Open Hands Vol 4 No 3 - Sexual Ethics: Exploring the Questions

Open Hands Vol 4 No 3 - Sexual Ethics: Exploring the Questions

4

3

1989

Winter

U
l s y our heart true to my heart as mine is to yours? .. /f it is, give me y our hand (( 2 Kings 10: 15 PCl9f 4 Winter 1989 Vol. 4 e No.3 Journal ofthe Reconciling Congregation Program Myths of Mono9anl)' by Rebecca PaT~ PCl9f 7 Lesbian & Gay Mafe Perspectives by Mary E. Hunt & Morris L. Royc! PCl9es 10 13
Vol.
4· No. 3· Winter 1989
O pen Hands is published by Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc., as a resource for the Reconciling Congregation Program. It addresses concerns of lesbians and gay men as they relate to the ministry of the church.
The Reconciling Congregation Program is a network of United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministry with the whole family of God and who welcome lesbians and gay men into their community. In this network, Reconciling Congregations find strength and support as they strive to overcome the divisions caused by prejudice and homophobia in our church and in our society. Together these congregations offer hope that the church can be a reconciled community.
To enable local churches to engage in these ministries, the program provides resource materials , including Open Hands. Resource persons are available locally to assist a congregation that is seeking to become a Reconciling Congregation.
Information about the program can be obtained by writing:
Reconciling congregation~ Program
P.O. Box 24213 Nashville, TN 37202
Reconciling Congregation Program
Coordinators
Mark Bowman Beth Richardson
Open Hands Co-Editors
M. Burrill Bradley Rymph
This Issue's Coordinators
Joanne Brown J. Benjamin Roe
Typesetting and Graphic Design Linda Coffin Leanne Poteet
Note to advertisers: Beginning with the Summer 1989 issue, Open Hands will accept paid advertising. For rate information, write to Open Hands or call : 202/8631586.
Open Hands (formerly Manna for the Journey) is published four times a year. Subscription is $12 for four issues ($16 outside the U.S.A.!. Single copies are available for $4 each; quantities of 10 or more are $3 each. Permission to reprint is granted upon request. Repri nts of certain articles are available as indicated in the issue. Subscriptions and correspondence should be sent to:
Open H.mds
P.O. Box 23636
Washington, DC 20026
Copyright 1989 by Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc.
Member of The Associated Church Press.
ISSN 0888-8833
Open Hands
Contents
3 4 7 10 11 14
15
19 20
22
Introduci.f19 Tliis Issue Joanne Brown andJ. Benjamin Roe
~"aCi:9' andsalvation
TexSampfe
Myths ofMono9anry Rebecca Parker
sexual Ethics: A Lesbian Perspective Mary E. Hunt
sexual Ethics: A Gay Mafe Perspective Morris L. Ffoyd
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT IfLitany ofSupportive Communi1J" Joanne Brown
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
IfStrivi"9 Towardwhofemss"
Peggy R. Gayford
IfRiski"9 Intimacy"
Jan Orson
IfDevelopi"9 the Christ W ithin"
Rafpft Wi[[iams
RESOURCES
SPECIAL REPORT Cfotu( ofWitnesses: Tlie 32nd General Councif of the United Church ofcanada barb m. janes
RCPREPORT
NEXT ISSUE'S THEME:
Les6ians and Gay Men in the ReCi9ious A rts
2
· Th· I
I ntroduClng IS ssue
Sexual ethics: a tremendously
complex topic and, for Christians, one interrelated to every other aspect of faith -how we look at God and creation, Christ and salvation, forgiveness, justice, and human nature. As theologian James Nelson argues, it is a twoway street: how we understand God influences the way we understand human sexuality, and our experience of sexuality influences our understanding of God and Christ. I
Sexual ethics is a multifaceted subject, difficult to do justice to in 24 pages. Nevertheless , it demands examination. Serious reflection on sexual ethics inclusive of the experience and faith of lesbians and gay men has often been muted or missing. Indeed, serious reflection on sexual ethics of any sort is too often avoided by or kept from concerned Christians, both laity and clergy.
Sexual ethics is also an intimidating topic. Part of the reason may be that it attempts to deal with head, heart, and self, as well as principles and values. In addition, sexual ethics is often seen too narrowly, as a list of "do's" and "don'ts" handed down without consideration, that reflect only sexual morality or sexual mores isolated from the rest of theology. Discussion of sexual ethics too often centers on the acts done by, to, and with certain organs and too often ignores the context of the acts in the relationship between the persons. The subject is too often divorced from knowledge of the complexity of human sexuality as it is experienced by real human beings in "the real world."
In a book on philosophical ethics, William Frankena writes, "Very often when one is puzzled about what he[/she] or someone else should do in a certain situation, what one needs is not really any ethical instruction, but simply either more factual knowledge or greater conceptual clarity.,,2 Indeed, the first step in most decision-making processes, once a problem is clarified, is information gathering.
We suspect that most denominations are where they are in discussions of homosexuality partly because of a general lack of knowledge of human sexuality itself and partly because of the ways that sexual behavior is fragmented from its sources: individual meanings, personality and sexual identity issues, relationship dynamics.
Another factor not often overtly acknowledged in denominational debates is developmental: different persons are at different stages of their personal, faith, and moral development. One significant consequence is that people use different methods and reach different conclusions because of their different developmental stages. And these stages usually do not make much sense to those who have not yet experienced them.
Each person's unique set of experiences of sexuality influences his or her ethical stances and conclusions to a profound degree. Mix this with dynamics of the stages of personality development, and sexuality becomes very complex indeed. For instance, according to some personality theories, unconscious "defense mechanisms" (like repression or projection) operate so strongly that it becomes nearly impossible to deal with some sexuality (and other) issues, most especially those tied painfully and sometimes unconsciously to one's experiences. People who have experienced the effects of gender-role stereotyping, homophobia, or traumatic events such as sexual abuse will be shaped by those experiences. This will be expressed in their ethical stances.
This issue of Open Hands is presented in the hope that it encourages consideration of an approach to sexual ethics that is informed by the broader per-
Joanne Brown
J. Benjamin Roe
spective of faith, an appreciation of sexuality as a basic part of identity and personality, and a more general context of justice and social concern issues. Sexual ethics is approached here from a holistic perspective, not concentrating just on gay/lesbian/bisexual issues but using them as illustrative of sexuality in a broader context.
As persons of faith, we are responsible for our individual actions, and we cannot escape this responsibility simply by appealing to, or relying on, statements from academic or clergy sources. Taking responsibility for developing our own sets of ethical principles can be scary and difficult, but it can also be liberating. It involves struggle with developing the strength, the principles, and the courage to claim one's own power to be a "responsible self' in one's sexual life.
Ultimately, of course, coming to a sense of one's own independently chosen ethic is an important step along the journey for all people of faith. It will not be the same for everyone; we each have our own appropriate time line of development. The various writers in this issue outline ways that they and others have struggled, reflected, chosen, acted. We hope their sharing can serve to stimulate your own reflection and sharing .•
Notes
1. James Nelson, Embodiment: An Approach to SexuaLity and Christian Theology
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978), p. 14-15.
2. William Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. II.
Joanne Brown is professor of church history and ecumenics at SI. Andrews College in Saska(()vll. Saskatchewan .
J. Benjamin Roe is a United Methodist minister and pastoral psychotherapist living in Denver.
Open Hands 3
sexuaCii)' and Saevation
6y Tex SampCe
I f one were to ask the "average Christian" today how
sexuality relates to salvation, the questioner might be met with a blank stare. If a response was forthcoming, it might be that to be "saved" a person must limit him-or herself to monogamous sex inside of legally recognized male/female marriage. Another, slightly different response might be that, if a person is saved , he or she will abstain from all sexual behavior outside traditional moral bounds. With either answer, salvation would be linked with traditionally perceived moral law.
This is unfortunate. Not because sexuality and salvation have nothing to do with each other, for they are deeply related. But because the word salvation, as it is frequently used today, has lost so much of its biblical meaning. In both Old and New Testament times, salvation was closely related to liberation, not to legalism. Once this is understood, it is possible to see more clearly what salvation means today with regard to human sexuality.
Salvation
In the Hebrew scriptures, the word for salvation connotes "broadening" or "enlarging." It has the sense of roominess, of a wide and open space in which life in community can occur. Such "space" usually comes with God's help (Ex. 14: 13-14, 30; 15:2; 1 Sam. 7:8; 2 Sam. 22:28; 1 Chron. 16:35). To save, then, is to recover spaciousness, prosperity, well being, freedom.
Salvation also takes on the meaning of deliverance in that God delivers people from conflict, oppression, and want (Ex. 3; Isa. 49:25-26, 52:6-10, 55:1-5; Jer. 31:31-34; Eze. 36:22-32, 37:23-28). The reign of God as such is not an Old Testament teaching; nevertheless, the rule of God is the purpose of such deliverance. Salvation, thus, has a profound liberative sense.
In the New Testament, the Greek root meaning of salvation is to "rescue" or "save," and, in the synoptic teachings of Jesus, salvation is the end-time rule of God. Indeed, in Jesus the reign of God has come, and Jesus is the foretaste of its fulfillment. He rescues and saves. The gospels are replete with stories of Jesus' deliverance of people from all kinds of bondage physical, spiritual, psychic, demonic , and cosmic -to health and wholeness (Mk. 1:40-45; Lk. 7:50; In. 12:3-7). Salvation is being restored to fullness of life in relationship to God, to self, to others, and to the world.
The death and resurrection of Jesus are central to understanding salvation in the New Testament. In his death, Jesus is the gift of God's reconciliation, bringing regeneration and new relationship to God. In Jesus' death and resurrection, the whole world has been saved and has also been delivered from the wrath and judgment yet to come (I Thess. 1 :9-10).
The biblical concept of salvation thus involves a highly specialized understanding of history. With the coming of Christ
Open Hands
also comes the establishment of God's eschatological reign and the advent of a new age. Humanity now lives "between the times" of Christ's coming and of the fulfillment of the creation. This is a time to cast out demons, to proclaim salvation, to live faithfully in caring community, and to reach out in acts of justice and service to the world God loves.
Salvation, therefore, has a past, present, and future sense. In that Christ has come, the world has been saved; as the Spirit abides in the world, the world is being saved; and, as the world awaits its final consummation, the world will be saved. This biblical view of salvation has at least two implications for understanding how salvation relates to human behavior, including sexuality: (a) meaning and significance are given to the concrete work we do in the present; and (b) liberative and salvific events occur here and now, and we participate in them. When we work towards the liberation of ourselves and others from modem slaveries, we become part of God's ongoing process of salvation.
Moreover, salvation in the New Testament encompasses the whole cosmos. It is not merely individualistic; rather, the whole creation groans in travail in anticipation of ultimate completion. The affirmation of Ephesians is that all things, things in heaven and things on earth, shall be made one in Christ. In John's gospel, the world is a place of bondage, illusion, and death to which Christ as savior offers freedom, truth, and life eternal, because, despite the world's terribly mixed state, it is the world that God loves.
Thus, a biblically informed view of salvation means spaciousness, freedom, deliverance, liberation, the establishment of a new age in which we are free to respond to an emancipative God in a history that has meaning and purpose and which is not lost in futility, emptiness, bondage, and death. Salvation means health and wholeness and concerns both nature and history, earthly and cosmic reality in an ongoing process, the end of which is the consummation of the whole creation. I
I
4
Sexuality
As we relate this biblical view of salvation to our experience of sexuality, we note, first of all, that some aspects of our sexual experience cry out for salvation. In fact, I suggest three historical phenomena that enslave, rather than liberate, our sexuality.
Sexism
One enslavement of sexuality is sexism. Beverly Harrison has argued, rightly, that "social control of women as a group has totally shaped our deepest and most basic attitudes toward sexuality.,,2 The enormity of the impact of sex-role socialization on male and female, the con strictures of the economy and the political order, the deep-rooted cultural definitions and structuring of gender life, the often hidden violence and coercive psychological control, the rampantly increasing relation of women and poverty, the dependence on men for financial and social security: all these and more sketch the outlines of sexism and its pervasive control and degradation.
