Gay Pride

This Saturday, June 14, is the annual Gay Pride Event in Elmira. For some (perhaps even most) religious groups, the demonstration of pride by those of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual orientation, is seen as an affront to God. For other religious groups (The Park Church among them) a Gay Pride event is a way that a radically disenfranchised group can affirm their human dignity, and is therefore worth our support and our advocacy on their behalf.

As we consider these positions, perhaps we need to take a look at this word “pride”. An incorrect understanding of the word simply adds fuel to the fire of the controversy. In English, we use the term in two very different ways. One has to do with pride over an accomplishment, and the other has to do with pride in being who we are. Complicating matters even more, each of these meanings can be used in healthy or unhealthy ways. For example, we teach our children to be proud of their accomplishments, seeing that as a way to encourage their development. On the other hand, we don’t want people to use pride in their accomplishments to elevate themselves over others (or even God, for that matter) in an arrogant way. In the same way, we teach one another to have pride (perhaps more like dignity) about who we are as human beings, but at the same time we don’t want people to use their self-pride to set themselves over others because of certain human qualities like is done in racism. As dignity and affirmation, pride is good. As arrogance or as evidence of superiority, it qualifies as one of the seven deadly sins.

From everything I’ve ever known about gay pride events, the purpose is to give appropriate space for human dignity, so that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. don’t have to hide their identity away in shame. They can stand in the light and be who they are, and it has nothing to do with arrogance or superiority. That’s what we support and encourage, and that is why this church co-sponsors these gay pride events.

Some may think that The Park Church is trying to change what we perceive to be the narrow minds of others. But that is not our purpose. We, simply, support this event on behalf of a segment of the human population that has received way too much judgment. While we don’t expect to change any one else’s opinion, we can at least say how we have come to believe as we do about the issue of homosexuality and the church’s response to it.

I will speak for myself and not presume that others, even from Park Church, would describe their beliefs in precisely the same way. So, here are a few random thoughts of mine about why this congregation has chosen to be identified publicly as “Open and Affirming” when it comes to sexual orientation:

First of all, at judgment day (whatever that might be), I believe God would be more interested in why I was not more compassionate rather than why I was not more judgmental.

This church’s Open and Affirming stance is based on our compassionate response, not on believing that we are right and other positions are wrong.

All theological positions find their biblical support in the particular passages they select (while others are ignored). Here are some that I choose to use.

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” I John 4: 16b

“Love does not insist on its own way.” I Corinthians 13: 5b

Therefore, regardless of my interpretation of right and wrong, who am I to proclaim that God wants God’s own way, and that I must enforce it.

Jesus says nothing about homosexuality.

But, he says a lot about being judgmental: “Don’t!”

Paul also addresses the dangers of judgment in Romans 2:

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. ²You say, ‘We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ ³Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? ⁴Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? ⁵But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

And finally, from Luke 6: 36, Jesus says, “Be ye compassionate (sometimes translated “merciful”) as your God is compassionate.”

Many people (gay and straight) have told me that their orientation was clear to them at a very young age. That fits with my experience of being aware of my attraction to girls when I was only 4 or 5 years old.

According to my reading and according to thousands of conversations, I can’t come up with any reports of people being talked into adopting one particular sexual orientation or another. It is true that someone might be encouraged to experiment, but I have been told by gays who try the straight life that they soon find out that it is not natural for them. Straights who experiment with the gay life, also learn that it is not natural for them.

Without going into too much detail, there also appears to be a serious problem with Biblical translation. It is not appropriate to apply a 21^st Century interpretation onto words that belong to another age, language, and culture. The best scholarship I have been able to find indicates that

• the sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality,
• that the words used in the New Testament refer either to ritual prostitution or “man-boy” relationships where there is a serious power differential. (And those are problematic for other reasons that have nothing to do with sexual orientation.)
• Those words do not refer to adult loving relationships. That said, strong arguments are made that we really cannot know precisely what Paul meant.
  

Leviticus is the one exception. Homosexuality is punishable by death. But then, so is eating lobster or wearing clothing made of a polyester blend! We must, therefore, put those proscriptions in their proper context.

Clearly we do not believe that homosexuality (broadly understood) is unnatural, and while we do not understand why people are born with different sexual orientations, we believe that they must determine what is authentic for them. Our job is to love them and to help them have a place in the world where they can be who they are. That the existence of diverse orientations might cause discomfort or confusion does not provide adequate reasons for us to judge them.

So, we will continue to affirm the dignity of human beings, we will continue to identify ourselves publicly as an “Open and Affirming” congregation, and we will continue to support gay pride events.