As My Own Soul. Chris Glaser
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had not been adequately shamed for their mistreatment. I appreciated her sentiment, while disagreeing with her method. Shaming is a way of silencing the other, and silence, to paraphrase the adage, does not necessarily mean agreement. As a member of a minority that has been shamed and silenced too long, I don't want to employ the same weapons on those who oppose us. Audré Lorde admonished us not to dismantle the master's house with the master's tools. And the fact is, opponents voice the questions the answers to which more moderate Christians want to know but may be afraid to ask. In truth, they ask the very questions for which most lesbian and gay Christians are either actively seeking or have already sought answers. That's why gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender Christians can be helpful in the dialogue on sexuality and gender and marriage, ranging from biblical authority and interpretation to sexual and marital ethics.
Part of the intensity of the discussion of homosexuality comes from our feelings that homosexuality is dirty and something of which we are to be ashamed, whether we are homosexual ourselves or a member of a homosexual person's biological or church family. Thus parents, siblings, and children of gay people fall under the same shadow of shame. “What did we do wrong?” parents, spouses, even children may ask. And “What will the neighbors think?” is not only a question family members might ask. “What will other denominations think?” has been a question posed by governing bodies asked to change church policies. Because neither the church nor the therapeutic profession can honestly or ethically promise change of sexual orientation, there is no “rite of reconciliation” to lift the church and culture out of this shame unless our attitudes about homosexuality themselves change—in other words, unless our customs are reformed, and this taboo alleviated by putting in place rights and protection for same gender marriages.
Unsavory Associations
Taboos reinforce one another. As a former Baptist, I relish the old joke about why Baptists object to intercourse while standing: it might lead to dancing! The discredited domino theory once applied to communism is now applied to homosexuality. “If this taboo falls, it will start a chain reaction.” During the years I served on a denominational task force on homosexuality, I heard many references to “opening Pandora's Box.” Pandora is the “Eve” of Greek mythology, in that she too was the first woman on earth, and her curiosity that opened the box released all evils on earth, much as Eve led the way (to some people's way of thinking) to the introduction of original sin. Both stories clearly come from a patriarchal point of view. Few remember that one good remained behind in Pandora's box: Hope. Similarly, the lineage of Eve would give rise to liberators and prophets, to the Redeemer and the saints—in other words, to hope.
In Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, medieval historian John Boswell documents that, though homosexuality was tolerated and even acceptable at various points of church history, when it was challenged, it was often given unsavory associations, such as bestiality and child abduction. This is done today in a “rational” attempt to explain our pre-rational taboos, our gut feelings about “the way things should be.” Taboos are strongest when linked together. So today many in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, rather than take responsibility for their own cover-ups of pedophile priests who abused either boys or girls, condemn gay priests, as if pedophilia is more common among gay people than among straight people, something studies have not borne out.
Perhaps the most all-encompassing unsavory association in what social psychologists generally consider a sex-negative culture such as ours in the United States is homosexuality's association with sexuality itself, an area with which the church and culture have difficulties. I was part of a regional church legislative body voting on a proposal to open ordination “regardless of sexual orientation.” The vote was tied, 69 to 69. The moderator of the meeting chose to cast the deciding ballot. After a show of clear embarrassment, he voted against the measure, “because,” he said, “of those three little letters at its heart: s-e-x.” He couldn't even say
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