What Are Religious Texts Really Saying About Gay And ...

It is a remarkable window into Jesus’s revelation of God. I think he was saying: For a bunch of uneducated fishermen you haven’t done too badly. There were some days I didn’t think you were the sharpest knives in the drawer, but you have done a pretty good job. And you will go on to do amazing things, but don’t for a minute think that God is done with you. God has much more to teach you. But honestly, given your historical and cultural context, you can’t handle it right now. So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you over time into a greater fullness of your understanding of God.

Closer to our own time, our understanding of people of color and their full inclusion in the reign of God and in our culture, society, and government is a great example of changed understanding. We used scripture for 18 and a half centuries following Jesus’s death to justify slavery. Now we look back and think, “My god, what were we thinking?” A year after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Episcopal Bishop of Vermont wrote a whole book justifying slavery using scripture.

Similarly, women were kept in a secondary role and status using scripture. Many women remember wearing hats to church because St. Paul said that a woman’s place in church is with her head covered and her mouth shut. There are denominations today that still exclude women from leadership positions because of that scripture. Yet many of us think, “What were we thinking?”

This is a very exciting time because we are now asking that question about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Could this be yet another time when the church got it wrong about what God’s will is? Could this be a time when we admit that we got it wrong—not that God got it wrong but that we got God wrong? And that God, through the Holy Spirit, is leading us to the truth about God’s gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender children? I think so.

J: Can you talk a little more about how faith communities are changing regarding LGBT issues?

G: I am 63 years old, and when I was growing up in the 50s, we didn’t talk about this. First of all, the word gay just meant a nice party. We didn’t use it to describe homosexual people. And homosexuality, if spoken about at all, was spoken about in whispers. I think the British phrase is a “love that dare not speak its name.” Clearly we have come a long way, and the reason is that so many of us came out.

Twenty years ago most people would say they didn’t know a gay or lesbian person. They might have felt a little uncomfortable around Uncle Harry or referred to those two wonderful ladies who live down the street and take such nice care of their lawn. But what they meant was that they didn’t know anyone who was self-affirming and proud of who they were. Now, is there anyone in America who doesn’t know some family member or co-worker or neighbor? Or as often happens, someone goes back to a class reunion. My husband Mark and I went back to his 20th reunion at Middlebury College. He introduced me to one of his best buddies in college and said, “This is my partner, Gene.” And the guy said, “Oh, what business are you in?” So we had to start at the beginning. Not that kind of partner. We are talking about a life partner.

Everyone knows someone gay. That has changed institutional religion because we are sitting in churches, synagogues, and mosques and letting ourselves be known as LGBT people. That causes dissonance. People can’t know and love us and at the same time hold on to traditional understanding of scripture. Something’s got to give. They have either got to give us up or give up traditional understandings.

When push comes to shove, people will mostly choose people over something they have been told. Parents have chosen the love of their children. Mainline denominations are taking a hard look and asking, “Have we gotten this wrong?” I think you see more and more religious people answering yes to that.

There are some denominations where it’s a very tough go. Southern Baptists, Mormons, and Roman Catholics—at least in terms of the official teachings of the church—are pretty rigid in sticking to original understandings. But even people within those ranks are facing this. Remember, there are just as many gay kids growing up in the Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, or Mormon churches as anywhere else—and the parents of those kids are presented with dissonance between the kid they love and what the church is telling them.

S: Let’s talk about kids and some recent headlines about the tragic suicides of gay teens who’d been bullied. You did a video for a project called “It Gets Better” that went viral. What did you say and why do you think it was so powerful?

G: I did this video for the kid in nowhere Idaho and Georgia for whom the Internet may be the only place to get some good news for who they are. They are bombarded by the culture and most likely by the church saying they are despicable in the eyes of God.

It is important for someone like me to use my position as a bishop of the church to have another voice coming from the institutional church and a place of authority, saying, “I know you have been told these things, and I am telling you they are flat-out wrong.” I wanted them to know that there are legitimate leaders in the mainline churches who read the Bible differently, who know a God that loves and accepts them just the way they are.

Having that said by a bishop who happens to be an openly gay man can pack an even greater wallop because they know I have gone through what they are going through. I can say, “I promise you, it gets better. You know those people telling you that God doesn’t love you? They are flat-out wrong. Don’t take your own life. Hang around long enough for those of us who know differently to convince you otherwise. For God’s sake, don’t hurt yourself. Hang in there long enough to hear voices like mine, and others that will join mine, to let you know that you are absolutely beloved by God and absolutely nothing can come between you and that love.”