As the result of sexism, sexuality's varied meanings are twisted and contorted in subterfuge, coercive control, and systemic manipulation. The rich potential for an authentic human sexuality is stifled with oppressive ideology, power inequities, and intimacy avoidance. Male sexual expression is too exclusively genital and otherwise detached, and intimacy is among the first victims. For women, their sexuality and its distinctive manifestations are buried in a hegemony that renders all sexuality as male sexuality (and that in a tradition of hostility and control).
H eterosexism
A second form of enslavement -compulsory heterosexuality -is perhaps the most powerful and deeply embedded systemic constraint on human sexuality. Institutionalized, it is a highly sanctioned power order replete with penalties, legal and informal, that are so pervasive that they are a form of oppression. For millions of lesbians and gay men, heterosexism means "life in the closet" and the burden of living a double life. For those who "come out," heterosexism can mean a continuing maze of blocked pathways, economic and otherwise. To be gay or lesbian too often means to inhabit a world of pain caused by stifled opportunities, sundered relationships, and obstruction of the human capacity to be, to become, and to belong.
Heterosexism's relationship to sexism and misogyny seems clear. James Nelson maintains that homophobia is directed toward both men and women in our culture, but "clearly the stronger [fears] are directed by males toward male homosexuality." He suggests reasons for why this is so:
(a)
A gay man embodies to a heterosexual man the symbol of a woman because the submission of a male to be penetrated and to be the passive partner is to submit to womanization.
(b)
A gay man has the "capacity to view me [another man] not primarily as a person, but rather as a sex object, a desired body,,3 -the way straight men typically regard women. This often unconscious dynamic, which places males in the role of sex objects as women are, is psychically threatening.
(c) The socialization of men to relate to equals (i.e., other men) competitively is threatened by gay men because they express affection and love to other men and thereby represent and symbolize what is prohibited for those who are heterosexual.4
In the situation of lesbians, Mary Daly, among others, has pointed out that they are viewed with such fear because they are "undomesticated," no longer under the rule of the father, no longer under the control of men. 5 Related to this are Adrienne Rich's view that men basically fear the indifference of women to them6 and James Nelson's point that men have "performance anxiety," living always with the threat of impotence. Each explanation suggests a male temptation to express a deep. irrational hostility toward one perceived as indifferent who symbolizes performance failure. Lesbians, in a heterosexist world, can readily be made symbolic targets of repressed and projected fear and hostility.
Hostility
Finally, sexuality is enslaved by hostility. Alfred Kinsey's report in 1948 observed that the physiological pattern most closely parallel to male sexual excitement was anger. Studies now indicate that anger and hostility are pervasive in male sexual excitement. 7 The history of this hostility is his story. Having grown up in a "stud culture," my mind is littered with comments about sexual intercourse that almost without exception involve the defilement, humiliation, and debasement of women. Nancy Hartsock has detailed the devastating impact of historical, economic, and ideological factors_on intimacy as part of an examination of power and community. She reports that hostility and domination, not intimacy and physical pleasure, are central to sexual excitement in Western culture, especially in its masculine expressions. 8
Hartsock's analysis portrays the twisting of eros into dehumanizing forms. She examines three aspects of eros: (a) the desire for fusion, "to make the many one" (in the words of Sigmund Freud); (b) sensuality and bodily pleasure; and (c) generativity and creativity. These healthy and wholesome dynamics, however, are distorted by anxiety about intimacy. Men, she says, are left in considerable anxiety about intimacy because of thetraumas and fears they experience in early childhood. As a result, they avoid intimacy through control, hence reducing women to objects and finding their excitement in overcoming female resistance. Fetishism is a second means of dealing with the threat of intimacy. In this form, the focus is on the woman's "parts" -her legs, breasts, buttocks, pubis, etc. Thus, no longer faced with an intimate other, the woman is reduced to a "clit," "pussy," "broad," "bitch," "score," "kill," etc. In a third distortion, eros takes on a form of reversal! revenge. The man's need here is to reverse the child-mother roles where the former was so needy and utterly dependent on the mother. The trauma of this needy dependence is reversed into revenge so that anxiety can then take the form of pleasure. In this dynamic the woman is needy, utterly at the hands of the man, and the man in rage from childhood fears and trauma seeks vengeance on the woman by debasing her.
Threatened by anxiety, eros as sensuality and pleasure is perverted into numbness, the death of feeling, and the denial of the body. In many men, it takes the form of loathing of the body and can even become a preoccupation and fascination with death.
Open Hands 5
An Ethic of Sexuality and Salvation
What inferences can we draw from a biblically inf view of salvation to address the oppressive structures of sexism, heterosexism, and hostility?
It seems clear that any ethic of sexuality related to salvation must engage these three issues. Moral thought about sexuality that operates apart from these is like an oceanographer who, so captivated by frothy bubbles in a backwash, ignores the dangers of the sea. It does little to talk of the good or the right, principles or norms, without examining the fundamental ways in which we hold our sexuality captive.
A viable ethic of sexuality will name these demons that populate sexuality's personal and political dimensions. Even in the presence of their ominous control, an ethic of salvation can proclaim that the principalities and powers have been defeated in the work of Christ and that we live in a new age. Responsive to the liberative action of God, an ethic of sexuality seeks to discern the enlarging and creative spaces for authentic humanity. God's deliverance from oppression is already at work to shatter the bonds of sexism, heterosexism, and hostility. God is at work to render healthy and whole the sexuality both of our embodied selves and of all our relationships -personal, interpersonal, economic, political, cultural, historical, and spiritual.
An ethic of sexuality and salvation will also address the anxieties attached to intimacy with a gospel of grace in which one can fully trust God and can find the strength to be oneself. Fueled by grace, this ethic will be able to take down, stone by stone, the fears and traumas of the fortified ego defenses of men so that new depths of life and experience with others can be known and shared. An ethic of salvation will offer new vistas of feminist and womanist ways of being in the world and new opportunities no longer constricted by stereotypes, fetishism, control, and the threat of violence.
Furthermore, this ethic will call for a systematic institutionalization of homosexual life and unions and for the provision in law and social policy of civil liberties and civil rights for gay men and lesbians. It will mean structuring equality into a broad range of issues crucial to substantive justice: equal treatment in employment, public service, housing, taxation, inheritance, medical care and insurance, and so on. It will mean an end to compulsory heterosexuality.
Such an ethic will seek to enable the expression of warmth and affection and to tum sexuality from its compressed focus on genitalia so that friendship and other ties can own and celebrate levels of feeling and attachment that are so often suppressed and consigned to silence.
Sexuaiity itself will become covenantal in an ethic combining sexuality and salvation. People will be liberated to live out their sexuality in faithfulness to the reign of God and faithfulness to others. This ethic will understand the historical character of human existence -that indeed we live between the times, between the already and the not yet. Living in a present filled with poignancy gives sexuality a wondrous vitality and affirmation.
6 Open Hands
Finally, with the understanding of salvation on which such an ethic will be based, concrete, lived reality will take on ultimate significance and import. Sexuality will no longer be the embarrassing, repressed side of life but a celebrative, reveling, deeply intimate, fun and humorous, wannly affectionate, committed and compelling, earthy and ecstatic sharing of life in covenant. •
Notes
1.
John E. Alsup, "Salvation"; in Paul J. Achtemeier, ed., Harper's Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985).
2.
Beverly Wildung Harrison, Making the Connections. edited by Carol S. Robb (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), p. 138.
3.
James B. Nelson, Between Two Gardens (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1983), p. 51.
4.
Ibid., p. 52.
5.
Mary Daly, Gyn-Ecology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978).
6.
Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience," Signs 5, no. 4 (Summer 1980).
7.
Alfred C. Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948).
8.
Nancy C. M. Hartsock, Money, Sex and Power (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985).
With appreciation to my colleague and friend, Kris Culp, who did a careful and critical reading of the first draft of this paper.
Tex Sample is professor ofchurch and society at Saint Paul School ofTheology in Kansas City, Missouri. He is an ordained elder in the Missouri West Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Myths of
Mono9amy
6y Re6ecca Parker
M onogamy is to be celebrated as one of life's
richest possibilities. The commitment of two people to create a life together centered in love is a decision to remain faithful to one another through the joys and sorrows of life, in hardship and in plenty, and in making the well-being of the other a concern equal to concern for oneself. Such commitment can bring intensity, depth , growth, strength, courage, healing, and happiness to people 's lives.
The joys of faithful committed, life-long relationships are not experienced only by those who define themselves as heterosexual and whose relationship is blessed by church and state. Life-long committed relationships have blessed the lives of lesbians and gay men, their children, and their communities -even when such faithful relationships have been neither recognized nor celebrated in any public way. Faithful commitment deserves celebration in the public and the religious spheres, in the many forms that such commitment can take.
The story of Ruth and Naomi stands as a reminder that the biblical model of faithful love is love not compelled but freely given, not required by custom or law, but arising from the heart, unwavering, courageous, not destroyed by hardship, and life-transforming. Wherever such love is found, or choices for such love are made, there God is.
The day the whole church is able to affirm, celebrate, and support life-long, committed, monogamous relationships among gay men and lesbians will be a joyful one. The dawning of that day, however, is hindered by several dimensions of the traditional Christian concept of monogamous marriage. These must be discarded before an inclusive ethic of monogamy can be formulated, or faithful relationships outside the bounds of the heterosexual circle can be valued.
Three concepts -which I would like to name "myths of monogamy" -are associated with the traditional understanding of Christian marriage. These myths contribute to homophobia and to destructive patterns of intimacy, and are linked to the failure of the Christian community to affirm lesbians and gay men and likewise gay and lesbian unions. The first myth is that marriage completes incomplete, complementary beings. Second is the idea that monogamy involves a structure of authority (the man is the head of the woman and sexual intimacy is surrender of personal power). The third concept is that God has ordained marriage, and anyone who is not married has sinned against God and nature.
Myth: M~eCompfetes Incompfete Beil19s
"I was incomplete until I found you" is a romantic feeling most of us have experienced in our lives. Is this feeling at the heart of mature, life-long love? The traditional concept of monogamy says "yes." In the traditional, heterosexual view, men and women are incomplete beings who are only made whole through marriage . The story in Genesis 2 describes woman being created from man's rib, and says, "Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife" (Gen 2:24). This biblical passage is interpreted to mean that a part of every man has been taken from him and is possessed by a woman. He can only regain himself by possessing the woman who possesses his lost part. Conversely, the woman is a wayward being until she is possessed -embraced by the one she h.as belonged to all along. If a woman thinks she is independent of man, doesn't belong to anyone, is her own person -she is denying her God-given nature. For a man to think he is whole without ,a woman is to deny his God-given nature.
Those who view the essence of marriage in these terms cannot accept committed relationships between gay men or lesbians. To them such a couple doesn't add up to wholeness -two incomplete people cannot make a whole unless their incompleteness is complementary.
A modem tenn for this form of complementarity in marriage is "co-dependency." A co-dependent relationship is
Continued on p. 8
Open Hands 7
Continued from p. 7
one in which the individuals involved are psychologically fused in an unhealthy way -a way that inhibits personal growth and finally destroys intimacy. Depth psychologists such as lung who explored the psychology of complementarity over a lifetime identify "romantic" love as the attraction to another person\ who represents the 10sUrepressed part of one's own self. Romantic love is fed by repression. A man who has repressed his emotions is attracted to a woman whose emotions are vividly expressed. She may not be what he loves at all -he loves the lost part of himself which he is seeking to possess by bonding possessively with her. He cannot allow any kind of unfaithfulness because unfaithfulness robs him of himself. The woman, in tum, may have been attracted to him because she had repressed her ambitions and aspirations, but he is full of dreams, goals, and hopes. He may not be what she loves but the lost part of herself which she regains by being with him. He must be faithful to her in every way or else she loses what she most wants -herself.
