#7 The Testimony on Simplicity
We are called to practice sexuality in a manner that keeps our hearts as open as possible to God.
My understanding of the Quaker testimony on simplicity is that we are called to live lifestyles in a manner that keeps us as attuned as possible to the motions of the Spirit within us. For this reason, this principle is also sometimes referred to as the Testimony on Purity. As noted earlier, possessions, work, busy-ness, and clutter can all interfere with responsiveness to God.
Many forms of sexual activity can interfere with a responsiveness to the leadership of the living Spirit. Sexual addictions substitute the attachment to viewing sexual images or engaging in rigid sexual behaviors for spirit-led sexual intimacy. These can lead married individuals away from their partners. It can lead people to carry out actions that are violent or coerced or violate an individual's sense of integrity.
Sexual acts that further open one to God are those that are reflective of love and open-heartedness. What direction do our sexual feelings and acts move us in -- closer to God, closer to our true selves, closer to those we love and are committed to, closer to those with whom we share spiritual community -- or away from all of these things?
#8 Equality within Sexual Partnerships
God intends for us to enter into sexual relationships as equals.
There is enormous risk of exploitation in sexual relationships of unequal power. This is true between adults and children, doctors and patients, employers and employees, teachers and students, guards and prisoners. In such relationships it is almost inherently impossible for both parties to come to the relationship with free input into decision-making and mutual respect.
In addition, where a society has significant differences of power between different groups if people -- men and women, rich and poor, those who have differing levels of education, those from different races, even birth order -- it can be challenging to reach the goal of deep equality between partners from these different groups. It can be a life-long challenge, in some cases, for partners to overcome deep disparities of power in an intimate relationship when multiple issues challenge equality of respect and decision-making.
Our Testimony on Equality is rooted in the fact that inequality precludes the expression of God's voice through the individual who is excluded from political power or spiritual leadership. In the same way, God is unable to express God's hopes and dreams in the sexual realm when one or both members of a partnership are denied freedom and respect.
#9 Equal Access to Sexuality
God wants to insure that whole groups of people are not excluded from being sexual because of prejudice or injustice.
I took a course in nursing school in sexuality where we watched many explicit educational films. Some of these films showed loving sexual acts between older people, between those with serious disabilities, and other groups that our culture does not usually think of as being sexual. I think it is fair to say that most of those present found these films difficult to watch and quite a "turn off." The same could be said probably for many of those present of the films that showed same-sex couples having sex.
God clearly does not want disabled or older people to be non-sexual beings simply because many people in our culture have trouble imagining them as sexual. Our society glorifies the young, the fit, the healthy, and those whose bodies fit the stereotype of "physically attractive." God proclaims all these groups as being "physically attractive" in God's own eyes and calls us to join God in this view of them (and of themselves/ourselves).
Many liberal Friends have come slowly over the past several decades to believe that gays and lesbians also deserve to be treated equally with heterosexuals in terms of access to sexuality. I do not think it is correct that this is a "knee-jerk liberal" assumption: that just because it appears unequal or unjust to reject gay sex that gay unions have a place in God's plan. Rather I think it is a question of knowing actual loving gay couples and sensing the rightness of what they are doing and the working of the Spirit in their lives and their committed relationships.
I agree with those who have suggested that Hebrew scriptures, Christian scripture, and past Friends writings are really silent on the issue of same-sex marriage and homosexual acts in the context of a life-long committed relationship blessed by a spiritual community. It is up to us to hear and discern correctly what God is saying to us on this issue. I do not assume that as liberal Friends we have the final answer as to what God is telling us about same-sex relationships, but up to this point I do not myself sense wrongness of these committed unions blessed by Meetings. In fact, there seems to me to be much evidence that God is working in these Friends' lives.
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