Dick Hasbany, MLCN
Bobbi Hargleroad, MLCN
Dorothy Klefstad, RIC
Susan Laurie, RCP
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Tim Phillips, W&A
Lisa Ann Pierce, SCN
Dick Poole, RIC
Caroline Presnell, RCP
Paul Santillán, RCP
Margarita Suaréz, ONA
Stuart Wright, RIC
RCP
Movement News ..................................... 29
Welcoming Communities ....................... 31
Selected Resources .................................. 32
Next Issue:
A HOUSE DIVIDED
Made in God’s Image 20
Re-Thinking Constructs of Gender and Orientation
ANN THOMPSON COOK
Embracing our call to live as if there were “neither male nor
female.”
Common Ground 22
Excerpts from Unplugged, A Novel in Process
PAUL MCCOMAS
The land heals a woman coming to terms with her bisexuality.
MINISTRIES
Connections
Enough Already: Distractions to Justice 23
MARY E. HUNT
Leadership
Never Retired From Justice 24
EDWIN E. REEVES
Children
Children of God and the Big Lie 25
TIMOTHY TUTT
Welcoming Process
As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation? 26
MARGARET MACDONALD & DOTTY KAY STILLMAN
Youth
Youth Suicide and the White Ribbon Campaign 27
TIMOTHY BROWN
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
Super-Moral-Legalistic-Conformation-itis 28
A Camp Song for the Movement
BETH GREGG AND JOHN GREGG
Call for Articles for Open Hands Spring 1999
First We Listen! Voices Around the Globe
Theme section: We want to hear firsthand from l/g/b/t people around the world, listening
to different understandings of both sexuality and spirituality and their interrelationship
in people’s lives. Do you know someone we may approach for an article? We
are also interested in articles from those with experience or expertise in a culture or
cultures other than the dominant majority culture of the United States and Canada.
Ministries section: We are seeking columns describing practical experience and suggestions
in the following areas: Welcoming Process, Connections (with other justice
issues), Worship, Outreach, Leadership, Youth, Campus, Children. These brief articles
may or may not have to do with the theme.
Contact with idea by November 1 Manuscript deadline: February 1
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
4 Open Hands
What is Bisexuality?
Bisexuality doesn’t exist,” said someone
to me a number of years ago. I
have heard other statements, too: Bisexuals
just can’t have stable relationships.
Bisexuals live in a “no one’s
land.” Bisexuals are really gay people
who just haven’t come all the way out
of the closet. Bisexuals are really confused
about their identity. Bisexuals are
indiscriminate in their sexual partners.
The only way to be “truly” bi is to be
sexually active with partners of both
sexes equally. Bisexuals are incapable
of monogamy. Bisexuality “doubles
your chances for a date on Saturday
night.”
Perhaps some of these statements are
familiar to you. The reality of bisexuality
is often denied by gay, lesbian, and
heterosexual communities alike. And
yet to understand bisexuality and the
complexity of sexual orientation might
help make sense out of some of the
claims of the “transforming” or “exodus”
ministries.
My purpose here is to encourage a
broader understanding of the complexity
of sexual orientation, particularly as
it is seen in bisexuality, and to encourage
theological reflection which includes
the experience of the range of
sexual orientation.
Myths and stereotypes, like the ones
listed above, are a problem for bisexual
folk, just as they are for gay/lesbian
people. Individual bisexual persons may
fit or believe one or more of these myths
and stereotypes. Yet just as there is not
just one homosexual lifestyle, there is
not just one bisexual lifestyle, but
rather, a whole range of possibilities
from which each individual makes her
or his own choices and decisions.
Looked at in the context of the whole
of what we know about human sexuality,
sexual orientation is much more
complex than simply the two commonly
used heterosexual-homosexual
categories. It is even more complex than
Toward a
Christian Understanding of Bisexuality
J. Benjamin Roe
adding a third category of “bisexual;”
yet, to talk about certain realities, labels
sometimes make things a bit
clearer.
Defining just what is meant by the
word “bisexuality” is not easy. A definition
that I like is: bisexuality is the
presence of significant degrees of erotic
attractions, erotic fantasies, and emotional
preferences for members of both
genders, with some recognition of their
significance. Note that behavior is not
a necessary part of the definition, and
that recognition, or self-identification,
is important. This is not a precise definition
(if one were even possible), but
it will do for the purpose of this article.
It is important to note that bisexuality
is not a discrete category, but roughly
fits the middle range of scales that
measure sexual orientation, such as the
Kinsey scale and the Klein Grid (See the
article “Test Your Bi-Q” on page 18).
Research on Bisexuality
The Kinsey scale is a zero to six continuum
which was designed by the
Kinsey researchers in the 1940’s to describe
the reality they were discovering
that there were not just “two kinds
of people” (heterosexual and homosexual),
but in fact a whole range of
behaviors and “psychologic reactions”
from homosexual to heterosexual and
all points in between. The scale runs
from zero, exclusively heterosexual, to
six, exclusively homosexual, with three
being equal components of both.
An affirmative approach to research
on bisexuality or bisexual persons has
been a recent development. Ron Fox
has an excellent review of this research
in an article in the exceptional text,
Bisexuality; The Psychology and Politics
of an Invisible Minority.1 One early study
not in his review I find particularly interesting.
This study pointed out some
of the ways bisexual persons are different
from heterosexual and homosexual
persons. Pat Saliba asked self-identified
heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual
persons to rank themselves on three
separate Kinsey scales: physical sexual
activity, affectionate relationships, and
erotic fantasy. Saliba sums up her research:
“Sexual orientation is complex,
not simple.”2 She found that people almost
never rated themselves at the same
point on all three scales. Within each
self-identified group, there is diversity
of ratings: all the homosexual persons
and all the heterosexual persons weren’t
exclusively so, and all the bisexual persons
weren’t perfectly equal in gender
preference.
She found that, among the bisexual
group, affectionate relationships and
erotic fantasies were “almost as important
as sexual activity in their decision
to self-identify as bisexual.” This group
also was quite diverse in the combinations
of ratings among the three scales:
some had only incidental sexual activity
with persons of the same sex, some
had only incidental sexual activity with
persons of the other sex. While affectionate
relationships were frequently
ranked equally, “erotic fantasies were
as diverse as those for sexual activity.”
Saliba found “tremendous variability,
in all areas” among all groups, “And
yet the bisexuals are much more like
one another than they are either the
heterosexual or homosexual groups,
and the same is true for each group.”
She also found that the way sex and affection
are dealt with is more related to
whether one is male or female. “Sexual
orientation is not only much more than
who you sleep with…but it is also where
your affections lie, and even more importantly,
how you integrate those affections
into your sexual identity.”
There are different kinds of bisexuality,
as well. One typology by Fritz
Klein3 identified transitional, historical,
sequential, and concurrent types. Transitional
bisexuality can be understood
as a stage in coming out homosexual,
and is primarily a behavioral reality,
“
Summer 1998 5
though attractions and fantasies can
shift. Historical bisexuality is seen in the
long sweep of a person’s life, with
greater or lesser mixes of heterosexual
and homosexual components. Sequential
bisexuality is also seen over a period
of time, with relationships being
first with one and then with the other
gender. Concurrent bisexuality is the
maintenance of relationships with persons
of both genders at the same time.
Bisexual Self-
Identification
In my experience and that of others
who self-identify as bi, bisexual persons
often feel some confusion at sometimes
being attracted to one and then
the other gender. The either-or myth
contributes greatly to this confusion.
Sometimes the confusion is simply the
changeability of their attractions from
day to day, or week to week.
It is the homosexual part of being bi
that usually gives the most difficulty,
so bisexual people usually need the support
of gay/lesbian people, and so often
are reluctant to identify as bi in gay/
lesbian circles. This seems to be changing
somewhat, at least in some gay
groups, but homophobia will continue
to make it difficult to “come out” bi in
the general society, and biphobia will
make it difficult to come out in both
groups.
Bi people are often particularly sensitive
to the importance of self-identification,
growing out of the common
experience of others denying their existence
or defining sexuality for them.
Bisexuals may come for counseling to
become more comfortable with a wide
range of sexual options. They may want
to feel more comfortable in fantasy
or behavior or both, with men and
women. They may want to be monogamous.
They may want to be nonmonogamous
and still have a viable
primary relationship with either a
woman or a man. They may want to be
comfortable with multiple relationships
(while practicing safer sex). They may
want to be more comfortable defining
their own sexual options, apart from
partner, peer, or society pressure. They
may want to be comfortable not being
sexually active with both sexes, while
having feelings and fantasies about
both.
Bisexual persons are often more concerned
about relationships than gender.
The daughter of a friend of ours said
she couldn’t imagine using the shape
of a person’s genitals to decide whether
to have a relationship with the person.
This expresses well the perspective of
bi people I have known.
Bi folks are concerned, too, with the
capacity to express relationships genitally
if it is fitting, desired, and mutual.
Bi persons are also often concerned
about managing these relationships not
only in caring ways for their partners,
but also in ways that honor their own
self-understanding.
Bisexuality is a complex reality, and
highlights the complexity of sexual orientation
itself. In my opinion, the experience
of bisexual persons helps illumine
the wide range of the gift of
sexuality, and will continue to challenge
our understandings and assumptions
about sexuality.
Christianity and
Bisexuality
Christian faith communities and
theological traditions, with a few
exceptions, have been ambivalent
about affirming that sexuality is a good
gift of God. Even while affirming its
goodness, they have usually attempted
to silence the testimonies of gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered Christians.
And they have largely ignored
emerging scientific consensus in their
theological and ethical reflections.
If people of faith were to commit to
hearing the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgendered Christians,
and to honor insights and understandings
of scientific research, what would
be some useful possibilities for Christian
theological reflection? There are
some really fine treatments along these
lines which often focus only on gay/
lesbian voices and experience. When
the reality of bisexual and transgendered
people is included, the picture of
human sexuality immediately becomes
more complex. What resources are
there for this kind of breadth in theological
reflection?
There are a number of publications
that could be useful for theological reflection
from a perspective that includes
the reality of bisexual and transgendered
persons. Some of these references
are listed in “Selected Resources” on the
back cover.
One approach to reflecting theologically
on bisexuality could be to focus
on the community of the church, the
silencing, the judgments, the sacraments
of baptism and Eucharist, and the
call for just and humble actions, such
as Marilyn Alexander and James Preston
do in their book We Were Baptized Too.4
The emphasis of this approach is God’s
inclusive grace, known through creation
(the image of God),5 welcome of
the stranger,6 and the sacraments of baptism
and holy communion.7
Another approach is in James Nelson’s
landmark book, Embodiment. It is
to do “sexual theology,” that is, a twodirectional
movement that takes seriously
the embodied human experience,
that recognizes the religious dimension
of sexual questions and the sexual dimension
of religious questions.8 This
approach emphasizes the constellations
of meaning around sexuality rather
than mere sexual acts, the wholeness
of human-embodied selfhood, rather
than the dichotomous spiritual and
sexual dualism.9
Using the Imago Dei
A third approach is to use a central
concept of theology such as the
imago Dei, that is, that we are made in
the “image of God.” As an illustration
of this approach, I have chosen a recent
work that focuses on lesbian and gay
persons.
I am unaware of a book that deals
with bisexual persons that is comparable
to Larry Graham’s Discovering Images
of God.10 Though there is bisexual
experience related in some of the interviews,
there is no awareness (except in
one important parenthetical remark11)
of anything but a dichotomous view of
sexual orientation in the book, due
largely, I suspect, to his ethical accountability
to those he interviewed who had
this view. However, his discussion of the
theological issues can be very helpful
in theological reflection from a broader
6 Open Hands
perspective. Out of many rich interviews
and experiences, he concludes:
We have seen how the intensity
of erotic love in relationships of
mutual sharing and commitment
have healed deep wounds and
opened hearts in gratitude to God
for such a wonderful gift of life.12
Further, he saw something that could
be said of the experience of some bisexual
Christians:
A sense of God’s gracious participation
in life has emerged
through involvement in novel
forms of partnerships and families
that in turn have contributed
to fuller personal experiences and
to richer communities.13
Graham suggests that the doctrine
of the imago Dei is “central to developing
a theological foundation for positive
care with lesbian and gay persons.”
He brings considerable insight to a position
which he says “appears to represent
the current prevailing position of
American Protestantism toward lesbian
and gay persons.”14 The main point of
this position is that the image of God is
heterosexuality, even as it also affirms
the key place of relationships of mutuality
and intimacy.15
His critique of this tradition is extensive
and convincing. He notes the
exclusion from consideration of “Christian
tradition beyond the Bible” as well
as “the concrete experiences of lesbian
and gay persons,”16 to say nothing of
scientific research. He outlines five inadequacies
of this “current prevailing
position”:
First, it assumes that the materials
from the tradition are given
rather than creatively constructed
by the best (and worst) judgments
of human individuals and communities
over time. Second, it
assumes that its interpretations of
the biblical texts are unassailable
and accurately represent the selfunderstanding
of the original
writers. Third, it assumes that the
church has always held the position
they represent, rather than
offering diverse interpretations of
the same materials they so confidently
draw on. Fourth, it assumes
that
the contemporary
experiences
of real
persons cannot
challenge, correct, and
expand inherited traditions. Finally,
it tends to “proof text” specific
biblical passages for its authority,
rather than placing the
discussion within a larger theological
horizon or context of
meaning within the Bible and
beyond.17
Graham discusses four additional
“plausible alternative interpretations of
the imago Dei.” These include the image
of God as “an asexual disembodied
status,” an embodied male/female existence
with the male dominant, a sexless
spiritual existence of male/female
equality with male-dominance, and “an
egalitarian partnership and fellowship”
based on Phyllis Bird’s thought.18
None of these, he says, fits directly
the experience of the people whom he
interviewed. Instead, the work of John
Douglass Hall provided the most attractive
and appropriate
understanding.
Hall found “a
subordinated strand of
reflection…that sees the
imago Dei as a quality of relationship
instead of an essential human
trait or characteristic.”19 He goes on, using
this part of Hall’s work:
To be in the imago Dei means to
be fully ourselves— rather than living
according to something externally
imposed— in relationships
characterized by God-like involvement
in all the dimensions
of our relational web: with God,
our ground and source, with our
fellow humans, and with the
natural order. Full, authentic humanity
in the imago Dei means to
be with, for, and together in communion
with all of these dimensions
of our relatedness.20
Graham concludes with this summary:
To be in the image of God is ultimately
about the qualities of lovSummer
1998 7
ing communion that come into
being in the universe…When reflective
of the imago Dei love
is…embodied, sensual, mutual,
unifying, wholistic…The imago
Dei is characterized by creative
and just relationality in a context
of accountability and mutual concern.
21
It seems to me that these insights
apply as well to the experience of bisexual
people of faith who, perhaps
more than others, may be able to love
fully without regard to gender. Contrary
to the stereotype that bisexual people
cannot commit to relationships, there
are many who have the kinds of relationships
Graham says are “reflective of
the imago Dei.” There are marriages and
extended marriage-like relationships in
which at least one of the partners is bi.
And there are intimate friendships
where these qualities exist.
Just as the experience of gay and lesbian
people is calling the church and
culture to broaden understanding of
sexuality, so too is the experience of
bisexual and transgendered people calling
for a similar enhancement of understanding
of God’s gift of human
sexuality.
An earlier version of this article was originally
published in The New Voice of Nebraska,
Vol 4, No. 3, May 10, 1987.
Ben Roe, D.Min., has been married to
Maggie for 29 years
and has self-identified
as bi for 20 years.
He does computer programming
and maintains
the World Wide
Web site for the Reconciling
Congregation
Program. He is active in the Reconciling/
Welcoming Church movement, Affirmation:
United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay,
and Bisexual Concerns, and Warren
United Methodist Church, a small innercity
church in Denver.
Notes
1Fox, Ronald C, “Bisexuality in Perspective:
A Review of Theory and Research,” in Beth
A. Firestein, ed., Bisexuality; the Psychology
and Politics of an Invisible Minority, (Thousand
Oaks: SAGE, 1996).
