Advocacy Burn-Out

There's this thing that happens to me sometimes. Something I care about becomes so overwhelming that it starts leaching into every thought and every other conversation. It wakes me up at night, and it keeps me up—I lie in bed replaying conversations (Why didn't I say that? How did I miss that terrible logic?)—and partly just to get some friggin sleep, I end up shutting down for a bit.

During this last bit, something pretty huge happened: California's proposition 8, which revoked the right of people who are gay to get married, was ruled unconstitutional by Judge Walker. He put a stay on that (i.e., "Let's wait a little bit before putting it into effect.") Then he took it away. Then someone else put it back. This gives the chance for that decision to get appealed. I don't know tons of details because of that shut-down I mentioned. If you want lots of details given by my side of the issue, go to prop8trialtracker.com. If you want details given by the other side, go to prop8case.com.

Just this past weekend, I got into what I perceived as a rather heated argument with my granddaddy about Judge Walker's decision. This is a remarkable event as I'd venture to guess that Granddaddy has had about two heated arguments in his whole life. He's pretty calm and cool. I'm not though.

Anyhow, it seems a lot of people who are conservative think the voters of California were pretty put out by this. The voters, and the democratic process in general, actually. After all, if what the voters want can be "ruled unconstitutional", what kind of democracy is that?

A fair question.

My answer: Since when can voters decide to revoke civil rights? What would have happened if white people could have voted on whether black people could vote? We don't ask our child if she'd like to invite that dorky kid to the party; we make her invite him.

And this is where Granddaddy and I diverged. Sin is not a civil right. Voting against gay marriage is akin to voting against murder. Or vandalism or car theft or female genital mutilation or having to check blow-out preventers. It's not a right. It's just wrong.

So I am freshly stirred up about all this. I'll begin posting about all the reasons my 17-year-old self used to give against being gay and gay marriage, and why I no longer believe those reasons. I'll start—naturally—at Genesis 1.

Don't Ask. Don't Tell. Don't Consider the Price.

It seems appropriate today to mention the portion of our armed forces who are forced to hide who they are from their fellow troops. But they may not have to much longer.

I'd like to discuss the implications the policy has had, and then I'd like to present my conservative case for its repeal.

Don't Ask Don't Tell was enacted in 1993 because some people who get weirded out by the thought of getting checked out by someone of their own sex thought that same scenario would weaken morale, unity, etc. in our military. (Slightly oversimplified, maybe.)

So here is what DADT means for people who are gay and in the military.

When other soldiers are talking about how much they miss their significant others, the ones who are gay are not allowed to commiserate. For fear of being discharged, they must hold their feelings inside. They are more apt to experience depression as a result.

DADT means that in order to ward off rumors, people sometimes go on dates with people they are not attracted to. That is not fun. It might be like wearing a costume when it is not Halloween, or being shoved onto stage when you don't consider yourself much of an actor, but you have seen the play a few times.

DADT also means there are men and women serving a country full of citizens who primarily think of them as abominations. They are offering their lives in order to protect people who hate them. Interesting concept.

Even if you understand that these implications of DADT shape the lives of some of our military personnel in odious ways, the policy may still be justifiable if its premise still stands.

But the thing is, it doesn't.

The following is a list of countries that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in their militaries:

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bermuda
Brazil
Canada
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Romania
Russia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Uruguay

I think it's reasonable to conjecture that if there were ill effects from allowing people to admit they are homosexual, this list would not be as long.

These reasons alone convince me that Don't Ask Don't Tell belongs in the trash, but if you're still not convinced, think about this:

It costs A LOT to train someone to serve in the military.

I have seen estimates that range from $150,000 to $3 million. Obviously it depends on what they are being trained to do. A private in the army costs far less to train than a navy seal or a pilot.

If you send someone home, you need to replace them.

About 12,500 people have been discharged because of DADT.

12,500 replacements were needed.

So at a minimum, tax payers have paid—wait a sec, my tiny calculator thinks a number this big must be an error... TI-85 to the rescue—$1,875,000,000 to train people to take the place of the gays and lesbians who have been discharged from the military.

