Coming Out Litany
October
11, 2008
National Coming Out
Day Worship
One:
In the beginning God came out
All: through the
heavens, the earth, and all of creation.
One:
The Children of Israel came out of the bondage of Egypt
All: into the land of
God's promise.
One:
God came out of a closet of laws and commandments
All: through the door
of love in the person of Jesus.
One:
Today God comes out in the voices and stories of the poor,
All: the displaced,
the oppressed in our midst.
One:
Today we worship this out God who loves us boldly and accepts us gladly.
All: Today we come out
to praise our God and speak our love for one another.
We all have
heard the saying, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
We have all grown up hearing children’s sermons or Sunday school lessons that
describe the Christian life as a journey to heaven. It’s as if heaven is some
place “out there,” out of our reach or experience, but if we live good lives
and are not bad boys and girls, when we die we will go to heaven.
The man in
Mark’s story is not talking about going to heaven. He’s interested in how to
experience eternal life in the here-and-now. Perhaps in exploring his profound
question, we can lay to rest the notion that heaven or eternal life, whichever
expression we choose, is a “place” or something outside and unreachable through
human experience.
We are all conditioned by our
environment. What have we kept since we were little children? As adults, we
bring our histories, circumstances, and experiences with us. Our outlook on
life is tied to this conditioning. Parents, teachers, friends, neighbors, work
associates, and enemies have
all contributed to who we are,
what we think, and how we live. The man in Mark’s story was also conditioned by
such influences. He never murdered anyone, didn’t run around, never stole
anything from anybody, never told a lie, had not defrauded anyone, and had honored
his parents. Wow! This fellow could be described as the preeminent community example
of integrity. Now here it would be said that his possessions had a hold of him
but here I put forth something different may have actually had a hold of him
his true life, his authentic life.
October 11th
was National Coming Out Day. It celebrates the moment when individuals
came out of the closet as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer,
Questioning or as an ally. It’s an important day worthy of celebration because
coming out of the closet is not easy. There are repercussions and as we
see from the stories in the newspapers—these repercussions can be deadly.
On National Coming Out Day we celebrate the boldness and bravery it takes to
come out of the closet and we also celebrate stories—our coming out
stories—stories that tell of those moments when we came out of the darkness and
isolation of the closet and told the world who we really were as a Gay man, a
lesbian woman, as transgender, as queer, as questioning or as an ally.
In this day and
age my heart breaks when I hear that LGBTQI youth have the highest suicide rate
than any other teen or young adult. Researchers have found that suicide among
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth is comparatively higher than among
the general population. LGBT teens and young adults have one of the highest
rates of suicide attempts. According to some groups, this is linked to
heterocentric cultures and institutionalized homophobia in some cases,
including the use of LGBT people as a political wedge issue like in the
contemporary efforts to halt legalizing same-sex marriages. Depression and drug
use among LGBT people have both been shown to increase significantly after new
laws that discriminate against gay people are passed. Bullying of LGBT youth
has been shown to be a contributing factor in many suicides, even if not all of
the attacks have been specifically addressing sexuality or gender.
So why come out? It may have been better if we all just stayed
in the closet…no one would know about us, no one would be talking about us and
definitely no one could bully us., right?
You know something I was bullied and picked on until I went to
college. When I was little I was born
with muscles to short in my legs and they pulled up on my heels so I walked on
my toes, my ears were too big, I couldn’t play baseball, I was very socially
oriented to kids of my age…whatever kids
will find excuses to tease and or bully.
No one ever called me gay or teased me for it, but I did see them do it
to other kids.
National Coming
out Day was founded in 1988 by Robert Eichberg, a psychologist from New Mexico
and founder of the personal growth workshop, The Experience, and Jean O'Leary,
an openly-gay political leader from Los Angeles and then head of the National
Gay Rights Advocates. The date of October 11th was chosen because it was the
anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay
Rights.
The first headquarters
was located near here in West Hollywood offices of the National Gay Rights
Advocates. 18 states participated in the first national coming out day, which
was covered in the national media. In its second year, the headquarters moved
to Santa Fe, New Mexico and participation grew to 21 states. After a media push
in 1990, national coming out day was observed in all 50 states and seven other
countries.
Right now there
are 28 states in which you can be fired just for being gay and 34 if you are transgender. There is no federal protection.
Alabama,
Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, Texas, and Utah still have yet to repeal or strike down their state's
sodomy laws, although unenforceable due to the Supreme Court ruling they remain
on the books. Hopefully in the not too
far future they will be seen as silly laws such as it is illegal to tie your
pet alligator to a fire hydrant in Detroit.
This is why it
is important to come out. When we come
out our family, friends and acquaintances now us, love us, and are not
threatened by us. People do not change
their minds on how they feel about civil rights by watching an add on tv, some
may but statistics show it is because they know someone and know their story
and care for that person that minds are changed.