Co-dependent relationships can endure only so long as the partners in co-dependency continue to deny parts of themselves. Any move towards personal integration of the lost part of oneself threatens the bond. In fact, the move towards personal wholeness may even be experienced as an unfaithful act. Thus, a woman who stops living through a man and begins to acknowledge and pursue her own aspirations is blamed for destroying or not valuing marriage.
Many Christian ethicists and proponents of "traditional" family values, extol the "union of opposites" understanding of monogamy. Co-dependency is considered the ideal. However, lung went beyond the traditional concept of marriage and believed that marriage should mature through romantic love to mature love, possible after one has been led by the beloved to see and integrate the lost part of oneself. Mature love is a relationship between whole people, complete in themselves, who do not depend on one another for self-completion.
Only when a post-dependent model of love is lifted up as the ideal can Christian ethics appropriately affirm lesbian and gay relationships as expressions of the highest ideal. A post-dependent model of love begins by defining faithfulness as self-faithfulness. To be faithful to yourself is to embrace all aspects of yourself unconditionally -rejecting no part. Self-faithfulness especially means embracing aspects of yourself that patriarchal culture says you must reject. When you learn not to abandon yourself, you become capable of not abandoning someone else. Two people who are seeking to be whole in themselves relate differently than two who are seeking themselves in each other. Those who seek to be whole in themselves offer companionship, support, friendship, and loving criticism to one anotherwithout demand. It is a higher love because it is a freer love. Faithfulness is experienced as personal responsibility and integrity rather than demanding control of another who has the power to rob you of what belongs to you.
In a post-dependent relationship, the partners d"o not have to be "opposites" -sexually or otherwise. Differences add legitimate variety, spice, conflict, freshness but the differences are not the energy that binds two together in a union of mutual possession and completion. The two are bound together by the energy of mutual love, respect, caring, appreciation, delight, knowledge, and support. Differences enrich rather than define the union.
8 Open Hands
Myth: M~eImpfies a Structure of
Autfiori1y
When I was first interviewed as a woman seeking to be ordained, I was asked who would be the head of the household in my marriage. The tone of the question was not friendly. It suggested that my pursuit of ordination represented a usurping of the proper structures of authority. The "traditional" view of heterosexual monogamy sees "man as the head of the woman." To be in a monogamous relationship is to enter into an authority structure. This authority structure is grounded in the divine/human authority structure. God is the head of the creation in the big picture. Man is the head of the woman on the domestic scene. The identification of God as male is a necessary correlation of this view of authority. In this context, resistance to imaging God as female is not dogmatic insistence on God's gender, but dogmatic insistence that males have authority over females. The reverse is an offensive, threatening idea -a disruption of the proper order of things.
In a recent conversation with a self-described evangelical Christian, I was asked if I had ever performed a gay union. I answered that I have been privileged to participate in such celebrations. The next question was, "Well, how do they know which one is the bride and which one is the groom?" "What do you mean?" I asked. The person responded, "How do they know who is going to be on top, who is going to be the man, the person in charge?" In this way of thinking, sexuality is identified with power (maleness) and powerlessness (femaleness), with exercise of authority (male) and submission to authority (female), and with command (male) and obedience (female).
This is a tragic way to define sexuality for all concerned. For gay men and lesbians, it has meant social and religious rejection and chastisement for "not following the orders," not defining sexuality in terms of power. For heterosexual men, it outlaws ever letting go of control and power. For heterosexual women, it has often meant that sexual intimacy is tantamount to surrender of personal authority and autonomy.
When monogamy is associated with this structure of authority, then sexual faithfulness becomes identified for the submissive party with obedience to the authority of another.
To be unfaithful in the context that identifies maleness with dominance and femaleness with submission is to be disobedient. Unfaithful is something that really only the submissive party can be (hence arises the double standard).
This understanding of monogamy as faithfulness to authority is closely tied to the theology that identifies human sin as disobedience to the will of God. God, the male authority figure, commands but we do not obey. Hence, we human beings are called "harlot," or "adulterer," or "unfaithful wife." Theologians such as Augustine condemn sexuality as the root of all sin by identifying sexuality with the desire to rebel from authority. A man's sexual organ does not obey his command, and woman is inherently rebellious -inherently evil.
In this context, ethical sexuality is always and only highly controlled sexuality. The lesbian or gay man is to be condemned because she or he has transgressed authority in the extreme -refused to be obedient to the rules. Homophobia includes an element of fear of the uncontrollable, hatred of the disobedient.
Within this context, lesbian and gay relationships cannot be tolerated for two reasons. First, sexuality has been perverted because the clear structure of husband/ruler and wife/subject has been confused. In this view, sexuality is perverted by equality. Secondly, in lesbian or gay relationships the persons involved have defied all authority they represent unconstrained sexuality which is in its very nature rebellious energy. Properly constrained sexuality is only found within the bonds of patriarchal marriage.
The identification of "good sexuality" with a ruler/ subject authority structure or even with a divinely ordained marriage structure must be abandoned by the church before the value of lesbian and gay monogamous relationships can be fully affirmed and celebrated. This theological transformation will have to involve a re-imaging of God's sexuality, so that the insistence on God's sovereignty is not dependent on the insistence on God's maleness. It also will have to involve an affirmation of sexual energy as energy that is either inherently neutral (carrying the potential for good or evil) or inherently good (leading us toward creation, enhancement, or fulfillment of God's purposes).
Thus, the affirmation of gay and lesbian relationships and the forming of an inclusive, nondestructive ethic of monogamy requires the identification of sexuality as "the good gift of God." That good gift can be a means of expressing and deepening love and discovering the sacredness of oneself and others. Forming such an ethic also requires identifying equality, rather than dominance and submission, as the highest form of human love.
Mytli: God Has Ordained M~eas a Requirement
Jesus mayor may not have been married, but the Gospels picture him as single. Paul advised the unmarried state as the best way but allowed that marriage was acceptable for those who would give in to the temptations of sex without it. Nevertheless, the idea that God has ordained marriage as a requirement is implied for some by the Creation story and by the commandment "be fruitful and multiply." Lesbian or gay unions are sometimes criticized (by those who have never met the children of gay or lesbian people) for being a defiance of that commandment and a defiance of the "order of creation." Man and woman are created to be together and to produce children; therefore, God has ordained marriage as a requirement.
Faithful, committed relationships need to be rescued from the canon of requirements and returned to the canon of possibilities. God has given us choice. The choice to be single can be a wise, life-giving choice. Those who are single have not failed to fulfill God's requirements. God has also given us freedom to choose a partner in life. Love is freely given and freely bestowed. It is not forced or demanded of us. The difference between a life-long, loving heterosexual relationship and a life-long, loving same-sex relationship is only a difference in the gender of the partner chosen. Ed chose Michael, Rebecca chose George, Julia chose Jim, Kate chose Elizabeth.
What makes a monogamous relationship Christian is not that the two partners complete one another, is not that one is submissive to another's rule, and is not that the partners have fulfilled God's requirement. Three things make a monogamous relationship Christian. First, the two partners love one another for who they are, not as symbols of lost parts of themselves. Second, the partners regard one another with mutual respect and honor one another's authority as self-responsible adults -there is equality of power. And, finally, the two partners have chosen one another freely, not under compunction, but out of love and in favor of the values that life-long commitment can bring.
An inclusive ethic of faithful commitment leaves room for other ethical and life-affirming choices -to be single, to love intimately more than once. It defines faithfulness in terms that transcend gender. It gives a common ground for many forms of committed love to be recognized, celebrated, resourced, and supported within the community of faith. And, at best, it points us beyond one-on-one relationships to the wider circle and reminds us that God loves not one, but many, and we are invited to love not just one, not just the inner circle, but all who bear the image of God in their souls .•
Rebecca Parker is pastor o/Vashon Island UMC in the Seattle area. She is also a member of the Committee to Study Homosexuality recently formed by the United Methodist General Conference.
Open Hands 9
T he trend in mainline Christian
churches, including my own, the Roman Catholic Church, is toward increased acceptance of same-sex love. Admittedly there are countersigns to this. But in the past 20 years we have moved from complete silence. through heated debate, to grudging acceptance.
Plenty of kicking and screaming is still ahead. But now that the signs of success are so obvious (including the ferocious backlash that we are finding in some denominations), I think it is time for lesbian and gay Christians to say what we mean by same-sex love. Only then can the richness of our experiences become part of a healthy faith family. Otherwise, we participate in the dysfunctional dynamics that make our so-called "spiritual homes" abusive households.
Most Christians who tolerate or even advocate same-sex love as healthy , good, natural. and holy (an opinion I share) are hesitant to unpack just what this means. They fear, rightly, being rejected if the full spectrum of lesbian/gay humanity were exposed. Of course, no one rejects heterosexuality simply because every heterosexual is not monogamously married to the first person she/he ever dated.
We who wish to be acceptable members of our faith traditions have been cowed into sanitizing our sex. It is as if we love in wrinkle-resistant, button-down pairs in splitlevel houses for ever and ever amen. I do not mean to blame the victims. We have every reason to be circumspect if we want to survive in a homophobic society. But I consider it a sign of maturity that we begin to discuss our sexual ethics openly, realistically. Homophobia and heterosexism have forced us to lower our standards, to settle for crumbs at the table where in many instances we have baked the bread of life. Our growing success at educating ourselves and our communities is impetus to continue the process with harder questions, more honest discussion and increased tolerance of ambiguity .
As a feminist liberation theologian, I am constantly experimenting with my craft. I consider theology, especially moral theology or ethics; to be too important to be left to theologians. I reject moralizing and pontificating from religious professionals. I urge communities to theologize.
I assume that every subject is able to be discussed, i. e .. that there are no taboo topics. I take for granted that easy answers are "cheap grace." that it takes a long time. some luck. and many mistakes to love well. I presume that there are many right answers. that no one politically correct way of being exists. I like the fact that we change our minds. see things differently over time. and make corrections in mid-course.
For matters moral, I suggest that we engage in creative listening, sketch some general directions, and leave the rest up to the good
10 Open Hands
sense of faithful people. In short, I trust the community of faith more than I do experts' judgments on matters of morality. What follows is an effort to use my own methodology in a brief reflection on lesbian sexual ethics, leaving the gay part up to my good brothers who know more about it than I do. Of course, each of the following issues deserves much longer treatment. I hope that such discussion will go on among readers who will take an active part in writing the next chapter of lesbian/gay Christian sexual ethics .
Four general issues arise over and over in my discussions with lesbian friends. Note that my point of reference is as a white, middleclass, U.S .-based, well-educated, lesbian feminist woman. I limit my insights to what this perspective provides, sure that from other starting points issues and priorities will differ.
First, monogamy is not for everyone. and for those for whom it works it is never enough. Second, "an army of ex-lovers" may never fail . but they sure do make for complicated parties. Third, "breaking up is hard to do," but it takes more courage to try loving again . Fourth, love may be more important than sex, but love and sex beat even chocolate. Let me discuss each of these in turn.
M onogamy is the number one topic among lesbian women (after the niceties about whom Holly Near is "seeing" these days). It is usually couched as "monogamy vs. nonmonogamy" and usually means do you and your lover have other sexual partners? Or, if one is not in a coupled relationship, it means if you are interested in being coupled with me will there be someone(s) else? While polygamy is practiced openly by men of some religious (and personal) persuasions, the predominant articulated sexual more of lesbian women is monogamy. That many heterosexual couples are not monogamous in practice for a variety of reasons does not seem to enter the picture.
