Gays in the Graveyard, Part II: Some Observations

The nationally divisive debate on gay issues sparked by President Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment on marriage in the run-up to the 2004 election is nowhere near settled.

Two related links on the Faithful Democrats homepage recently caught my eye: on the one hand, Ryan Thoreson’s thoughtful analysis for The New Prospect on the likely impact of gay rights issues on the 2008 campaign, and on the other hand, Stan Moody’s provocative (and, for my money, mostly spot-on) post on this website entitled “How Many Gays in the Graveyard?”

Both suggest that the nationally divisive debate on gay issues sparked by President Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment on marriage in the run-up to the 2004 election is nowhere near settled.

While the debate is in some ways taking new directions, there is also ample evidence that the pernicious misuse of some versions of Christianity remains unchecked.  On the side of change, Thoreson reports a new approach on the part of progressive activists: GLBT advocacy groups and their political allies have begun to work together more closely, to intensify “education, polling, and visibility to share their stories and promote credible research on the well-being of children raised in same-sex households.”  These efforts have helped to convey one of the most basic, yet politically important, important messages about GLBT Americans: that they are human beings with their own stories — often stories of commitment and faith and courage which resonate with those of straight Americans.

But with one step forward, there are sometimes two steps back.  Moody’s piece, about a man denied a funeral by a Texas megachurch when his life partner was publicly described as one of his survivors, reveals the way in which certain strands of Christianity continue to prioritize theological differences on the issue of homosexuality over basic pastoral care.

The discussion board linked to Moody’s article captures the tone of some of the debate.  One poster wrote, “It is clear to me that y'all [Moody and his supporters] are deceived about not only Christianity, but the nature of salvation… Having a funeral for an unrepentant gay man does nothing to usher him into Heaven.”

It would be easy to say that the theology behind this sentiment is problematic at best, not to say decidedly unbiblical: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”  Leaving aside the question of whether one must be free of sin in order to merit salvation (which would make Heaven a surprisingly empty party, I’d imagine), however, what stands out most strongly about the discussion on Moody’s piece is the assumption (by some posters on both sides of the debate, as it turns out) that homosexuality is in fact sinful.

And here is where I want to question a small part of Moody’s approach.  It strikes me that saying “there are no gays in the graveyard,” which seems to be Moody’s way of expressing the entirely sensible view that God does not discriminate between people, may not be the best way of looking at the issue.  I want to say, instead, that there ARE gays in the graveyard; just as there are men and women, people of different nationalities and races and creeds.  St. Paul tells us that at the end of time we will be changed, that we will put on glorified bodies and glorified flesh, but he does not say that we will have our personalities and our loves taken away from us.  Saying that there are gays in the graveyard does something important to same-sex love; it sanctifies it, making it something we should not just tolerate (as some posters want to encourage the Texas megachurch to do) but something that we should in fact celebrate. 

There is room for a theological debate on homosexuality, of course, but one of the possible conclusions of that debate (and one that seems to be gathering more support from many different constituencies in the Christian churches) is that there simply are some people who are “that way,” and who should be given the same support to find and build committed and stable relationships that our society gives without thinking to straight men and women.  And if this is the conclusion that many of us Christians have begun to reach, then we cannot be afraid to stand up for its implications.

One of those implications has to be that the culture of the closet that forces us to use terms like “Uncle Ernie” and “funny uncle” and “friend” rather than “life partner” and “spouse” and “husband” deserves to be shattered.  The former sorts of terms, even when used with the best intentions in mind, have had the net effect, over time, of shoring up the sense that same-sex relationships (even when we personally approve of them) come second to opposite-sex ones.  And that, in turn, has helped to buttress what one poster calls the “personal repulsion” that some feel about homosexual activity.

And here is where Thoreson’s analysis and the debate on Moody’s piece come together.  It is precisely when GLBT activists and their allies have been successful at showing that same-sex relationships have the potential to be just as loving, just as committed, just as meaningful, and (in a theological sense) just as potentially communicative of grace as straight relationships that the rights of gay people have been secured at the ballot box.  Both academic studies and political experience show that when a voter personally knows at least one gay American, she or he is less keen to penalize a class of fellow citizens for the way they are biologically hard-wired.

The agenda for Christian progressives, on this issue at least, seems clear: to continue to introduce America to people it already knows — its gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and otherwise differently sexed co-workers, family members, and friends.

And to do that, we have to be willing to stake out what could well be a highly controversial position in our churches: that there are gays in our graveyards, that it is God who formed them and shaped their desires, and that it is through God’s grace that they, like all of their fellow human beings, can grow through relationships with one another in love and holiness.