Is the Catholic Church bigoted?

I apologize for the sensationalist title to this post, but this is really seems to be the question underlying so much of my interactions with others with respect to the Church.  Recently, I was giving a presentation in front of DSG when a Senator muttered under his or her breath doubt as to the Catholic Church recognizing any rights whatsoever. Earlier this year, one of my good friends asked me, “How can you be a part of an organization that denies that an entire community of humans even exist?”

I’ll admit that these comments disturb me.  If the Church does in fact dehumanize a whole group of people, then the Church would be undermining the dignity of the human person it claims to prize so highly. But this doesn’t seem consistent with the Church’s actions—it is the largest charity in the world that provides aid regardless of race, creed, or orientation.  While the rest of the world was going on about GRIDS, it was the Catholic nuns who were the first to overcome the fear that paralyzed society and step in to nurse the suffering—sexual orientation a nonfactor. 

This just doesn’t seem bigoted to me.  I would say bigotry is an irrational judgment without considering the facts, and based solely on gender, race, orientation, religion, etc. With that in mind, a statement such as,

“Men tend to be physically stronger than women,” 

could be considered bigoted if I just made it a priori without evidence and reflection on how I came to that conclusion.  But if we, like the scientific community, believe in some objective physical reality, it could simply be a statement of scientific fact established by accepted methods within physiological research (e.g. Janssen et al, Journal of Applied Physiology, July 1, 2000 Vol 89 No 1, 81-88). 

Similarly, a statement such as,

“homosexual acts are intrinsically morally disordered,”

could be considered bigoted if I just made it a priori without evidence and reflection on how I came to that conclusion.  But if we, like the Catholic Church, believe in some objective moral reality, it could simply be a statement of theological fact established by accepted methods within ethical research (e.g. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2357-9).

Sadly, it seems to me that many look no further than a single statement of the Catholic Church to call the Church bigoted without a study of the epistemology that the Church uses to construct her worldview, or the evidence that the Church considered to draw her conclusion.  Somehow, theological claims are something we’re all entitled to an opinion regardless of our depth of study.  Few educated people take seriously extremists who dismiss evolution or some other scientific claim without a degree in Evolutionary Biology or some related study.  Yet we as a community seem to laud those who, without theological degree or even carefully considering the Church’s evidences, reject the Catholic Church’s theological claim.  How many who reject the doctrine mentioned above can tell me the arguments the Church uses to justify that doctrine?  Yet, if we as a community don’t study the Catholic arguments, how can we ask Catholics to consider ours?

This is not to say that individual Catholics always act with pure motives, or have not used their religion to justify hate, despite the Church’s explicit forbidding of this (See again my comment about people feeling entitled to express theological opinions without a careful study of theology).  I am not asking non-Catholics to study or agree with a faith they don’t profess.   However, I am asking non-Catholics to not make judgments about a view they have not carefully studied based on an incomplete exploration of the arguments. After all, that would seem to be an irrational judgment without fully considering the facts.

Calling my Church names without studying her teachings dismisses a billion people worldwide for no reason other than their religion.  I invite the community here to, with me, enter into conversation with my Church on her view on LGBT rights.  But please, do so after careful study of her arguments and how she derives them.  It is, after all, merely the treatment you would ask any Catholic when considering ours.

"God is Love"

If there’s one thing that rarely gets much love on this blog, it’s the Bible.  Now, perhaps that’s understandable—Leviticus 18 tends not to get too many in the LGBT community excited for what follows (Leviticus is, admittedly, also the end of many Christians’ attempts to read the Bible cover-to-cover). And, for the LGBT community, what follows doesn’t seem to be particularly “Good News.”  Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1 don’t seem to contain the affirmation we generally expect in the LGBT community.

I was recently directed to a very interesting discussion of Scripture and homosexuality.  Matthew Vines, a student at Harvard who came out his sophomore year, has spent the last two years researching Biblical exegesis on this topic.  In a recent presentation, he discusses the passages in the Bible he finds to be cited most often in Scriptural arguments against homosexuality. After exploring each one of them in turn, he [spoiler alert] concludes that none of them can be used as arguments against a loving, committed, and monogamous same-sex relationship.

