Eve Tushnet
with not my strongest piece, but I think the underlying point is necessary. One thing I wish I’d added is that gay people who accept the Christian sexual ethic are both the ones serving our neediest and the ones in need: We too have been rejected by our parents and even kicked out of our homes for coming out, and have suffered other economic consequences–sometimes both the economic injustices associated with being gay and economic injustices associated with celibacy or unmarried kinship. We’re all this together, again, some more:
If you are gay in this country, you are more likely to be alienated from your parents and traumatized by your upbringing if you were raised Christian. The more Christians you were surrounded by—the more “Christian” your community was or is—the more likely you are to experience shame and alienation from God.
This is common knowledge among gay Christians. But it should shock us; it should shock all Christians.
Christian children—our children—should be the ones most likely to trust in God’s unconditional love for them. They should be the ones most at peace with themselves and their community. They should be the ones who have known all their lives that God created them out of love and sustains them in every moment through His love.
In this post I’d like to call “traditional” Christians (for lack of a better term) to seek to serve gay people, especially those in the most desperate circumstances. And I’d like to call “progressive” Christians to make space for “traditional” Christians. To serve alongside us, and help us to serve. This will require both groups to move past judgment and fear, into humility and solidarity.
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