2Saliba, Pat, “Research Project on Sexual Orientation,”
The Bi-Monthly, newsletter of the
Bisexual Center, San Francisco, Vol 6, #5,
Sept.-Oct. 1982, pp. 3-6.
3Klein, Fred The Bisexual Option: A Concept
of One Hundred Percent Intimacy (New York:
Arbor House) in Fox, p. 22.
4Alexander, Marilyn Bennett, and Preston,
James, We Were Baptized Too; Claiming God’s
Grace for Lesbians and Gays (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).
5Alexander & Preston, p 22.
6Alexander & Preston, p 46ff.
7Alexander & Preston, p 73f.
8Nelson, James B., Embodiment; An Approach
to Sexuality and Christian Theology (New
York: Pilgrim, 1978), p. 14-15. For another
sexual theology that contrasts with Nelson’s,
see Carter Heyward’s Touching our Strength;
the Erotic as Power and the Love of God (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989).
9Nelson, p 25ff; Chap. 3 & 4.
How Bisexuality May Shape Queer Theologies
Robert E. Goss
Excerpts from an unpublished paper,
“Queer Theologies as Transgressive Metaphors: New Paradigms for Hybrid Sexual Theologies.”
One of my undergraduate students at Webster University had announced to a
gay group that he was a “bisexual gay.” A veteran gay activist who had grown up in
the Stonewall era told him emphatically, “You can’t be both. You’ve got to be one or
the other.” For that activist, my student was uttering nonsense, messing up his
conceptual category of gay identity. My student muddied the category of “gay” with
its fixed markers and normative boundaries by not conceptualizing in either/or
dichotomies but affirming his identity within “both/and” categories of bisexual and
gay. His inclusive queerness questioned established gay boundaries; it transgressed
fixed identity templates of straight, bisexual, and gay. Is identity so easily
confinable to fixed markers that frame the self, body, desire, and actions? Or may
it be more fluid, hybrid, or contestable than we ever imagine? Can ambiguity,
liminality, and diversity be included in a new queer discursive shift and subsequently
in a queer theological discourse?
…Bisexual theologies will certainly undermine gay/lesbian and heterosexual
theological discourse. Both gay/lesbian and heterosexual theologies subscribe to
the politics of otherness with an either/or paradigm, while bisexual theologies
represent a subversive alternative to either/or thinking. They stress a “both/and”
method that undermines either straight or gay methods of theological reflection
and promote mediating methods to bridge hetero and gay theological discourses.
…The development of bisexual and transgendered theologies will offend some
by their inclusiveness, moving beyond binary thinking of hetero/homo and
deconstruct rigid gender boundaries. Bisexual and transgendered theologies will
threaten far more those gays who want to assimilate into mainstream society.
…Rather than assimilate, future queer theologies will mainstream and celebrate
sexual/gender diversities, shifting theological practice into new
uncharted intersections of sexual, gendered identities.
Robert Goss, Th.D., is the author of Jesus ACTED UP (Harper-
SanFrancisco, 1993) and co- editor of Our Families, Our Values:
Snapshots of Queer Kinship (Haworth Press, 1998). Goss was
ordained as a Jesuit in 1976, but in 1996, transferred his clergy
credentials to UFMCC. He lectures at Webster University in St.
Louis and serves on the staff of the local MCC.
10Graham, Larry Kent, Discovering Images of
God; Narratives of Care Among Lesbians and
Gays (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1997).
11Graham, p 151.
12Graham, p 145.
13Graham, p 145.
14Graham, p 150.
15Graham, p 152.
16Graham, p 154.
17Graham, p 155-6.
18Graham, p 156-60. See Phyllis A. Bird,
“Sexual Differentiation and Divine Image
in the Genesis Creation Texts,” in Image of
God and Gender Models, ed. Kari Elisabeth
Borreson (Oslo: Solum Forlag, 1991), 16, 17.
19Graham, p 167. See Douglas John Hall,
Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship.
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986).
20Graham, p 168.
21Graham, p 178.
8 Open Hands
The Way of Jesus
Jesus’ life calls to me in many ways,
inviting me to love God, myself and
my neighbors, to trust God utterly and
relinquish my fear, to give myself in service
and to strive for a justice that would
do justice to God’s mercy. Jesus offers
me a model of what it means to be a
teacher, a healer, a servant, a prophet, a
martyr. I could spend the rest of my days
trying to learn from him and striving
to follow him in the particularities of
my own life circumstances.
One lesson I draw from Jesus’ life is
that God meets us where we are and
welcomes us into abundance, not by
demanding that we abandon our deepest
selves but by offering the kingdom
to us at precisely those most sad and
joyous, most broken and healing, most
vulnerable places. If I am to take this
lesson seriously, I must ask what Jesus
has to say to me as a bisexual person,
capable of emotionally and sexually
loving both women and men, often
mistrusted and sometimes rejected by
both heterosexuals and lesbian/gay
people. If I am to find God in the life of
the Rabbi from Nazareth, what word of
hope is there for my sexual identity?
Can that identity draw me closer to God,
through Jesus, in some way?
The gospels, of course, do not record
any sayings of Jesus on homosexuality,
let alone bisexuality, and it is impossible
to know from the available biblical
scholarship whether he was attracted to
women, men, both or neither (though
I would tend to doubt the last possibility).
However, there is another level at
which I can seek answers to my questions,
one that both draws on plentiful
gospel materials and goes beyond them
The Holy Leper and the
Bisexual Christian
Amanda Udis-Kessler
into mystery and silence. Jesus was not
merely a teacher, preacher, healer and
prophet; he was also, and centrally, a
shatterer of boundaries, destroyer of
margins, and dismantler of statuses in
the name of God’s boundless, all-inclusive
love. It is this facet of Jesus’ commitment
which threatened the authorities
of his time and brought him to the
cross, and it is in this work of his that I
find my own potential for loving beyond
gender boundaries welcomed and
sanctified.
Questioning Traditional
Values of Status
Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, author
of Meeting Jesus Again for the First
Time : The Historical Jesus & the Heart of
Contemporary Faith,1 among others, has
detailed the status-driven politics of holiness
and purity among Jews in Jesus’
culture. Today’s commonly recognized
forms of social inequality— racism, sexism,
class inequality, heterosexism, ageism,
ableism and the like— derive largely
from what we might call hierarchical
dualisms, value systems in which two
opposite social categories are defined,
one of which is valued (white, male,
rich, heterosexual, adult, healthy, ablebodied)
and one of which is devalued
(person of color, female, poor, lesbian/
gay, very young or very old, ill, disabled).
Social inequality in Jesus’ time
depended similarly on hierarchical dualisms,
with related but differently conceived
categories.
At the core of what Borg calls the
politics of holiness was the question of
whether a given individual was pure or
impure, clean or unclean; the answer
meant the difference between social
welcome and social disapproval, even
ostracism— which, in such an honorand-
shame-based culture, amounted to
social death. On the pure/clean/valued
side of the equation were rich (or at least
economically solvent) Jewish men in
good health and in a position to count
themselves among the righteous by following
the extensive Jewish laws in their
entirety. Among the impure, unclean
and devalued were the poor, Gentiles,
women, the sick, and those Jews considered
sinners for not being able to
keep the laws (usually by virtue of being
poor, women, sick or some combination
of all three).
Jesus’ frequent references to whores
and tax collectors should be understood
in this context; whores (unchaperoned
women, some of whom were actually
prostitutes) and tax collectors (seen as
shills for the occupying Roman empire,
forced to handle “profane” money,
trusted about as much as young African-
American men are trusted by security
guards in stores today) were among
the biggest “sinners” in the purity system.
It is not a coincidence that Jesus
welcomed them over and over again,
told stories in which God’s love for
them was clear, and told the purveyors
of the purity system that tax collectors
and prostitutes were getting into the
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus. Galatians 3:28
If Jesus is holy, then clearly holiness is not about separation.
Mike Riddell, Third Way, 12/96; quoted in
The Other Side, May-June 1997, p. 57
Summer 1998 9
kingdom of God before the so-called
righteous.
Jesus could offer this welcome to
outcasts because of his own experience
of God’s love and welcome, which Jesus
translated into a call to be compassionate
as God is compassionate (Lk 6:36)—
that is, beyond boundaries. He spoke
of a gracious Father who sends rain on
the just and unjust, urged his followers
to love not just neighbor but enemy as
well, and instituted a new social structure
for eating, a table fellowship in
which rich and poor, righteous and sinner,
men and women were at the same
table in total violation of the purity
rules.2
He treated women, Gentiles, the
poor and the sick with dignity and respect
(with one interesting exception,
Mt 15:21-28, in which he came around
at the end), and he welcomed children,
considered nobodies in his culture.3 He
challenged his culture’s hierarchical
family structure in ways that would
horrify today’s “family values” crowd
if they paid attention to it,4 and he
skewered wealth,5 piety, and prestige6
as marks of status. He also engaged in
what AIDS activists would call a direct
action against Purity Central (the
Temple, heart of the politics of holiness).
Jesus apparently saw God’s graciousness
as shattering boundaries and understood
the appropriate human response
as right relationship with God,
others and self, which likewise required
boundary shattering. Jesus offered us/
called us to liberation from legalisms
into love, from class into compassion,
from status into solidarity. (My best understanding
of the realm of God today
is that it is simply life in love, compassion
and solidarity with self, others and
the Holy.)
Jesus as Holy Unclean
Perhaps Jesus’ most awesome boundary
destruction took place in his
healing work. Sickness was a mark of
uncleanness, and many of the people
he healed were doubly unclean, such
as Gentiles, or the woman with a “bleeding
problem,” since Jewish law defined
menstrual blood as an unclean substance.
7 Jesus also healed on the Sabbath,
breaking the temporal boundary
between sacred and profane (Mt 12:10-
13; Lk 13:10-17). While the story about
the demoniac in the graveyard (Mk 5:1-
17) is probably not historically accurate,
it fits what we know of Jesus that he
would enter a graveyard (unclean) inhabited
by a man with unclean spirits
(worse) and send them into a herd of
nearby pigs (the most unclean animal,
according to Jewish law). Crossing the
barriers between healthy and sick
people allowed Jesus to offer people
with little hope a chance to cross back
into the world of the well, but he was
only able to do this by himself crossing
into the world of the sick and, therefore,
the world of the unclean.
Most of the time, when Jesus healed
lepers, he touched them (Mt 8:2-4, Lk
7:22). Touching a leper meant that Jesus
took on leprosy himself, both in the
sense of risking exposure to what we
would today call an eczema or psoriasis
condition, and in the sense of socially
becoming a leper for all intents
and purposes. Jesus, beloved of God,
chose uncleanness to offer healing, but
rather than simply becoming a leper,
he sanctified leprosy. Lepers in Jesus’
culture lost any status as clean that they
might have had earlier once their
condition became public.
Jesus, however, appears
to have been able to interact with lepers
without losing his “clean” status,
perhaps due to his healing ability or the
authority with which he taught. At least,
there is no evidence that he either behaved
as an unclean person was supposed
to or that he was treated as unclean
by those around him.
Thus, Jesus became what we might
call a holy leper or a God-filled outcast.
He was somehow simultaneously clean
and unclean, an impossibility in the face
of the dualism at the heart of the politics
of holiness. His impossible status
did what no political protest of the time
could have done: it collapsed the core
of the dualism undergirding the politics
of holiness. In other words, by becoming
a holy leper, Jesus demolished
the categories of “holy” and “leper” as
hierarchical opposites, freeing lepers to
be holy and enabling those people defined
as pure (e.g. the Pharisees) to encounter
their own “uncleanness.”
10 Open Hands
At-One-Ment Without
Bloodshed
This perspective on uncleanness is, I
suspect, an uncommon way to
think about Jesus’ gift to humanity.
Christians are more likely to focus on
Jesus’ bridging the gap between humanity
and divinity by the way he died, or
to argue (as René Girard) that Jesus undid
the “scapegoat mechanism” of human
culture and religion, revealing that
God had no thirst for sacrificial blood.8
However much these characterizations
of Jesus’ work may speak to me, I am
most awed and humbled by his willingness
to become unclean and his resulting
conquest over “uncleanness” and
the “pure/impure” dichotomy which
has fueled so many hierarchical dualisms.
For this work of Jesus offers me
hope that my bisexuality, far from being
a sin, disease, or case of confusion,
might be God’s way of working gracefully
in me against exclusivism and categorization,
on behalf of God’s joyful
and inclusive commonwealth.
Different people, of course, have different
gifts, challenges and life missions,
and I don’t mean to suggest that being
bisexual is in any way better than the
alternatives, or that everyone must become
bisexual in order that “Thy kingdom
come” (that would require a
miracle beyond any we see in the scriptures!).
It does seem to me, though, that
Jesus the holy leper is well-situated to
welcome Amanda the “neither gay nor
straight/both gay and straight,” to challenge
me and to reassure me. Jesus the
holy leper speaks to my bisexuality by
offering me a model for life outside the
boundaries of destructive hierarchical
dualisms.
Jesus does not appear to have spent
much energy worrying about the impossibility
of his status, since there was
too much kingdom work to do and
since his experience was that nothing
was impossible with God. If I am to follow
Jesus in this way, I can and must
relinquish my concerns and anger
about people who deny the existence
of bisexuality. Let them believe what
they believe; in the meantime, I’d rather
work on bringing the commonwealth
a little closer than wrangle over the
“truth” of my sexual identity. If bisexuof
God’s realm, part of the solution
rather than part of the problem (as the
street evangelists would have it). The
“symptom of sin and alienation” so
derided by biblical literalists can actually
be a gift of grace to draw me closer
to God the Great Lover, as I seek the
kingdom through my bisexuality and
offer that bisexuality back to the kingdom
again. I pray in Jesus’ spirit that
this work may give shape to my days, I
offer thanks for a God who won’t let
mere human boundaries stop love, and
I praise the Rabbi whose love took him
beyond all such boundaries in God’s
service.
Amanda Udis-Kessler
is a Unitarian Universalist
writer, musician/
composer, sociologist
and anti-oppression
educator, living in the
Boston area. She is currently
working on a sociology
dissertation on inequality, and
hopes to attend seminary in a few years.
This essay originally appeared in the Nov./
Dec. 1997 issue of Whosoever, a website
(www.whosoever.org) edited by Candace
Challew, and will appear in updated form
in a book of writings by bisexual people of
faith currently in process.
Notes
1Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First
Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of
Contemporary Faith (New York: Harper
Collins, 1994), Chapter 3. Also see his Jesus,
A New Vision: Spirit, Culture and the Life of
Discipleship (New York: HarperCollins,
1987), Chapter 5.
2Mt 9:10, Mk 14:3-9, Lk 11:37-38, 14:1, 19:1-
10
3Mt 18:1-6, 10; 19:13-14; Lk 9:46-8, 10:38-
42, 21:1-4; Jn 4:5-42, 8:1-11
4Mt 8:21-2, 10:34-7, 12:48-50, 23:9;
Lk 11:27-8, 14:26
5Mt 6:19-21, 24; 19:21-4; Lk 4:13-14, 6:20,
24, 30, 34-5; 12:15-21, 14:33, 16:19-25
6Mt 6:1-6, 16-18; Mk 9:35, 12:38-9;
Lk 14:7-11, 18:10-14
7Mt 8:5-13, 15:21-8; Lk 17:1-19; Mt 9:20-22
8René Girard, Violence and the Sacred. English
translation by Patrick Gregory (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press,
1977).
ality really is a threat to the gay/straight
dichotomy, if it challenges people
overly invested in the status quo on
both sides of the equation, perhaps
that’s because it is supposed to do so.
In the meantime, says Jesus, I’m free to
stop worrying about rejection and to
offer such healing as is mine to give by
crossing boundaries in love. He challenges
me to do this work in remembrance
of him, and if the boundaries I
cross are somewhat different than the
boundaries he crossed, so be it (though
the people defined as unclean today
include sexual minorities of all stripes).