Chris Glaser
says in coming out as sacrament; “That coming out is our unique sacrament, a
rite of vulnerability that reveals the sacred in our lives – our worth, our
lovemaking, our beloved, our community, our context of meaning and our God.”[1]
Our coming out is a sacrament in which we come into a wholeness, a holiness of
who we are called to be. We do this in
community and those who accept and welcome us participate in the grace of the
sacrament of coming out.
But we are not
the only ones who have to come out, those who support, love and care for us
must come out. They are the voices that
add to the chorus calling for the recognition that we are all created by love,
through love and we are all loved by God.
I
want to share with you a gentleman’s blog post.
Let me tell you a little about him. His name is Brian McLaren. Brian is an author, activist, and public
theologian. Brian’s writing spans over a
dozen books, including but not limited to Naked Spirituality, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a
Revolution of Hope and why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed cross the
road? Christian identity in a multi-faith world. Brian McLaren is also a
trustee at Claremont School of Theology. On October 8th he made the
following blog entry…this is all his and I had to share this;
A "farewell, Brian McLaren" moment, or not
I
recently received this note from a reader of my books, someone I had met on a
trip to Asia a few years back:
I
read recently about your recent stand on homosexuality ... Don’t know if
everything is correct – but this was my comment on that article:,
“I
have regarded Brian as my mentor in coping with expressing my Christian faith
in the postmodern world but now I have to break ranks with him - it leaves me
devastated. "Neither do I condemn you - go and sin no more" the words
of Jesus in the situation of the woman caught in adultery gives me guidance on
this issue - "not to condemn" is not the same "it is not
sin". To use a supra concept of "Loving God and Loving
Neighbour" to excuse what is clearly sin in the Bible is to dilute the
fundamental of obeying the Bible for its teaching authority in our lives in
defining ethical behaviour - what else will happen next?
Brian my dear friend, thank you for journeying with me and opening my eyes to see my faith being worked out in a post modern world - your journey has taken you in a different direction from where I want to go - I feel lost as to who will be my next guidepost, but I will carry on this journey with Jesus as the author and finisher of my faith ...”,
I met you when you were in [Asia] some years ago. If you get to read this and would like to respond it will be great but otherwise it’s ok. God bless you brother.
Thanks
for sending me your comment. I appreciate your warmth and feel your sadness in
needing to (as you say) break ranks with me. There is a lot I'd like to say -
but I'll just offer three (actually four) brief comments.
First,
as you probably know, I'm not a "we have to keep ranks" type of guy.
One of the characteristics I most appreciate about "a generous
orthodoxy" or "a new kind of Christianity" is the freedom to
stay unified and stay in fellowship even when we disagree. In fact, if we only
"keep ranks" with those with whom we agree, it pretty much guarantees
we won't be challenged to think new thoughts and grow into new areas. So, it's
important for you to know that if you hold a different view than I do, whatever
the issue - I would not want to "break ranks" with you. In fact, I am
continually enriched, instructed, and challenged by people who differ with me
on this and other issues - and I hope the reverse could be true.
My
view on human sexuality has indeed changed over a period of thirty years, and
actually, the views of most conservative Christians have also been changing
over that period. It wasn't too long ago that the only conservative position
was, "It's a choice and an abomination." When that position became
untenable due to increasing data, the conservative position evolved to
"it's a changeable disposition, and we know how to change it." When
fewer and fewer people who claimed to have been reoriented were able to sustain
the reorientation, the position shifted to "it's a hard-to-change
disposition, but it can be done with great difficulty." More recently, I
hear conservatives say "the disposition may be unchangeable but the
behavior is a choice, so people may choose to live a celibate life or a
heterosexual life, even against their orientation." All that's to say that
it would be unfair of me to break fellowship with people who are themselves on
a journey, just because they aren't where I am at this point.
So
I'm glad that difference doesn't need to mean division. Which brings me to a
second comment ...
In
many settings - some cultural, some multi-religious, some denominational, not
taking a firm anti-homosexuality stance can cost you your reputation, your job,
and even your life. Because you have been an outspoken supporter of my work in
the past, I can see how my public stand would put you in a terrible position.
If you don't publicly break ranks with me, people may practice "guilt by
association," branding you a "friend of sinners," or worse -
someone in ranks with a heretic. Those costs would be very high. So be assured
- I don't criticize you for breaking ranks with me - and doing so in the most
public way possible. I can see how even if you privately agreed with me (and I
know you don't), it would be almost impossible to do otherwise than break
ranks, as you say. Many of my friends have been in a similar position. I'm
deeply sad about this - for both sides - but understand it.
Finally,
this issue is not going to go away. A significant percentage of people are gay
- I would guess around 6%. This percentage seems to be a remarkably consistent
feature of every human culture and population, every denomination, every
religion, including those who deny it exists among them. If each gay person has
two parents, the issue affects 18% of the population. If each gay person has
one sibling and one friend, we're up to 30% who are directly affected by the
issue.
It's
much easier to hold the line on the conservative position when nearly all gay
people around you are closeted and pretending to be other than they are.