While the Catholic Church would end up disagreeing with Matthew’s conclusion, one of the things I love about his discussion is how it places the Scriptural passages he discusses in context.  One of the tenets of the Catholic faith is that any Scriptural passage must be interpreted within the Tradition as well as within its overall Biblical context.  While Matthew, being Protestant, doesn’t exactly discuss a ton of Catholic Tradition, his presentation does a great job of contextualizing the passages, and is definitely worth a watch.

One of the things that surprised me in Matthew’s presentation was not necessarily what he chose to include.  Rather, I found it very interesting one Biblical quote that he didn’t mention. It’s perhaps the passage that I have seen most quoted around this community: 1 John 4, “God is love.”  It’s an absolutely beautiful quote that is central to the Christian understanding of God and love both.  It is also a quote that is often used in an argument against the Church’s teachings on homosexuality.  The argument generally runs something along the lines of, “I can’t imagine a God who is love asking me to deny such a huge part of myself whom He created and called good.”

I think it’s particularly appropriate to talk about this argument today, because today is the day Christians celebrate Good Friday—the day we commemorate the death and crucifixion of Jesus on the Cross.  What does Jesus being tortured to death have to do with an argument predicated on “God is love,” you may ask?  Well, everything.

In my previous post, I asked us to reflect on what we mean when we say “love.”  When St. John writes, “God is love,” he specifically is referring to agape—Christian love. John Paul II, in his Theology of the Body, teaches that love is a “sincere gift of self.”  The ultimate expression of this gift of self is ultimately found on the Cross.

When a Catholic looks at a crucifix, (s)he sees this paradigmatic act of love.  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).  Christian love is a sacrificial love that looks beyond oneself.  It is a gift of oneself without thought to whether another “deserves it.”  Christian love is to “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:28). 

This is why the Church looks with confusion on an argument that seems to say “God is love, therefore gay sex.” This argument makes multiple assumptions.  It rightfully assumes that we were ultimately created in order to love.  It wrongfully assumes that love necessarily entitles one to sex.  It wrongfully assumes that if I don’t have sex, I can’t love.  It wrongfully assumes that to deny one of my desires is necessarily to deny God’s ultimate plan.  Jesus said,  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).  To derive from love a right—any right—seems counterintuitive to the love we are reminded of so clearly on Good Friday.  Where is entitlement in Jesus on the Cross?

God’s love on the Cross was all about giving everything when nothing was deserved.  That’s understandably unpopular in this world, and it’s a teaching that, admittedly, Christians often don’t live up to.  After all, today is the day we remember that when Jesus came preaching this message, we all rejected Him and tortured Him to death.  However, that does not change what love means, and it does not change that Christians are called to this understanding of love.

No wonder, with all the Scripture Matthew Vines used to argue against the traditional interpretation, he didn’t mention the argument from “God is love.”  That sentence contains so much of the Christian message. Yet, it cannot be taken out of context and argued that that sentence necessarily contain sex.  Today, we are reminded that love is about so much more than sex. 

I hope everyone has a blessed Good Friday and a happy Easter.

Devil’s Advocate

[Editor's note: Please welcome our newest writer to the blog! We're thrilled to have you, Shane!]

Like so many people who write on this blog, I was falling inlove—but it wasn’t the Disney story I imagined it would be. It was going all wrong.

No, this isn’t another coming out story. And Love Story time was yesterday, so this isn’t a story about how the man of my dreams came and swept me away despite my best heteronormative efforts. No, I can’t even get “falling in love all wrong” right. You see, I was falling in love with the Catholic Church. Not just God and not just Catholicism—those two had laid irrevocable claims on my soul long before—but specifically the Roman Catholic Church.

You can imagine my surprise. Despite the fact that at that point in my life, I was just coming to terms with my sexuality, and, on top of that, I already had my fair share of struggles with Church teaching. Growing up, I had been pretty much the only Christian—much less Catholic—in my group of friends, and so I had heard the various objections to the Church's teachings ad nauseum. But despite all of this, I couldn’t ignore the fact that God was undeniably calling me to a deeper involvement with His Church.

This seemed to be just a bit of a problem. There are gay guys out there who are, philosophically speaking, theistic. There are even gay guys out there who identify as Catholic, but who often maintain a careful disdain of the institutional Roman Church. Gay guys who consider themselves in love with the Roman Catholic Church seem to be few and far between.

