The Leader

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The short version of the story is: I ended a six-and-a-half year relationship because of his homophobia.

The long version took seven years and includes the discovery that homosexuality is not a choice but a biological reality; a winding and roundabout faith journey, a friendship with a man who was both gay AND Christian, and his encouragement and support as I became a woman all unto myself, making my own decisions and reaching my own conclusions for the first time in my adult life.

I'd encountered homosexuality before, and I'd encountered Christianity before. It wasn't until December 2004 when I began a friendship with Jason that I considered the possibility that one could be both. But I saw in him a recovering-Catholic-turned-Lutheran (just like me) who felt a deep sense of God and an attraction to men. Did this make him a sinner, an abomination? Although my conservative Christian sensibilities tried to tell me so, I couldn't swallow the bitter pill of exclusion, as I had been doing for so many years. I was amazed to find that some Christians are not wrathful or judgmental, and that some churches-a lot of churches, actually-not only accepted but embraced all sexual orientations.

Once I discovered this, I couldn't justify spending my life with a man who, upon hearing about my new friendship with Jason, instituted a "fag ban" on our house. I'd begun to feel a sacred presence in my own life, and it was love, peace, beauty, grace and the hatred and fear engendered by this intolerance had no place in what I'd come to know of God.

And what do I know of God? One thing I know of God is Jesus. One of the wisest things I've ever heard was that the Bible is the manger that holds Jesus: human-made of splintered, imperfect elements, but the bearer of a sacred truth. The truth of Jesus is that he was a revolutionary, a man who was sent to save and liberate and turn the status quo on its head and remake our idea of the norm-through love, through compassion, through grace. That love and grace is not meant just for those people and groups who make us feel comfortable, because Jesus' message of change is not a comfortable one. It's hard. It's tense. But that tension is essential, because the world as it is today is unacceptable. A world where the death of Matthew Shepherd happens is unacceptable. A world that permits discrimination, oppression, injustice, and hate is unacceptable. So is it uncomfortable? I sure hope so. Because I am not comfortable with the way my values are being lived out.

So, on Saturday, April 1, we will begin the uncomfortable and tense work of confronting some tough questions and issues. The "EXPRESSIONS: Sexuality and Faith" conference will be, among other things, a day of challenge: why are we so scared of sexuality, in ourselves and in others, in all its forms? Why are sexuality and faith so often mutually exclusive, when in fact they are both "expressions" of the divine in each of us? What are we teaching our children about sexuality and how does the Gospel truth of love get so twisted that a man like Fred Phelps (who showed up at Matthew Shepherd's funeral with his "God Hates Fags" signs) can hate with such ferocity? How do we begin to live in the bodies God has given us, and using that body as a dwelling place for divinity?

Come and see.

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