Misdirected Magic

Yesterday was National Coming out day. I'm gay, I believe in God. I'm not ashamed of either...

It didn't take me long, however, to become ashamed of the church I grew up attending shortly after turning the radio on last night to tune into their Sunday night service. Its something I do from time to time to listen, observe and soak in what I hear. Upon leaving there for another church when I turned 18 I have joked to everyone who asks that I am a "recovering Baptist." Last night, all jokes aside, after hearing what I did I was shocked and appalled.

Recovery Complete.

I knew it was coming. Sort of like that summer storm cloud when you can see the darkness and smell the rain long before the storm arrives. Somehow I knew, given the news of the weekend, the march on Washington D.C. and the president's speech to the HRC, that the sermon would turn to Homosexuality. "I want to talk for a minute about these people they call gays," the pastor said.

A minute turned into ten and ten into twenty as the argument was laid out as for why he loved homosexuals, but hated homosexuality. In fact he loves them more than the "people they run around with" because he's trying to get them out of their sin. "I your house were on fire," he argued, "you'd listen to the person trying to get you out of danger." All of the classic arguments were given: The story of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah, the book of Leviticus and Romans mentioned too. They always are. Debunking those arguments is something I have spent the last 5 years studying.

I wanted to scream at the radio, then I wanted to cry. Then I wanted to sit the pastor down and let him know that I am one of these people he calls gays. I sat under his preaching for some 18 years. I went to his school, walked across the stage, shook his hand as I received my diploma. For all 18 of those years, though he would never believe it, I was gay, because I was born that way. Not because I'm mired in a sinful lifestyle. Choosing to be a vegetarian is lifestyle, people don't choose to be gay any more than he chose to be straight. That's scientific fact, but science and religion have sadly always been strangers.

What has not always been strangers is this sort of misdirected magic that takes place in churches everywhere. The cleverest magicians are only good because they are
flawless in the art of misdirection.They distract the eyes of the audience to something attention-grabbing but irrelevant so that no one notices what the magician is really doing. Look over at that fuchsia scarf, up this sleeve, at anything besides the actual trick. The trick here is that churches, and the religious right is behind a campaign to smear homosexuality, label it as a boogeyman that steals the mind. They've labeled it as a dangerous sin that threatens the "sanctity of marriage." I'm still wondering how my being attracted to the same-sex threatens the sanctity of marriage when it would seem that the divorce, and infidelity that runs rampant in churches and abroad would be more of a threat.

The sermon I heard last night was supposedly about "truth", but for the almost twenty minutes the pastor went on about homosexuality I heard very little truth at all. Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't destroyed because of homosexuality. A quick study in history would have easily shown him that the townspeople's desire to "know" the men was customary degradation in that time. If you really wanted to defeat your enemy, you raped them. Plain and simple. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah weren't destroyed because they were flamers. They were destroyed because of their lack of hospitality to strangers. Something that sadly, some churches are even guilty of today. Lot is too often praised as a hero, and only righteous man in Sodom when in reality he offered his daughters to be gang-raped by the mob and later had an incestuous relationship with one of his own daughters. He was hardly righteous. Its shameful for someone who is the leader of a church congregation to sugget that he was.

That's the sad reality though. The Bible is constantly touted as infallible and its twisted to fit whatever argument is being made at the time. The religious right has become expert cherry-pickers. Men sleeping men is an abomination. According to that same passage though, so it cutting ones hair, trimming their beard, even eating shell fish. Jesus came to do away with Levitical law. I don't ever remember him saying that if it helps you demonize the gays, you can blow the dust off of it.

Put down that shrimp, pastor or you're no better than I am.

The argument, you see, is ridiculous. They are just expert magicians. The Jesus I have come to know since leaving the Baptist church never once in his 33 years on earth and 3 years of active teaching mentioned homosexuality. I think its safe to assume that if he didn't mention it, it probably wasn't worth mentioning. what he did mention were things like, loving your neighbor, being kind to the poor and downtrodden, showing mercy. The greatest of these, he said, is love. Somewhere along the way churches and the pastors who lead them have lost the love.

Christianity isn't some masterpiece in a museum that is to be left untouched. Its the Velvet Elvis in our basement. Its there for us to re-work, re-think and to sometimes paint over. Just like the artist no doubt erases, fixes errors and re-paints so too do Times change, faith changes. Life isn't as it was in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. I think Jesus realized that.

I wish more people would trade in their Mona Lisa for a Velvet Elvis.

The religious right has demonized something undeserving and have done so just like a good magician, by diverting the attention of the public away from the real issue, love and equality.My hope and vision for the people of this country is that their blindness to love in this instance is turned to blindness toward whom others love. Right now, the opposition seems only blinded by bias and bigotry. If they really were interested in the "sanctity of marriage" as they often claim
to be, perhaps they would focus their time on repealing the divorce laws in every state.

If the focus in this country and our churches must be on the rights of gays and lesbians I think it much more productive to focus on the rights being denied to them.There is clearly no legitimate reason, consistent with the spirit of the Constitution why two people who have spent the majority of their lives together are denied health insurance, tax deductions, inheritance benefits and most importantly recognition of their union by the state. I guess the burning questions is, why? Why are we repeating our history of closed-mindedness and bigotry? Why is it that we continue to ignore history? States are now issuing apologies for slavery. Just this year, I voted for a woman in the Presidential primaries. The signs of how far we’ve come as a nation are all around us. Yet,with the passage of laws such as Proposition 8 it becomes even more apparent that we haven’t come far enough.

I thought and still do believe that I live in a country where "all are created equal." At least that’s the line I memorized in middle school. Same-sex marriage is just as much about equality and the dignity of the individual as were the movements for desegregation and women's rights. I will not rest until equality is recognized and ceases to be challenged – I just hope that homosexuals are not alone in this battle and have allies who are willing to stand next to us and work for what is right, and that those willing to believe scare tactics and magic tricks are in the minority.