"Our sexuality is a gift." I have heard this many times in the Anglican Church, always coming from the lips of clergy. Generally the conversation was in the context of same-sex blessings. Sex is a blessing. Hey everybody! Sex is a BLESSING!!!!...Okay, once the cheering, whistling and foot stamping has died down I'll resume writing. Here in Vancouver our then acting Bishop, Michael Ingham claimed in radio and newspaper interviews that he was boldly going where no other bishop had gone before. Inclusivity. The heterosexual monopoly was being broken. Now every gay kid brother, son, nephew and dad would not have to stand sheepishly in the shadow while their straight best friend or whoever else was tying the knot. No more evasive posturing or tactful redirecting when Aunt Millie at Christmas dinner wants to know why he isn't married yet. No more hiding or concealing behind fake girlfriends and fake wives and later having to explain to the kids who you conceived thanks to your ability to close your eyes and think of the hunk who lives next door why you had to leave Mom for your best friend. Marriage equality. But technically the Anglican Church of Canada still isn't allowed to perform same sex marriages but only offer blessings once the two happy men or happy women have done the deed at City Hall. This is not a uniform decision and outside of North America and Europe Anglican bishops are absolutely wroth, especially the ones in Africa, that lovely "dark" continent that gave the world Robert Mugabe,Uganda, Idi Amin and a proposed death penalty for all homosexual "offenders." Africa on the other hand has also given us Nelson Mandela and safari game parks and among other things Madiba (may he rest in peace) was also a strong supporter of gay rights and marriage equality. I hope he was anyway.
I say three cheers for the Anglican Church and also for Bishop Michael, much as I find him irritating for other and unrelated reasons. I used to blame him for dividing the Anglican Church when five (or was it six) parishes in the diocese gathered up their skirts and indignantly huffed off because they couldn't reconcile the idea of two men or two women sharing with the heterosexual majority the blessing and banality and stability of lawfully wedded bliss. Oh, but homosexuality is a choice, oh but St. Paul wrote this and he wrote that, oh but it says in the Bible, oh but Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
I had my own journey towards acceptance. When I was a teenage Jesus Freak, and a bit of a fundamentalist (okay, more than a bit!), I could not imagine gay marriage. In the eighties and nineties when I was involved in street ministry among the gay and street community I met many faithful same sex couples and soon I was questioning my position. This didn't happen overnight. In the nineties, when the Anglican Church was dialoguing about same-sex blessings I wasn't exactly dragging my feet but I still had trouble with the theological implications. I was also unpleasantly impacted by gay clergy who, instead of moving towards having a monogamous same-sex partner, used the increased liberalization as an excuse for their own style of... er... liberalization. And when I called a certain priest on his lewd hypocrisy there was hell to pay that precipitated in a nightmare for me that continued for years.
I still didn't feel ready when same-sex blessings were approved in 2002. The gloating triumphalism of the priest in the parish to which I was then connected became so repugnant that I left her parish and the Anglican Church. For me the approval was premature, more time was needed for people to adjust and adapt. I still believe this, by the way, and even though there still would have been an exodus, I don't think we would have lost quite as many people. It took me years to digest and accept that same sex marriage could be accepted by God. I am certain that for others, no longer in the diocese, the same could be said.
I spent three years with the fundamentalists. It wasn't that bad, neither were they that horrible. Many actually were lovely and faithful followers of Christ with a heart for social justice and the poor. Unfortunately they were mostly also quite opposed to same sex marriage. I will not go as far as to say they were homophobic and many were accepting, welcoming and respectful towards gay people as individuals despite their disagreement with gay marriage, but some of them were indeed homophobic and hostile towards gays, particularly a pastor with whom I had a nasty falling out and I also believe, the son of his colleague pastor, who twice tried to get me to fess up that I might be gay. I told him nothing and raked him over the coals for asking me such an invasive and inappropriate question. (okay, full disclosure. I am asexual. And please don't expect a future post about this, 'cuz it ain't gonna happen. Also no stupid or personal questions. I have already told you everything you need to know.) I think however that in many cases they just were not able to square same sex marriage with the teachings in the Bible as they had come to understand them.
When it was publicly announced that the federal government had legalized same-sex marriage, to my great surprise something in me resonated and I said yes, this is right. The following Sunday my pastor friend preached a very ugly and vitriolic sermon against it. I left his church, he ended our friendship and I have not returned.
I am back in the Anglican Church. There are a lot of gay people and same sex couples in my church. Lovely people, for the most part. We have a slogan: "No matter where you happen to be on the journey you are welcome here." I have been in trouble over this. One day when I'd been attending for less than a year I was occupying a table in the lower hall where we go for coffee and snacks falling the service. One wag, an established person in the parish, crowed very loudly about cute guys. I didn't think this was appropriate, not because he was expressing, shall we say, same sex admiration? It was the way he was doing it. I would not have tolerated this coming from a straight man about young women, not because there is anything wrong with admiring beauty in others, even if it's merely physical beauty, but there was something absolutely crass about being subjected to this kind of shall we say ejaculation (okay poor choice of word) but we had only five minutes ago been meeting Christ together at the altar rail and now this guy wants to openly objectify people because they make his pecker itch. Tacky is what it is. I likely overreacted. Shocked, I pronounced that he was being absolutely inappropriate (which he was) and I promptly left the table. It will come as no surprise that this did nothing to endear me with anyone in the parish.
A couple of weeks ago I ended up asking an elderly gay male parishioner to please stop when he was telling us in lurid detail about his first sexual experience. He was a child of eight for gawds sake and the guy who diddled him was a pedophile. I don't care that this happened before the Second World War when nobody had a word for this sort of thing. This man was violated as a child, has never dealt with it and now brags about it in order to shock and draw attention to himself. Unfortunately he is also very hard of hearing and we were seated in a noisy coffee shop with four other members of the parish, so for him to hear me I had to almost shout my disapproval which I think made the others less than comfortable. I likely came across as a rude angry and aggressive male so now no one seems to be on speaking terms with me. Whether or not I should have just kept my mouth shut or quietly left early I don't know. There is often a sorry lack of perfect solutions to unexpected occurrences. My impression is that this person thinks I am anti sex and anti gay. I am neither. I am anti-abuse and I tend to side with Miss Manners about there being a time and place and that that was certainly neither for this otherwise erudite and well-educated gentleman's self-disclosure.
We will get through this. In the meantime, if anyone reading this would happen to know any same sex couples named Adam and Steve, please tell me about them. I would love to be introduced.
Please check my website: http://thesearepaintings
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