Minimum. One billion, eight hundred seventy-five million dollars. (Just another waste that begs for conservatives to call themselves something more accurate.)

Hopefully on next year's Memorial Day, everyone who has served in the military will be honored.

Jennifer Knapp Comes Out

While I'm busy reading up on government and how Christians ought to relate with it, I thought this juicy little news item deserved discussion.

Let me catch you up. . .

Jennifer Knapp, a singer/songwriter on a Christian label pumps out three albums. Some songs are refreshingly aggressive (to 17-year-old ears that had eschewed all secular music, anyway), and they curiously do not address romantic love. At Rebecca St. James' concerts, the audience would always hear a speech about saving yourself for marriage or becoming recycled virgins. Nothing of the sort was mentioned at Jennifer Knapp's shows.

She drops out of the CCM scene after touring for her third album. Rumours fly. She's pregnant. She's a lesbian. She's not a Christian anymore. She's fed up with the Christian music business.

Seven years later, she returns. It turns out none of those reasons are why she left. Oh, but yeah, she does have a girlfriend.

(Read the Christianity Today interview here. Scan the comments while you're at it.)

Anticlimactic, no?

I am thinking about feeling disappointed in Jennifer Knapp, and here's why: in the interview, she said she and her partner live together. I make the assumption that "living together" = "sexually active" (not that "living apart" = "inactive"), and I think that gay Christians are called to "sexual purity" just like straight ones. Being gay does not give you license here.

EDIT: I should point out though that there stands the possibility that since Knapp and her partner can't legally get married yet, perhaps they have made a commensurate commitment in another setting, just without a marriage license.

Did you read the comments though? In my last entry, I said that homosexuality is treated as worse sin, and I think some of the comments illustrated that nicely (meanly?).

"I am amazed at how many people are ignorant of the Word of God. It's clear, God's Word says, that people who engage in certain sins 'will not see the Kingdom of Heaven' and homosexuality is one of them."

"Christianity Today - A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction? I hardly think so! This article/interview with the now coming out Jennifer Knapp belongs in Rolling Stone where other Worldly, openly Gay people in the World can talk about their openly Gay stance, venting their issues with the Church, Christianity, the Bible, God & Jesus! It's obvious that Jennifer Knapp is NOT a believer and she as much as admits it when she talks about the clobber verses she doesn't like."

(Many commenters were able to remain hinged.)

I'm impressed that CT published the interview. I'm sure the reaction from their more conservative readership is not surprising them. Maybe there is even an office poll going. . . the one who most closely guesses the number of subscriptions dropped because of the interview gets a pizza.

You Know What Happens When You Assume

I have struggled with what should be said next, and since assumptions often are the hidden framework for conclusions, I thought it might be a good idea to name some of the more deleterious assumptions people—particularly Christians—make about people who are gay. (There are others, but I thought these seemed the most invasive and damaging.)

To be gay is to be promiscuous. The roots of this are pretty easy to understand. Here's an analogy.

Say I go to the farmers' market, and this farmer is really talking up this heirloom khalerabi. "Heirloom what?" I say. "I can't even spell it well enough to google it to see how to really spell it, but okay, I'll try it." I take it home and do what the farmer told me, but I find it really stringy and bitter.

The next week, I'm with a friend. She picks up a khalerabi and I tell her, "Oh girl, don't do it. I had one last week and it was pretty much the worst thing ever." What I didn't tell her is that I also picked up some tomatoes last week that were super disappointing, but it didn't occur to me to write off all tomatoes since I've had so much experience with tomatoes.

In the same way, if all you know of gay people is that at some park, dudes are known to hook up with dudes, then your view of all gay guys is colored by that. We also know that some straight dudes pay prostitutes for sex, but no one thinks that all do.

Another important point: Some deduce that it takes sexual experience to realize one is gay. But it sure didn't take sex for me to know I'm straight.

Gay people can be only nominal Christians, if even.  This is pretty subtle, but it's definitely out there. For the purposes of this argument, let's let homosexuality be a sin. Are there people in your church who misuse alcohol? Are there people in your church who have sex outside of marriage? Are there people in your church who shoplift? Are there people in your church who do not feed people who are hungry?