What we are admitting, however, is that monogamy is not for everyone. For some women (I would venture the majority, but who knows?) the notion of a monogamous relationship appeals for reasons of an economy of time and emotion. But for others, equally legitimately I would argue, the idea of having one sex partner for a lifetime is simply unthinkable. Rather than brand this as promiscuous or depraved, I prefer to hope that they find people who also want this arrangement and feel free to enjoy it. After all, the problems usually arise when one partner wants to be monogamous and the other not. While I have rarely seen non monogamous relationships last very long, I have deep respect for the fact of our heterogeneity and I urge others to respect it as well.
Continued on p. I2
W riting about gay male sexual ethics
feels about as safe as walking on thin ice in May. Though there may be some areas of consensus in the gay male subculture, this clearly is not one of them. As is true in the larger culture, gay people face these issues differently according to age, developmental stage, sociocultural and ethnic background.
Furthermore, gay men and lesbians generally lack norms or systems that might be guides for sexual decision making. Members of the heterosexual majority frequently appeal to the Judeo-Christian tradition as a basis of sexual ethics, but few gay men are likely to do so . That ethic is perceived as a system in which gay male or lesbian sexual expression is outside of acceptable boundaries. Why should we tum to such a system as a guide?
Nor have we been eager to construct an alternative system. A homophobic and heterosexist culture has made most outlets for expression of gay identity both rare and risky. Genital sexual interaction has, therefore, been for many gay men a primary means of expressing our personal identity. Thus, it should be no surprise that few gay men are anxious to subscribe to any system of beliefs or norms that might provide a basis for decision making about sexual activity, even ifthat system has been constructed by other gay men. To do so would seem to be a surrender of self-definition.
As a result, questions of sexual ethics tend to be considered by gay men more on a pragmatic or issue-oriented basis than from a standpoint of systems or norms. Nevertheless, a review of some of the sexual ethical issues suggests that the Christian gay man does have resources available from within his faith community.
Asking whether "to be or not to be" in the closet, hiding gay male identity, is an ethical question. On one side of the issue are questions of respect for self and others -what does it say about my view of myself if I hide a significant part of who I am from those who are important to me? And what does it say about my view of others? Arguments on the other side of the issue may well raise consideration of survival or self-preservation, as well as responsibility for others. Should I place my job, my life, my family in jeopardy by coming out? And if I do suffer losses, what about those who may be dependent on me to meet their basic needs for shelter, food, clothing? In spite of what is sometimes described as "increased openness" to lesbians and gay men, many still see the issue of the closet in these stark survival terms. At another level of analysis, many feel that continued invisibility by lesbians and gay men contributes to their ongoing oppression in the culture.
As suggested above, this matter also relates to the meaning that gay men may see in their sexual activity. If genital sexual interaction with another man is virtually my only means of expressing my gay identity, that reality will have an important effect on the forms of that expression. Combined with performance-oriented traditional male socialization, a person's "success" or "failure" (however he may define those terms) in the arena ofgenital sexuality may have a powerful impact on his ability to know and appreciate his own or others' complete personhood.
Some gay men have taken a relatively casual approach to sex, seeing it primarily as a means for recreation, stress reduction, and communication with others. When the meaning of sexual interaction is seen in this light, the principal ethical considerations may be to be sure that all involved get what they wanted to get out of it, that partners' limits and needs are respected, that communication is clear and personally affirming. Because differing expectations can cause emotional pain, persons who enter these relationships have an obligation to ensure clarity.
A traditional approach is to understand sexual interaction as an expression of love and of intimacy, as well as a means to intimacy. Many gay men struggle mightily with the interrelationships of sex, love, and intimacy. The distinctions and relationships among these realities may not be different than for heterosexuals or for lesbians. However, because both partners were socialized as men, both have likely learned the same lesson -such as "sex equals intimacy." This creates a special context for the ethical and other dilemmas involved.
Many gay men make sexual ethical judgments based on intimacy as a primary value. These men ask whether sexual activity will foster or inhibit intimacy between themselves and a particular partner. They may also ask about its impact on their ability to maintain or create satisfactory intimate relationships with other persons.
Intimacy is especially likely to be at stake in the issues of sexual ethics that arise for gay men in a coupled relationship. One frequent question is whether or not the partners should have sex outside the relationship. The question may arise even when the relationship is defined as "open" to sexual excursions beyond its bounds. The specific dynamics within a relationship at a given time may suggest that such activity would be inappropriate, even though it might be appropriate at another time. When intimacy within the primary relationship is highly valued, the couple has a basis for making these decisions.
Other gay couples have covenanted for sexual exclusivity. (I resist the term monogamy because it is a term linked by definition to heterosexual marriage.) The presence of such a covenant suggests an additional level of ethical analysis to be done if the possibility of breaking it is contemplated. Most gay men would subscribe to
Continued on p. 13
Open Hands 11
Continued from p. 10
For those of us who do find monogamy to our liking, I contend it is simply not enough. While a primary partner is nice (we can share a home, finances, fun, friends, sex, and family), there is an equally important need for such relationships to be generative, to make and find life outside of themselves.
This is something that nonmonogamous relationships have built-in -the fresh, often complicating newness of others. Monogamously committed couples need this newness, too, whether in the form of an extended community, children, pets, challenging work, and/or volunteer commitments, whatever it takes to push the horizons of coupledness into the cosmos. I hear more and more about spirituality and celebration from lesbian women. I take it as a way we are all pushing, regardless of our relational status, for something more than predictable patriarchy promises. This spirituality is something to nurture .
A second ethical issue that often arises is how to deal with our ex-lovers. Again heterosexuality has provided few clues. Most men discard their women lovers when sex is over; many women do the same with men, though I often hear a wistful "I wish we could be friends" from my straight sisters that echoes so many lesbian women's efforts to keep connected.
Psychologists have a heyday on lesbian fusion issues, but I think the urge to be friends with ex-lovers is a healthy one, to a point. The truism that many women become lovers with their friends and many men become friends with their lovers is never more true than with lesbian women. While one night stands are not unknown among lesbians, the more common experience is that women friends become lovers. But when it is clear that the relationship is not going to be permanent, as is typically the case since few of us form a permanent couple with our first, second, or even third partner, what to do?
Our healthy urge to maintain and even deepen friendships is laudable. But life goes on, and every community is not the size of New York. Sometimes it is necessary to let go of one another, to admit that being lovers was what being friends was about in the first place, and since it will not work we had best let go. Would that it were so easy. But hopefully we can say that how we break off a love relationship needs to be given at least as much attention as how we build one. That means a commitment to work through problems, with help if necessary, and some attention to the implications of our former relational status on the wider community. No one thinks of these things in the heat of betrayal or just plain disappointment. But it is something to consider just as much as who will get the cat.
12 Open Hands
Third, many lesbian women I know find loving again after a break-up to be difficult unto impossible. Negative words and deeds from so-called friends make this understandable: it's over, they didn't make it, she lost, they quit, it's so painful. The fact is most break-ups are a sign of growth, honesty for a change, increased personal knowledge.
I am not referring to putting a pretty face on what is usually a devastating experience. But the obligation of a supportive community, especially one that is based on a faith tradition that stresses hope and new life, is to see things in the big picture even if the persons most deeply involved are, understandably, more narrowly focused. The best strategy I know in this regard is to see friendship as learned behavior. We can teach children how to be friends, and we learn in every friendship something that is practice for the one to come.
Finally, everyone loves to be loved , and most people enjoy sex. Lesbian women are no exception even though somewhere along the patriarchal line a lie got started that lesbian women were more interested in love than sex. This is fueled by studies that show that the frequency of sex diminished in all long-term relationships.
In an effort to assure the world that we do not molest Girl Scouts nor lust after heterosexually married women (though some of them have been known to do more than lust after us!), lesbian women have earned a reputation for being nonsexual. Some of us may have been so busy saving the lesbian whales that we may have given this impression. It is time to correct it, to "come out" as the sexual beings that we are entitled to be.
Of course, some lesbian couples, as some heterosexual couples, see the sexual spark go out of their relationships. This is neither necessary nor normative. Contrary to some opinions, we do not stay together for convenience' sake, out of habit or duty, nor for economic reasons. We stay together, as all healthy people do, because life together, both in bed and out, is better than life apart. Love and sex are compatible. We need not apologize nor hide behind a cloak of seeming celibacy. This is our birthright.
These four issues -monogamy, breaking up, loving again, and sex -are among the major ethical concerns of many lesbian women. Of course, we are concerned with economic issues, racism , U.S. military involvement, and nuclear war. But these brief reflections on our lives take our communities one more step toward selfrespect and justice. Let's take another one .•
Mary E. Hunt is a Catholic theologian who is co-director of WATER, Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and RituaL. She writes regularly in the WATERwheel.
Continued from p. II
the notion that people should keep the promises they make; failing to keep a promise is disrespectful to the other party and rarely fosters intimacy.
A serious challenge arises from the situation in which no specific understandings about sexual exclusivity have been articulated. Lacking socially approved models for a relationship, expectations between members of a couple have to be either articulated or assumed. If the assumed expectations of each member of a couple about a particular subject are not similar, do the partners have obligations to one another? Some people would say that there is an obligation to "check out" a partner's expectation before doing something that might be contrary to it. Such behavior fosters intimacy. One would also say that a member of a couple who has especially strong feelings, for example, about the need for sexual exclusivity, has an obligation to articulate that expectation and to negotiate it with his partner.
Recent studies show that many gay men are forming mutually sexually exclusive partnerships as one way ofdealing with the tragic reality of AIDS. When two uninfected men form a sexually exclusive couple and both abide by that covenant, they need not worry about the possibility of passing on a sexually transmitted disease from outside the relationship. This further complicates the ethical situation for the person who considers violating the covenant since he may incur an obligation to inform his partner or to begin to practice only "safer sex."
The AIDS epidemic is the source of other ethical questions for gay men. One such question that deserves more attention is what responsibility one should take for helping to foster a climate in which safer sex is the norm. An immediate health risk does not arise when two uninfected persons have "unsafe" sex with each other. Since risking AIDS is risking death , however, some are arguing that all gay men (and for that matter all persons who are not in mutually exclusive relationships) should engage in only safer sex. This protects everyone against the possibility that a partner may lie about infection status. It also provides support for those persons who have a special difficulty in following safer-sex guidelines. With respect to the sexual transmission of AIDS, one person's risk may never be limited to that person alone.
For several years now, gay men have been warning one another to have only safer sex no matter what their partner's infection status. Given the responsibility of each person to avoid risk, do those who are infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have an obligation to tell prospective partners? Or does this obligation arise only when unprotected sex is contemplated? Does everyone have an obligation to know whether he is infected by HIV? Does a person who is infected have an obligation never to practice "unsafe" sex, even though a partner has knowingly chosen to take the risk?
A particularly poignant ethical question arises for men who are attracted emotionally and sexually to someone who has been diagnosed with AIDS. At least some men have decided that they do not wish to go through the experience of living and loving with someone who can realistically be expected to die within a short time. These men may be recognizing and honoring their own limits in dealing with another's illness. If they feel they would be unable to offer an ill partner the presence, support, and tenderness he would need, it may well be best for both if they do not enter a relationship.
On the other hand, no one lives forever, and no one can predict when accident or illness might strike. If I feel that I could not or would not be willing to be present to a partner under those circumstances, am I not obligated at least to disclose that to any potential partner, whatever their current health status? May I ethically decline to love, cherish, and care for someone who is ill or who is likely to die?
T his is only a partial list of the sexual ethical questions gay men are facing currently. A second look reveals that behind the specific questions of "What shall I do (or not do) and with whom?" is a set of values decisions familiar to most people in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, within the set of questions related to coming out are issues related to self-respect, honesty, care for others, and the like. Other questions likewise point to matters having to do with respect versus exploitation, stewardship of God's gifts, honoring the dignity and worth of a creature of God, and others.
