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Welcoming Our Gay and Lesbian Friends
October 11, 2009
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BACKLASH? All prejudices are not equal. But that doesn’t mean there’s no comparison between the predicaments of gays and blacks. By Henry Louis Gates, Jr. from the New Yorker Magazine – 17 May 1993. For some veterans of the civil-rights era, it’s a matter of stolen prestige. “It is a misappropriation for members of the gay leadership to identify the April 25 march on Washington with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 mobilization,” one such veteran, the Reverend Dennis G. Kuby, wrote in a letter to the editor that appeared in the Times on the day of the march. Four days later, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearings on the issues of gays in the military, Lieutenant General Calvin Waller, United States Army (retired), was more vociferous. General Waller, who, as General Norman Schwarzkopf’s second-in-command, was the highest-ranking black officer in the Gulf War’s theatre of operations, contemptuously dismissed any linkage between the gay-rights and civil-rights movements. “I had no choice regarding my race when I was delivered from my mother’s womb,” General Waller said. “To compare my service in America’s armed forces with the integration of avowed homosexuals is personally offensive to me.” This sentiment – that gays are pretenders to the throne of disadvantage that properly belongs to black Americans, that their relation to the rhetoric of civil rights is one of unearned opportunism – is surprisingly widespread. “The backlash is on the streets among blacks and black pastors who do not want to be aligned with homosexuals,” the Reverend Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, crowed to the Times in the aftermath of the march. That the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People endorsed the April 25th march made the insult all the deeper for those who disparage the gay-rights movement as the politics of imposture – Liberace in Rosa Parks drag. “Gays are not subject to water hoses or police dogs, denied access to lunch counters or prevented from voting,” the Reverend Mr. Kuby asserted. On the contrary, “most gays are perceived as well educated, socially mobile and financially comfortable.” Even some of those sympathetic to gay rights are unhappy with the models of oppression and victimhood which they take to be enshrined in the civil-rights discourse that many gay advocates have adopted. For those blacks and whites who viewed last month’s march on Washington with skepticism, to be gay is merely an inconvenience; to be black is to inherit a legacy of hardship and inequity. For them, there’s no comparison. But the reason the national conversation on the subject has reached an impasse isn’t that there’s simply no comparison; it’s that there’s no “simple” comparison.
Sermon I have a physical oddity. It causes me some problems when I go shopping for shoes. I wear a size 14. Now, that makes me unusual, I think. I suspect it places me in the top one percentile of the male population with this physical characteristic that gives me my upstanding character, if you pardon the pun. But in all the years of my life, as far as I could tell, no had discriminated against me or humiliated me or called me names because of my large feet. No ever said to me, “Hey you queer fellow with the gunboats at the end of your legs” or “Hey you fairy clodhopper, you.” It has never happened. For the thousands of people I have encountered in my life, the fact I have a shoe size of 14 has been no big deal. But that is not the case when we talk about sexual or gender orientation. Now, for the purposes of making this talk concise and coherent, I will focus on homosexuality, primarily on male homosexuality, especially of men who in a loving relationship. But please be mindful, that when I speak of homosexuality, I also have in mind, people who are lesbians, bisexual, transvestite and transgender. For they too suffer from discrimination and humiliation for no good reason. I want to talk about this issue here today to two groups of people. The first group of people is those of you who see people’s sexual and gender orientation as just another attribute of a human being, very much like my big feet. You see people as individuals and understand that everyone is unique. You know that we are all different in our own way and that we all have gifts to give the world because of our uniqueness. And most importantly, you honor any person who selects a partner or lover, because he gives his life love, joy and meaning. That’s group one. Now, I want to speak to the second group. I want to speak to those of you who have some concerns and anxieties about this issue of sexual orientation. You may feel uncomfortable about a homosexual man teaching in an elementary school or a homosexual man being in the military or uncomfortable if you son came home with a young man and introduces him as his new partner. So, I am talking to two groups here: group one, who accepts a homosexual man and indeed honors him; and group two who has some discomfort about this issue. Group number one: you reflect the better angels of our nature, as Abraham Lincoln would put it. And I honor you. Because you manifest the principles of our liberal religion, most importantly, the principle of affirming the worth and dignity of every person. Moreover, you manifest the finest philosophies throughout the ages as expressed so well by Martin Luther King, Jr. that only standard by which we should judge another is by the content of his or her character. If there were more of you, our world would be a better place. But I offer you a warning. To you, homosexuality is no big deal, just like my feet, but sadly, it is a big deal to many people. And it is a big deal to those whom we would not think it would not be, people who should know better, we would think. I have a story that demonstrates this idea that concerns a chaplain at