What I was hearing all around me didn’t help [“Why are you still Catholic at all?”], and even the counselor I was seeing told me it was hopeless. I mean, I’ve sworn off hopeless crushes on straight guys; how could I expect any relationship with the Church to work out any better?

Hans Küng, an ecumenical theologian and Catholic priest once wrote “the problem ofGod is more important than the problem of the Church; but the latter often stands in the way of the former." I agree with Küng when he says this last part doesn’t have to be the case.

“There are two ways of getting home,” GK Chesterton writes in The Everlasting Man,“and one of them is to stay there. The other way is to walk all the way round the whole world till we comeback to the same place.” While I could hold up My Experience as infallible and withhold my assent to the Church until she reworks the witness of 2000 years of some of the world's brightest men and women so I don’t ever have to be challenged, I have seen my interpretation of my experience be wrong or incomplete again and again.

At the end of the day, every time I am at Mass or Adoration,God confirms He wants me in His Church. And I have no clue why He’s asking that of me, to be honest. It’d be so much easier to join some nice LGBT-affirming Episcopalian parish. But I can’t. I am Roman Catholic. And my love of God—of Catholicism—of Church—really isn’t a choice. And I can no more divorce my Church from myself than I can my sexuality.

Fear

As I believe I've previously mentioned I was in the closet throughout my collegiate career because I felt I had to be in order to get the references I needed to move on with my life (i.e. seminary). Initially I was okay not talking about it, but as time passed I became increasingly frustrated that I had to talk out of the side of my mouth for the sake of self-preservation within a community that claimed to want to discuss the “big issues” of our day - although only if you played for team hetero.

Don’t get me wrong - I love and respect many people from that time, but unfortunately the bitterness of loneliness colors the way I remember my last four years.

I've gone through plenty of unfortunate events in my life, however coming out and wrestling with that by myself stands as an exceptionally painful moment.

Several weeks ago I was talking about Things and Feelings at lunch in the Duke Divinity lounge. The woman I was conversing with had just been “evangelized to” outside of the Brian Center, and apparently in this exchange the person trying to recruit her to Team Jesus asked what she thought about Teh Gays.

I took this opportunity to mention my own gay-ness and how exhausting it had been to be semi-honest and fearful, an experience which motivated me to choose Duke. I praised Duke Div's ability to be orthodox and inclusive (although I don't really know how the two can ever be divorced), and I expressed my gratefulness for a community of people who I felt safe to be myself around.

Although I'm sure it appears otherwise from my posts on BDU, I actually don't (explicitly, at least) inject my sexuality into everything I do. I can and do talk about other things quite regularly. I have a variety of interests, and ladies are just one of them.

_{Y’know? Y’know?}

(However I suppose my faux hawk makes everything I do implicitly gay...)

I don’t need to talk about My People and Their Rights all the time. I know gay people who do that and it’s like. Get a hobby please.

That being said, though, I want to feel safe being honest in the event that gay-related things do come up. Sexuality came up on the regular in college and I couldn’t actually contribute my view(s) because it would have been incriminating and destructive to the world I had so carefully constructed. Feeling obligated to be less-than-honest for the sake of everyone else's comfort (and to ensure my academic reputation) was painful, to say the least.

In this Christmas season, when Jesus came into the world in all kinds of compromising and socially unacceptable/unexpected ways, I am infinitely thankful to be a part of a people who, even if they don't agree with me, don't dismiss me automatically for loving who I love and being who I am. I am thankful I don't need to cloak the "real me" for the sake of academic preservation, and furthermore for the opportunity to talk about my Things and Feelings on the BDU blog.

Anonymous Posts (12.26.11-1.2.12)

Every week, we collect anonymous entries sent in using the link on our sidebar and post them all on Monday. We post anything as long as it doesn't contain personal attacks, hate speech, or express or insinuate that one is at risk for hurting themselves or someone else. Please read this for an explanation of this policy and seek help if your or a friend find yourself in that position. With those exceptions aside, please feel free to submit your thoughts and questions. :)

Welcome to the first installation of anonymous posts in 2012! And, um, forget 2011...can anyone tell me where winter break has gone? No, really.

