This post is part of the series: Faith Vs. Religion
When I started coming out to people (recent development in my life) I was asked by one friend, “Does your faith affect how you feel about yourself? Did it scare you to come out because of your faith?” The answer is an emphatic no to all questions. Me not coming out until now has nothing to do with the church it has everything to do with, I just did not care. My sexuality never bothered me and still doesn’t. I just did not care about who I liked because in my mind it did not matter. I don’t really compartmentalize myself. I don’t really view myself as different pieces. Just one whole. So, in my mind it was weird to think of the individual parts of me and figure them out. I also had not encountered language that connected to me and my understanding of myself. It was not until I started college that I encountered language to describe how I felt. I’m in fact not straight but I do not label myself. I’m “gay” if you use that word as a way to group everyone in the LGBTQ+ community but I do not label myself gay or bisexual or pansexual or anything. I’m just me. I just happen to be a part of this community. Not labeling is a movement more common today and when I found out that people felt the way I did and spoke about how they felt the way I did I felt validate and comfortable calling myself part of LGBTQ+ community. It is actually my faith that gives me the confidence to come out. As a Theology major working for my PhD it is my job to strive for the truth. To find truth we must always be our authentic selves. I think every day by being authentic with myself and others I come closer to what is true. The truth is Love is Love.
I have always believed that there was nothing wrong with being gay even with pressure from my more conservative home parish to think otherwise. My main reason was always dignity. We claim as Catholics, Christians, and human beings that all people have dignity. There are no qualifications for this. It is just inherent to who someone is to have dignity. In any attempt I have heard to explain why being gay is wrong, the explanation strips away that person’s dignity. Arguing why being gay is wrong without defiling a human’s inherent dignity would be quite difficult to do because dignity encompasses the whole person. Dignity can not be separated from a person in any way, shape, or form. When claiming that an aspect of someone has no dignity, in this case a person’s sexuality, it degrades the person’s human dignity.
The bible does not condemn homosexuality. I know crazy, right? Most citations of the bible used to say “see the bible does not agree with homosexuality” are actually about either rape, specifically rape between men, (Gen. 19:1-29) and prostitution, specially male prostitution (Deut. 23:17-18). Also, homosexuality is never talked about technically because these ancient people had no clue about it. They had no language to describe such occurrences. So, saying the bible talks about homosexuality you actually inflict your own understanding of the world on these people who lived thousands of years before you. Women are never mentioned in the concept (except slightly in New Testament by Paul but it is very vague). So, the care was about men and their right relationship. Why you may ask. Because it was and as it still is today a patriarchal society so who had dignity the most men, so we are conserved about men’s dignity and what takes away form it such as rape and prostitution. The issue of rape and prostitution I think we all can agree are wrong and degrading to any human’s dignity male or female. Anything you could pointing towards actually being about homosexuality would be in Leviticus (still though not very concrete). There man sleeping with a man gets the death penalty. Sounds harsh doesn’t. There are certain Christian groups who believe such should be acted out, but I think (or hope) we can see how absurd that is. If not, I would like to point to a couple other things that are not held to the letter today by seeking death penalty such as adultery (Deut. 22:22) and not being a virgin (Deut. 22:13-21).
You may be asking (if you are Catholic specifically) if we know this about the bible why does the church still not support gay people. Well let’s talk about order of nature vs. order of reason. Two ways of view human knowledge and what should inform our conscious. Order of nature is considered with what we see in nature and can understand through nature. Order of reason is informed by nature but views humans’ ability to reason and their experience as informative and ultimately good. The Church and Christian teaching have always been based on both, sometimes one more than the other with certain teachings. When it comes to homosexuality it has only been viewed through order of nature, but order of nature that was informed from basically when the bible was written (when people thought that men were the ones with the gift of life and from when people thought that women were defective men, stuff we know for a fact are false). Any teaching about sexuality and sex in the church (Catholic especially) is based on old knowledge of nature and how the body worked. Nothing new or actually correct. The argument about how homosexuality is not natural is one I see thrown around a lot. I often hear “you don’t find homosexuality out in the wild”. Well sorry to burst your bubble but you actually do funny enough. There are plants that reproduce asexually. Many species of animals participate in homosexuality as part of population control. Also, there are several types of lizards (ex: New Mexico Whiptail) that are all female lizards thus they reproduce without male lizards. Upon giving this information to some people they looked at me and said why are you acting like human should act like the animal world. My response is well you technically said it first since you “can’t find it in the wild”.