Harvard Divinity School who happened to be gay and black, and at the time, Republican. This event was recorded by Richard Ostling and David Gross in Time Magazine of Mar. 16, 1992 in a story called “Christians Spar in Harvard Yard”: Since 1974, the Rev. Peter John Gomes has served as minister of the university’s Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals. Although worship attendance has been voluntary at Harvard for a century, collegians crowd the sanctuary each Sunday to savor his eloquent, engaging and scholarly sermons, which are typically more concerned with spiritual growth than with social activism.Now, we might think that this story is amazing. Especially when we consider that Harvard Divinity School had been until recently a theological school for Unitarians. How then could all these students, these bright young men and women, the crème de la crème, have acted so foolishly, with such bad faith and such bad will? This is a cautionary tale here about the limitations of formal education and individual brilliance in solving our social problems and creating a just and humane society. Mere knowledge will not do it for us. Creating a more just and humane society will require the uncommon decency and good sense of people of good will and good faith. It will also require spiritual communities, such as our own church, to come together, abide by our liberal faith and express our truth in action to the larger community. And I so I give to those of you in group one this warning: Be aware. Don’t be naïve. Know the realities of people’s discomfort. But I also charge you with evangelism. I charge you to go out to spread our good news of our philosophy of acceptance and respect of other people. For if people were to listen to you, really listen to you, this world would become a little more alive and serene. Group two: I want to say to you that I think I know what you are feeling. I have a couple thoughts I want to share with you. First, when we talk about discomfort about homosexuality, we are really talking about our discomfort about our sexuality – and also about our sensuality since we are often left feeling guilt and shame about our bodies. Over the centuries, Western Civilization has created this God monster called sex that both repels us and attracts us. In many ways we become obsessed with our sexuality. And so part of the discomfort about the issue of sexual orientation comes out of this generalized discomfort of our sexuality. But there is a more important issue here. As far as we know, homosexuals are a minority in our nation; thus they are different. And part of discomfort about them comes from our feelings about people who are different from us. That is a common and natural human response. I want to share with you that I too responded with discomfort concerning homosexual men. When I was in seminary, I had many encounters with homosexual men and felt comfortable being with them. However, one day I was driving one of my classmates with his partner, a young Asian man named Kevin to a meeting. When it came time for my classmate to get out of the car, he gave Kevin a deep and loving kiss. It was the first time I ever saw men kiss in that way and it made me feel uncomfortable. But while I was not really friends with my classmate, I became friends with Kevin. He was a sweet, caring young man who worked with senior citizens at a nursing home. Kevin taught me that a gay man such as he could love beyond mere sexuality, that he was a man of a great capacity of caring and love, more than my own. In time, I became comfortable in witnessing men kiss lovingly. But I still had some discomfort about issues of male homosexuality. Some years later, when I was a minister, but not working in a church at the time, a gay man called me up out of the blue to ask me if I would do his wedding. I must say that he sounded demanding, as if I had no choice in the matter. Reflexively, I said I don’t do gay weddings. He was angry and called me a “bigot” and then hung up. I have since thought about my response. Certainly, his brusque attitude contributed to my refusal to do his wedding, but there was more to it than that. For you see, the time, I was working as teacher in a special program working with gang members and I noted that all these boys came from homes that had no fathers. And thus, while I was not against men living with each other or having the same privileges as other married couples, I thought of marriage as reserved for a man and woman with the purpose of raising children. It was a kind of fairy tale notion of marriage the thought that every child should have a mother and father. So, I don’t think I was so much a bigot as someone confused. I had lost my way. For even though I thought of myself as being tolerant of homosexual men, and supportive, I failed to understand that I was opposing men marrying each other for no good reason. After all, I had married people, such as senior citizens who did not intend to have children. And besides, we all are well aware of heterosexual marriages in which children are abused. Finally, we know that there are millions of gays and lesbians that are kind, thoughtful, intelligent parents. Why we would deny them the opportunity to marry and create families? It just does not make sense. But I also want to respond to the hateful, untrue attacks on gay men suggesting that they are immoral and all pedophiles and child molesters. This is the part of the debate about gay marriage that is most ugly and untrue. Certainly, a small minority of gay men has done some awful things, but let us not forget about the heterosexual men who have also done awful things. But it seems that heterosexual men who misbehave are not condemned in the same way nor are they thought to represent all heterosexual men. We can note the case of Roman Polanski, a man who confessed to the crime of raping a 13-year old girl. I am troubled that many have come to Polanski’s defense suggesting that he is a victim after finally being incarcerated, 30 years after he