There can be little doubt where the witness of scripture and tradition will lead us in response to these kinds of values questions. We are the inheritors of a faith that proclaims the worth of every human being, challenges us to witness to our love of God by the way we treat those who are in need, demands that justice and mercy be done, and calls for the liberation of the oppressed. From these imperatives arise obligations: to be honest with self and others; to act for the welfare of others and avoid harm; to be a good steward of the gifts that God has given us . Like other people of faith, gay men may disagree about the application of these principles to specific ethical questions. But the resource is there and the community of faith offers a setting in which to explore the questions that emerge .•
Morris L. Floyd is a member of the California-Pacific Annual Conference ofthe United Methodist Church and is on the board ofthe National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He has long been active in Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns.
Open Hands 13
SU STAINING THE SPIRIT
Litany of
Supportive Community
Leader: We are t0gether in this pface today with different 6adi.9roundS) cfifferent taCents and commitments) different COnceT115.
PEOPLE: TO EACH OTHER WE SAY: We sfiare a faith inJesus Cfirist and a commitment to the purpose of Cfiristianity. This is our 60ru{, and it is as compeffil19 as the one 6etween Ruth and Naomi.
Leader: As we seek a moaeC for our community of [ave) Ruth sym6oCize5 Cove and CoyaCty)faithJuCness and wi[Cingness to risR hardS hip for the safi.e ofothers. vVe wou[cf 6e Rutfls to a[[ Naomis: to those who face 6ittemess who are moving into new Cife experiences, those who share our dreams and hopes) and those who have cfifferent dreams. We havefriendS whose ener9ies are et19agecf 6y activities and issues cfifferent fro m our own.
PEOPLE: TO THEM WE SAY: We wiU not Leave you. We are 9Cad that you are worlUl19 in areas we cannot. We wiU support you in your efforts and request your support of each of us in ours. We rec09niu that onry thnn'9h such diversity oftaLents and conunitments can we 6uild t0gether a new heaven and earth.
Leader: There are peapCe in our Churches and communities with whom we strot19 !Y disagree on issues ofcurrent concern in our church and socie"!)'.
PEOPLE: TO THEM WE SAY: We wiU not a6arufonyou. We wiU listen to your views and wiU sfiare our ideas with you openry and frankry. We wiU de6ate with you w hen necessary. We wiU not shrink from creative conffict. Yet we wiUaLways remember that we sfiare a common Fuunanity and
Leader: There are friendS among us with speciaC pro6fems and d£ep pai11.S) for whom life is especiaC!y cfifficuCt.
PEOPLE: TO THEM \;VE SAY: We wiU 90 with you thr0U9h your vaCfeys. We may not aLways know your stories, t~h we are open to fiearil19 tliem. We may not wuferstandyour pain, t~h we wiU try. We wiU sfiare the Coad ifyou wiU affow us to.
Leader: We have friendS in our Churches and our communities who have chosen CifestyCes we do not uncferstand.
PEOPLE: TO THEM WE SAY : We wiU Cove you and accept you. We wiU not ju£lge your decision, as we ask. you not to ju£lge ours. We wiU join you in worlUl19 for a world where peopCe are respected and differences are ceCe6rated.
Leader: There are those perso11.S we CabeC "them, " who are different from us) who choose this difference) whom we Cabe[ as cfifferent, who threaten us, at1ger us, fri9hten us.
PEOPLE: TO THEM WE SAY: We wiU name our differences, our concerns, our fears and seek. to Cove within tliem. We wiU seek. to see in aU persons God's revefation of Cove and acceptance, the source of our ma.
Leader: vVith Ruth we say: III vvi[[ 90 with you." God calIs us now to risR the next step -not just lito90 ivith" 6ut to em6race, to ho[cf) and to heaL
PEOPLE: WE HEAR THE CALL. We ask. for stretl9th and courClge to 6~in Uvil19 the cau.
are
cfiHdren of one God. ALL: AMEN AND AMEN.
14 Open H ands
Persona! RefCections
Thinking a60ut what sexuaL" ethics means for one's self 5) what is the pface of Goct church, and spirituaCity in is often di§icuft. I rufeecf, it can 6e frustrating, threatening, her or his experience and ethics? even painfoL Yet stu:h ethicaL souC-searching can aCso 6e pro6) How have your own experiences of God, the Hoo/, and founcf(y rewarding, prodUcing a deepened sense of personaL spirituaCity 6een shaped 6y your experience ofsexuaL"ity? identity, self-understanding, self-respect, and accompCish7) How has new knowCedge a60ut sexuaL"ity injTuenced ment. your reflection a60ut sexuaL" ethics?
As the personaL stories shared here are rejfecwf upon, 8) How would you rank these factors invoCved in Cove resome questions might 6e particuCaro/ usejUC for this process. Cationships? Consideration of what ethicaL principCes may underCie these • personaL whoCeness statements and of the types of ethicaL reflection 6eing done • open and honest communication could prod the 6f9inning or expansion ofone's own reJTection • vuCnera6iCity on personaL sexuaL" ethics. • uftimatums in intimate/Cove reCationships
• spiritual commitment aruVor experience1) what vafues does each writer affirm as positiveo/ im•
one's sense of self-id'entity
pacting her or his sexuaL"ity, growth, and reCationships?
• what the Bi6Ce says
2) what vafues does she or he consider and not affirm?
• what the minister says
3) what sources and authorities does she or he use in affirming personaL decisions? what other factors wouldyou aM as 6eing important? 4) What experiences seem to have 6een major injTuences in each writer's story and ethicaC tfeveCopment?
Striving Toward Wholeness
W hen I was first asked to
write an article on sexual ethics, I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud. Me ... , the one recently accused of having none? Life certainly provides its ironies. Then I wondered if I could write anything about the process I've been going through recently, trying to arrive at a sexual ethic for myself. I certainly feel I can speak only for myself, and not anyone else in this matter.
One major dilemma that continues for me is the issue of whether monogamy within a primary, committed relationship is the ideal to be emulated. For many of my friends, this is not questioned; it is simply accepted as a given, one of the criteria for being a "real Christian." But, for me, many questions remain.
When I first began to recognize my ambisexuality -that is, my capacity for intimately loving both men and women, somewhat in a gender-blind
by Peggy R. Gaylord
way -the discovery was primarily intellectual. As a product of a society where heterosexuality is the norm, I never expected to act on the portion of my sexuality that drew me toward other women. Later, however, when I did become sexually intimate with another woman, I felt joyful doors opening inside of me, similar to when I had acted on my sexuality with a man . I felt the excitement of discovery, of becoming vulnerable with another, of growing toward more wholeness and freedom. At the same time, I felt the discrimination of heterosexuals and homosexuals alike -that I should choose one or the other, usually with the implication that I be willing to accept my "gayness." For me, that would have meant denying my "straightness," the strong attraction I felt for men as well as women. However, it is the insight that I have of both sides that I feel allows me to respond to the call I experience, and to function better as a reconciler.
For those of us who are not heterosexual (and for some of us who are), the myths that society proffers about heterosexuality do not fit well. Since uncovering those myths, I no longer accept much without thorough exploration. I have had to sculpt my own path for the journey into my sexuality. Consequently, I'm not convinced that other myths such as exclusive monogamy fit for me either. In fact, pursuing monogamy might just be another attempt for people of other orientations to try to buy acceptance from heterosexuals.
Indeed, determining whether to be monogamous is very complex. Sometimes in sorting out what is involved, it's easier to know or feel what is not the case, rather that what is. If I am not monogamous, I am not necessarily promiscuous; I am not having a "fling" or being hedonistic or selfish; and I do
Continued on p . /6
Open H ands 15
Continued from p. J5
not think it means I have a sexual addiction. I take sexual intimacy very seriously as an outgrowth of relationship.
For many years, I have believed that sexual intimacy can be simply an expression of friendship. Obviously, whether it occurs in a particular instance depends on mutual agreement of individual boundaries. Simultaneously, I have also expected or suspected that one individual would not be able to fulfill all my needs, desires, and fantasies; nor I theirs.
Before my most recent relationship and in the first few years of it, neither of us was exclusively intimate with the other. Then we entered a period of time, without discussion, when we weren't involved with anyone else. For me, it was a pragmatic monogamy. Being sexually involved with more than one person takes more energy for juggling priorities and being sensitive to the situation. Sometimes I had felt guilty , thinking the energy should be redirected to more "productive" purposes.
This partly occurred because II we/she wanted to have a lifetime relationship. We thought we had to make decisions always first in terms of how our couple relationship would be affected. I think many same-sex couples work very hard at trying to continue a relationship, partly because there's nothing in our society that supports us in long-term relationships. But subjugating our individual selves to the couple has resulted in a fusion that makes separateness almost impossible.
Apart from the fusion that has occurred, sometimes I ask myself whether I could be any more committed in a monogamous relationship than in one that clearly has primacy in my life but may not be monogamous. My ideal relationship includes willingness to risk exploration of the depths of emotional and physical intimacy, concern with the growth and fulfillment of each other and of the relationship, and, of course, honesty and trust.
What becomes the issue in a relationship is the conflict of needs between my partner and myself, when there is no apparent, mutually agreeable resolution. If my partner desires monogamy and issues me an ultimatum to that effect, then if I choose not to be monogamous her/his trust is broken and other dynamics in our relationship are impacted. Because societally we have moved toward serial monogamy rather than a singular lifetime relationship, perhaps it is very threatening if a partner becomes involved with someone else. The implication is that a choice will have to be made, with the risk that we may lose our life together as we've known it.
A few months ago, if anyone
had asked me to talk about my personal sexual ethic, I would have had no idea what to say. Perhaps, "I have nothing to share ," or "I've never thought about it," or "I don't even know what sexual ethic means." Those certainly were my initial reactions when I was asked to write this article.
Yet for some strange reason, I agreed. Looking ethic up in the dictionary didn't help me much. All I found were such things as "good and bad" and "moral obligation." But, when I began to look inside myself and to consciously explore this topic, I came to a surprising realization: my sexual ethic has been a process, one that started long before I was aware of it.
For a long time, my thoughts, behaviors, and feelings concerning sexuality and sexual behavior were based on what others told me was right and wrong. The influence of my family and the church was strong. I accepted their teachings with the innocence of a child. But, as I began to struggle with my sexuality, I found I had lost my innocence. I could no longer blindly accept what I was being told. The message
16 Open Hands
that God loved me but that my emerging lesbian identity was sinful put me in turmoil. There were years I could not reconcile these two parts of me. As John E. Fortunato has described his own, similar struggle, I felt I was on "a spirituality-sexuality teeter-totter. A rather unsettling oscillation. Reject one, lift up the other. Reverse. Reverse. Affirming a piece of myself while denying another." 1
The solution to my dilemma came when I began to question the messages I had received. When I was able and willing to look at the possibility that these messages were lies, I was thrown into an exciting, yet often painful, journey toward wholeness that could encompass my sexuality and spirituality. I finally knew that God loves me as a person and as a lesbian.
Once I had questioned the messages about my sexuality, the natural progression was to question what others had told me was right and wrong in terms of sexual behavior. Do I deny my feelings and expression of those feelings because of how others expect me to behave? I had denied myself for too long. It was time to explore, to experi-
Risking Intimacy
ment, to determine what feels right for me. The question remained of how I would know what is right for me, especially when old messages continued their influence.
In some sense, the process has been one of trial and error. Certainly, I have made some choices that were not healthy for me. But I have learned from them. As I've struggled for wholeness, I've come to understand a person's inherent need for intimacy. This is clearly understood in many psychological theories, such as psychologist Abraham H. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There have also been studies of infants who were deprived of physical touch compared to those who were not. The deprived infants' development was retarded, showing the importance of physical touch to our well-being. For me, as for many others who have experienced inappropriate, negative touching in the past, accepting this need for intimacy can oftentimes be difficult and frightening. It can be a struggle to allow, accept, and take in the nurturing and love offered by another in physical
I've generally believed that I should try to enjoy present experiences in such a way as not to injure future ones. I think personal growth requires close friendships with others as well as a partner. What I look for in all friendships or relationships is the experience of my own and others' vulnerability, openness to possibility, and re-energizing -all of which brings me and the other another step closer to healing or wholeness, refreshing us for whatever life struggles we're engaged in. f!owever, what is appropriate for me in one context may be only partially appropriate in another. If I experience healing or growth in a friendship, that will enhance my primary relationship. But, if my primary partner does not want me to be emotionally or physically intimate with another, the detrimental effects may outweigh the enhancement.