Bisexuality as Living
Atonement
I suspect that, in addition to my being
called to feed the hungry, attend
to the sick, visit the prisoner and house
the homeless as much as anyone else
on the planet, I’m also called to find
ways to use my bisexuality, my form of
“holy leprosy,” in the service of inclusivity
and welcome. I can, for example,
strive to make God’s love manifest
in all of my relationships, sexual
and nonsexual, regardless of the genders
involved. I can refuse to behave as
though men were superior to women
(traditional sexist values) or as though
women were superior to men (a common
response to sexism, but not, I
think, the ultimate word about who we
can be as human beings). I can offer
particular encouragement to others who
cross boundaries of gender, sexuality,
race, and class, by word and by example,
and I can try to be alert to the unique,
wonderful and surprising gifts of individuals
without either disregarding or
idolizing their gender identities. These
kinds of work are not limited to bisexual
people, of course, but my bisexuality
can help me carry them out. Undoubtedly,
there are more tasks ahead which
I cannot envision now, but for which
my bisexuality will also be a gift.
Finally, then, Jesus does offer a word
of hope for my sexual identity. Jesus’
example, if “translated” as I have tried
to do here, reassures me that if I live
my bisexuality with such kingdom values
as love, compassion, honesty, integrity
and forgiveness, my sexual identity
can and will be used in the service
Summer 1998 PERSONAL STORIES 11
I am an African-American, bisexual,
male. For me, a bisexual is a person
who is capable of having a monogamous,
loving, respecting, mutual,
sexual relationship with either a male
or a female. My definition does not offer
license for one to have two simultaneous
relationships with both genders.
The morals on which I was reared and
the tenets of my faith do not permit me
anything that is not a one-to-one relationship.
Anything outside of this for
me would serve either as deception,
polygamy, or adultery.
As a young lad growing up on the
east coast, I knew very early on that I
was attracted to both girls and boys,
women and men. Even while watching
television or going to the movie theater
I was enchanted by the sexual presence
and charm of both Doris Day and
Rock Hudson or Pam Grier and Fred
Williamson. I would not discover until
my teenage years that I was actually very
different than most other boys in my
neighborhood. Playing contact sports
with some of the fellas was always extra
stimulating. In addition, I was more
sensitive to things in my world that
most teenage boys would ignore. Once
my classmates began to get wind of this,
I became the target of much ridicule and
harassment. I felt much guilt and
shame.
My saving grace was that I had a gift
for academic excellence which provided
me many scholastic opportunities. But
it did not erase my feelings of marginalization.
I did not fit into the dominant
culture’s perspective of how a
“normal” teenage boy was to behave. I
attempted to hide my true feelings for
as long as possible. I dated the girls in
my class to whom I was attracted, but I
would only fantasize about boys of
whom I was enamored.
In college the rules out of which I
operated began to change. I was able to
know gay and lesbian students and faculty
on campus. Now I could finally
date both men and women. Wow!
There were times when I thought that I
was in heaven and other times when I
was in hell. I was in heaven because I
was now free to date other men. I was
in hell because in many of my social
circles it was unacceptable. It was quite
a chore trying to understand the nuances
of my sexuality. Many of both my
gay and straight friends with whom I
would share my secret insisted that I
choose one preference or the other. But
in my heart of hearts, I knew that I was
physically and mentally attracted to
both.
I fell in love with a young man who
would eventually break my heart. One
day he told me that he was engaged to
be married after graduation. He said that
being in a homosexual relationship was
not an option for him. I was crushed.
A couple of years later I fell in love
with a beautiful single mother with one
young son. Eventually, we married. Our
union lasted for many years, and together
we had another son and a daughter.
As time passed our paths drifted
apart and our marriage ended. Soon
thereafter, I entered into a homosexual
relationship which would also last for
many years. But it too eventually came
to an end.
Currently I am laying the foundation
for a wonderful longterm relationship
with a handsome, creative, witty, and
sexy young man. I have often heard that
the third time around is the charm. All
I know to do is trust in God and hope
for the best. I feel as if the heavens are
smiling down upon me. This one is definitely
a keeper! Praise be to God!
My present relationship unfolds in
the same way that it would if I were in
a heterosexual union. We respect each
other. We love each other deeply. We
uphold the fidelity of our covenant. We
are committed to one another. Lastly,
we bring to one another integrity and
grace as it is liberally given to us by our
Creator in the heavens above.
Though this journey as a bisexual
continues to bring new challenges, I
would not trade it for any other. I realize
that I would not be who and what I
am today without having had these experiences.
Today, I live my life as an
out bisexual male. In doing so, there is
much liberation and joy. But as life sees
fit, there are also times of struggle and
pain woven into the fabric of this bold
declaration. Some people are extremely
bigoted, and hate language tears down
the spirit and soul. Yet I believe that
what I do and how I live out my life is
God’s will for me and not my own. To
openly live my life while acting as an
agent of change eventually makes life
easier, not only for myself but for others
who will come after me. My hope is
that my story will uplift at least one who
is feeling hopeless, without love or compassion,
one who will realize that life is
worth living and that God loves and
meets him or her wherever his or her
journey has led.
Within the next year I will be leaving
seminary to begin a call to pastoral
ministry. I believe that Jesus would be
pleased with the way that I have responded
to his call. The road that I travel
is jammed with those who have been
marginalized, brokenhearted, disenfranchised,
sick, abandoned, and weak.
Yet the mission of the church is to care
for “the least of these.” By doing so, I
trust that God will allow me to bring
God’s healing love into God’s global
community, one person at a time. All
of this I have come to know through
the love of Jesus Christ, the savior of
my soul. With each day’s end, I am offered
a new beginning to become more
like Christ, to become more human.
Fully accepting my sexuality and my
call to ministry. Fully loving myself and
neighbor. Fully out of the closet.
Bentley de Bardelaben was born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and received his B.A.
from Columbia College in Chicago. He left
a conservative denomination to join the
UCC, and is currently an M.Div. student
at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.
He is a member of First Congregational
Church of Memphis. He is the father of
two boys and a girl.
Capable of Monogamy
With Either Gender
Bentley de Bardelaben
12 PERSONAL STORIES Open Hands
My experience of being bisexual
in the church isn’t
very different from my experience
outside the church; I find the same
invisibility, stereotypes and assumptions,
even in a church that’s welcoming.
For example, in an adult Sunday
school class, a longtime advocate for gay
and lesbian concerns expressed his discomfort
with including bisexual and
transgender people in the movement.
He repeated some common misconceptions
about promiscuity as the behavior
that defines bisexuality. While I appreciated
his honesty, his statement
drove a wedge between us and our work
for justice in the Presbyterian Church.
Invisibility also remains a problem
for me in my congregation. When the
person coordinating a discussion on
sexual orientation for our high schoolers
asked me to speak about what it was
like to grow up lesbian, I reminded her
that I am bisexual and offered to discuss
my experience. She canceled the
discussion topic, saying she felt it was
better not to “confuse” the youth.
I was annoyed that she found bisexuality
confusing (though it is better than
believing that bisexuals are confused).
What frustrated me more, however, was
that I had previously come out to her.
My congregation prefers to see me as a
lesbian because my partner of three
years is a woman. For them, my behavior
defines my identity.
Bisexuality, like most ambiguity,
makes church people very uncomfortable.
Bisexual people cannot be determined
or limited by the gender of a
present partner. Imagining “bisexual
behavior” is likely to conjure images of
sordid threesomes from bad porn movies.
Consider commentary from the
Presbyterian Review’s website1 on last
year’s Amendment A, which would have
required “fidelity and integrity in all relationships
of life” of ordained officers.
“How does one maintain ‘fidelity’ in
all the relationships of life?” wrote one
contributor. “It’s an oxymoron. It runs
contrary to simple definitions. Can one
act with fidelity in a bisexual relationship?
[Presbyterians for Lesbian & Gay
Concerns] seems to argue that this is
moral sexual behavior.”
The writer’s “simple definition” is
too simple, because there is no single
type of “bisexual relationship.” For
some, a monogamous opposite-sex
relationship adhering to fidelity in the
covenant of marriage constitutes a “bisexual
relationship,” while others
choose less conventional relationships.
Moreover, many bisexuals can and do
practice fidelity in our relationships,
conventional and unconventional,
monogamous and polyamorous. At
least bi people are now visible to the
church’s right wing; I had previously
maintained that injunctions against ordaining
“self-affirming, practicing homosexuals”
did not apply to me.
When monosexual people get beyond
the stereotype that all bisexuals
need to have both sexes at once (or
“anything that moves”), then it occurs
to them that bisexuals have a “choice”
about being with a man or a woman
(read: a choice to be gay or straight if
you define identity by behavior). This
notion of choice gives those who obsess
over what we do in bed fodder for
their control fantasies (and false hope
for their change ministries). Bisexuality
uniquely challenges all of us concerned
about sexual justice to move
beyond the debates about “choice” to
a liberation in which we value samesex
and mixed-sex expressions of love
without shame or apology, without
valuing one over the other.
When bisexuals will not be defined
in terms of our primary relationships,
it raises uncomfortable questions for the
church, like what other qualities might
determine sexual identity? We must ask
about our feelings and fantasies, about
the possibility that there are different
kinds of relationships that we experience
as affectionate, sensual and even
sexual to varying degrees. What then is
our sexual ethic?
My own denomination, which cannot
seem to approve a sexual ethic more
profound than “just say no,” has a lot
to learn from the bisexual community.
While there is no agreement among
bisexuals about complex issues like
monogamy, the bisexual community
has pondered sexual ethics for years and
has held up ideals of mutuality, respect,
honesty, trust, and consent. Nonmonogamy
gets projected onto bisexuals,
but we must remember that many
monosexuals are non-monogamous.
As a feminist, bisexuality means to
me that gender is not a defining factor
in my choice of a partner. Bisexual feminist
Rebecca Kaplan notes that bisexuality
is defined in terms of gender (as
opposed to, say, one who dates lefties
and righties) because gender is a primary
division in our society. When gender
can be seen as a continuum and
when gender-role expectations are
relaxed, misogyny and gender discrimination
will begin to subside,
transgender people will be freer to be
and become who they are, and the
church will be less transfixed on the
genitalia of our partners. This is how
feminist, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender concerns interrelate. I am,
as Hal Porter, retiring pastor of Mt. Auburn
Presbyterian Church, puts it, a
“Presbyterian for gender independence.”
The church isn’t bi-positive, even in
the most progressive congregations, and
it won’t get there unless more
bi people— myself included—become
more outspoken and take risks. As the
overall movement for sexual justice in
the church progresses, bisexual people
must continue to be visible so that we
can challenge the church to develop a
sexual ethic that speaks to the realities
of our relationships and our lives.
Donna Riley serves on the executive board
of Presbyterians For Lesbian & Gay Concerns
and is the group’s “Webspinner”:
http://andrew.cmu.edu/~riley/PLGC.html
Note
1http://www.frii.com/~mvpc/gaweb/updates/
sep15.htm
Lesbian—NOT!
A Christian for Gender Independence
Donna Riley
Summer 1998 PERSONAL STORIES 13
The summer I turned 20, I met a
woman. I was home from college
and working a summer job at an
art museum. She worked in another department
at the museum and somehow
we started having lunch together every
day. That summer I was dating a boy
from home, and writing to a boy from
college, on whom I had a major crush.
I need to tell you that I went to an evangelical
college where you sign a pledge
not to drink or dance, and there’s daily
chapel. Anyway, this woman was about
15 years older than me, from a different
race and culture, and she was amazing—
creative and beautiful and outrageous.
She was the free-est person I’d
ever met. Even now, almost 20 years
later, I smile when I think of her.
In the course of this friendship she
told me that she was bisexual and that
there were rumors about us at the museum.
I was perplexed. I dated boys in
college and was desperately attracted to
them—and to her. Eventually I realized
that our relationship was based on romantic
feelings, and I had to decide: was
that OK? One day she said something I
knew was true but didn’t know I knew
until she said it: she said that when she
fell in love with someone, she fell in
love with the person and the gender
didn’t matter. I thought, Yes, that’s the
way I feel. It made so much sense to me
then. It felt so true. It still does.
As it turned out, though we were
friends for many years, we only were
romantically involved that summer,
and it was pretty tame. But it was the
first time I acknowledged a fundamental
truth about myself. My attachments
didn’t have to fit in a specific, tidy, carefully
labeled box. I had a glimpse then
of what I now firmly believe: people are
terribly complex, and human sexuality
is complicated and wonderful and
messy and big— bigger than I had been
led to believe by my church and my
teachers. I don’t always understand
sexuality and how it’s expressed by others,
and that’s OK. I don’t have to always
understand. I take it as a mystery,
a gift, a present from God. I take it as
part of the abundant life we’re promised
in Christ. I take it as good.
Before that summer, I dated several
men. After that summer, my interest in
and attraction to maleness and particular
men didn’t change. But I was attracted
to femaleness, too, and attracted
to particular women. I decided to accept
it. I didn’t talk about it— it wasn’t
safe at that college. In retrospect, I
haven’t often felt like it was safe.
Three things kept me from being
really conflicted about my sexual orientation.
First, my parents were very
calm and sane about sexuality in general.
They were not religious and they
had a ‘live and let live’ mentality about
other people, so I did not grow up hearing
negative things about homosexuality.
Second, I joined an Episcopal
church where there was a lot of acceptance
of people who were different. And
third, most of my pals in college were
theater types who were rebels and seekers,
open to just about anything. I came
to the conclusion that sex is wonder and
challenge and joy and connection and
healing and struggle— and fun.
Since then, I’ve had relationships
with men and women (although never
at the same time— that never felt honest
to me). I’ve said that I’m attracted
to a person first and gender is secondary.
I’ve learned that gender is a big part
of who a person turns out to be. I find
certain things about men to be exciting
and endearing. I find certain things
about women exciting and endearing.
I’ve learned and enjoyed different
things in different relationships, things
that couldn’t be predicted by the gender
of the other person.
For nearly 20 years now I’ve been a
member of an Episcopal church that is
welcoming of gay and lesbian people.
It was there that I met the man who is
my life partner. It surprised some of my
friends that I decided to get married. I
have no way to explain it except that I
deeply love this person. He and I share
common values and dreams and affection.
He’s wonderful. I fell in love; it
wasn’t on purpose.
We were together for a couple of
years before we decided to have the benefit
of “holy matrimony,” as it says in
the Book of Common Prayer. We both
come out of a very liturgical spirituality;
it made sense and felt right to express
our relationship in a sacramental
way. My partner knows about my previous
relationships. We made a commitment
to be faithful to each other, just
like other people do. We struggle with
it, just like other people do. While I did
not choose to be bisexual, I choose how
to act on my sexuality. I decide to be
faithful to my spouse day after day—no
matter to whom I’m attracted. I’m not
saying that it’s easy, because anyone in
a long-term relationship knows it’s not.
But it’s the choice I keep making.
Because of my situation I sometimes
feel invisible. It’s uncomfortable when
straight people just assume I’m straight.
It’s a fair assumption, but it feels dishonest
not to say something. Yet I’m
wary of self-disclosure. I’ve also encountered
some apprehension from gay and
lesbian people. Some people seem to
think bisexuality is not a real orientation—
they think that someday I’ll “really”
come out. Or imply that I was just
experimenting in my youth, as if the
previous 10 years were just some sort
of phase. And some folks think that
being bisexual means that I must have
multiple simultaneous relationships,
which has never been true for me.
Because my sexual orientation may
be interpreted to reflect on my spouse—
who is in a line of work in which this
relationship can have implications for
his credibility—I’m not very open about
my sexuality. It’s because of this—and
because of my own employment for a
national church body— that I’m not
signing my name to this article. This
pains me; it feels like cowardice. On one
hand, I say that my sexual/affectional
orientation is a gift, and I yet I’m afraid
to disclose it. What kind of gift is that?
I hope someday to live in a world where
this would not be an issue; or to be a
person who could take that kind of risk.
Until then, sign me— Kate
Kate works for the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America and worships with her
husband of many years in an Episcopal
Church.
