Does the Bible Object More to Homophobia Than to Homosexuality?

JOHN: I flunked ninth grade.

LAURENE: Only a Harvard grad. [laughter] Does that cut into my time?

I think the good news of the gospel, as I experience the gospel was that in Jesus Christ I experience my salvation. And when I came out finally ... and I'm talking about experience. I think it's important to understand that as a Presbyterian, we hold scripture very highly. Scripture is central to my faith. And so when you hear people say, well, homosexuals, we have this agenda. I have an agenda. You know what my agenda is? Justice for all people. You know what my agenda is? There's no more hungry, there's no more poor people. That the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed. That no longer is anyone going to be denied their humanity because the right wing agenda says, "you are not." Desmond Tutu said that indeed that is nearly ultimate blasphemy that a child of God should even question whether they are a child of God. Yes, I believe that one can be Christian and gay or lesbian or bisexual. I live that everyday of my life. I believe that indeed sexuality is God's good gift to us. Your sexuality, my sexuality, that is God's good gift to us. It enhances fellowship with God.

I want to share a quote from Dr. Dale Martin, biblical scholar from Duke University, because I think he sums it up better than I can. He says:

"Any interpretation of scripture that hurts people, oppresses people, and destroys people, can not be the right interpretation no matter how traditional, historical, or exegetically respectable. There can be no debate about the fact that the church's stand on homosexuality has caused oppression, loneliness, self-hatred, violence, sickness and suicide for millions of people. If the church wishes to continue with its traditional interpretation, it must demonstrate, not just claim, that it is more loving to condemn homosexuality than to affirm homosexuals. Can the church show that same-sex loving relationships damage those involved in them? Can the church give compelling reasons to believe that it really would be better for all lesbian and gay (and I would add bisexual) Christians to live alone without the joy of intimate touch, without hearing a lover's voice when they go to sleep or wake? Is it really better for lesbian and gay teens to despise themselves and endlessly pray that their very personalities be reconstructed so that they may experience romance like their straight friends? Is it really more loving for the church to continue its worship of heterosexual fulfillment (a non-biblical concept, by the way), while consigning thousands of its members to a life of either celibacy or endless psychological manipulation that masquerades as healing?"

"The burden of proof in the last twenty years has shifted. There are too many of us who are not sick or inverted or perverted or even effeminate, but who just have the knack for falling in love with people of our own sex. When we have been damaged it is not due to our homosexuality, but to your and our denial of it. The burden of proof now is not upon us to show that we are not sick, but rather on those who insist that we would be better off going into the closet."

"What will build the double love of God and love of neighbor? Is homophobia wrong? Yes. Is any kind of phobia, xenophobia, any kind of injustice toward another human being wrong? Yes. Is homosexuality wrong? No."

I believe, and people will shake their head and disagree with me, and that's OK. That's OK because this is my experience. You have your experiences, presumed heterosexual. But this is my experience. And this is not only my experience, but of thousands of gays and lesbians and bisexuals. But this is my experience in terms of the biblical scholarship that is coming out, literally, out of the woodwork. I have a bibliography for folks if they want to see some of the new stuff that's coming out from renowned scholars. Even Richard Hays, an evangelical, says five out of the six passages have been translated wrongly against gay-lesbian-bisexual people. He holds up Romans 1 from the creation perspective. I believe that in Jesus Christ we are all made free, that my redemption is in Jesus Christ, and that homosexuality is God's good gift to me and to my brothers and my sisters.

I hope that in your disagreement with me, or my brothers and my sisters or parents and friends and family and aunts and uncles and colleagues, that you will treat us with respect. Because we can disagree. That's OK. I'm 36 years old. It's taken me 36 years to really come to terms that this is indeed God's good gift, flowing upstream against the homohatred that is in this country, that is perpetuated by people of the radical right agenda. That is perpetuated by people that don't understand sexuality, period.

I believe in the end we will all be made new. And that we will be surprised who is on the other side with us. I think that if this is of God, friends, I would really look at why you are opposing something that is of God and look for the fruits of the Spirit and look at God's good work in the gay-lesbian-bisexual community. Thank you.