I would prefer to be able to trust in the constancy of an enduring lifelong commitment. Serial monogamy is not appealing. But, as with all else, there are risks and pain involved. Why would I risk everything I have now? Why won't I promise monogamy and leave it at that? My ultimate criterion is whether a situation brings me closer to my personal wholeness. Then, it is not simply an issue of whether I am physically intimate or not in the context of emotional intimacy -it is an issue of whether I have the freedom to choose to be, and the freedom to choose not to be.
I am not convinced that this is impossible, just that I haven't figured out how to make it manageable. I'm reminded of some words from a song: "We're travelin' on a road we've never seen before ... but somewhere there's a promise ... that those who seek will someday know." I We are moving into new times where old myths no longer work well for us. I don't know the answers, but I'm compelled to reach for them in the dark and in the moments of light. As I do, I need to be open in whatever way I can be, combining future and past, thoughts and feelings. Artist and songwriter Judy Fjell sings:
/'m living on dreams for now And /' m listening to the sounds of my own past 'Cause there are things my heart knows better Than my mind can ever reason . 2
Notes
1.
Doris Ellzey Blesoff, "We Are Gathered," in Michael Bausch and Ruth Duck, eds. , Everjlowing Streams (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981).
2.
Judy Fjell, "Living on Dreams."
Peggy R. Gaylord is coconvenor of the Methodist Federationfor Social Action in the Wyoming Annual Conference. a Reconciling Conference. She reluctantly admits to managing a computer consulting group.
by Jan Olson
closeness. It can require the willingness to risk being vulnerable, the risk of opening up myself and sharing with another.
My journey has moved me from the act of sexual physicalness, in and of itself, to one encompassing mind, body, and spirit. The need for emotional intimacy, which mayor may not lead to sexual intimacy, has become the focus. And in each instance I have learned to ask myself if my behavior and that of the other person helps to increase my sense of worth or reinforces the negative messages of the past. Do my actions affirm me as a person capable of giving and receiving love? Do they allow me to be everything God created me to be, including the longtime denied sexual being that I am? These are the questions I ask to determine what's right and wrong for me in other words, my sexual ethic.
When I began to ask these questions of myself, I found that sexual intimacy took on a different form. I began to experience how this connectedness with another can have a spiritual quality that brings healing. As Rebecca Parker has written, "Sexual intimacy imparts to us a knowledge of oursel ves as a powerful presence, and love as enjoyment of the presence of power of another. As such, making love is a means of moving beyond a sense of ourselves as passive. It saves us from the sin of feeling helpless and empty, which leads to the horrible despair of believing we have no being.,,2 I have been blessed to experience this within myself and within the life of another because I was willing to be vulnerable and open. Sexual intimacy has brought healing and hope as I've allowed myself to express love and accept another's expression of it.
Does everything I've said mean I can have intimacy, emotional or sexual, with anyone I meet? Maybe, or maybe not. The answer depends for me on two factors. The first is whether I feel safe to be vulnerable with this person. This usually occurs when I feel an acceptance of who I am and where I'm at in the present. It happens when I share my thoughts and feelings and do not feel rejected or ridiculed. The second important element in determining whether intimacy can be shared is the other person's thoughts and feelings. If I am not accepting of her or his personhood, any true intimacy is blocked and the healing quality cannot be present.
There is no one sexual ethic for all. Each of us is different and must take responsibility for ourselves. We each must determine what is right for us, keeping in mind that it is a process, ever changing as we change. My journey is not finished. My process of defining my sexual ethic will continue as I change, but as long as I move forward in the search for wholeness I will continue to make more and more healthy choices.
Notes
1. John E. Fortunato, Embracing the Exile: Healing Journeys of Gay Christians (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1982), p. 12.
2. Rebecca Parker, "Making Love as a Means of Grace: Women's Reflections," Open Hands 3, no. 3 (Winter 1988): II.
Jan Olson is a substance abuse counselor in
Waukegan . Illinois. and national treasurer ofAffirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay
Concerns.
Open Hands 17
Developing the Christ Within
T hinking through what ethics
means for me has been more painful than I ever imagined. I found myself struggling first to get to the basics of a Christian ethical teaching one freed from the prejudices of culture, history, and time. This starting point has been particularly important for me as a gay Christian, since culture, history, and social mores have more influence on the ethical teachings that frequently condemn gay men and lesbians than do Christ's teachings.
Of course, it is no new thing for human societies to presume to determine God's morallethicallaws. In U.S. history, for example, churches have taken what they claimed were clear, biblical stands both affirming and opposing such issues as slavery , women's rights, and subjugation of Native Americans.
On a more personal note, I recall my West Indian mother's story of how she devoutly followed the rules of the church in which she was raised. These rules provided that she should never cut or "straighten" her hair. Such a transgression was considered a sign of moral failure. After coming to the United States, she discovered that Christian women here routinely both cut and straightened their hair without being damned to hell. It took years for my mother to determine that standards which the church had spent so much time extolling were nothing more than the temporal standards of culture and history.
C learly, for principles of ethics I cannot look only to the guidance of the church, which frequently prefers an ethic based on cultural morality rather than wholeness and growth. Instead , I must go back to the basic source of my ethical teachings. I must find an ethic bigger than culture, time, or personal history.
18 Open Hands
by Ralph Williams
For me, the basic principle is to love God and to follow God's everpresent guidance. That means that, in my own living , I must submit to the life of God's spirit within and not to the dictates of culture. Indeed, it may mean submitting to the guidance of the Spirit in direct opposition to the prejudicial requirements of culture. As a gay man, this has given me freedom to realize my wholeness within the whole of the spiritual , physical, sexual life that God has given me.
Coming to understand the difference between my faith and my culture was the beginning of the formation of an appropriate ethical base for my life. I have come to understand that Christ calls me to wholeness and not cultural ethics. I can now see that, like my mother, I had been bound to a culturally based ethic and that overcoming that ethic was my primary task.
The ethic to which I was bound told me that I was not a good person because of whom God created me to be as a gay man. Accepting that ethic withered away my self-esteem and self-acceptance -the very basis on which any consistent internal ethic must stand. Any attempt to formulate an idea of ethics without self-acceptance was futile. I had to first know myself to be good to formulate and motivate myself to do good.
I have spent so much time getting to self acceptance that I have only recently begun to address the resulting ethical issues that confront my life not those artificial ones that I had been given and had unwittingly accepted, but the real issues for my wholeness and integrity.
I am unprepared to make definitive statements concerning ethical standards that follow on accepting my gayness as a good part of my God-given humanity. Indeed, my journey has made me extremely cautious in asserting the existence of universal ethical codes in any more than broad principles.
What is becoming increasingly important, though, as I seek not just ethics but spiritual growth is to place myself within the context of open, loving relationships within the gay/lesbian Christian community. In common study and sharing of our journeys, I have come to know gay ethics and personal integrity in a new light. This ethic includes the integrity of coming out of the closet when remaining there can more easily protect property and prestige.· Within the community, I have seen an ethic that deals honestly and openly with a positive HIV status when denial could have been easier. These examples constitute more important issues of gay ethics than that of the sexual morality often placed before us.
On such issues as monogamy and sexual morality, I don't pretend to know what is right for everyone. For me, a monogamous relationship is becoming more right as I seek to work on commitment, growth, and stability in my intimate human relationships. However, in many ways, the overriding question is not monogamy itself but whether or not I can give and receive the most intimate of human love in a life-enhancing way. Freed from a social ethic that condemns, I find myself growing more in my capacity for such intimacy.
In the final analysis, I have too often found the social ethic to be the source of social bigotry and mindless conformity. Freed from it, growth has been possible within the gayllesbian Christian community as I have worked to develop my integrity through development of the Christ within . •
Ralph Williams is a member of Mid-Atlantic
Affirmation. He resides in Washington, D.C.
RESOURCES
General Ethical Method
Niebuhr, H. Richard. The Responsible Self. San Francisco: Harper & Row , 1978. Outlines an ethic based on taking seriously human freedom and on a human place in a partnership with God.
Oates, Wayne E. Convictions that Give You Confidence. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984. A good, nontechnical resource for persons wanting to reflect on their own faith and ethics. Has practical exercises and suggestions for aiding a person's process of discovery and decision .
Sellers, James. Theological Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1966 (out of print). A somewhat technical but helpful book outlining some of the tasks of theological ethics in general, making distinctions about morality and ethics, and outlining a way to look at Christian ethics in general .
sexual Ethics
Batchelor, Edward, Jr., ed. Homosexuality and Ethics. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1980. Selections of several theologians and ethicists, showing a range of positions and their supporting rationales, with helpful critiques at the end.
Harrison, Beverly W. Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. "Misogyny and Homophobia" is especially powerful.
international Christian Digest 2: no. I (February 1988). Includes solid, brief articles on "Sexuality and Spirituality," "Adolescent Sexuality," "A Sexual Ethic for Singles," and "Aging and Intimacy."
Kosnik, Anthony, et al. Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought. New York: Paulist Press, 1977. A solid study of the subject. The chapter on ethics presents a suggestion of new ethical values to be considered in sexual ethics.
Scanzoni, Letha D awson . Sexual ity. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984. Written primarily for women; helpful for men , too. Honest, direct, takes the power of sexuality and sexual experiences seriously.
Spong, John Shelby. Living in Sin? San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. Carefully explores biblical attitudes toward women and toward homosexuality, distinguishing from divine truth and the cultural worldviews of the Bible's writers. Strives to make the Bible a "source of life" and "a guide in the area of sexual ethics."
Uhrig, Larry J. Sex Positive: A Gay Contribution to Sexual and Spiritual Union. Boston: Alyson, 1986. Explores why the church is so often "sex-negative." Posits that it is time to create a new sexual ethic that combines responsible, caring attitudes with a "sexpositive approach to life and religion."
Spiritualify
Edwards, George R. GaylLesbian Liberation: A Biblical Perspective. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1984. Argues that gay/lesbian liberation is a valid liberation theology and that homophobia cannot claim biblical basis.
Fox, Matthew. A Spirituality Named Compassion; and the Healing of the Global Village, Humpty Dumpty and Us. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1979. Makes suggestions concerning sexuality in a "creation spirituality" perspective. Chapter 2 is especially helpful.
Hurcombe, Linda, ed. Sex and God: Some Varieties of Women's Religious Experience. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. An assortment of feminist perspectives about sexuality and spirituality in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Subjects include, among others, promiscuity and monogamy; sex, politics, and spirituality; feminist "embodied" theology.
Nelson, James B. Between Two Gardens; Reflections on Sexuality and Religious Experience. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1984. A series of essays about various religious issues, including homosexuality, from his perspective of a "sexual theology ."
Nelson, James B. Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978. The best single book on sexuality from a holistic, Christian perspective, with an excellent survey of theological and ethical opinion on homosexuality, and suggestions for ministry. A ground-breaking book. Section on love and sexual ethics lays out some of the important differences in method one can see in different sexual ethical statements.
Nouwen, Henri. Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. New York: Doubleday, 1986. Helpful thoughts for this area, keeping before us the broader issues of what he calls the three movements of spiritual life.
Scanzoni, Letha, and Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978. Presents a case for a fundamental shift in Christian attitudes toward gay/lesbian persons.
United Church of Christ, Board for Homeland Ministries. Human Sexuality: A Preliminary Study. New York: United Church Press, 1977. A report by the UCC's Task Force to Study Human Sexuality prepared prior to that denomination's 1977 General Synod pronouncements on human sexuality. Contains excellent biblical resources, with sections on ethical method and biblical interpretation.