No Tidy, Carefully Labeled Box
Kate
14 PERSONAL STORIES Open Hands
It’s been over twenty years since we
met one spring weekend. We are a
man and a woman who happen to
be bisexual and who have been together
over two decades. In that time, monogamy
has never been a dimension of
our relationship. Indeed, the weekend
we met and became lovers, we compared
stories of our past sexuality and
each found in the other an amazingly
kindred spirit.
The mid ’70s were the height of the
counterculture. We were both peace
activists, and that weekend
we were visiting a collective
household of other activists.
We were all seeking to live a
simple lifestyle apart from
the war-making U.S. government
and profit-driven multinational
corporations. Feminism
was an even stronger point
in our ideology (and remains so).
Many of us felt that capitalism, racism,
sexism and all of the other trappings of
traditional U.S. society had to go— including
traditional marriage.
Both of us had been recently divorced,
following tumultuous “open marriages.”
Despite the disastrous endings to our
earlier attempts at open relationships,
both of us were convinced that sexual
possessiveness was among the ills of
which society needed to be cured.
At the time, I was an explicitly non-
Christian attender of Friends meetings.
Mary attended meeting as well, but described
herself as a “feminist Christian,”
a term I told her was an oxymoron on
the same level as “military intelligence.”
Despite the teasing, it was clear to each
of us that we were called to our countercultural
stand, called to be prophetic
voices for social change and justice.
Soon our relationship expanded to
embrace another equally-minded
young man. The three of us shared our
activism, our income, and our bed. We
bought a home together, and lived together
happily for over five years. About
the time he left, we got involved with
another woman who was our partner
for another five years. After she moved
on, more and more people were seeing
us as a couple, and soon we announced
our partnership in a ceremony we wrote
ourselves.
Several ordained ministers officiated.
The word marriage was never mentioned,
and the ceremony included no
marriage license, no vows of sexual fidelity,
and no exchange of rings. It was,
in short, a commitment service, not a
wedding. Because we are of the opposite
sex no one raised any question. This
heterosexual privilege is something
about which we continue
to feel some guilt. It is
very easy for us to pass as
straight. Yet in our private
lives we are living out a
sexual identity that would
not be easily understood or
accepted. Often we have chosen
not to reveal it. In some respects this
article is a coming out to those of our
friends who recognize us in it. Church
friends, we are not as straight as we may
appear!
A couple of times each month we
attend parties where like-minded
couples meet. Many couples in our
group have been married for twenty
years or more, and some have been lovers
for many decades. These “alternate
lifestyle” clubs have few rules, but one
is cardinal—“no” means no. All sex is
consensual, mutual, and responsible—
meeting, we believe, all the criteria for
ethical sexual behavior discussed in the
last issue of Open Hands. We only party
with friends we meet through the
lifestyle, and would never dream of recruiting
either our straight or gay
friends to this.
Interestingly enough, though female
bisexuality is widely accepted in the
lifestyle, male homophobia is rampant.
A few have been actively working
against this homophobia, and we both
now help lead a workshop on “bisensuality”
each year at a national lifestyle
convention of 500 people. Gradually we
are breaking down the stereotypes, and
men are learning to be sensual with one
another.
In all this we are out as Christians.
Most Sunday mornings we are in
church. We have supported one another
in our ministries and spiritual development
even as we have explored our
sexuality separately and together. As our
sexual life has grown, so has our spiritual
life.
When my congregation began studying
the issue of homosexuality, we began
to openly claim “bisexual” as an
identity for this checkered sexual life
we share. People are quick to say “being
bi doesn’t mean you’re promiscuous.”
And indeed, many bisexual people
are faithful to one person while acknowledging
the potential of attraction
to others. But others are nonmonogamous
and feel that to be otherwise
would be to deny an important part of
ourselves.
It seems to me that many people are
willing to accept those who are not
straight so long as their relationships
mimic those of heterosexual couples.
Yet we believe that to identify oneself
as bisexual is to accept ambiguity in life,
a blurring of gender roles socially and
in intimate relationships. In our view,
bisexuality opens up the possibility of
choice not just of a sexual partner but
of a style of relationship.
Recently a local pastor offered a brief
meditation on the resurrected Jesus appearing
to his disciples as they fished
and advising them where to cast their
nets, a story found in John 21. She noted
that verse 11 says the net held 153 fish—
that is, every species of fish known to
humanity at the time. And the net held
them all. The church is a net, she concluded,
and it too can hold every kind
of fish without tearing.
Mary and I are pretty strange fish,
but we believe God made us that way,
and we join God in saying, “It is
good!”
John and Mary (pseudonyms) live in a
southeastern city and are active in two
different welcoming congregations. Mary
sings in the choir. John regularly leads Bible
study. Mary is on the staff of another welcoming
congregation as well. You can reach
them at BiChristians@juno.com
A Bisexual Couple’s Story
John and Mary
Summer 1998 PERSONAL STORIES 15
I am convinced that it is not possible
to change our sexual orientation. At
the same time, I know that many
people fall between the ends of the
sexual spectrum. There are bisexuals
who, when they meet the right person,
can have significant relationships with
either men or women. And there are bisexuals
who can move from a homosexual
to a heterosexual “lifestyle” or,
for that matter, from a heterosexual to
a homosexual pattern. My own life is a
case in point.
I grew up in an era when the only
sexual education was the crude jokes
heard from adults and peers. I fell in
love and married when I was 21 years
old. It was several years later that homosexual
feelings began to manifest
themselves. My wife died of cancer after
28 years of a good marriage. Several
years later I fell in love with another
man and began a relationship which
lasted 20 more years before he
also died of cancer.
I am sure that there are
those who would say
that my marriage was
just a cover-up to enable
me to do ministry
in a society and church
that are homophobic.
I have heard that said
of others. But that was
not the case for me. I
found myself capable of physical
and emotional love in both cases,
which is what the term bisexuality describes.
My experience is not unique. A great
many men who are married to women
carry on active sexual activities with
other men. The ease with which people
confined in a same-sex environment
(such as the military and prisons) adopt
same-sex activities is further evidence
that many of us, perhaps most of us,
are capable of bisexuality. As James B.
Nelson puts it:
Though it appears clear scientifically
that sexual orientations are
seldom if ever “either-or”— either
completely heterosexual or completely
homosexual— we are still
so rooted in the dualisms of
sharply distinguished opposites
that we find it almost impossible
to deal with the pervasive realities
of bisexuality.1
I am convinced that the neat division
of people into two classes, straight
and gay, heterosexual and homosexual,
simply does not describe human beings
adequately. Many people would classify
any person who has had any sexual experience
with persons of the same gender
as homosexual. There even seems
to be great reluctance in the gay community
to admit that there are many
people who are bisexual. Yet I believe
that sexual “purity” may be as rare as
racial purity. God seems to delight
in variety, not uniformity.
We human beings may
pride ourselves in our ability
to create, for example, an endless
number of Coke bottles,
all identical. God, on the other
hand, enables endless diversity,
from snowflakes to fingerprints
to sexual natures. This should
be a cause for celebration, but
our human tendency is to fear diversity.
Conformity is more comfortable.
Our lives may become difficult when
we discover that diversity exists not only
outside of us, but within us. I am not
the first to suspect that much of the passion
behind homophobia is fueled by
unrecognized or unacknowledged homosexual
feelings. The homophobic
individual seeks the destruction of homosexual
persons as a way of denying
or destroying his or her own homosexual
feelings. My hatred of “them”
gets mixed up with my hatred of parts
of myself.
Thus one of the potential poisonous
fruits of human bisexuality is homophobia.
But it need not be so. Understanding
the variety of human sexuality
in the human family and within
ourselves can lead us to a new appreciation
of the divine creativeness and
our human potential.
Eugene Brink was born in Tampa,
Florida, and reared in Michigan and Texas.
He was educated at Rice and Texas Christian
Universities, earning B.A., M.Div, and
D.Min. degrees. He was baptized and later
ordained at Heights Christian Church in
Houston. He served Disciples of Christ congregations
in Louisiana, Texas, and Colorado.
He has two sons, a daughter, and a
foster son. He has retired and lives in Colorado
Springs.
Note
1 James B. Nelson, Body Theology (Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992),
p. 17
Twenty-Five Years With a Woman
Followed by
Twenty Years With a Man
Eugene Brink
16 PERSONAL STORIES Open Hands
As the Shakers sung, lots of folks
are blessed with the gift of simplicity:
to be simply heterosexual
or homosexual. It is not so for
those of us with the “mixed blessing”
of being in the middle range of the
Kinsey scale (or the more complicated
Klein grid). Our lives are further complicated
if we are married.
It has been my privilege to participate
in an on-line bulletin board for
bisexual married men and more recently
in an offshoot for such men who
are out to their wives. In so doing, I have
observed how various men handle their
other-than-simple lives and how they
seek freedom to be themselves while
minimizing hurt to those they love.
Most of the older men were less than
fully aware of their bisexual orientation
at the time of marriage. Many of the
younger men knew their orientation
but did not accept it or thought marriage
would cure them of the urge for
male-male intimacy. A few had lived in
a gay relationship before falling in love
with a woman (sometimes to their own
surprise). Many shared that they had
been “the best little boy in the world,”
excelling in school, participating in
church, serving as altar boys. They continued
to meet the expectations of others
by launching illustrious careers, getting
married, and raising families.
Most kept their bisexuality a guilty
secret and suppressed their wish for
male-male sex; an awful lot also suffered
from low self-esteem and even
clinical depression. The sense of liberation
was palpable for many when discovering
others like themselves on-line.
Many men refer to life as a roller
coaster in the period following coming
out to their wives. The wife’s first reaction
is likely to be bafflement and denial.
She may be pleased by his forthrightness,
a welcome relief from his previously
distant attitudes. The man who
had been tied up in knots may suddenly
be more affectionate. Intimacy may be
enhanced. She may be curious and even
turned on by the disclosure of his sexual
adventures. As Amity Buxton puts it,
when the gay/bisexual husband comes
out of the closet, the wife goes in. She
is confronted by a reality which she may
have hardly suspected or thought had
been overcome, which might change
her status in the community if known,
and she may know of no one to turn to
for support. The wife may endure selfblame,
crushed dreams, and a crisis of
faith. She may feel cheated (even if he
is not “cheating”) because the man she
is living with is not the man she thought
she married. And if she cannot depend
on the man she knows best being as he
appears, the whole world becomes less
reliable.
While some couples go on for years
without resolving issues definitively,
many come to a rather stable resolution
in time. Some husbands preserve their
marriages by agreeing to be faithful but
feel good about acknowledging who
they are. They may decide to live out
their homosexuality only in their fantasy
life. They may cultivate gay friends
or frequent the gay scene. One man
found that exploring new ways that he
and his wife could relate sexually relieved
him of his need for men.
There are those who revise their
marriage vows to take into account the
man’s bisexual orientation and reforge
their understanding of fidelity to include
some form of same-gender expression.
One man married a man as well
as a woman (his wife took part in the
ceremony), and the three of them live
under the same roof. One man shares
time equally with a man and a woman.
One couple has found a man they both
like with whom they share sexual intimacy.
In a couple in which both are
bisexual, each has a partner of the same
sex. One man finds having several male
friends fulfilling for him and less threatening
to his marriage.
How does one pastor to men such as
these? Sympathetic listening is part of
it. I try to counteract bad religion. I
undercut self-loathing rooted in biblical
misinterpretation. I seek to counteract
the anti–body and anti–erotic biases
of inherited Hellenistic Christianity
with the earthy and lusty affirmations
of Judaism and from other spiritual
paths. I assert the good news of the gospel.
I affirm our creation by God. I remind
them of the need for self-love; for
example, I advised one man to consider
himself and his wishes rather than abandoning
a satisfying male-male relationship
in a noble self-sacrifice for the sake
of an unsatisfying marriage. I favor a
healthy degree of honesty and encourage
negotiation toward a win-win outcome—
making and remaking and keeping
promises. I champion the power of
love to heal and satisfy. My motto: the
more loving I do, the more loving I am.
The Shakers achieved simplicity by
giving up sex altogether. But the gift of
celibacy is a rare gift indeed. However,
if we elevate love as our only norm, that
can also be a source of simplification.
Jesus pioneered this move when he invited
us to love God and love neighbor
as oneself, letting everything else depend
on these two commandments, and
Paul echoed this sentiment when he
advised love as our only obligation
(since love fulfills the law) in Romans
13:8. Bisexual married men and women
have often been ashamed of themselves
and their urges and have often found
their marriages to be a place of pain,
but if they keep turning under the guidance
of love, they may achieve a true
simplicity despite their complicated
lives and come down where they ought
to be: the valley of love and delight.
Jim Wolfe holds a Ph.D. in Religion and
Society and teaches sociology at Butler
University.
Pastoring Bisexual Men
On Line
Jim Wolfe
Summer 1998 PERSONAL STORIES 17
I was lying on the tile floor of the
church when it hit me. Our United
Church of Christ association was
doing an experiential Bible study on
Luke 10, so we were told to imagine
ourselves as the wounded traveler left
by the roadside. After mentally watching
pastors and good church people pass
me by on the other side, I was surprised
to see that my Good Samaritan was a
lesbian! But, on second thought, it
made sense. I am a married woman with
a young child, living an apparently
straight life. I have served on church
committees, played worship music, and
taught Sunday School for children and
adults. So has my husband. Yet I have
come to consider myself bisexual and
have benefitted immensely from the
richness of lesbian culture and politics,
which reflect and nurture this part of
my identity.
I discovered “women’s music” while
recovering from some medical tests. An
African-American group, In Process,
comforted with, “Oh my God, won’t
you rock your children, rock them in
your great big arms.” Aya, a Canadian
trio, encouraged perseverance with,
“Hold on to what is good…Hold on to
what you believe…Hold on to what you
must do.” Alix Dobkin favorites, like
“Lesbian Code” and a Yiddish tonguetwister
about a tailor, infused humor,
and the chants of Libana nurtured my
spiritual side. “Women’s music” can be
feminist, lesbian, spiritual, political or
all of these. Affirming and women-centered,
it lifts my spirits when I’ve had
too much of a world which devalues
women and our experience. This year I
even joined a feminist chorus in my area
to sing harmonies with women of all
orientations who hold similar values.
The quintessential example of lesbian
culture is women’s music festivals.
While Michigan is most famous, my
favorite is in Indiana. Besides women’s
music in all genres, they also showcase
the other arts— comedy, film, theater,
writing, dancing, drumming, painting,
sculpture, jewelry, clothing, and crafts—
as well as hundreds of workshops on
sexuality, relationships, racism, politics,
spirituality, creativity, healing, finances,
and legal concerns. I attend as many as
I can because it’s guaranteed to challenge
and empower me.
One memorable workshop focused
on recognizing types of discrimination
and becoming allies with other oppressed
groups. An exercise of listing
human characteristics either in- or outside
the favored circle demonstrated
that we all knew the feelings of both
experiences. A panel of participants was
drawn up on the spot so that we could
hear women speak from different perspectives
about their strengths and difficulties.
We heard openly and honestly
that day from a woman in a wheelchair,
a woman with a hidden disability, a
woman of size, a woman with a mental
illness, an older woman, a lesbian, a
Jewish woman, a pagan woman, and a
blue-eyed Indian. It helped me to view
positively some of the work I am doing
in my own community, such as buying
materials and being an advocate for our
town’s Spanish-speaking population, or
urging compassion for the homeless
mentally ill. It makes me sad, however,
that a recent attempt to bring such concerns
to my faith community in a
church newsletter article was rejected
for having too much of a “political
tone,” as if the Christian faith were not
about seeking more justice and respect
among people.
A third example of lesbian culture is
creative, beautiful, and fun. The craft
booths always display a variety of wellmade
jewelry, some with lesbian symbols,
women symbols, gay pride colors,
motifs from nature and others. I have
collected earrings, pendants and other
things that have symbolic meaning to
me, and by wearing them in daily life,
represent my own support of and connection
to the lesbian community. At
her own level, my five-year-old enjoys
them, too, by borrowing a necklace of
colorful freedom rings, a string of beads
for her hair or an ear cuff for her finger,
or by begging me to wear the necklace
(a labrys) with the “purple diamond,”or
the little bitty triangle earrings in her
favorite color.