This week went especially quickly, so quickly that if you didn't have a chance to read last week's posts, now's your chance! John wrote allegorically about his role in the community; Megan opened up about some personal experiences to defend WLW, Pruitt recalls a conversation he had with his ex-boyfriend about love and sexuality, and Denzell finished the year with a post sorting through his identity as Black gay man, or perhaps as a gay Black man.

Now we're here, in 2012, and starting to call for SENIOR posts. Yeah, that's right. We graduate this year, folks! So get to your keyboard and let us know what Duke, this Community, your LGBTQA identity, etc, has meant to you. Email them to bluedevilsunited@gmail.com!

I hope that everybody has a wonderful winter break, but here at the Blue Devils United Blog we know that that isn't always the case. There can be a lot of anxieties about going home, which may mean going back in the closet or coming out to family and friends or any number of things. Please reach out to the resources at the bottom if you find yourself in a position where you need support. We're a community and we're here to support each other, so keep checking the blog for new content and be sure to keep up with each other, as well.

Now, notes from OC!

#1
THIS. THIS THIS THIS

#2
Russia's Gay Revolution, As Seen by An American Abroad

#3
I really do not understand the argument "hate the sin, love the sinner." In all seriousness, what is there to hate about someone who, for all practical purposes, lives an admirable life, but is gay? Does the Christian/whatever else God (full disclosure, I was religious and am now atheist) really just hate the action of a man or woman kissing another of the same sex? Is it that bad?! If so, I think that this God is then a pretty damn judgmental one at best. I'm so frustrated with the whole argument that "God doesn't hate gays, he hates the gay lifestyle." Seriously? What about my life style is there to loathe so badly? I think I lead a pretty sensible life.. what's so bad about me? Oh, it must be that I like men? It seems then that my love delegitimizes my entire life. Hmm..

Please remember that there are a number of resources available on campus and in the local community. These resources are available over breaks and throughout the school year. If you or a friend are experiencing thoughts or urges to harm yourself or somebody else, please reach out to the following resources: In an emergency, please don't hesitate to call CAPS at any time, including "after hours" at (919) 966-3820. Ask to speak to the advice nurse and tell them you are a Duke student. You may also call the Trevor Project, a national hotline specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning youth (college students included). Their number is 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).

Anonymous Posts (12.20.11-12.25.11)

Every week, we collect anonymous entries sent in using the link on our sidebar and post them all on Monday. We post anything as long as it doesn't contain personal attacks, hate speech, or express or insinuate that one is at risk for hurting themselves or someone else. Please read this for an explanation of this policy and seek help if your or a friend find yourself in that position. With those exceptions aside, please feel free to submit your thoughts and questions. :)

Ho ho ho!! By now, Hanukkah is almost through and Christmas has passed. Kawnzaa starts today, and I wish any of our readers who celebrate it a happy holiday!

I went to this charity drinks night last night to benefit the Phoenix Mercury Charities and One-N-Ten (Phoenix), an organization that serves LGBTQ youth. Serious props to the Mercury for joining forces with an LGBTQ organization. You don't see that enough in sports!

Since our last installation of Anonymous Posts, we've had five great posts! Coincidentally, most of them touched on the coming out process. Ye'tha'thne wrote about going home and her decision to come out to her mom, Jessye wonders about the parallels between 21st century homophobia and 20th century racism and antisemitism, Jacob shares the long journey his dad took to embrace him after coming out, Jonathan dreads the superficial conversations being in the closet requires, and Risa compares a summertime experience to the hardship of going back in the closet after each semester. All in all, another busy week here on The Blog!

I hope that everybody has a wonderful winter break, but here at the Blue Devils United Blog we know that that isn't always the case. There can be a lot of anxieties about going home, which may mean going back in the closet or coming out to family and friends or any number of things. Please reach out to the resources at the bottom if you find yourself in a position where you need support. We're a community and we're here to support each other, so keep checking the blog for new content and be sure to keep up with each other, as well.

Now, notes from OC!