Persona! Stories
Brown, Rita Mae. Rubyfruit Jungle. New York: Bantam, 1973. Novelized account of a young woman's growth.
Fortunato, John. Embracing the Exile: Healing Jour ney s of Gay Chri stia ns. Minneapolis: Seabury Press, 1982. Excellent book on the interaction of sexuality and spirituality, and the invitation to growth that gay/lesbian/bisexual experiences of "exile" can provide. Has much more than just his story.
Glaser, Chris. Uncommon Calling: A Gay Man's Struggle to Serve the Church. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. A gay Presbyterian tells of his struggle to develop a sexual ethic for his life, as well as to serve his denomination in a professional capacity.
Oates, Wayne E. The Struggle to Be Free: My Story and Your Story. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983. Personal story of a leader in the pastoral counseling movement and his various decision points. (Sexuality is not a prominent part of his story, but it illustrates the process of clarification of one's personal ethic.)
Open Hands 19
SPECIAL REPORT
Cloud of Witnesses: by barb ffi. janes
The 32nd General Council of the United Church of Canada
The 32nd General Council ofthe United Church ofCanada made religious news headlines around the world this past August with its proclamation that "all persons, regardLess oftheir sexual orientation, who profess Jesus Christ and obedience to Him, are welcome to be or becomefuLL members ofthe Church." Furthermore, the council stated that "all members ofthe Church are eligible to be consideredfor ordered ministry." "Ordered" ministry includes both ordained and diaconal ministers.
In recognition ofthe historic nature ofthat declaration, we have invited an Open Hands reader who closely followed the United Church action to share her observations with us in this special report.
The United Church of Canada. with about two million members. is the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. It was formed in 1925 through the merger ofthe Methodist Church, the Congregational Union ofCanada. the Councils ofLocal Union Churches. and 70 percent ofthe Presbyterian Church in Canada . The Canadian Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church became part of the United Church in
/968.
The United Church is divided into conferences which meet annually. Each conference is comprised ofpresbyteries. The General Council meets every two years with commissioners recommended by the presbyteries and elected by the conferences. The decision-making structure ofthe denomination is presbyterian.
BLAM! A woman's startled cry ... a gay man hit the deck in fear ... then silence ... and then the rancorous discussion about homosexuality continued at the 32nd General Council of the United Church of Canada. The bang was not, thank God, a gunshot, but merely an exploded light bulb. Yet a gunshot would not have been a complete surprise at this particular General Council, which had on its agenda the recommendations of the report 'Toward a Christian Understanding of Sexual Orientation, Lifestyles, and Ministry." This report included the contentious recommendation 2a, which asked the church to "affirm that sexual orientation in and of itself is not a barrier to participation in all aspects of the life and ministry of the Church, including the order of ministry." Security guards patrolled the site, while right-wing Christian groups leafleted commissioners and held press conferences denouncing our denomination for even considering such an action.
United Church congregations across the land had held meetings to discuss the report, meetings at which statements such as "We don't have queers in our church" and "Line 'em up and shoot 'em" largely went unchallenged. Despite the rather pervasive attitude of homophobia, most conferences had asked the General Council to approve recommendation 2a.
The release of "the report," as it has come to be known, brought to birth the Community of Concern (COC), a male-clergy-dominated group within the denomination. The COC has only one spoken agenda: to keep gay men and lesbians out of United Church pulpits, if not out of the church. The COC couches its rhetoric in palatable, middle-of-the-road terms, emphasizing its "concern" for the church rather than its homophobia. It fosters a mistrust of
20 Open Hands
the national church, uses a campaign of disinformation regarding church structures and how they work, advocates that people withhold their giving to the churchwide Mission and Service Fund, and threatens to leave the denomination and take "their" congregations with them. Two other groups within the United Church were hoping against hope that 2a would pass: Affirm, lesbians and gay men of the United Church of Canada, and Friends of Affirm, others who support Affirm's goals. These groups, founded in 1982, are poorly funded and geographically scattered. In the early years of Affirm, only a few people could choose to speak publicly and openly as gay men and lesbians. Today, there are a few more, but the situation largely remains one of "familiar faces, hidden lives."
At the conference meetings, members of Affirm and Friends of Affirm wore buttons proclaiming "Oui Affirm." At General Council, the button campaign expanded to include T-shirts and sweatshirts with the same logo, making our presence visible both on the floor of council and in the visi tors' gallery. The festive Affirm booth boasted banners, an ongoing video on the rightful place of lesbians and gay men in the church, and helium-filled lavender and pink balloons stamped with the words: "Oui Affirm. We're here for good!" One irate parent was heard to exclaim to a whining child, "Never mind, dear, we'll get you a normal balloon."
Important as all this was, the real impact was made by the loving presence of the members and Friends of Affirm who staffed the booth, including the mother of a gay man, a retired professor of church history, a nurse, an organist, a political aide, and many others. Their patient and loving presence melted a few hard hearts.
S PECIAL REPORT
Affirm and Friends had low expectations of this General Council. We were not at all sure that 2a would pass; indeed, it seemed that the best we could hope for would be yet another period of further study. Our request to the General Council Executive that Affirm's two spokespeople be given speaking privileges was turned down. The General Council of some 388 commissioners had to consider close to 1,800 petitions on the report (mostly negative). Of course, the church also had to deal with such other pressing issues as Free Trade, the place of children in the church, sexism, and the recognition of the All Native Circle Conference.
General Council assigned its work to sessional committees, whose task it was to sift through the reports and petitions on a particular issue and bring back recommendations to the full council. Several of the 24 members of the committee which would deal with "the report" and the 1,800 related petitions were publicly identified with COC. None of its members were members of Affirm, although Affirm had expressed to the church its willingness to dialogue. The sessional committee worked to consensus: all members of the committee would have to agree or say "I can live with that" to any action or statement coming from the committee. The committee's first major decision was to put aside the report and to frame in its place a consensus statement on Membership, Ministry, and Human Sexuality. The statement was more than we expected and less than we hoped for. The "more" was that "all persons regardless of their sexual orientation who profess faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to Him are welcome to be or become full members of the church." A confession of participation in homophobia and persecution was accompanied by asking the church at all levels to advocate human rights for gay men and lesbians. The "less" was, and remains, that there is no enforcement to any of this, so that lesbian and gay church folk remain unprotected, especially those who are in ordered ministry.
During General Council debate, the COC raised procedural questions as often as possible (and frequently inappropriately). They tried to make the council separate orientation from practice, a strategy that was defeated by laughter when one wag asked, "If I wink at someone over the frozen foods in the grocery store, is that orientation or practice?" Supporters of Affirm who were commissioners spoke about love, about the gospel call to be an inclusive church, and about the ministries of lesbians and gay men. Other commissioners spoke of immorality , abomination, sodomites, and, in one regrettable instance, necrophilia, bestiality, and AIDS. Such showing of naked hatred and the misuse of procedure did not help the C~C's cause.
W hat was it that swayed General Council? How could they have approved the very thing that most of the church feared? Commissioners returning to their home presbyteries have been told that they were "brainwashed by the powerful and well-funded homosexual lobbying group."
The story was told of an elderly woman who had come to the council absolutely convinced that homosexuals should not be ministers. She worked at the local arrangements booth across the aisle from the Affirm booth and watched the members of Affirm and Friends show unfailing patience, good humour, and tenderness, not only with one another but also with anyone who stopped to talk. Their faithfulness changed her mind.
Affirm and Friends also displayed a strong loyalty to and love for our denomination, never once threatening to leave the church that is our home and birthright. Our faith was further evidenced in defining our struggle in terms of calling the church to be faithful, rather than speaking in C~C's winllose vocabulary.
But most clearly, the work of General Council was the work of the Spirit, who eludes description and cries out for recognition. The COC has renamed the Spirit "the heat of the moment," but those more open to the ways of God felt an embracing wind of change, calling God's people to risk faithfulness, even if that includes being misunderstood and persecuted.
But the United Church continues to be sorely tempted to a more comfortable faithfulness. The COC continues its campaign, strong enough that the General Council Executive has set up a committee to meet with COC representatives in the hopes of coming up with a common ground. To date, Affirm has never been consulted in the process that affects the lives of lesbians and gay men in the church.
During the closing worship of General Council, a slide show depicted the life of this particular council: chil., dren, theological reflectors, youth, ecumenical visitors, theme presentations, the Native celebration, worship, lunch line-ups ... and not one picture of anyone wearing a "Oui Affirm" button or shirt. The theme of this General Council was "Called to Covenant," yet the place of lesbians and gay men in the church calls this covenant a sham. As one of Affirm's spokespeople said, "I feel like we've been invited to the table, but we've been given chairs so low we can't reach the food."
But the last word in this tear-stained chapter of the church's history is God's. Hope has come to us in the sharp, clear sense that God is on our side and we will live to see God's righteousness. Affirm and Friends feel a deepening sense of spirituality which many compare to the spirituality that gave civil rights workers the courage to face bigots with no shield but prayer. We are learning to walk back to back and to keep on dissenting toward justice .•
A copy of the United Church of Canada statement, entitled "Membership, Ministry, and Human Sexuality," can be ordered from the United Church Publishing House, 85 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto, Ontario M4T IM8, Canada.
barb m. janes is a minister in the United Church of Canada who has long been an advocate of rights and rites for lesbians and gay men. She is presently working with the congregation ofMount Royal United Church in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Open Hands 21
~~~--------R_C_P_R_E_P_O_R_T----R-~-~-~-~-~OU--
Welcome
to a New Reconciling Congregation
We welcome the United Church of Rogers Park in Chicago as the 36th Reconciling Congregation. Rogers Park is well-known to many RCP supporters as the congregation which graciously hosted the convocation of Reconciling Congregations in March 1987.
The United Church of Rogers Park, with 240 members, was created by the merger of two congregations , United Methodist and Congregational, in 1971. Its mission statement, adopted in 1984, proclaims Rogers Park as a "diverse, active, urban congregation, seeking to proclaim the love of God by words and deeds that free and heal." The congregation has been active in work against racism, in opposition to nuclear weapons, and in the sanctuary movement.
The congregation is located in a diverse community on the far north side of Chicago. Its programs include a thrift shop, soup kitchen, tutoring, and outreach to nursing homes and to persons with handicapping conditions. The congregation provides space for a day care center, a Spanish-speaking "base community," and many other organizations.
The congregation began its official journey toward becoming a Reconciling Congregation with the c0nvening of a group concerned with issues of sexuality and homophobia in September 1987. During its monthly meetings over the course of a year, this group engaged in study, prayer, and dialogue, culminating in the writing of a statement of reconciliation. This statement was then adopted by the Administrative Council and the charge conference.
* *
As we approached our production deadline, we learned of a 37th Reconciling Congregation -Euclid UMC in Oak Park, Illinois. We will officially welcome them in the next issue of Open Hands.
What local church leaders say about our new videotape:
".. .an excellent tool for engaging in genuine discussion. "
" ... a deeply moving film that helped me understand God's love better. "
" ... definitely God's message of reconciliation. "
CASTING OUT FEAR:
Reconciling Ministries with
Gay/Lesbian United Methodists
Casting Out Fear poignantly tells stories from Reconciling Congregations, United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministries with lesbians and gay men.
These stories portray the pain and estrangement lesbians and gay men feel in the church and the hope of reconciliation found in these congregations.
Speakers include: Bishop Melvin Wheatley, Dr. Tex Sample, Dr. Emilie Townes.
Produced and directed by W. Marshall Jones, 1988. 38 mins. VHS format
Purchase price -$100 3~-day Rental -$20
Send your prepaid order to: Reconciling Congregation Program,
P.O. Box 24213, Nashville, TN 37202; or call 202/863-1586.
Beginning with the Summer 1989 issue., we will begin accepting paid advertising in Open Hands. For rate information or other questions, write Open Hands.
P.O. Box 23636, Washington, D.C. 20026, or call 202/863-1 586.