Across the country, women’s music
festivals are a celebration of lesbian
culture and politics. They provide
valuable time and space apart
from the sexist and heterosexist
world, allowing lesbians and other
women to be ourselves openly and
honestly and express ourselves freely.
Discovering these women has helped
to relieve my sense of isolation by
connecting me with others who have
something in common, and also by
connecting me to a stronger sense of
my own self and the complex person
I am.
The lesbian community could serve
as a model for the church in the way
it struggles mightily to include the diversity
of all women, and nurtures us
all with attention to spirituality, creativity,
and politics, encouraging a
balanced and integrated life. While
the church preaches inclusivity, love,
and putting one’s faith into action, the
lesbian community brings those ideals
into reality, even if only for a few days.
By the time I leave I feel affirmed and
refreshed, encouraged and empowered.
I’ve been surrounded by a new
kind of beauty and strength, and I am
a better person for the experience.
Laurie Aude, (pictured with her husband,
Dan Gehring and daughter
Heidi) has an M.Div. from McCormick
Theological Seminary. She works as a reference
librarian and lives with her family
in Aurora, IL.
Parable of the Good Lesbian
Cultural and Political Bisexuality
Laurie Aude
18 Open Hands
Test Your “Bi-Q”
A Sexual Orientation Worksheet
Ben Roe
Explore your own sexual orientation
using this simple research instrument
that was developed by
Fritz Klein and others. It is a refinement
of the Kinsey Scale which ranked behavior
and “psychologic reactions” on
a scale from zero to six, with zero being
exclusively heterosexual, six being exclusively
homosexual, and three being
equally homosexual/heterosexual.1
Klein wanted to test his idea that
sexual orientation was a “dynamic,
multi-variable process,” so he developed
the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid.
He thought that an individual’s sexual
orientation was composed of sexual and
non-sexual variables which differed
over time.2 There are three variables
which directly describe the sexual self
(attraction, fantasy, and behavior), three
which describe aspects considered crucial
to the composition of sexual orientation
(emotional preference, social
preference, and heterosexual or homosexual
lifestyle), and also the variable
of self-identification.3
A. Sexual Attraction
In this grid, you will be choosing three
numbers from Scale 1, one for each of
three aspects of your life: your past, your
present, and your ideal. Beginning with
your past (up to a year ago), ask yourself
where you fit on this scale and select
the number that best describes you.
Write this number in the corresponding
box marked “past” on the line for
Variable A (Sexual Attraction) on the
grid. Then select a number that describes
your present sexual attraction
using the preceding year as the time
period you consider. For a number of
people it is the same number; for others
it is different. Write this number in
the box marked “present” on the line
This form can be used privately for your own reflection, with a partner, or in a group.You may make a copy of the grid with the
scales and explanatory text and then fill it out. Following the presentation of the instrument is a series of things to think about or
explore with a partner or in a group. (The following closely follows the Klein article, and is used by permission.)
for Variable A. Now ask yourself which number you would choose to be if it were a
matter of choice or will. Remember there are no right or wrong numbers. When you
finish writing this last number in the box marked Ideal for Variable A on the grid
you should have completed the three boxes for Variable A.
B. Sexual Behavior
Here we look at actual behavior as opposed to sexual attraction. With whom do you
have sex? Use Scale 1 to rate yourself. As with the previous scale, choose a number
for past, present, and ideal sexual behavior, then enter the numbers on the grid, this
time under Variable B.
C. Sexual Fantasies
The third variable is sexual fantasy. Whether they occur during masturbation, while
daydreaming, as part of our real lives or purely in our imaginations, fantasies provide
insight. Rate yourself from Scale 1, entering the numbers on the grid.
D. Emotional Preference
Our emotions directly influence, if not define, the actual physical act of love. Ask
yourself if you love and like only the opposite sex or if you are also emotionally
close to the same sex. Find out where you fit on the scale; rate yourself from Scale 1.
Enter the numbers on the grid.
Klein Sexual Orientation Grid
Variable Past Present Ideal
A. Sexual Attraction
B. Sexual Behavior
C. Sexual Fantasies
D. Emotional Preference
E. Social Preference
F. Self- Identification
G. Hetero/Gay Lifestyle
Scale 1:
Other Other Other Both Same Same Same
sex sex sex sexes sex sex sex
only mostly somewhat equally somewhat mostly only
more more
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Scale 2:
Hetero Hetero Hetero Hetero/ Gay Gay Gay
only mostly somewhat gay somewhat mostly only
more more
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Summer 1998 19
As you reflect on any fluidity in your
own ratings (or those shared with you),
consider how your particular self-identification
and self-understanding was
valid for you at each particular time of
your life. Also note how one’s community
of support (or lack thereof) can influence
one’s self-identification or
identity. Someone may identify as
homosexual or heterosexual, for example,
where there is no support for
being bisexual. Some may identify as
heterosexual where there is no support
for being bisexual or homosexual.
One of the main outcomes of using
this grid can be to illustrate that there
is not just one sexual orientation: heterosexual;
that there are not just two
sexual orientations, heterosexual and
homosexual; and even that there are not
just three sexual orientations, heterosexual,
homosexual and bisexual; but
indeed, a whole range of complex,
interacting, and fluid factors in our
sexuality.
Ben Roe was an educator
with Ministry in
Human Sexuality from
1981-1988 and taught
the human sexuality
class at a community
college in Lincoln, Nebraska,
for several years.
He is bisexual.
Notes
1Kinsey, Alfred C, Pomeroy, Wardell B., and
Martin, C. E. Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948).
2Klein, F, Barry Sepekoff, Timothy J. Wolf.
“Sexual Orientation: a Multi-Variable Dynamic
Process,” in Klein, Fritz and Timothy
J. Wolf, ed., Two Lives to Lead; Bisexuality
in Men and Women (New York: Harrington
Park Press, Inc., 1985), p. 38. (Also published
as Bisexualities: Theory and Research, by
Haworth Press, 1985.) (See also http://
www.bisexual.org/BiOptBook.html)
3Klein, p 46.
4Keppel, Bobbi, and Alan Hamilton, “Using
the Klein Scale to Teach about Sexual Orientation,”
brochure published by the Bisexual
Resource Center, P.O. Box 639,
Cambridge, MA 02140. (http://www.
biresource.org/klein_graph.html)
5Keppel and Hamilton, ibid.
Bobbi Keppel is a social worker who has used this grid in educational workshops.
She and Alan Hamilton write, “New concepts and new research offer opportunities
to change the way people understand and conceptualize sexual orientation.”4
They have found that using this type of exercise has helped people “to ask questions
and discuss sexual orientation more easily.” In their paper, they present the grid as a
set of scales which form a 3-dimensional stack of cards or block. (She also adds
“Political Identity,” “Physical Affection Preference,” and “Community Affiliation”
as additional scales, replacing “Hetero/Gay Lifestyle.”)
They write that it is helpful to start with an introduction of the Kinsey Scale as the
first opportunity to reconceptualize sexual orientation. The element of time is more
explicit in the Klein Grid, and the addition of the Ideal allows consideration of intention
and the future. Taking all of the scales or grid locations as a whole gives a
picture of one’s sexual orientation over time and can be helpful in discussing the
concept as well as “identifying commonalities and differences.”
If you are doing this exercise with a spouse, friend, or group, reflect on how your
“constellation” of ratings differs from that of the other(s). It will become clear that
even those who share the same self-identification differ in their makeup in interesting
ways. Similarities will also emerge, not only among those who share self-identifications
but among those who identify differently.
Keppel and Hamilton write, “Sexual identity (how people think of themselves)
sometimes has little to do with their sexual behavior. Three different people may
have the same distribution of sexual behavior in the past and/or present, but have
three different sexual identities: homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual.”5 Those who
identify as heterosexual may not have the exact same behavior, or those who identify
as bisexual may not have the same lifestyle, as another example.
Be observant of how people’s identity, behavior, or fantasies may change over
time. Research such as Klein’s plus the experience of many people show significant
fluidity in self-identification. Keppel and Hamilton observe,
Many people were sure that they would be, for instance, heterosexual all their
lives, but discovered later that they no longer were. It therefore behooves one
to treat others as one would like to be treated, regardless of one’s current
sexual identity, as one’s sexual identity may change.
(One hears an echo of Jesus in this statement.)
E. Social Preference
Though closely allied to emotional preference, social preference is often different.
You may love only women but spend most of your social life with men. Some people,
of all orientations, only socialize with their own sex, while others socialize with the
opposite gender exclusively. Where are you on the scale? Choose three numbers as
you have before from Scale 1, entering them on the grid.
F. Self-Identification
Your sexual self-definition is a strong variable since self-image strongly affects our
thoughts and actions. In several cases, a person’s present and past self-identification
differs markedly from their ideal. Choose three numbers on Scale 2 and fill in the
numbers on the grid.
G. Heterosexual/Homosexual Lifestyle
Some heterosexuals only have sex with the opposite sex but prefer to spend the
majority of their time with gay people. On the other hand, homosexual or bisexual
persons may prefer to live exclusively in the gay world, the heterosexual world, or
even to live in both worlds. Lifestyle is the seventh variable of sexual orientation.
Where do you tend to spend time and with whom? Choose three numbers from
Scale 2 as before and enter them on the grid.
20 Open Hands
Are You a Boy or a Girl?
When I was growing up, I
heard society telling me
what was normal for a girl,
and I knew I was out of synch. For one
thing, I had no idea how to “play
house.” In my young mind, that came
to epitomize my deficiency as a girl. I
finally screwed up my courage and
asked a friend to teach me how to play
house. She tried, and I pretended, but I
never really got it. It worried me. I tried
to hide my deficiency.
I have several male friends, on the
other hand, whose childhoods were
completely in synch with our culture’s
stereotype of girl. They loved to play
house, play dolls, dress up, put on make
up and nail polish, etc. As you can imagine,
their “deficiency” was more difficult
to hide, and they got a lot of namecalling
and disapproval.
Consider for a moment that our definitions
of girl and boy are created, that
gender is a construct, something humans
make up to explain and categorize
the world, to make it predictable.
The construct begins with identifying
something most people have in common—
distinctly male or female genitals.
But from the beginning, the construct
is difficult to maintain. Some people are
born with ambiguous genitals and/or
atypical chromosomes, making it difficult
for doctors and parents to “designate”
them. Often, to make such babies
conform to our bipolar construct of
sexual identity—everyone shall be male
or female—surgery is performed, and a
decision is made as to how the child
will be raised.
The construct is further challenged
because some children—with or without
this problematic beginning—just
don’t show up as typical for their gender.
For example, the child begins to
articulate very early that he is really a
girl or she is really a boy. Or the child is
simply more comfortable being or behaving
in ways that are considered typical
for the other.
Made in God’s Image
Re-Thinking Constructs of Gender and Orientation
Ann Thompson Cook
In either case, the child is more comfortable
being/doing what comes naturally,
but the family and public usually
are not. Parents get all kinds of advice
to do whatever is necessary to get such
kids to conform, to “act like a girl (boy)”
because otherwise, the child will be
maladapted, won’t be accepted, and
therefore won’t be happy.
So you can see how we completely
merge the concepts of gender—the physical
package a person has—and gender
role—what is acceptable behavior for
people with a particular package. First,
we require that everyone be either male
or female, despite variations at birth.
Second, we set about to teach everyone
how to be the right kind of male or
female. Once taught, we reward conformity
to gender role standards and punish
non-conformity. Just ask any little
boy who likes to play dress-up in high
heels and lipstick past the age of four,
or a girl who refuses to wear a dress to
her eighth grade graduation.
You can see that in order to keep the
reward-punishment system in place, we
have to know which gender someone is.
Recreating Our
Understanding of Gender
When my son, Nate, entered high
school, he played a game of confusing
people about whether he was a
boy or a girl. He had grown his wavy
auburn hair to shoulder length, and
was wearing several earrings and soft,
loose clothing. In the evening, he
would often report his experiences to
me with a twinkle in his eye. Most
people, it appeared, were so discomfited
by the ambiguity of his presentation
that they would finally come
up to him and ask or demand, “Are
you a boy or girl?” These were people
he didn’t know, with whom he had
no particular business or transaction
pending. He was even approached
with this question on the subway platform.
Why was it so important to know?
Well, if we can’t tell by looking which
genitals a person has, we won’t know
anything about them! We won’t know
how to treat them, and we certainly
won’t know what to expect of them,
what standards to hold them to.
As we acknowledge the preposterousness
of those agendas, the question
then emerges: Since we ourselves (humans)
invented the concept of gender
as two poles, what would happen if we
discarded it? What if instead, we invented
a concept of gender as a continuum
or as a series of intersecting
continua?
In her book, Apartheid of Sex, Martine
Rothblatt proposes to replace what she
terms sexual dimorphism with a “rainbow
lexicon of sexual continuity,” in
which individuals identify themselves
according to degrees of three elements
in their makeup: aggressive (yellow),
nourishing (blue), and erotic (red).1 For
example, a person who understands
himself to be nonaggressive, highly
nurturing and highly erotic would identify
himself in this lexicon as a deep
purple.
Over the Rainbow of
Gender Continuity
But if, as Rothblatt suggests, we recreated
gender as a continuum,
what would happen to our concept of
sexual orientation? Doesn’t it then become
problematic to talk about sexual
orientation based on bipolar notions of
“same” sex and “other/opposite” sex?
Consider the possibility that our
view of sexual orientation, like gender,
is also a simplistic reduction. To
know a person’s sexual orientation, as
currently understood, the only information
you need is the gender the
person is attracted to. But in real life,
gender tells us only what genital package
a person has, if that, yet many
more factors figure into our sexual
orientation.
Summer 1998 21
Try this experiment for a moment.
Close your eyes, and line up all the
people to whom you’ve ever—in your
whole life—been attracted. Slowly scan
them in your mind’s eye and look for
similarities. Because it’s automatic to
do so, you will probably notice first
whether your line-up is comprised of
all males or all females, or a combination.
But look beyond that.
You may notice that almost all of
them share certain characteristics. Pay
attention to patterns: their body build
(height, weight, muscularity, angles,
etc.), the quality and quantity of hair,
their temperament (shy, bold, funny,
analytical), the coloring of the skin and
hair, their interests (artistic, mechanical,
philosophical, people-loving, musical,
intellectual, hands-on). Also consider
Rothblatt’s three elements: degree
of aggressiveness, eroticism, and nurturing.
Do you find your lineup has a
lot of greens or browns or oranges?
I’ve found that most people do begin
to notice patterns. They see that
many of the people they’ve been drawn
to over the years have some combination
of distinguishing characteristics in
common—they may tend to be stocky
or natural comics or drama queens or
handy-persons or musical or shy and
cautious or…
For some people, of course, physical
package is a critical factor. We all
know people who are attracted
only to people with the same
genital package, and other
people who are attracted only
to people with the other
package. But for many
people, other characteristics
may actually be more important
than the particular
physical package.
So what we have here is
construct layered upon construct.
We start with bipolar
gender—male and female—
and then build a definition of
sexual orientation that leaves
out a lot of information that’s
important to most people.
The Gender Composition
of Couples
Now look even further. Once we see
that our old distinctions aren’t particularly
meaningful in giving us information
about who individuals are, or
whom they’re attracted to, it gets even
more complicated when we think about
couples. If you know what physical
package the two people have, what do
you know?
Does knowing the physical package
of the two people tell us what they like
to do together? Whether each person is
supported in pursuing their dreams?
Does it tell us how they handle disagreement?
Whether they will want to have
children? Whether they will grow to
love, or barely tolerate, each other’s
families? What being faithful means to
them? How they would care for each
other if one became injured or seriously
ill? How they will use whatever money
comes their way?
None of these. Consider, however,
that if we’re truly interested in creating
strong relationships, characterized by
love and support, these are critical questions.