#1
At the risk of sounding inflammatory, I'm sort of tired of all of this he said/she said sexism in the LGBT Community (at Duke) stuff. And before you dismiss me for having male privilege and simply not seeing it—which is your favorite retort—I am a woman. I'm tired of the bickering. I'm tired of cismen being hated on simply for being born cismen. Yes, going out to LGBTQ clubs can suck because there are usually not tons of women. And yes, a lot of LGBTQ organizations nationally are run almost exclusively by gay men (you might point to BDU and say the same thing, but for anyone who was at last year’s elections, only two women ran! A 50% election rate ain’t bad...and okay, maybe we need to figure out why only two women ran, but…I digress). And yes, queer women’s culture gets overlooked for gay male culture (Tegan and Sara: 0; Lady Gaga: 231723012). But um, I like Lady Gaga! And liking her doesn’t make me a bad queer woman. And at Duke? I can’t say I’ve ever felt discriminated against in the LGBTQ community for being a woman. Most of my close LGBTQ friends are guys, and I definitely get that there can be a bit of an old boys network--they hang out a lot without me. But I have my best friends (non center folks) who I hang out with and it doesn't bother me that I don't get invited to dinner or whatever with them. I don't count the number of men and women when I walk into the center, because the gender of the person sitting next to me isn't important (to me). People don't talk to me all the time, but it's usually because they're doing homework. Would they take a break from their homework and talk to me if I was a cisguy? I don't know, and I'm not going to hypothesize about it, arbitrarily decide they would, and call sexism on it. At the risk of being even more inflammatory, I don't think Women Loving Women is helping to change the social dynamics. It's creating a insular, secretive community of queer women. Queer women have this outlet, and so they don't come to other things (I know, because I go to the other events and am frequently one of less than a handful of women), which just creates an even greater schism. Maybe it's a chicken and the egg problem--if things weren't already sexist, then queer women wouldn't feel the need to have this separate community; but having a separate community is further creating a schism, manufacturing more of a need for a separate community. Truthfully, I feel there is no place for me in the queer women's community at Duke if I'm not into cisman bashing. And I'm not. And I feel bad for my cisguy friends who get attacked any time they say something.

#2
A potent article to say the least. Dan urges all Christians to extend Christian love towards everyone, no matter how "sinful" they may be.

Please remember that there are a number of resources available on campus and in the local community. These resources are available over breaks and throughout the school year. If you or a friend are experiencing thoughts or urges to harm yourself or somebody else, please reach out to the following resources: In an emergency, please don't hesitate to call CAPS at any time, including "after hours" at (919) 966-3820. Ask to speak to the advice nurse and tell them you are a Duke student. You may also call the Trevor Project, a national hotline specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning youth (college students included). Their number is 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).

Christmastime in the Closet?

A very merry Christmas eve to everyone! Hopefully this post finds all of you well and enjoying the winter break.

My break has been dominated with decorating. For Christians, the Christmas season is a quiet time to decorate and prepare your house (and thus symbolically, your heart) for the coming of Jesus on Christmas day. Decorating (physically and symbolically) is a big deal. It's public, and it gives us the chance to show what we can be at our very best. We take the best parts of our lives and put them on display for all to see. But I, like many of you, haven't been able to "decorate" properly this year. I haven't come out to my mom yet, so whenever I'm around her I can't bring out the best parts of my life and show them to her - I have to censor and hide anything about my life that has anything to do with the LGBT community, leaving my conversations with her decorated with second-rate stories and half-truths. I haven't ever been able to show my mom what I can be at my very best.

And I'm sick of it.

I'm done spending my Christmastimes in the closet, which is why I've decided to come out to my mom before I head back to school.

We'll see how this goes.

But no matter what happens, from now on I'll finally be able to decorate my conversations with my mother with all my favorite activities and accomplishments. I'll finally get to show her who am I really am, and what I can be at my very best. Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas everyone, and happy decorating.

Gay at the Div School

[Editor's note: Please welcome our first graduate school writer to the blog!]

My name is Kate Dembinski and I am a first year Master of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School.

I grew up in small town Iowa and graduated from a public high school with 35 others. I promptly went eight hours away to Hillsdale, Michigan, where I spent the next four years studying religion (i.e. Christianity, let's be honest) and classics. I learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I became a pacifist.

I discovered I was gay.

Following Christmas break of my sophomore year I began practicing an intense Sabbath. I fasted for 30 hours a week from food, technology, and school work. I truly fell in love with Jesus for the first time in my life, and as a result of intentionally carving out time to listen to God’s voice I began to hear some disruptive things.