Why does homosexuality exclude? Why does it, seemingly over any other sin, render people incapable of being leaders?

Anal sex is just icky and wrong. New Hampshire state rep Nancy Elliott wants her state to revoke same-sex marriage rights, and here's her reasoning: "We're talking about taking the penis of one man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. And you have to think, I'm not sure, would I allow that to be done to me?"

There are so many things wrong with this.

1. As I understand it, certain measures are taken before anal sex to eliminate the excrement.

2. So. . .  lesbians are still cool, right? Since they don't have penises? Right?

3. Women also have rectums. In 2005, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a survey. 40% of men and 35% of women between the ages 25 and 44 reported having had heterosexual anal sex. Study results vary, but the incidence ranges from 24% - 56%.

Did you get that? More straight people have anal sex than there are gay people. 

4. This is most troubling to me, since it comes from a policy maker: Something tells me that "Would I allow that to be done to me?" is not a great way to determine what should and should not be lawful. Here is a list of things I would outlaw if it were: root canals, interest on my student loans, mountain biking, pelvic exams, and Beef Products Inc.

What For

In my first post, I described how I came to care very much about people who are gay. Thanks to Tucker for his very thoughtful and thorough comments; I recommend reading them (though they will likely find their way into a future post).

Now I'd like to explain why I believe homosexuality and what it has to do with government and the church is important. Like a lot of beliefs, this has been informed both by intellectual processes and emotion. 

Here is a quick list of the things that began to chip away at my prejudice:
1. I saw that some people who are gay work hard trying to be straight for a long time before coming out. Not only was homosexuality not a choice, some wish very much for the ability to choose heterosexuality and are unable to do so.
2. I learned that some gay people are virgins who have the same views about extramarital sex that I do.
3. I figured out that a heterosexual woman is just as able to contract HIV as a man who is gay. (It is, however, more difficult for a dude to get it from a woman given the mechanics of intercourse.) 

(You'll notice that the first two revelations may often only be possible if one knows someone who is gay.)

Moreover, the arguments against same-sex marriage began to look weak. For instance,  my high school self was content with the procreation argument. But my 23-year-old self had some questions after considering straight couples struggling to conceive, post-menopausal woman, and my friend who can't stand children and feels zero desire to ever carry, birth, or raise one. 

Meanwhile, I began to ask questions about what we expect of the Bible, whether those expectations are faithful, and how the Bible has been used in the past to defend the subjugation of various groups. (More on these topics later.) I also began to give some thought to (but have yet to do any solid reading on) the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the meaning of 'liberty and justice for all'. 

All of these thoughts led me to believe that at the very least, I owed it to 4% of the population to put some effort into investigating this.

Interspersed with this intellectual development was emotional development. That's an inevitable piece that comes when one gets to know people, it turns out. 

I think there are two major things that have fed my emotions. The first is the sort of talk I hear from some Christians and some organizations that some Christians support. It is characterized by falsehoods (equating homosexuality with pedophilia, as one example), fear (see previous), and less-than-stellar logic (e.g., the claim that kids do better in traditional biological mom/dad households, if applied to its logical ends, could be used to support a ban on all divorce, remarriage, single parenting, and adoption. Not to mention the fact that kids do fine when they have two parents of the same sex.) 

The second force to shape my emotions around this subject is an event I asked permission to share about. Here's the story as I understand it: 

Tucker, after long, intense struggle against homosexuality, accepts it while studying at a conservative seminary, and comes out to a select few people. He meets David, an amazing man who is also gay and a follower of Christ. David senses a calling to bring reconciliation between the church and the LGBT community, and his parents have rejected him. After that painful oh-I-don't-know-how-I-feel process that some couples go through, David and Tucker commit to dating exclusively, and syrupy bliss abounds. 

A couple months in, Tucker, David, and some friends attend a LGBT film festival. They live in Fresno, which is apparently nothing like San Fransisco, as evidenced by the protesters, who stand outside the theater to make sure everyone going in knows that God hates them. David's previously mentioned predilection leads him to approach a group of these protesters with suggestions like, "Hey guys, don't you think this just perpetuates the hate?" They don't take real well to this, and respond with, "We'll fucking kill you!" and the like. Tucker encourages David to disengage. They and the friends enter the theater and reconvene at a coffee shop afterward.