Yet just as my attention was distracted,
as a young girl, to whether I was
being the right kind of girl, we are distracted
as a society from exploring these
questions. Why? Because our rigid focus
on gender role conformity has diverted
our attention, has blinded us.
Resisting Conformity to
this World
As a community of faith, we are fond
of saying that each of us is made
in the image of God, yet I and countless
others are sidetracked early in life
trying to re-make ourselves to some
other image, some human-designed
image. Those who can’t or won’t play
along are taunted, ostracized, often
either directly or indirectly killed off.
As a community of faith, we go along
with a system that re-makes people into
our own image of male and female,
rather than enjoying, appreciating, and
nurturing what God has placed in front
of us.
Consider the possibility that what
God wants more than anything is for
each of us to be fully who we are, for
each of us to develop our God-given talents
full-out and have that be our contribution
to the world.
What if, as faith communities, we
stopped assuming that we can design
God’s image better than God? What if
we emptied ourselves of our sex/gender
constructs and simply took in each
child, each person, as they are, and
looked for that of God in each of them?
And what if we took on supporting
and nurturing whatever love emerged
in our communities and laid aside the
question, “Is this kind of love okay?”
Perhaps then all our labels would disappear—
they would be of no further
value, no longer needed.
© 1998 Ann Thompson Cook, Insite
Ann Thompson Cook is the founding director
of Insite, which seeks to change the
public conversation about sexuality and
gender, particularly to empower parents to
be effective sex educators
of their children.
She was a key mover
behind Dumbarton
United Methodist
Church (Washington,
DC) becoming a Reconciling
Congregation
in 1987 and has served on the national
Reconciling Congregation Board.
Note
1Martine Rothblatt, The Apartheid of Sex: A
Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender ( NY:
Crown Publishers, 1995).
22 Open Hands
Following a failed suicide attempt, Dayna Clay, a young bisexual
woman suffering from major depression, takes off cross-country to
figure out whether or not her life is worth living. She picks up a
stranger, a woman name Shelly, who needs a lift to the nearest
town. Eventually the conversation leads to:
“You seein’ anyone? Romantically?” Shelly asked.
“I…I was.” Dayna was cautious. A particularly maudlin
country song was playing on the radio, as if in perverse
accompaniment. “We broke up recently.”
“How come?”
“It was my fault. I drove…” Dayna paused, wondering
how to proceed. A pronoun was needed: candor indicated
one, discretion another— but then, discretion had never been
her strong suit. “I drove her away. I got impatient, gave up,
started doing and saying things I knew would make her
want to leave me.” The song ended, replaced by a jarringly
loud supermarket commercial; Dayna turned the radio off.
“We weren’t…I don’t think we were in love. Maybe we
could’ve been, in time. Who knows?”
She looked over at her passenger, who was staring straight
ahead— and who had shifted a good three inches away.
“Jesus! Don’t freak, OK? You’re not even my type.”
Shelly looked at her. “I don’t see how you could get the
same feeling from another woman that I do from Jake.”
“I don’t. It’s different. Not better, not worse…”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve had boyfriends; I like guys. I’m attracted to women
and men; always have been.” Dayna smiled grimly. “I’ve
had twice as many opportunities for failure as other people,
and believe me, I’ve made the most of them.”
This seemed to put Shelly somewhat at ease. “How is it
different?”
“It’s hard to explain. These things don’t really lend themselves
to…”
“Try.”
Dayna thought for a moment. “With a guy it’s, you know,
a joining of opposites. So there’s this feeling of…completing
something. Each other, I guess. And when it’s right—when
he’s the right guy— that can be really powerful.”
Shelly nodded. “Yeah.”
“But with another woman it’s a joining of…well, not opposites,
but equals. A celebration of common ground. The
feeling’s more one of echoing each other…reinforcing each
other.” A string of images rose unbidden before her mind’s
eye— memories from a not-too-distant past that she was, as
yet, in no condition to revisit. Let it go, she told herself.
Forget her. Dayna forced herself to continue speaking. “So
Common Ground
Excerpts from Unplugged, A Novel in Process
Paul McComas
there’s a symmetry to it, a sense of balance, and a basic,
physical kinship that’s…” Her throat caught. “…that’s…”
“That’s what?”
She grabbed her sunglasses off the dash, slid them on
and pointed to the road sign up ahead. “That’s your exit.”
As week follows week in Dayna’s travels, the land teaches—
and heals— her in ways that challenge and surprise her…
While walking beneath a prairie cottonwood, she
glimpsed a flash of crimson fluttering down from above;
reaching up, Dayna surprised herself by actually catching
the leaf in mid-fall. Studying her prize, she pondered the
symmetry of nature. The leaf’s intricate network of veins
mirrored, in miniature, the branches from which it had
dropped—not to mention the other, unseen tributaries anchoring
the trunk to the earth below. The realization made
her gasp: the veins were the branches were the roots; from
high in the air to deep underground, the tree emphatically
asserted its treeness throughout. Here, she thought, was the
best evidence yet of a divine plan.
But how did she herself fit into that plan?
Dayna sat down on the ground and leaned back against
the trunk, turning the leaf over in her hand. She’d seen it a
hundred times in a hundred different ways: the land embraced
male and female in equal measure, engaging and
sustaining both sexes with an unerring— and unerringly
even-handed— devotion. And what, finally, was “God” if not
the life-growing, love-sewing spirit flowing through that
land: through bison and bighorn, pine tree and prairie grass,
mountain and canyon and— and Dayna as well?
Looking up, she saw the vista before her as if for the first
time. She’d just begun, really, to believe in a higher power.
But now, already, she understood what it meant— for her,
anyway— to have been made in that higher power’s image.
Any lingering trace of guilt connected to who she was and
whom she loved vanished the moment Dayna understood
that her Creator felt the very same way.
Paul McComas is a fiction writer who recently published a
book of short stories, Twenty Questions
(Fithian Press, P.O. Box 1525, Santa Barbara,
CA 93102). He and his wife, Chris,
an M.Div. student at Garrett Evangelical
Theological School, are both active members
of Garrett’s RCP advocacy group, Sacred
Worth, and of Wheadon United Methodist
Church, a Reconciling Congregation.
Summer 1998 MINISTRIES 23
CONNECTIONS
Enough Already:
Distractions To Justice
Mary E. Hunt
I am struck by the fact that in religious circles sexuality sticks
on our agenda like old food on a dirty plate when so many
more pressing issues need our attention. Witness: the recent
Methodist trial of a clergyman alleged to have presided at the
marriage of two lesbians. While a wise jury of his peers aquitted
him, most such cases do not have such happy outcomes. Besides,
is this kind of work the most pressing agenda for religious
groups when planetary survival, the well being of people
who are poor amid a robust economy, and the education of
children deprived of basics all beg attention? I think not.
There are three explanations for the current agenda. First,
to my mind, sexual ethics are dealt with by churches in micro
terms, when the injustices of our society are really macro
problems, because churches can’t handle the
big issues. Sexual issues are those
about which people can venture
opinions without really knowing
very much. It is easy to mouth platitudes
about fidelity and chastity,
marriage and singleness, sodomy and
celibacy without really being informed about the latest biological
and psychological findings. It is easy to sound smarter
in the pulpit than a talk show host (competition being what it
is) without having to take a course in contemporary sexology.
Heaven forfend, it is possible to counsel people about relationships
in pastoral settings with the most minimal preparation
and the most deeply rooted prejudices. Rather than seeing
sexuality in global economic and political terms, most
discussions in churches focus on sexuality in the most individualized
and privatized way. Sex has become a kind of cottage
industry in church circles. It is hard to imagine what
churches would do if this were not part of their portfolio—
indeed, if people looked to them for guidance on responsible
investing, how to stop sexual harassment, or what to do about
inequities in the job market.
A second reason why sexuality is so central is that few people
look to churches for moral guidance on much of anything
any more. Older Roman Catholics and Protestants remember
when bishops and pastors spoke and people listened—indeed,
when church officials had political clout, when their views
could influence war and peace and the market place. Unfortunately,
we need some moral guidance, though not from them,
as the stock market creates not the rich and the poor but the
invested and the divested, when the death penalty is applied
“liberally” even to women in a show of faux feminism in Texas
of late. Alas, professional, progressive religious voices seem to
have less and less volume, and even less influence.
Where are the religious leaders, Peter Steinfels asked in a
recent New York Times article on alleged presidential sexual
misconduct. Of course Mr. Steinfels focused his attention on
why religious leaders did or did not condemn the sexual matters,
finding most wanting in judgment. But I would ask, why
are religious leaders not setting a helpful example by passing
over the sexual issues as such and looking at the relationship
between consent and power which, regardless of the guilt or
innocence of President Clinton, needs to be discussed. Our
epidemic of clergy sexual abuse and the recent spate of teachers
and students carrying on might all be better constrained
with educational offerings. None are forthcoming. Why? Because
even the media has boxed religious leaders into the
sexual corner, inviting them like trained circus animals to respond
on cue to the most microscopic concerns when the
larger questions of justice go unanswered.
Those of us on the progressive end of things are equally
boxed in when, in our best efforts
to make change, we keep
the same dynamic in motion.
I do not mean to blame victims
here, or to suggest that
we abandon our efforts to
bring about sexual justice.
But I do mean to caution against the
very same problem that mainline churches have
when we become the Jane and Johnny One-Notes on matters
sexual. It is hard to avoid, but I think we fall into the trap
of a massive distraction from the larger justice agenda when
we limit our foci to a single issue. Again, I know that denomination
by denomination this has had to be the case or we
would have no progress on matters of ordination, covenants
and even proper burials for those who love in a same-sex
fashion.
I cannot help but wonder what price we have paid when it
comes to anti-racism, economic justice, rights for people who
live with disabilities, international solidarity and the myriad
issues which in the final analysis are deeply interwoven with
our sexualities. What colleagues have we offended along the
way, what opportunities have we overlooked because we have
all been so busy peering microscopically at sexuality that we
have missed other forms of suffering around us?
The third reason for the disproportionate emphasis is because
sexuality is finally, still and unfortunately, the purview
of women in our culture, and kyriarchal control is exercised
first and foremost over women. Despite decades of feminist,
womanist, mujerista and other progressive women-led theological
work, we are still in a situation where sex means women,
where pleasure is evil, and where equality is a distant dream.
One has only to read most glossy magazines, watch a little
MTV, shop in most stores and otherwise live in everyday globalized
culture to reach this conclusion. One has only to speak
with single women who are raising children on low or no
salaries, inquire of inner city teens, or look at the growing
number of women and dependent children being infected by
HIV/AIDS to realize how much sex is still gender-typed.
○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○
…Sexuality sticks on our agenda like old
food on a dirty plate when so many more
○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○
pressing issues need our attention.
24 MINISTRIES Open Hands
In the churches, matters of sexuality fall disproportionately
to women as if the women’s movements had never taken place.
With the possible exception of gay men upon whom so much
is projected, in virtually every other matter sexual it is women
who continue to carry the moral and ethical burden. For example,
where are the church programs urging vasectomies?
How often have you heard the word “vasectomy” from a pulpit
or discussed it in adult education settings? What if every
time we heard the A word for abortion we changed the topic
and said, “Let’s talk about the V word for a bit.” I predict that
suddenly sex would take on global proportions and practical
solutions would go up in the smoke of abstractions.
We have allowed the sexual agenda to rule in our churches
even in the name of changing things. Frankly, I have had
enough already as the expression goes, and
I think it is time to look afresh at what we
might construct as an ethical agenda for the
future that will do justice in the largest sense
of the word.
Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., feminist liberation
theologican and ethicist, is co-founder and codirector
of WATER, the Women’s Alliance for
Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary
this year. This article first appeared in the Spring, 1998
(Vol. 11, No. 1) issue of Waterwheel, WATER’s quarterly newsletter.
Both author and organization may be reached at 8035 13th
St., Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA; phone 301/589-2509; fax 301/
589-3150; E-mail: water@hers.com; Internet: http://www.hers.com/
water
LEADERSHIP
Never Retired from Justice
Edwin E. Reeves
I have been retired as a United Methodist minister so long
that I am not known to most active ministers and lay members.
I am 86 years old. My appointments have all been within
the California Pacific Annual Conference over a span of 50
years. I have served as District Superintendent and on boards
and agencies of the conference and national church. I am the
father of three children.
As a Boston University seminary student in 1936, I attended
General Conference and listened to the debate that ultimately
established the “Central Jurisdiction,” a segregated jurisdiction
for African-Americans nationwide. This indeed was a sad
experience for me. But, in 1964, I chaired our delegation to
General Conference. Our delegation unanimously favored
abolishing the Central Jurisdiction.
During the debate, there was vigorous opposition to integrating
annual conferences, particularly in the South. Nevertheless,
the conference voted to dissolve the Central Jurisdiction
and merge black and white annual conferences located
in the same geographic regions. I had the privilege of making
the motion that the pension rate for all African-American ministers
be brought up to the level of all other ministers residing
within the merging conferences. The same action was taken
regarding ministerial salaries. It was a great joy to be involved
in passing this legislation, which had taken 30 years to accomplish.
Just as I was actively involved in the civil rights debate,
especially as it related to our Methodist churches, I am as intensely
concerned about the debate on homosexuality.
Five years ago, on Palm Sunday, I became involved in an
Open and Affirming, as well as Reconciling Congregation. I
have a personal relationship with innumerable homosexual
Christians who have taught me so much about being loving
and inclusive. I covet this experience for us all. My own Christian
experience has been enriched: my personal relationship
with an inclusive, diverse, loving and Christ-centered community
has strengthened my faith. My concept of God has
grown immeasurably under the preaching and teaching of its
ministers and lay leaders.
Some of the testimonies of these new friends of how they
have been recipients of condemnation, hate, and discrimination
has given me a keen awareness of their pain and suffering.
William Sloane Coffin has said, “The problem is not how
to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that appear
to condemn it, but rather how to reconcile the rejection
and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.”1
Our condemnation by language in the Social Principles of the
United Methodist Church is an affront to all homosexual Christians.
Former Bishop Stanley Olson of the Pacific Southwest Synod
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America wrote an article
which has been widely circulated among clergy and lay
leaders in which he concludes, “The ELCA will eventually
change its teaching on the subject of homosexuality. Of that I
am confident. We are admitting the need to restudy the few
clouded verses of scripture that we have assumed were about
homosexuality. We will probably conclude that we have distorted
the Gospel with our preoccupation with sexuality, an
understandable error for heterosexuals.
“It will come too late! By the time we finally take a stand,
the field of science, the business community, and the society
around us will have settled the issue. We will be left trying to
extricate ourselves from entanglements with fundamentalists
and political extremists.”2
Pray God that in the year 2000, delegates to the General
Conference shall take us into the 21st century as a Reconciling
Church. I hope that I can live long enough to see it.
Edwin E. Reeves, a self-described “avid reader”
of Open Hands, participated in the recent debate
of the California-Pacific Conference to
become a Reconciling Conference. It did not—
yet. But it did adopt a compromise statement
of “welcome” to l/g/b persons.
Notes
1Quoted from “The Prophetic Fire of William Sloan Coffin,” Summer/
Fall 1992 issue of The Spire, an alumni/ae publication of
Vanderbilt University Divinity School.
2Bishop Stanley Olson, “Thoughts on a Sick Tree and Rotten Fruit.”
Summer 1998 MINISTRIES 25
CHILDREN
Children of God
and the
Big Lie
Timothy Tutt
I work in a profession that requires leadership, peacemaking
skills, and a strong faith foundation which guides me in modeling
the “golden” rules of unconditional love and respect for
myself and those whom I’m called to serve. I am not a pastor,
but a third-grade teacher (though similarities abound!).
One similarity between elementary teaching and Christian
ministry is the sense of fulfillment that can come from challenges.
Such was the case a couple of years ago when my class
amazed me by a response that has given me one of my favorite
teaching stories.
In the early months of 1996, the Des Moines Public School
District, where I’ve been “called” to serve, was embroiled in a
controversial quagmire. A district committee proposed curriculum
and resource lists on homosexuality and lesbian and
gay people that would help guide the district’s implementation
of its nondiscrimination policy, which had been amended
to include “sexual orientation” in 1990.