committed the crime. Why would people do that? How would they feel if their 13-year old daughter was raped? As a father of two daughters, I know how I would feel. Certainly, a friend can be supportive without countenancing such bad behavior. They could visit him in prison, write him letters, etc. But I hope that they would understand that he should not be allowed to rape 13-year old girl with impunity. And I hope that Polanski’s friends are not supporting him because of his talent. That would be like suggesting that Dr. Josef Mengele should not have been punished for his crimes because he was a brilliant physician and anthropologist. Here is a heterosexual man who has damaged a young girl. Does his act mean that all heterosexual men are criminals? A sitting senator has admitted to the crime of soliciting sex from prostitutes. Now, I am not here to argue whether prostitution should be a crime, but just to point out that it is a crime in America, that the senator has broken the law, that the women who are involved in prostitution are damaged women, often who as girls have been raped by older men. And yet that senator still sits in the Senate doing his business, when another Senator who simply makes an offer of sex to another man – an overzealous police officer, in my view – was hounded out of the Senate. Obviously, this is crazy. It does not make sense. How then can we come to sanity about this issue? As for me, I became clear about this issue when I officiated at my first gay wedding truly. It helped to see the truth of the beauty of love between two men. It involved two young men named Dannie and Peter. When they came to me for a pre-wedding consultation, I was going through a difficult time in my first marriage. It was a hard time, as often is the case of many heterosexual marriages. And what I noticed about Dannie and Peter was their tenderness that was lacking in my own marriage. The wedding went well. I pronounced the couple husband and husband. Then Peter and Dannie kissed. It was a gentle kiss. I was not at all uncomfortable. I was happy. I had participated in a mission of promoting the idea that what is important in human relations is the love and respect. It was so simple. What then helps us to overcome our uncomfortable feelings about people who are different? In a word, personal experience. It is when we know people well in their uniqueness, we know their humanity and we begin to feel comfortable and treat people with respect. I think of Vice-President Dick Cheney. Certainly no liberal, he. But he supports the rights of homosexual people. Why? Because he has a lesbian daughter. I think of General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who has changed his mind about gays in the military. Why? Because he had gotten to know some gay soldiers. These two men accept and indeed, honor those who are homosexual because of their personal experiences and relationships with important people in their lives. And I want to talk about this idea of difference from the point of view of you being the one who is different. After all, who among us has not felt different, out of place, alienated from our fellow human beings, even odd? I know I have, in fact growing up in a small provincial, conservative town in Ohio made me feel out of place much of the time. I am not alone in that feeling. I recall a woman minister colleague of mine who told me that she was intimidated a ministers’ meeting because she felt she lack the intellect and knowledge of the others and she felt stupid. In other words, she felt alienated and different. And I thought she was the one minister who had singular good sense and a good heart, the one I would turn if I was hurting or afraid. She failed to honor her own uniqueness, her own gifts. We Unitarian Universalists understand what it means to be different. I don’t know of any other religious organization like ours, if want to call us an organization. We certainly do not have a creed like other religions. We are even different from our more liberal and progressive religionists in that we do not merely accept diversity of philosophies, theologies and lifestyles, we appreciate and welcome them. Therefore, in the spirit of liberal faith, we welcome our gay and lesbian friends on this day. I want to close with a story from Henry Gates’ essay “Blacklash” that I read to you earlier. In talking about the black preacher, Rev. Mr. Dennis J. Kuby and other civil rights veterans expressing their sense of unease about comparing the march on Washington for gay rights in 1993 to the March on Washington in 1963 that was made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, Gates notes “a small but significant omission: any reference to those blacks who are also gay.” Gates continues: And in this immediate context one particular gay man comes to mind. Actually, it’s curious that those who feel that the example of the 1963 march on Washington has been misappropriated seem to have forgotten about him, since it was he, after all, who organized that heroic march. His name, of course, was Bayard Rustin, and it’s quite likely that if he had been alive he would have attended the march on Washington thirty years later.Bayard Rustin was a great civil rights leader, a great American and a great man who happened to be different. He experienced first-hand prejudice from being black and being gay. And even though there is no simple comparison of the two prejudices against blacks and gays, as Henry Gates suggests, both prejudices make monstrous demands on our humanity. Throughout the ages, so many wise men and women have told us that we are all different and we are all the same. They also told us that nevertheless, we can all be loved for our gifts and uniqueness as well with our weaknesses, fears and foolishness. I believe that. And what is more, we can all love others who are different from us, whether they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or have inordinately large feet. I believe that, too. |
| Sermon Copyright © 2009 Harold W. Beu |