Some Christian traditions view homosexuality as a choice and inherently wrong based on misunderstanding biblical scripture and to that I would like to point out that the bible supports slavery (2 Sam. 5:13, Judges 19-21, and Num. 31:18) and supports polygamous marriages and supports genocide (basically the whole book of Judges). Yet I’m pretty sure none of us in the 21st century would have thought that having slaves is alright, yet the bible says it is. Nor do any of us see genocide as right and justified. So, what do we gleam from this? That the bible has truth about the human condition, how God works, and the hope that there is something beyond ourselves. But just as any text it is affected by the context of which it is written, and we must actively work to separate truth from historical circumstances.
Now you must be wondering if this is all true then why does Christianity, Catholicism in particular, fight against this? I believe as of right now (and is why this is one of my grievances against the church) is a power issue. Rules and regulations are ways to control people and group people together. We see this in any institution. For example, business may tell their employees they can’t dye their hair or have tattoos. These rules are a way of painting an image of the insinuation and a way of creating power. We have the right to tell you what to do. Just as in any institution high up people do not like to be questioned or told that their rules are wrong. No one likes to be told they are wrong for that matter. I’m sure there are people reading this (if they’ve made it this far) fuming thinking I don’t know anything because I’m telling them their views and beliefs are wrong. Well I would like you to think if your reaction is because of I’m actually the wrong one or if it is because we don’t like being told we are wrong. Also, a point I’ll pick up in a different post the decisions being made about the church are being made by people who do not fully represent the people they are being made about. There is lay people involvement in councils called but ultimately it is decided by priests, bishops, and the Pope, all of whom are men, and we can probably suggest for the most part are heterosexual (assuming since most LGBTQ+ feel discriminated against with the Catholic church and Christianity, not wrongly, and leave churches in which they experience this). How can these men really understand the true experience of something they themselves have little experience with? A need for a more diverse community involvement in the church I think is a huge issue that needs great thought and consideration.
I’m quite aware that there is no over night acceptance. Different generations were raised with different expectations and societal standards. We all have biases and people will continue to have biases regardless if the Catholic church changes its mind. I see this in my own life with friends and family. I came to the realization before I started coming out that if people said they loved before they knew then they still should after. Nothing has changed. I am the same person before and after. The only change is I’m freer, more empowered maybe. My family and friends so far have accepted me. But its hard to move beyond uncomfortableness. When talking about coming out to certain family members I told my friend I know that they will accept me, but they will be uncomfortable with the vulnerability it takes to express themselves in the way I’m now expressing myself. I think that is the same for a lot of people regardless if they want to admit it. Talking about sexuality is a very vulnerable for people and some people struggle with it. I think being more open for conversations with people will help them be more comfortable with vulnerability.
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve had a question in the back of my mind “Am I afraid?” Quite honestly, I think yes. There are people who will see this from my personal life that do not know that I’m a part of this community and who will not agree with me. I fear rejection even though I’d like to appear outwardly as not. But ultimately, I know I’m not rejected. I’m not reject by the people that it matters. I’m not rejected by God but embraced. Something that is often said is God does not make mistakes and therefore my sexuality is not a mistake. I am who I am (I quote God here). I think this is a very insightful. God is saying in this statement I am who I am so do not worry about it. I think we can apply this to ourselves in some way, not fully but in an informative way. We are who we are, case and point. Let’s stop debating over who we are but instead learn how to properly interact, experience, and love who we all are.
“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
*My own personal picture at the Equality House