Some negative public reaction was anticipated, but the district
did not expect the vociferous expressions of ignorance,
fear, and anger that it received: lewd gestures and shouts of
rage made those who supported the recommendations fearful
for their safety. One school board member, who bravely came
out not only in support of the proposal but also as a gay man
ended up wearing a bullet-proof vest whenever he left home,
a direct response to death threats.
Across town in a small elementary school, a gay teacher (I
won’t mention my name here “in order to protect the innocent”)
was attempting to blot out those external pressures as
best he could by going about the daily routine of reading stories
to his third-graders after lunchtime recess. For those who
live and breathe church life, think of this time as a “reflective
reading” in the midst of a 6-hour sermon. Usually, this is a
time when students let their guard down as I read from what
I consider a “good book,” just as ministers use The Good Book.
The book I was reading aloud was The Big Lie, a children’s
book by Isabella Leitner. It is an autobiographical account of
a young woman’s struggle as she and her family were herded
to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp during World
War II. Reading stories about the Holocaust may seem heavy
for eight- and nine-year-olds who had just come from making
snow angels and snow people, yet reading this particular book
has become an annual rite of passage that not only sparks
interesting discussion, but opens young minds.
However, I was soon to have my mind opened a little more.
I facilitated a discussion on concentration camps. While
most students have no concept of such things, there are always
a few who know enough to get dialogue going. I mentioned
that while most people who were sent to the camps
were Jewish, others were sent as well. That winter of 1996,
while voices of hate, fear, and ignorance permeated our community,
I thought I’d supplement this annual discussion with
something new. I added “people that the Nazis thought were
lesbian or gay” to the end of the list of communities that Hitler
wanted to obliterate.
For a moment there was sheer silence.
Then Kelsey, a charming girl with whom all got along, angrily
blurted out, “What? You mean Hitler sent gay and lesbian
people, too? That is stupid! They can’t help it if they’re
gay!”
Now I was in sheer silence, totally absorbed by this eightyear-
old’s precociousness, while anxiously awaiting what
would happen next.
Suddenly, Sam, another charmer who was the class athlete
and leader that all my students admired, added, “Mr. Tutt,
that is really dumb! There are a lot of great people who are
gay, and this doesn’t make any sense!”
The rest of the class (as far as I could tell) roared their approval
of Kelsey and Sam’s words with a resounding “Yeah!”
That was followed by quite a bit of chatter among the students,
with a few of them mentioning uncles, aunts, neighbors,
and parent’s friends who were lesbian or gay.
Needless to say, I was so very proud of my class that I
thought my overly-swollen heart would simply burst out of
my chest.
Once I regained control of my class and my heart rate, I
mentioned that some people show hatred toward what they
do not understand or cannot change. Then, holding back tears
of pride and joy, I complimented them for doing just the opposite.
I prided them for learning a lesson that no textbook
can teach, and I told them that I was lucky to be their teacher.
Proverbs 19:25 says, “Children make themselves known
by their acts, by whether what they do is pure and right.”
My hope for those children is that they will mature with
not only those same thoughts of open-mindedness and compassion
that they shared on that cold, winter day, but that
their actions will continue to match.
And who knows? Maybe more of us children of God can
do the same as we continue to mature, too.
Timothy Tutt is a member of the Council for
the United Church of Christ Coalition for Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns.
He resides in Des Moines, Iowa, where he
teaches third grade and attends Plymouth Congregational
Church, an Open and Affirming
congregation.
“Unless you change and become like children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3
“Kids Say The Darndest Things.”
Bill Cosby’s TV program, attributed to Art Linkletter
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26 MINISTRIES Open Hands
WELCOMING PROCESS
As Maine Goes,
So Goes the Nation?
Margaret MacDonald & Dotty Kay Stillman
“We recognize, and welcome into our fellowship persons of all sexual
orientations, be they single, in committed partnerships, or families,
including those which are nuclear, blended and extended. We
affirm relationships and behavior based on mutual love, responsibility,
trust and loyalty.” (From the “Open and Affirming Statement”
of The Somesville Union Meeting House, United Church
of Christ, a small, 70-member church on Mount Desert Island,
Maine, and the first church of its denomination in Maine
to vote to become Open and Affirming)
The Open and Affirming movement in the Somesville
Church evolved out of a six-week study group on homophobia,
“Where Do We Go from Here?”1 which was led by our
minister, Rev. David C. Stillman, and an active lay woman
whose daughter is lesbian. At the completion of the study there
was a nucleus of eight interested participants who wanted to
continue to explore this issue, who subsequently asked for
the sponsorship of the church council to continue our education
with the future goal of voting as a church to become an
Open and Affirming congregation. As our statement later declared,
our congregation would be one that welcomes “all persons
of every race, age, marital standing, economic status, nationality
and sexual orientation into the full life and ministry of this
community of faith, including membership, leadership and employment.”
The council endorsed our goal, and we became the
Open and Affirming Task Group.
Realizing that this would be a significant faith journey for
most members of the congregation, we needed to find out
how they felt about becoming Open and Affirming before planning
any educational programs, so we could include their
questions and concerns. Everyone agreed that we already were
an open congregation and that all were welcome. But our study
had shown that there is a not-so-subtle difference between
the status of being open and that of being affirming of all people.
With this in mind, we showed and discussed the video “A
Journey of Faith”2 to church members on four different occasions.
We followed with several information-gathering meetings,
varying the day and time to reach as many people as
possible. A broad range of questions were raised at these sessions
which guided our planning.
We then designed a series of five panel discussions on the
following topics:
• Understanding Homosexuality – origins, including bisexuality
• Biblical References and Interpretations – plus Church attitudes
in history
• Homosexuals and the Law – civil rights; the referendum
proposed by Concerned Maine Families at that time; hate
crimes
• Why Do We Need to Do This? – personal experiences of
gays and lesbians
• Health Issues: Facts and Myths – mental health, depression,
suicide, substance abuse, AIDS
During the process we printed a newsletter— the Open and
Affirming Task Group Update—keeping the congregation informed,
announcing plans and programs to come, and reviewing
programs we had already held. In our final issue we included
“testimonies” from members of our congregation who
were willing to share their thoughts publicly regarding why
they would vote “yes.”
The next step was to write our “Open and Affirming Statement.”
The first draft was prepared after much discussion and
prayerful consideration by three task group members and our
minister. It was then reviewed by the entire task group and,
after some rewording and more discussion, the final draft was
presented to our church council. The statement received its
full endorsement, and we were ready to present it to the congregation.
This was done via a special edition of our task
group’s newsletter. We held two more open meetings for further
discussion which were attended by only a few.
During the last eight months of our program we were in
frequent communication with the United Church Coalition
for L/G/B/T Concerns for support and guidance, including a
draft of our statement sent for their comments, suggestions,
and ultimately, their endorsement.
Rev. Stillman preached on the subject on the first Sunday
in January. His sermon, entitled “On the Side of Love,” was
extremely well-received.
After nearly two years of study and soul-searching, our vote
took place at our annual meeting on January 28, 1996. Our
“Open and Affirming Statement” was accepted almost unanimously,
with only one dissenting vote. We were ecstatic!
Following that meeting, Rev. Stillman said, “This is one of
the most inspiring times in all my 21 years of parish ministry.
The process, which was truly a journey of faith, has been very
exciting to me, both as an observer and as a participant. It was
successful because, from the very beginning, it found its energy,
direction, and leadership from those who are at the very
center of the life of our congregation.”
Dotty Kay Stillman (left) and Margaret MacDonald (right) were
co-chairs of the church’s Open and Affirming Task Group. Dotty
Kay is church administrator and is active in “Maine Won’t Discriminate”
and the “Maine
SpeakOut Project.” She is also
the pastor’s wife. Margaret is
a professional educator and
counselor and was also coleader
of the original study
group on homophobia.
Notes
1Resource prepared by the ONA Task Team of the Massachusetts Conference
and available from UCCL/G/B/TC, c/o Rev. Ann B. Day, P.O.
Box 403, Holden, MA 01520.
2Copyright 1992, United Church Board for Homeland Ministries,
700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115-1100
Summer 1998 MINISTRIES 27
YOUTH
Youth Suicide and the
White Ribbon Campaign
Timothy Brown
In memory of the 23 l/g/b/t youth who committed suicide in North
America during the week that the 1997 UCC General Synod met
I recently became aware of the White Ribbon Campaign.
This campaign, similar to the red ribbons
worn for AIDS awareness, is to call attention to
suicides among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgendered youth. There is a suicide of a lesbian
or gay youth approximately every five hours
in the United States and Canada. I plan to wear a
white ribbon frequently, and hope you will consider
wearing one as well.
The story of 17-year-old Bill Clayton can be
found on the Internet1 at and is used here with
the permission of Gabi Clayton, Bill’s mother. Bill
came out to his family as bisexual at age 14. They
were relatively easy to tell, as his mother is a counselor.
He was accepted and loved by his family.
But he was not accepted by everyone. Bill was violently
assaulted in a hate crime in the spring of
1996; he committed suicide a few weeks later by
taking an overdose.
After the UCC General Synod, I
became aware of another
tragic story carried in the Press
and Sun Bulletin, Binghamton,
New York. A gay 17-year-old
ran away from home in Oconto,
Wisconsin, to Binghamton,
where a man lived whom he had
met in a telephone chat room. The
man was married, and when it became
apparent that the relationship was not going to work
out, Steve Hrabik committed suicide by jumping off the State
Street Bridge into the path of oncoming traffic on North Shore
Drive.
An article which ran on Easter Sunday in the Cleveland Plain
Dealer tells the story of 14-year-old Robbie, who committed
suicide Jan. 2, 1997 by shooting himself with his father’s gun.
He had made several attempts before and had run away to
Chicago once. His family had canceled his Internet account
after he ran up charges. He apparently met an adult on-line
who mailed him pornography. After his death, “God made
me this way,” was discovered written in one of his textbooks.
Many of you are aware of the debate which began nearly
two years ago at East High School in Salt Lake City over allowing
l/g/b/t student groups. This fight was led by Jacob Orozco.
I was sadden to learn of this 17-year-old’s suicide on Sept. 9,
1997. Was a support group too much to ask for?
There are many other stories, but you get the point without
further grief. The few I have told you have been of young
men, who statistically are three times more likely to commit
suicide than young lesbian women. But we are also tragically
losing young women for similar reasons.
As I contemplate each of these suicides, I wonder what the
role of various faith communities was, could have been, or
should have been. Why do l/g/b/t teens think that they have
to resort to the Internet or telephone chat rooms to make
connections into the l/g/b/t community? One probable reason
is that they know of nowhere else to turn. How
many of our church youth groups are safe spaces? At
youth group or other church events is there a place
for l/g/b/t youth to be themselves and invite their
dates? Where were our churches when these youth
were running away from home to nearby cities or faraway
states? Since most gay-bashers quote the church
to explain their actions, how might our faith communities
have saved the youth beaten while simply
walking along the street with two friends? Where will
life-saving support come from?
The lack of response to these situations makes me
furious. I hope others of you will become angry, too—
enough to take action, as I intend to do. So put on
your white ribbon and, when
asked, tell people what it’s
for. But don’t stop there. Talk
about these issues in your local
congregations. Organize
safe housing for runaways,
safe from predators. For
those of you who are l/g/
b/t: be out enough yourself
that you can be a
positive role model and provide
support for a struggling young person. Finally,
encourage your youth group, your local congregation,
and your regional church unit to offer workshops on
these issues.
Timothy Brown was officially installed on May 31, 1998, as a
Commissioned Minister of the United Church of Christ (a form of
lay ministry) at Community UCC in Boulder, Colorado, to work
with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
youth. This article originally appeared in the
Nov., 1997 issue of Waves, the newsletter of
the UCC Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Concerns. He may be contacted
at 1005 East Ninth Avenue, #102,
Broomfield, Colorado 80020; phone
303/439-2698; fax 303/438-1208; e-mail
Timothy_Brown@ceo.cudenver.edu
Note
1http://members.tripod.com/~claytoly/Bills_Story
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I hope others of you will become angry, too—
enough to take action, as I intend to do.
So put on your white ribbon and,
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when asked, tell people what it’s for.
Summer 1998 28
Chorus 1
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation1-itis!
You know it’s just as mean an ailment
As appendicitis!
Pills and surg’ry affect it not—
Only Grace requitest!
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Interlude
Um piddle2 piddle piddle, um piddle ay!
Um piddle piddle piddle, um piddle ay!
Verse 1
At our churchwide gathering,
A thought occurred to me,
A lot of right wing folk were talking
Quite judgmentally.
A diagnosis might help free them
Of their malady;
The first step is to name their ill
In order to be free:
Chorus 2
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Though we know with all their might
Those ill will try to fight us—
Working to cure this disease
Will certainly unite us!
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Interlude (See above)
Verse 2
Condemning all translesbigays:
A mean and vicious game,
A lot of finger-pointing and
A lot of nasty blame.
“Exclusive knowledge of God’s will”
The ailing people claim.
We’d better take our medicine,
Or we’ll end up the same.
Chorus 2
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Although opponents seem to feel
That God should surely smite us,
Their finger-pointing acts like
An attack of colonitis!
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Interlude (See above)
Verse 3
We won’t go unprotected, no,
Not catch THIS dread disease.
Our goal is to give THEM relief
And then a life of ease,
An end to their hypocrisy
And all their hits-and-run—
We’ll help them learn compassion now
So they can have some fun.
Chorus 3
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
You know it’s just as mean an ailment
As appendicitis;
Cure it, friends, so ne’er again
Will we have it to blight us:
Super-moral-legalistic-conformation-itis!
Sustaining
the Spirit
John Gregg, a retired Presbyterian pastor,
and his daughter, Beth, share a duplex in
Milwaukee. John is a leader of Semper
Reformanda, an agent for change in the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.). Beth provides home
care for a person with Alzheimer’s. And yes,
they’re both as fun as the song suggests!
Notes
1“Conformation” was originally “expiation.” “Procreation”
may also fit here.
2Here the word is used in the sense of “to work or
to act in a trifling, trivial, or petty way.”
From your editor: Okay, okay—the usual ways we sustain the spirit in Open Hands are serious.
But it is summer, and time for summer camp and summer fun. Beth Gregg and her dad John
have written just the thing to uplift our spirits. Originally written for the Presbyterians for Lesbian
& Gay Concerns celebration at the Presbyterian General Assembly this past June in Charlotte,
this song has been adapted with their permission for our readers. We can’t identify the
tune without paying megabucks for rights, but you should be able to figure it out. Since those
who own the tune are under fire from those under the spell of “super-moral-legalistic-conformation-
itis,” they might enjoy this version, too.
Summer 1998 29
Movement
News
Reconciling Congregations Number 150;
Record Growth in 1998
Thirteen United Methodist churches have publicly proclaimed
a message of welcome to all persons regardless of sexual orientation
so far in 1998, bringing the total number of Reconciling
Congregations nationwide to 150. “There has been a quickening
pace of churches and ministries becoming Reconciling in
1998—an average rate of three per month,” noted Reconciling
Congregation Program (RCP) executive director Mark Bowman,
“even as a loud clamor in some parts of the church is
calling for strict enforcement of United Methodist policies
which discriminate against lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons
and their families.” The new Reconciling Congregations include
the first in the states of Maine and Nebraska, as well as
the first in four regional United Methodist conferences— Central
Pennsylvania, Nebraska, North Central New York, and North
Texas. The RCP has recently received a $10,000 grant from the
Gill Foundation to support its work.
Three Lutheran Synods Become Reconciling
This June, three Synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America passed affirmations of welcome to gay and lesbian
believers. The Southern California-West, Southwestern Texas,
and Metropolitan New York Synods are the newest ones to
join the Reconciling in Christ Program. The RIC roster now
includes 13 synods, or 20% of the total of 65 synods. One
effect of these actions is that local congregations will be encouraged
to join the Reconciling movement as well.
