This column was published in The State News in the 21 October 1999 edition.
During the 1998/1999 school year a group of fifteen or so students and staff met a dozen times to discuss issues of sexuality in a Christian context. The idea for the group came from a series of angry letters on the opinion pages of The State News.
Bonnie Nicholas, a staff member with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship; and myself, an activist in the campus lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community; were two of the letter writers. At Bonnie's suggestion we met for lunch several times during the summer of 1998 to discuss what we could do to help students talk more calmly about these issues.
We wanted to avoid confrontation, so we decided to begin with a small group of students and staff, all of them drawn to Christianity and some of them identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Brent Bilodeau, Assistant for LGBT concerns, and Rodney Patterson, Office of Minority Student Affairs, joined in as staff participants.
The first meeting was pretty scary for everyone involved. We set ground rules for the discussion, which proved invaluable (see sidebar). We began the meeting by simply going around the table and briefly sharing our personal stories.
It became clear in this initial "sharing our stories" session that the experience of coming out as gay is similar to the experience some people have when coming out as Christian.
Subsequent sessions identified topics on which to focus: the contradiction of being Christian and LBGT, the so-called "ex-gay" movement, interpreting the Bible, what part of being homosexual is a sin, can one be an ally to a cause in which one does not agree, and how to manage the personal risks required to carry on these discussions.
Meetings held during the second semester attempted to tackle some of these topics. Even with the ground rules, it was pretty rough going at times. Not everyone stayed the course.
For the LBGT-identified participants, a large point of contention seemed to be the concept of absolute truth. Any statement that began with "the Bible says" was likely to cause problems. It is hard to listen to any statement that begins by labeling a part of oneself as shameful or sinful.
Non-LBGT participants repeatedly struggled with the fact that their personal beliefs could be taken as personal insults by other participants. They found it is one thing to state that "homosexuality is sin" before a congregation of nodding believers, and quite another thing to make that statement in a small room sitting next to LBGT people they have come to know during many discussion sessions.
Christians have been and still are persecuted for their beliefs, but LBGT people also are persecuted, most often in the name of religion. Though many Christians preach "hating the sin and loving the sinner," that message is seen as a sham by LBGT people who feel they have been created as they are and given the grace to live as LBGT people.
Perhaps the most difficult lesson to be learned from these sessions was that there is no simple end to this disagreement. There are believers on all sides of the questions surrounding human sexuality and gender identity. It is important to learn how to disagree, without losing respect for one another.
The staff who participated were no less affected than the students. Many of us found the discussions to be unexpectedly emotional, recalling painful past experience. This may be an indication that there are far too few opportunities in our society for people to sit and talk calmly about differences.
I found it disappointing that no matter how hard we tried, I always came away from discussion sessions feeling it was a Christian versus gay thing, even though everyone involved identified as Christian. It was too easy to fall into an "us versus them" attitude, speak of "two sides," and tacitly accept the notion that one cannot be both Christian and gay.
This country is home to people who differ in many ways. It is not a Christian country, it is not a heterosexual country, it is not a country that is simple and exclusive along any of the many dimensions of human difference.
A basic human problem is how to get along with people who are different, without conquering them or otherwise forcing them to do your will. Until we can learn to live together with our differences we will have battle lines and casualties.
As difficult as the discussions were, the students and staff involved felt they were worthwhile and should continue. Ways are being explored to hold similar discussions this year. The hard work of understanding how we feel about each other is a first step to being able to truly love one another.
Sidebar
Ground Rules
This is a discussion, not a debate. No one is going to win, no one is going to loose.
Listen. Hear what the other person is saying. Let them finish talking. Realize that the same word may mean different things to different people.
Talk about yourself and your own experiences. Ask questions of others, but do not challenge the validity of their personal experience.
Do not generalize from your experience and feelings to the experience and feelings of others. Let them speak for themselves.
Do not attack, do not try to hurt, do not pass judgment.
Treat this discussion as a private conversation; do not repeat elsewhere what is said here.