“You’re gay,” for example.

I considered myself a fairly staunch conservative at the point of this realization, and naturally I felt as though I was trapped. I had constructed a community of like-minded folks who would not have responded warmly to the news that I counted myself a member of the full-blown homosexual ranks.

But, as Hillsdale College's motto says, virtus tentamine gaudet, strength rejoices in the challenge.

I came out to one person at Hillsdale during my time in college. My motivation for silence was selfish: I was in a conservative department within a conservative school and I needed references in order to move on with my life. In searching for seminaries I desired a place that was orthodox and that would, at the very least, not openly despise me for being who I am.

I have only felt completely validated thus far. I know I am in the right place, surrounded by the right people, learning the things I love in a place that will challenge and support me academically, spiritually, and communally.

I cannot say that Duke Divinity is correct for all gay people, just as I cannot say that Hillsdale College is right for all conservative folks. For me, though, I am infinitely thankful (and dare I say blessed) to be at Duke. I've gotten to meet some wonderful people through the LGBT center, local churches, and (naturally) the divinity school.

Thank you for this opportunity, BDU. Y'all are lovely. (See, us northerners can appreciate the you plural also.)

/k

An Ode to Mom

So this week, I had a very significant anniversary. It was my three-year anniversary of coming out to my parents, which in my life—and in many of my LGBT friends’ lives—marks one of the single most significant moments in my life. It was the moment when I committed to never hiding who I was again. It was the moment when I began to start the process of becoming a whole person.

I call it my “Gayday.” It’s like my birthday, but for me it’s so much more significant. After all, on my birthday, most of the work was left to my mom; on my Gayday, I did all of the work.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. For me, my Gayday was the culmination of years of work, of self-discovery, and of building courage, but for my parents, it was only the beginning of all of the work that they had to do. My parents had to begin to do the work of understanding what it would be like to live with a gay son, which is no small task.

So at any rate, yesterday, December 15^th, was my Gayday.

That makes me three-years-old, and with all of the profound insight of a three-year-old, I’d like to take some time to reflect on the one person who is most important to every three-year-old: my mom.

I’ll never forget how my mom reacted on the night I came out. After watching a Goosebumps marathon on Nickelodeon and feeling nostalgic as all hell, I decided that, for whatever reason, that was the night I was going to come out. I was just going to do it. I was just going to march downstairs and tell them. First I called my best friend Paige to make sure that she was on call in case things went badly and I needed a pick-up, and I called my brother to let him know that I was finally going to do it. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to find my parents in the same room that night. So I spent a few minutes wandering around the house trying to see if they’d naturally settle in the same place; when it became abundantly clear that they wouldn’t, I just asked them both to come downstairs, “I just have something I want to talk to you about.”

“What’s wrong sweetie?” asked my mom.

“Nothing, I just want to talk, that’s all.”

So now my mother and my father are standing across the island in our kitchen, we’re all standing up, and I jump in.

“There’s not really a way to preface this, so I’m just going to say it…Mom, Dad, I’m gay.” The words dropped to the floor, and my father let them crash and shatter at his feet, but my mom swooped down, caught them, and cradled them gently in her arms.

My mother’s reaction was remarkable. All she did was ask questions, as if it was a new hobby that I was picking up and she was curious. She asked things like “how long have you known?” and “who else knows?”—you know—basic sorts of things.

My father didn’t react quite as positively, but that is a post for another day, and rest assured, it’s a story that ends well. But for the moment, fast-forward a few minutes and I’m out the door. I wasn’t running away for good: I just needed some space. So I went to Paige’s house, drank hot cocoa, and cried for all that I thought I had lost.

My mom called at around 9:00 and only wanted to know if I was safe, and if she could pick me up. I said that she could and that I had never planned to run away forever. She said that she knew and that she understood.