MLCN and PLGC Approve Merger;
Spahr and Glaser Honored
While the Presbyterian General Assembly resisted any further
action on sexuality issues this past June in Charlotte, NC, the
membership of both the More Light Churches Network and
Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns voted to merge,
effective January 1, 1999. The new group will be called More
Light Presbyterians. The merger is seen by both groups as a
recommitment to the struggle to transform the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) into a true community of hospitality. Funds
have now been raised to match a challenge grant which will
enable the new group to employ a full-time staff person to
nurture the growth of More Light Churches and support networks
in areas of the country in which more visibility is needed.
During its Celebration at the annual Presbyterian gathering,
PLGC honored Chris Glaser, interim editor of Open Hands,
author, and founder of the Lazarus Project, and the Rev. Janie
Spahr, “lesbian evangelist” and founder of That All May Freely
Serve as well as Spectrum (formerly Ministry of Light), for their
more than twenty years of service to the g/l/b/t community
in the church. Both Chris and Janie gave moving speeches in
response to the question, “How has the decision of the church
to bar the ordination of gays and lesbians affected your life?”
ONA Churches Gather
With 244 churches now listed as Open and Affirming (ONA)
in the United Church of Christ, 4% of the denomination’s
6,100 churches now publicly and fully welcome l/g/b people.
During the national gathering of the UCC Coalition for L/G/
B/T Concerns in Chicago in late June, people from 51 of these
churches shared food for the body and soul at the annual ONA
dinner, hosted by First United Church of Oak Park, IL. All
churches which have joined this movement since July 1997
will be recognized at The Coalition Banquet at the UCC General
Synod (Providence, RI) in 1999.
Canadian Presbyterians Oust Church for
“Out” Minister
The Presbyterian Church in Canada expelled a congregation
at the end of June because it refused to fire its gay pastor. A
congregation of mostly older members, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian
Church in Lachine (near Montreal) voted to retain Darryl
Macdonald as worship leader and pastoral caregiver, despite
the denomination’s refusal to ordain him and the resulting
pressure over a three-year period to let him go or lose their
Presbyterian affiliation. Montreal Presbytery at first supported
the ordination of Macdonald, who said from the start that he
lived with a man. He is regarded by his parishioners as a compassionate
minister. Since the church’s sanctuary will be taken
from them, the congregation will now be forced to lease it.
Bishop Says Same-Gender Unions
Do Not Violate Church Law
In a May 14th letter distributed to clergy and lay leaders of the
California-Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist
Church, Bishop Melvin G. Talbert has declared that a pastor’s
celebration of a same-gender union does not violate church
law. The counsel comes in the wake of the trial of the Rev.
Jimmy Creech (see last issue under “Leadership”) in Nebraska
for performing such a ceremony. Talbert reminded United
Methodists that the church’s Social Principles “are not law”
but “are intended to be instructive.” Rev. Creech was not reappointed
by his bishop after being acquitted in his trial, and so
has chosen to take time away from parish ministry to do some
reflecting and writing. Two churches in the conference led by
Talbert have performed same-gender unions.
Bishop Tutu Calls WCC to Gay-Positive
Stance
Nobel peace prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Desmond
Tutu of South Africa has called for the next World Council of
Churches gathering to speak positively about lesbians and gay
men, according to an exclusive interview with the news service
ENI. The host country for the December assembly, Zimbabwe,
is led by President Robert Mugabe, who has denounced
homosexual people as unwelcome “pigs” and as a “Western
perversion” alien to Africans. Mugabe’s statements have been
supported by some Zimbabwean churches, according to Tutu.
Already one Dutch Protestant church has said it will not attend
because of Mugabe’s remarks. “It is a matter of ordinary
justice,” ENI reported Tutu as saying.
30 Open Hands
Welcoming
Communities
Rainbow Flags At Lutheran Headquarters
The first “Gay, Lesbian, and Straight People Working Together
Week” was held at the churchwide offices of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America in June. Rainbow flags adorned
posters on each floor of the 11-story building in Chicago announcing
the week to employees. It was sponsored by the ELCA
Interunit Staff Team on Diversity, a group whose charter includes
sexual orientation as well as racial, ethnic and gender
diversity. The activities were planned to celebrate the gifts of
gay and lesbian people in the church, educate staff on the history
of lesbian and gay people, and demonstrate that the center
is a welcoming place. Speakers included Bob Gibeling, Program
Executive for Lutherans Concerned/North America,
parents and spouses of gay people, and members of Reconciling
in Christ congregations.
Millenium March on Washington
Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan
Community Churches, and Elizabeth Birch, executive
director of the Human Rights Campaign, have announced
plans to hold another March on Washington, this
time on April 30 in the year 2000. Initially the plan was
criticized for not emanating from either the grass roots or
even a coalition of leadership, but more individuals and
organizations are endorsing this fourth march on the
nation’s capital, including minority groups. Because of the
lack of religious speakers at prior events, religious groups
are pushing to be better represented at this one. And because
of extremely lengthy delays for contingents awaiting
their place in the last march, the primary event may take
the shape of a rally on the capitol mall. Intermediate “Equality
Begins at Home” actions in all 50 state capitals will be
planned for 1999, organizers say. For further information,
call the March on Washington at 818/891-1748 or e-mail
MMOW2000@aol.com
Global Gathering of Anglican Bishops
Wrangles Over Homosexuality
Religion New Service has reported that there’s little chance of
agreement on homosexuality among the 750 Anglican bishops
gathered for the historic, once-per-decade Lambeth Conference
in Canterbury, England in July. Bishop Duncan
Buchanan of Johannesburg, South Africa, chair of a study panel
on human sexuality, told reporter Robert Nowell that he was
“pretty shocked and traumatized” by expressions of anger by
those opposed to ordination of gays and lesbians. Two-thirds
of his sixty-member panel rejected hearing from openly gay
and lesbian priests and members. The opposition was led largely
by African and Asian bishops. One African bishop called homosexuality
“the white disease” and another suggested that
next they’d be hearing from those who practice child abuse
and bestiality. The UK’s Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement
distributed rainbow ribbons for participants to show support.
Bishop Richard Holloway, primus of the Scottish Episcopal
Church, defended gay people by declaring, “In Christ there
are no outcasts.”
More Churches Declare Welcoming Stance
Erratum: In the annual listing of welcoming congregations in the
Winter issue, Family of Christ Presbyterian Church in Greeley, Colorado,
was mistakenly identified as Family of Christ United.
OPEN AND AFFIRMING
Plymouth United Church of Christ
Syracuse, NY
This downtown church of 300 members is Open
and Affirming, a Just Peace congregation, and a Sanctuary
church which provided safety for Central Americans fleeing
to this country. It carries out its “building ministry” by making
its facility available to numerous community groups seeking
meeting space. The congregation’s local and global mission
projects include: a food pantry, Heifer Project, and support
for two missionaries in Nigeria. The congregation is currently
in a search process for a long-term interim pastor. Their former
pastor (of seventeen years) is now retracing the path of slavery
on the year-long walk, Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle
Passage.
Friends Congregational Church, UCC
College Station, TX
The 175 members of this church are drawn from throughout
the community around Texas A&M University. With many
members in their 40s, a growing youth presence, and lot of
babies, the church is a lively and hopeful place. Members are
currently considering these mission objectives for the next few
years: education on non-violence, ministry with diverse families,
and continuing ministry to marginalized persons, including
those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. The
church helps sponsor g/l/b/t campus programs and provides
meeting space for the local PFLAG chapter.
RECONCILING CONGREGATIONS
Christ United Methodist Church
Columbia, Maryland
Christ UMC was founded in 1975 in the growing “planned community”
of Columbia, Maryland. After ten years of meeting
in different places in the area, the congregation planned and
built an interfaith center with a Unitarian congregation. Discussion
about becoming a Reconciling Congregation began in
the fall of 1995. Being a multi-racial congregation set the context
for considering inclusion of gay and lesbian persons. After
two years of study and dialogue, the congregation officially
declared itself a Reconciling Congregation. Significant membership
growth in recent years has brought the congregation
to almost 200 members.
Summer 1998 31
First United Methodist Church
Campbell, California
First UMC Campbell was founded 110 years ago in the midst
of vast orchards and now finds itself in the heart of the Silicon
Valley. This 900-member, middle-class congregation has a history
of active service. First UMC initiated what is now a community
wide CROP Walk and has sponsored refugees, held
English as a Second Language classes, supported missionaries
and participated in the development of Wesley Towers, a 12-
story housing complex for elderly and disabled persons. First
UMC members participate in food distribution programs and
address affordable housing issues. The church has an extensive
ministry with children, a strong music program, and supports
a new Christian fellowship developing in the Salinas
area. The church has always prided itself on being an open
congregation, providing the impetus for becoming a Reconciling
Congregation and continuing its efforts to become more
reflective of the ethnic diversity of its community.
RECONCILING IN CHRIST
Gift of Grace Lutheran Church
Seattle, Washington
Gift of Grace Lutheran Church is a warm congregation
with a sense of humor, firm dedication to evangelical
outreach to the unchurched, and commitment to worship as
an authentic celebration. The Bible as it reveals Jesus as Lord
is the basis for the church’s thought, and all opinions are welcomed
and encouraged. Church members value self-expression
through the arts. They believe that human beings are
defined by God’s Word, which calls them as precious children—
not by sexual orientation, level of self-esteem, or religious
beliefs.
University Lutheran Church of Hope
Minneapolis, Minnesota
University Lutheran Church of Hope is an urban congregation
of 1200 members. Its mission statement says: “The people
of Hope are a Christian congregation receiving and sharing
the gospel with open hearts, open hands, and open doors.”
Hope adopted an Affirmation of Welcome in 1990 and, after
intensive discussion, has now clarified that welcome in relation
to the Reconciling in Christ program. In keeping with its
broad interest in issues of social justice, Hope is currently hosting
the Twin Cities joint synod task force’s program for families
and friends of gay and lesbian people, entitled “Caring
Families and Friends.” The group meets monthly for support
and inspirational speakers.
OPEN AND AFFIRMING MINISTRIES
Bethany Christian United Parish
Worcester, Massachusetts
During their annual meeting in May, 1998, Bethany
Christian United Parish voted to become Open and Affirming,
believing that all people are always welcome. A 1988 merger of
three congregations from three denominations—American
Baptist, Disciples of Christ, and the United Church of Christ—
the parish has worked to create an inclusive and diverse community.
Baptisms, confirmations, infant dedications, and Communion
are shared in the midst of denominational diversity.
Lively intergenerational worship is celebrated, with many warm
friendships developing between children and senior citizens.
Youths are recognized as equal members, serving on committees
and serving communion, and helped guide the parish in
its process of becoming Open and Affirming. Lesbians or family
members of gays and lesbians have recently joined. Rev.
Cynthia Maybeck celebrated a commitment ceremony with
her partner, Elaine Fadden, in 1995, and the church’s leaders
supported her and provided leadership in the congregational
discussion that followed. She writes, “Today Bethany Christian
offers other gay and lesbian people the same warm welcome
and love which Elaine and I have received.”
WELCOMING CHURCH LISTS AVAILABLE
The complete ecumenical list of welcoming churches is
printed in the winter issue of Open Hands each year. For a
more up-to-date list of your particular denomination, contact
the appropriate program listed on page 3.
BISEXUAL
RESOURCE
GUIDE
New 1999-2000 edition now available.
Full of useful information: articles, listings of groups
in 30+ countries, Internet resources, film guide,
bibliography, merchandise, and lots of other information.
This is THE place to begin.
To order: $11.95 (US) to: BRC, PO Box 639,
Cambridge MA 02140, USA
32 Open Hands
QTY BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE
___ Be Ye Reconciled (Summer 1985)
___ A Matter of Justice (Winter 1986)
___ Our Families (Spring 1986)
___ Our Churches’ Policies (Summer 1986)
___ Images of Healing (Fall 1986)
___ Minorities within a Minority (Spring 1987)
___ Sexual Violence (Fall 1987)
___ Building Reconciling Ministries (Spring 1988)
___ Living and Loving with AIDS (Summer 1988)
___ Lesbian & Gay Men in the Religious Arts (Spring 1989)
___ The Closet Dilemma (Summer 1989)
___ Images of Family (Fall 1989)
___ Journeys toward Recovery and Wholeness (Spring 1990)
___ The “Holy Union” Controversy (Fall 1990)
___ Youth and Sexual Identity (Winter 1991)
___ Lesbian/Gay Reflections on Theology (Spring 1991)
___ The Lesbian Spirit (Summer 1991)
___ Our Spirituality: How Sexual Expression and Oppression
Shape It (Summer 1992)
___ Aging and Integrity (Fall 1992)
___ Reclaiming Pride (Summer 1994)
___ The God to Whom We Pray (Spring 1995)
___ Remembering…10th Anniversary (Summer 1995)
___ Untangling Prejudice and Privilege (Fall 1995)
___ Same-Sex Unions (Spring 1997)
___ Creating Sanctuary: All Youth Welcome Here! (Summer 1997)
___ From One Womb at One Table (Fall 1997)
___ We’re Welcoming, Now What? (Winter 1998)
___ Treasure in Earthen Vessels—Sexual Ethics (Spring 1998)
❑ Please send me the back issues indicated ($6 each; 10+ @ $4).
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Send to: Open Hands, 3801 N. Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641
Phone: 773/736-5526 Fax: 773/736-5475
Published by the Reconciling Congregation
Program in conjunction
with More Light, Open and Affirming,
Reconciling in Christ, and Welcoming
& Affirming Baptist programs.
A Unique Resource on
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual
Concerns in the Church for
Christian Education • Personal Reading
Research Projects • Worship Resources
Ministry & Outreach
Selected Resources
With thanks to Robyn Ochs of the Bisexual Resource Center (Cambridge,
MA) and to Ben Roe.
CHURCH & FAITH:
Coming Out While Staying In: Struggles and Celebrations of Lesbians,
Gays, and Bisexuals in the Church by Leanne McCall Tigert.
Cleveland: United Church Press, 1996.
Discovering Images of God; Narratives of Care Among Lesbians and
Gays by Larry Kent Graham. Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 1997.
We Were Baptized Too; Claiming God’s Grace for Lesbians and Gays
by Marilyn Alexander and James Preston. Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Whee! We, Wee, All the Way Home; A Guide to a Sensual, Prophetic
Spirituality by Matthew Fox. Santa Fe: Bear & Co., 1981.
Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing: Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay
People Within Organized Religion by Gary David Comstock.
NY: Continuum, 1996.
BISEXUAL REALITY:
Barry and Alice; Portrait of a Bisexual Marriage by Barry Kohn
and Alice Matusow. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1980.
Bi Any Other Name: Bisexuals Speak Out, ed. by Loraine Hutchins
& Lani Kaahumanu. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1991. 75
essays.
Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS: A Global Perspective, ed. by Rob
Tielman, et al. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991.
Bisexuality: The Psychology and Politics of an Invisible Minority,
ed. by Beth A. Firestein. Newbury Park CA: Sage Publications,
1996.
Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions, ed. by Naomi
Tucker et al. Binghamton NY: The Haworth Press, Inc. (Order:
1-800/342-9678)
Bisexual Resource Guide by Robyn Ochs. (US$11.95, postage paid)
BRC, PO Box 639, Cambridge MA 02140. Books, films, groups,
merchandise, etc.
Closer to Home: Bisexuality & Feminism, ed. by Elizabeth Reba
Weise. Seattle: Seal Press, 1992.
Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality, ed. by Martin S.
Weinberg, et al. NY: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity, ed. by Warren J.
Blumenfeld. Human Sciences Press, 233 Spring Street, New
York NY 10013. Quarterly. Annual subscription: $35/individual,
$110/ institutional.
Plural Desires: Writing Bisexual Women’s Realities, ed. by Leela
Acharya, et al. Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1995. Canadian/
U.S. anthology.
Two Lives to Lead: Bisexuality in Men and Women by Fritz Klein
and Timothy J. Wolf. NY: Harrington Park, 1985.
Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life by
Marjorie Garber. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Literature
and culture.