Eventually for some, the pain of pretending will become greater than the pain
of going public. Whenever a new son or daughter comes out of the closet, their
friends and family will face a tough choice: will they "break ranks"
with their family member or friend, or will they stay loyal to their family
member or friend - which will require them to have others break ranks with
them?
In
my case, I inherited a theology that told me exactly what you said:
homosexuality is a sin, so although we should not condemn (i.e. stone them), we
must tell people to "go and sin no more." Believe me, for many years
as a pastor I tried to faithfully uphold this position, and sadly, I now feel
that I unintentionally damaged many people in doing so. Thankfully, I had a
long succession of friends who were gay. And then I had a long succession of
parishioners come out to me. They endured my pronouncements. They listened and
responded patiently as I brought up the famous six or seven Bible passages
again and again. They didn't break ranks with me and in fact showed amazing
grace and patience to me when I was showing something much less to them.
Over
time, I could not square their stories and experiences with the theology I had
inherited. So I re-opened the issue, read a lot of books, re-studied the
Scriptures, and eventually came to believe that just as the Western church had
been wrong on slavery, wrong on colonialism, wrong on environmental plunder,
wrong on subordinating women, wrong on segregation and apartheid (all of which
it justified biblically) ... we had been wrong on this issue. In this process,
I did not reject the Bible. In fact, my love and reverence for the Bible
increased when I became more aware of the hermeneutical assumptions on which
many now-discredited traditional interpretations were based and defended. I was
able to distinguish "what the Bible says" from "what this school
of interpretation says the Bible says," and that helped me in many ways.
So
- many years before I learned I had members of my own close family who were gay
- my view changed. As you can imagine, when this issue suddenly became a live
issue in my own family, I was relieved that I was already in a place where I would
not harm them as (I'm ashamed to say this) I had harmed some gay people (other
people's sons and daughters) earlier in my ministry.
I
know this won't be convincing to many people, but it's an honest though brief
accounting of my story. I express a similar thought in my new
book (p.
52). I'm addressing the issue of hostility toward other religions, something
many people feel they must uphold in order to be faithful and orthodox
Christians:
I
think of a friend of mine from the same background of Christian fundamentalism
I hail from. When his son came out, he had no support to help him accept the
possibility that his son could be both gay and good. With deep ambivalence, he
stood with his tradition and condemned his son. The cost -alienation from his
son - was high, but it grew unspeakably higher when his son internalized the
rejection and condemnation of his community and took his own life. Or I think of
another friend, the mother of a gay son, also from my heritage. She came to me
in secret to talk, knowing that one of my sons had come out around the same
time as hers. Through tears she said, "I feel like I'm being forced to
choose between my father and my son. If I affirm my son, I'm rejecting
everything my father stood for. If I stand with my father, I'm rejecting my
son."
In
religion as in parenthood, uncritical loyalty to our ancestors may implicate us
in an injustice against our descendants: imprisoning them in the errors of our
ancestors. Yes, there are costs either way.
I
want to add one more brief comment. You ask, if we change our way of
interpreting the Bible on this issue (my words, not yours) "- what else
will happen next?" Here's what I hope will happen. After acknowledging the
full humanity and human rights of gay people, I hope we will tackle the
elephant in the room, so to speak - the big subject of poverty. If
homosexuality directly and indirectly affects 6 - 30% of the population,
poverty indirectly and directly affects 60 - 100%. What would happen if we
acknowledged the full humanity and full human rights of poor people? And then
people with physical disabilities and mental illnesses and impairments? And
then, what after that? What would happen if we acknowledged the spiritual,
theological, moral value - far beyond monetary or corporate value - of the
birds of the air, the flowers of the field, of seas and mountains and valleys
and ecosystems? To me, Jesus' proclamation of the reign or commonwealth of God
requires us to keep pressing forward, opening blind eyes, setting captives
free, proclaiming God's amazing grace to all creation.
So
- thanks for your note, for the warm spirit in which it was written, and for
the invitation to respond. No need to be devastated. You will be fine. God
bless you too, my brother! I hope our paths cross again soon. In friendship, as
always – Brian
In
Mark 17 10:21 “Then Jesus looked at the person with love” not sadness or anger
for Jesus knew where his heart was at in his own process, “and said There is
one more thing you must do. Go and Sell
what you have and give it to those in need.”
When we risk everything and come out we gain a world where we are
authentic and comfortable in who we are.
As LGBTQIA people we have an opportunity to continue to share what we
know with those in need. We have an
opportunity to continue to educate and stand up for those who may not be ready
to stand up for themselves yet.
As
Brian said; “What would happen if we acknowledged the full humanity and full
human rights of poor people? And then people with physical disabilities and
mental illnesses and impairments? And then, what after that? What would happen
if we acknowledged the spiritual, theological, moral value - far beyond
monetary or corporate value - of the birds of the air, the flowers of the field,
of seas and mountains and valleys and ecosystems? To me, Jesus' proclamation of
the reign or commonwealth of God requires us to keep pressing forward, opening
blind eyes, setting captives free, and proclaiming God's amazing grace to all
creation.” What would happen next….I
can’t wait to see. Amen
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