When we got home, we sat down on our favorite couch, she held my hand, I leaned on her shoulder, and we talked until 2 am in front of our fireplace. I have never felt more loved by my mother than at that moment, when she sat there holding me, and telling me all the things that I needed to hear. She told me that my father would come around, that he just needed some time. She told me that she loved me no matter what, and that I was her son and nothing could take that away. She told me that she was amazed by my bravery, by my courage to be myself. She told me that she had had a sneaking suspicion that I was gay since I was 4, and that she had even talked to a therapist about what to do if her son was gay. She told me that her only worry, her only concern, was that I wouldn’t be able to live the life that she had always wanted for me—a life free of discrimination, free of hurt, and free of the prejudice of others. In the midst of everything that she could have focused on, she only focused on me. All she wanted was for me to be happy regardless of my sexual orientation. On a sillier note, she also made me pinky-promise that I wouldn’t get HIV, which I assured her wasn’t even a concern given my current lack of a dating life at the time.

And I told her a few things. I told her that she should still expect a beautiful marriage, that she should expect to meet my boyfriends as they came, and that she should still expect grandchildren—beautiful, adopted, wonderful grandchildren.

From that point on my mother has been my pillar. It was her who supported me when I began to get involved with my high school’s GSA, and it was her who claimed me as her son when I came out to 2,000 Methodist church leaders at the NC Methodist Annual Conference. It was her who lent me a shoulder to cry on when I faced the pain of religious marginalization, and it was her who was the first to congratulate me on a successful youth march at the NC Pride Parade or a great meeting of the Triangle GSA Council.

So to all mothers out there who support their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender children, know that you are our rock, know that you are loved, and know that you make more of a difference in our lives than you could ever understand. And thank you. Thank you so much for being everything that you are.

And to those of you whose mothers have not been supportive, know that they love you. They truly, truly do. Your mothers love you more than you could know, no matter how terrible they are showing it. I promise.

I started this post by talking about how yesterday was my 3^rd Gayday and yesterday my mother, because she is hip and wonderful and the best mother that I could ever, ever ask for, sent me a text message that I will never delete:

“I just realized that it’s the third anniversary of your coming out to us. It was the night before our cantata at church, which is tomorrow…I know, a very strange association. I just want to say thank you for helping me to see the world in a better way. You are still the bravest man I’ve ever known and I love you very much! Mom”

I love you Mom. Merry Christmas.

My Perspective #1: Hands and Holy Oil (Serious Reality)

[Ed. Note: I'm SO happy to have Edwin writing for the blog, Everyone. Say hi to Edwin!]

Someone once told me that one of the most influential forces in life is a personal story. It’s better than literature because it’s current; it’s better than rumors because it’s honest; and it’s better than theories because it’s real—at least when it comes from me. So yes, my slot on this blog will be used as public pages of my diary. I know what you’re thinking: “How creative considering that the heading of this blog is ‘Our Lives.’” Rest assured, however, that my posts will be more than regurgitations of events. I plan to delve deep into my experiences to discover the ways in which each of them has shaped the perspective of Edwin C. Yet convinced? Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that once I start talking, I don’t stop. And sooner rather than later, the hot mess struggle bus that is my life will reveal itself in the form of absurd hilarity and serious reality. I hope that you’re down for the ride.

It was a Wednesday morning in early October of my senior year in high school. I was forced to come out to my mom by a cousin of mine—I’ll save that story for another time. It stands as one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had. My mom and I were on the back porch of my uncle’s home. We sat side by side on the steps with our knees up to our chests like two 1st graders at the end of afterschool activities waiting to be picked up by their parents. I thought I’d look my mother in the face as I spoke, but the shame was made too real by the seriousness of her gaze. I tried to start slowly, but before I could utter a sound the tears were streaming down my face; my legs began to shake, my lips started to quiver, and my heart was beating at a pace faster than I could imagine. To say the least, I was terrified beyond belief. Somehow I got it out in what I’m sure was more gasping for breath amid sobbing than an articulation of my feelings. Anyways, her initial response was everything that I wanted to hear. “You will always be my son. I love you no matter what, Don’t cry because I am here for you.” I thought to myself: “Yes! Yes! This is going much better than…” And before I could finish that thought, she dropped the bomb: “But I do not accept this part of you. And don’t worry because I know that you can change.” There it was, what my pessimistic mind had foreseen—the feeling of rejection. I was almost instantly sick as my heart sank into my stomach. It was like she had given me a cup full of hope and joy and wacked it out of my hand just as I began to drink it. Can I say that I was taken by surprise? No. But was I hurt? If only you knew.