And God Loves Each One
Published
The printer began work at 4:00 AM on a Sunday morning, which allowed Dumbarton UMC (Washington, D.C.) to celebrate the publication of And God Loves Each One: A Resource for Dialogue on Homosexuality and the Church
at its December 18, 1988, worship with final copies in hand!
At the invitation of the Reconciling Congregation Program, Dumbarton' s Task Force on Reconciliation began work on the resource a year ago. With Ann Thompson Cook as primary writer and with input from many sectors of the church and education communities, a concise, easy-to-read, and informative booklet was created. Personalized with photographs of lesbians and gay men in a multitude of settings, the booklet provides an ideal resource for congregations and individuals beginning to explore lesbian/gay concerns in the church.
Initial demand for the book has been high and the response overwhelmingly enthusiastic, noting that it fills a gap in existing resources. Orders for over 500 copies were received before the book was printed!
Every venture we undertake has its "miracle" element. As the book entered final production in early November, it became clear that sufficient financial support from foundations and private organizations would not be available to complete the project. A hasty appeal to friends of the RCP provided $3,725 in contributions from 20 individuals and organizations in the last month. We give thanks for the generous supporters and for God's gracious providence.
If you have not yet seen a copy of And God Loves Each One, see the order information in the ad at right. If you would like to take copies on consignment to sell to others, call 202/863-1586.
22 Open Hands
Rep REPORT
Resources for AIDS Ministries
We have received infonnation on two new resources available for congregations and other groups involved in ministries with persons with AIDS.
An "AIDS Ministries Network" has been launched by the Health and Welfare Department of the UMC General Board of Global Ministries. Members of this network of "United Methodists and others who care about the global AIDS crisis and those whose lives have been touched by AIDS" will receive an AIDS Ministries Network Alert. The Alert will sometimes take the fonn of a focus paper and at other times will provide infonnation about AIDS ministry work being carried out by United Methodist churches and conferences. Persons interested in becoming a member of the network should write: Health and Welfare Ministries, General Board of Global Ministries, Room 350, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115.
Another AIDS resource available, also entitled Alert, is a monthly newsletter from the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) AIDS Ministry. This Alert provides capsules of news infonnation
on AIDS legislation , education, research, treatment, and ministries. Persons interested in receiving this resource should write: UFMCC AIDS Ministry, 5300 Santa Monica Blvd., #304, Los Angeles, CA 90029.
Lutherans Issue "Call to
Repentance"
Delegates to Assembly '88, the biennial meeting of Lutherans Concerned/North America (LC/NA), unanimously approved a document which names the ways in which the church has sinned against the lesbian/gay community and calls on the church to repent of its sins.
A Call for Repentance has been sent to the bishops and presidents of Lutheran churches of North America with an invitation for these leaders to meet with the leadership of LC/NA to develop a special plan for dialogue between the groups.
For more infonnation or a copy of the document, write: Lutherans Concerned, P.O. Box 10461, Fort Dearborn Station, Chicago, IL 606 10.
Wc.'it(. ~ S:tc"., :tD.. 1dl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. March 31-April 2
Semiannu:11 meeting of Affirmation: lfnited ~1ethodisrs for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, in Dallas, Te "as. Leadership to include Dr. John Horlbert, Perkins School of Theology, and Rev. Christine Darrow, assistant pastor at :\lCC Dallas. \'<'rite: Affirmation,
P.O. Box 1021, Evanston, II. 60204.
St,~HUh St,~ ... .. . ... ....... .... April 13-16
Southeastern Conference for Lesbians and Gay I ten, in Dallas, Texas. Write: Southeastern Conference for Lesbians/Gay Men, P.O. Box 190712, Dallas, TX 7::;219, or call: 214/471-6040.
~~/I. H(J~fk~ £~~ ......... . June 30-July 3
Conferen e for homophobia educators at the l'niversity of California in Los Angeles. Write: Camp:1ign to End Homophobia, P.o. Box 819, Cambridge, ~1A 02139.
REMEMBER: February 16-18, 1990, are the dates for the second national convocation of Reconciling Congregations, to be held in the Bay Area of California.
A path to greater understanding ...
And God Loves Each
One:
A Resource for Dialogue
on the Church
and Homosexuality
This booklet's gentle, personto-person approach is a pedect starting place [or congregations or individuals dealing with questions about homosexuality:
~
How do people become homosexual?
~
What does the Bible say about homosexuality'?
~
What's it li ke to be gay or lesbian in the church today?
"For all who feel the pain ofour tun.es, this much-needed booklet identifies a path to greater love and understanding."
-C. Dale White, bishop, New York Area, UMC
Written by Ann Thompson Cook, 1988. 20 pp. Published by the Dumbarton UMC Task Force on Reconciliation; distributed by the Reconciling Congregation Program.
$4. 95 per copy $3.00 for bulk orders (10 or more)
Please prepay your order with ]5% postage and handling to: Reconciling Congregation Program, P.O. Box 24213, Nashville, T 37202
Open Hands 23
P
0 RT-=--------_
~~_ RE
~ RC_P________
UMC Homosexuality
Study Commission
Appointed
The General Council on Ministries of the United Methodist Church has announced the formation of the 26-member Committee to Study Homosexuality . The study commission was mandated by the 1988 General Conference of the UMC. The study panel will meet over the next four years to "study homosexuality as a subject for theological and ethical analysis ... seek the best biological, psychological, and sociological information and opinion on the nature of homosexuality ... and explore the implications of its study for the Social Principles." The UMC Social Principles currently declare that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."
A swift response to the appointment of the panel members came from Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns. Noting that the panel consisted of only one identified lesbian or gay person, spokespersons Judy Cayot and Randy Miller said, "We refuse to bel ieve, no matter how open-minded or how high their level of expertise, that other persons can speak better to the realities of living as lesbian and gay Christians than those of us who deal with it everyday." Affirmation's request to expand the committee's membership to include adequate representation of the lesbian/gay community has been rejected by the General Council on Ministries.
There are several panel members with ties to the Reconciling Congregation Program . Dennis Alexander is pastor of Wesley UMC in Minneapolis. Rebecca Parker is the former pastor of Wallingford UMC in Seattle. Jeanne Barnett is chair of the California-Nevada Reconciling Task Force, and Bruce Hilton is a member of Albany UMC in Albany, California.
Other study panel members are:
Rodolfo G. Beltran, Philippines; Jan Bond.
Oak Grove, Missouri; David Diaz, Edinburgh,
Texas; Victor Paul Furnish. Dallas;
Sally Brown Geis, Denver; Stanley Hauer24
Open Hands
was, Durham, North Carolina; T. Kevin Higgs, Birmingham, Alabama; James W. Holsinger, Jr., Richmond, Virginia; Bishop Neil L. Irons, New Jersey; Rachael Ann Julian, Birmingham, Alabama; J. Edward Legates, Raleigh, North Carolina; James Logan, Washing ton, D.C.; C . Dav id Lundquist, Dayton, Ohio; William E. Lux, Manchester, Iowa; Richard E. Martin, Indianapolis; Arthur Pressley, Madison, New Jersey; Tex Sample, Kansas City; David A. Seamonds, Wilmore, Kentucky; Claudia Webster , Portland, Oregon; Wesley D. Williams, Boston; J. Phillip Wogaman, Washington, D.C.; Nancy S. Yamasaki, Spokane, Washington.
UFMCC Celebrates 20th Anniversary
We offer a belated note of congratulations to the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1988. With its roots in a Bible study group in South Los Angeles led by Troy
D. Perry, the UFMCC has grown over these 20 years to include more than 200 study groups and churches with an international membership of around 27,000.
Rev. Elder Freda Smith's welcome to participants in a 20th anniversary dinner held on October 6, 1988, stated:
Especially during times of crisis and c!wtlenge there is a great need to remember and to celebrate the miracle of God's deliverance. To lose our record ofhistory and to fail to celebrate our exodus from bondage that so many ofour people hm'e sacrificed so much to bring about, lVould be a tragedy.
It would likewise be a tragedy for us not to acknowledge the many ways in which the UFMCC has been at the forefront confronting homophobia In our churches and our society.
Reconciling Congregations
Metropolitan·Duane UMC Wesley UMC Kairos UMC Hamilton UMC c/o Trudy Grove c/o John Human c/o Richard Vogel c/o Judy Kreige 20 I W. 13th Street 823 Union Avenue 6015 McGee 1525 Waller Street New York. NY 10011 Sheboygan, WI 53081 Kansas City. MO 64 11 3 San Francisco. CA 94 117
Calvary UMCWashington Square UMC University UMC St. Paul's UMC c/o Jerry Brown c/o P.J. Leopold-Trump c/o Steven Webster c/o Jeanne Knepper 1400 Judah Street 135 W 4th Street I 127 University Avenue 1615 Ogden Street San Francisco. CA 94122 New York. NY 10012 Madison. WI 53715 Denver. CO 80218 Trinity UMCPark Slope UMC Wesley UMC St. Francis·or·the·Foothilis c/o Arron Augcr c/o Beth Bentley c/o Tim Tennant-Jayne UMC 152 Church Street 6th Avenue & 8th Strect Marquette at Grant Streets c/o Christiane Heyde San Francisco. CA 94 122Brooklyn. NY 11215 Minneapolis. MN 55403 4625 E. River Road Tucson. AZ 85718 Trinity UMC Calvary UMC University UMC c/o Elli Norris c/o Chip Coffman c/o Dave Schmidt 2320 Dana Street
United University Church Berkeley. CA 94704 815 S. 48th Street 633 W. Locust c/o Edgar Welty
81 7 W. 34th Street Albany UMC Philadelphia. PA 19143 DeKalb. IL 60115
Los Angeles. CA 90007 c/o Jim Scurlock Dumbarton UMC Wheadon UMC
c/o Ann Thompson Cook c/o Albert Lunde 980 Stannage3133 Dumbarton Avenue. NW 2212 Ridge Avenue Crescent Heights UMC Albany . CA 94706 Washington. DC 20007 Evanston. IL 60201
c/o Walter Schlosser 1296 N. Fairfax Avenue Sunnyhills UMC
Christ UMC Euclid UMC W. Hollywood. CA 90046 c/o Cliveden Chew Haas c/o Chuck Kimble c/o Alan Tuckey 335 Dixon Road
4th and I Streets. SW 405 S. Euclid Avenue Milpitas, CA 95035The Church in Ocean Park c/o Judy Abdo Washington, DC 20024 Oak Park. IL 60302
St. Paul's UMC St. John's UMC Albany Park UMC
235 Hill Street
c/o Dianne L. Gri mard c/o Barbara Larcom c/o Reconciling Committee
Santa Monica. CA 90405
10 1 West Street 2705 St. Paul Street 3100 W. Wilson Avenue
Vacavi lle. CA 95688 Baltimore, MD 21218 Chicago. IL 60625 Wesley UMC c/o Patty Orlando Wallingford UMC Grant Park.Aldersgate UMC United Church or Rogers Park 1343 E. Barstow Avenue c/o Margarita Will c/o Sally Daniel c/o Sally Baker/Paul Chapman Fresno. CA 937 10 2115 N. 42nd Street 575 Boulevard. SE 1545 W. Morse Avenue Seattle. WA 98103 Atlanta. GA 30312 Chicago. IL 60626
Bethany UMC Capitol Hill UMC c/o Rick Grube c/o Mary Dougherty Edgehill UMC Irving Park UMC 1268 Sanchez Street 128 Sixteenth Street c/o Hoyt Hickman c/o David Foster San Francisco. CA 941 14 Seattle. WA 98112 1502 Edgehill Avenue 3801 N. Keeler Avenue Nashville. TN 37212 Chicago. IL 60641
Reconciling Conferences
Central UMC St. Mark's UMC
California-Nevada Troy
c/o Chuck Larkins c/o David Schwarz 701 W. Central at Scottwood 1 130 N. Rampart Street New York Wyoming Toledo. OH 43610 New Orleans. LA 70116 Northern Illinois