Four Things I Wish Non-Gay Christians Knew About Gay People

Mike Cope's blog has an account (and a long discussion in the comments) about the Soulforce Equality Ride, which recently visited Abilene Christian University. It sounds like ACU did a great job of welcoming the riders, and it seems that some really good discussion and mutual sharing occurred. Both sides seem to have been blessed by the encounter. This is a huge contrast from the reaction that Soulforce got at some other "Christian" colleges, where the campuses were locked down like a prison, and some of the riders were arrested by campus police for trespassing. I'm really grateful that ACU handled this so well. (You can read more about it here, here and here.) However, reading through the comments at Mike's blog, I was surprised and disappointed at many of the things people were saying there. It prompted this list:

Four Things I Wish Non-Gay Christians Knew About Gay People

1. "Gay" and "Christian" are not opposites.
2. No-one "chooses" to be gay.
3. "Homosexual" is a bad word.
4. It's not fair to blame homosexuality for every bad thing that a gay person does, or for every bad thing that happens to a gay person.
   

1. "Gay" and "Christian" are not opposites.
Many of the commenters spoke about "gays" and "Christians" as if they were two mutually exclusive groups. One commenter remarked that she had assumed that the Equality Riders would be non-Christian. She was surprised to hear many of them describe their faith journeys, and talk about being followers of Jesus, and their desire to grow in Christ-likeness.

I really wish this wasn't such a surprise for people. There are lots of gay Christians! Did you know that:

• One of the largest organizations of gay and lesbian people in the world is a Christian denomination?
• The Cathedral of Hope, a Christian church in Dallas, Texas, is made up primarily of gay people, and has 3000+ members?
• There are many more gay Christians spread throughout the rest of the Christian denominations?
  

So, here's a memo to those commenters who spoke about the Equality Ride as an opportunity to "Share the Good News" with "those" gay people: Thank you very much! Really! The good news is for everyone, and I'm glad you want to share it. But please be aware, lots of us have already heard the Good News. And we believe it.

2. No-one "chooses" to be gay.
One of the presentations which Soulforce made at ACU involved telling stories of violence committed against gay people. One of the commenters at Mike Cope's blog basically had this response (paraphrased): "Oh, well. I don't really condone the violence, but people have to realize that their CHOICES have CONSEQUENCES." The "choice" involved here is supposedly gay people's choice to be gay. And the consequences apparently include being the victims of violence.

In an otherwise thoughtful and sensitive blog post, Chris Field referred to the "decision to be homosexual." (He later clarified his language - thanks, Chris!).

Let me be clear here: GAY PEOPLE DO NOT "CHOOSE" TO BE GAY. Note that this is not the same thing as saying "Homosexuality is genetic." I acknowledge that science has not proven that, although the weight of the evidence does seem to indicate that there is a strong biological component (either genetic, or having to do with conditions within the womb). But the root cause of homosexuality is a different question from the question of whether it is a "choice." As I mentioned to Chris at his blog, we don't need scientific studies to find out whether gay people choose to be gay. All we need to do is ask some gay people. Unless you want to accuse us all (including your Christian brothers and sisters) of being liars, then the answer is clear. Nearly all of us simply experience our gayness as a given. We didn't choose it.

3. "Homosexual" is a bad word.
Update: Please see a clarification about this point in the comments
A personal request: Please stop referring to us as "homosexuals." There are several problems with referring to people with this word -

• It was created in a clinical setting to describe a disease - a mental disorder.
• It has the word "sex" right in the middle of it. Gay people's lives are not all about sex.
• Various anti-gay organizations use the word with a definite, negative, pejorative slant to it, not as a simple descriptive word. Many gay people are aware of this type of rhetoric. If they hear you start talking about "homosexuals", they might simply assume that you are about to attack them, and they may tune you out.

If you simply cannot bring yourself to use the word "gay," then how about referring to "people with same-sex attractions (SSA)" as a more neutral descriptive term?

4. It's not fair to blame homosexuality for every bad thing that a gay person does, or for every bad thing that happens to a gay person.
Often in discussions of homosxuality, someone who is arguing in favor of accepting gay people will point out that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Inevitably, someone will object: "That's not true! A lady in our church was devastated when she found out that her husband was cheating on her with another man! How can you say that homosexuality didn't harm her?"

But it wasn't "homosexuality" that harmed her. When a married man has sex with someone other than his spouse, that is called "adultery." When a man doesn't tell his fiance about his same-sex attractions before the wedding, that is called "dishonesty." Obviously, non-gay people are just as capable of being dishonest and committing adultery as gay people. Why is it that when a straight man has an affair, no-one blames his heterosexuality? A gay man is just as capable as a non-gay man to be honest, and to keep the vows that he makes to another person.

"OK," someone will say, "but what about AIDS? I had a cousin who was gay, and he died of AIDS. Obviously his gay lifestyle was harmful - to himself!"

Two points here: First, there is not one, single "gay lifestyle." There are as many different "gay lifestyles" as there are gay people! Second, again, it's not fair to blame homosexuality - the gender of the person's sexual partners. Isn't it possible that some of the people who have died of AIDS had unprotected relations with multiple people? This is called "promiscuity." (Obviously not everyone with AIDS was promiscuous. Bear with me.) It's no secret that promiscuity can lead to STDs, including HIV infection. And gay people certainly have no monopoly on promiscuity. A person in a monogamous same-sex relationship is no more likely to get AIDS than a person in a monogamous opposite-sex relationship. Lesbians are among the group of people least likely to become infected with HIV.

So please, let's start calling things by their real names, like "dishonesty", "adultery", and "promiscuity", and stop blaming everything on "homosexuality."

I actually have a few more things that I wish non-gay Christians knew about gay people. But if I don't quit this post now, I may never get it done. Perhaps there will be a "part 2" in the future, but that's enough for now, I guess.