I grew up in a black church that is in a predominately black city called Camden, NJ. My family is pretty much the typical crazy and dysfunctional family. One of our main struggles is that we rarely ever talk about our issues and problems. We sweep it all under the rug and KIM (keep it movin’), as my friend Anthony would say. So after I came out to my mom what did she do? She looked for a quick solution by handing me off to my Aunt, who at the time was an assistant pastor at the church we attended. I’m sure they would have liked to just sweep this one under the rug, but this dirt was too sticky and gross to KIM. They needed something quick to loosen it up a bit. So they found Mr. Clean in the form of the church pastor. Yup, that’s right. My mother and my aunt took me to church to be prayed for. I should tell you that they didn’t spring this on me by surprised that next Sunday. My Aunt warned me in a prior conversation that I’d be going for prayer. During that same conversation she told me that I had demons inside of me and that I needed to repent for the sins I had committed. The pastor had similar sentiments as she prayed for me at the front of the church that Sunday.

If you’ve ever been to a black church you might recognize what I will attempt to describe next. It’s a point during the service at which the music is ringing loudly in your ears, the congregation is speaking in tongues, and the clergy is “laying hands” on members of the church who desire prayer. On this day, I desired no such prayer, but I received it anyway. They whipped out the vegetable holy oil and rubbed it on my forehead. The pastor leaned into my body and put one hand on my back and the other on my heart, and she began to pray. She pressed forcefully on my chest like an EMT trying to revitalize a stopped heart. I remember her screaming in my ear as if the combination of her physical pressure and yelling would scare the demons out. Then she moved her hand that was on my chest to my forehead and began to physically shove my head back as if she wanted to force her prayer for me into my mind and down my spine. She yelled things like: “I rebuke you demons,” and “Lord he has so much potential.” By the time it was all over I had been traumatized. Not knowing how to react, I turned around and headed for the edge of the back pew. I cried like a 1st grader whose parents forgot to pick him up after his afterschool activities. In a way I guess that’s how I actually felt. At a time when I needed her most my mom seemed to have abandoned me. I felt unloved, confused, and forgotten. How could she forget to pick me up? How could she forget to love me no matter what? How could she cause me so much pain?

I found the answer in what happened shortly after I sat back down when I realized that my mom was sitting next to me also crying. I can recall thinking to myself : “Why is she crying?! I’m the one who was humiliated in front of the entire congregation!” It wasn’t until a few months ago that it dawned on me. My mother was crying because she was just as confused, hurt, and dejected as I was. She had no idea where to turn or what to do either. She had never dealt with something like this before, and had probably never imagined it. So like most Christians, she did what she knew best by turning to God for help.

So how has my perspective changed as a result of this experience you ask? Well for one, I’ve come to realize that I had such a bad coming out experience not because my mom isn’t a good mother or a good person. It’s not that she doesn’t love me enough or care enough about my experience. I had a bad coming out experience because my mom made misinformed decisions and had misguided actions, which turned her love for me into harm. I can’t blame her more than I can blame each experience that she’s had that constitutes her perspective. And I can’t blame my Aunt any more than I can blame the religious institution that taught her to say those hurtful words to me. Does that completely absolve them of how they’ve scarred me? Absolutely not. Do I place all of the blame for my experience on “the church?” Absolutely not. However, I’m doing my best to understand how people who care so much about me could do the things that my family has done. What’s important here is that for as much as I want them to understand where I am coming from, I need to do my best to understand where they are coming from. With that said, the end is to accept and love me for who I am or not, which is solely their decision to make. My perspective and understanding may change, but who I am won’t. And as for my relationship with the church and Christ, let’s just say that at first I blamed both for my pain, and as a result hated anything to do with them. Looking back on it now I can see how my experience eventually brought me closer to Christ than I’ve ever been.

Unfortunately, my feelings toward the Church are still stained by many of the leaders who hurt me with their actions and words then and now.

I bumped into someone on the quad yesterday after coming from church that said, “I had no idea that you’re a Christian.” It’s interesting how few people on this campus know how spiritual I am. I think it’s because my relationship with Christ has had to become so personal in order to stay in tact. I’m sure it won’t always be this way, but for now this is my perspective.