Tucker has studying to do and is the first to leave. David and the other friends head off to their respective cars. David parked in a different lot entirely.

So those protesters may have been assholes, but they were not liars. Armed with a baseball bat, one looked on while two proceeded to shatter David's legs, knock out a few teeth, collapse a lung, destroy a kidney, cause some pretty serious internal bleeding, and bruise everything else. 

The crew in the emergency department had to do some quick prioritizing in order to save David's life, and we find out rods will be placed in his legs, and he will spend six months in a wheelchair before he is able to attempt to walk again. 

Two months into his recovery, the lung that collapsed during the assault collapses again, the other lung becomes terribly inflamed, and David is re-admitted, this time in a coma. This lasts about a week, until he wakes up just long enough for him and Tucker to spend some last moments together, for several of his friends to say goodbye, and for his parents to ask for his forgiveness. 

This is why when I hear someone claim that "gay people have liberty," I get very, very angry.

How Come

I have a bit of baggage from my high school youth group experience. I think this is where we need to start.

A friend invited me to youth group in 7th or 8th grade. While I'm sure she wanted to see me saved or growing spiritually or whatnot, it seemed her most salient motivation was the youth pastor's promise to the group that they would receive a pizza party if they brought x-number of friends the following Wednesday night. And let's be honest: pizza is a pretty strong motivator for me even now.

This youth group was part of a church with the word 'Mennonite' in its name. There was nothing Mennonite about the church except its history. A few years later, they changed their name to reflect that and took the word 'Mennonite' out.

Worship was compartmentalized and defined as the part of the life in which we seek an emotional high set to the following chords: G, C, D, and sometimes E-minor. I required an arm's-length radius about me in order to properly seek this high.

Sex was discussed. The discussions were peppered with snickering, jokes, and vague allusions to how fun it is. It was always summed up with these thoughts: "It's only for marriage" and "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

The stage was set: an adolescent brain, a charming, pizza-bearing youth pastor, and a total lack of experience with outed gay people meant that I latched onto his rhyming aphorism unquestioningly.

We had never discussed responsible biblical exegeses, so I had no idea how to even think to ask, "Is the Genesis story meant to be normative, as your aphorism assumes?" let alone, "How does this aphorism shape our attitudes toward and interactions with people who are gay?"

(Slight tangent: The phrase "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" is so problematic. First, it instantly serves to dehumanize. I hear a patronizing tone behind it that aims to make anyone who would make such a glaring error in desire an acceptable target for bullying, in the style of kindergartners at recess, no less. Second, it assumes that the Genesis creation account is meant to be normative, that is, to be the pattern to which we are to shape our lives as well. Perhaps it is normative, but that's a post for another time, most likely written by one or more actual theologians (not me). Last, as Christians, let's ask this: Does the phrase, "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" help me love God and others better? No? Then let's make sure we're the last generation to throw it around.)

So I head off to college, my head contentedly full of black-and-white answers to complex questions about situations I had never encountered. I went to a conservative Christian school, where my youth pastor and increasingly liberal friends were sure those answers would be cemented in my head for good.

I'm grateful I went to a Christian college. But I didn't come out how any of us expected I would. First, I started listening to good music, some of which was made by people who were not Christians. Then I took some classes about the bible. I learned a little bit about how it was put together, I learned how to ask questions about it, and I learned it was okay to ask questions about it. Oh, and sometimes I used swear words, too.

About a year after graduation, a friend from high school called me up one night and told me he was gay. Yes, even in high school when I was thinking about having a crush on him. And yes, even in youth group. While my high school self would not have stood for the idea that a life experience could shape my beliefs, it had to happen somehow, because suddenly my hatred of the abstract contrasted sharply with my love of a real friend. I had quite the case of cognitive dissonance.

Then about a year after that, a friend from college IMed me from his seminary desk with an apparently heavy thing to tell me. He told me he was gay. Thus began my actual engagement with homosexuality.

That was the How Come. Next up: the What For.