1. Why Blacks Should Be Homophobic

    Today, I discovered a blog post by Pastor G. Craige Lewis explaining why Black Christians should be homophobic. You should really read the article yourself—it even features a delightful picture of two shirtless men embracing!—but below, I’ve selected some of the best quotes for your enjoyment. 
    1. “Homosexuality is the most risky lifestyle one can lead. They are even saying that you have a better chance of surviving war combat than you do the homosexual lifestyle.” Um…what? First of all, ‘they’ are not saying that—you are. Second, that doesn’t even make sense. I’m pretty sure that a heroin-abusing, drag-racing, crimelord lives a far riskier lifestyle than Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family.  And third, your examples of high murder and suicide rates in LGBT communities? Those aren’t just natural byproducts of being gay. Those statistics exist because of the actions of ignorant, hateful people like you. 
    2. “The average single black woman has a male homosexual friend and doesn’t even see how he is the greatest obstacle in her quest to get married.” Kudos to Pastor Lewis for creativity here. Among all the endless theories I’ve heard about the Black marriage crisis, I’ve yet to hear anyone claim that Black women are disproportionately single because of our gay male friends. How exactly does that work? Does the gay BFF create an invisible forcefield around us? 
    3. “Because homosexual men cannot be any kind of example to young boys, our young men are on a downward spiral.” Yep, that’s the reason why young Black men are struggling—not institutional inequality, not absent fathers, not a broken educational system, but because of the influence of gay men. 
    4. “The average homosexual has over 100 sexual partners each year!” Wow! The average gay person rotates through a new sexual partner every 3 days? How do they have that much time on their hands? And where are they finding this endlessly fresh supply of sexual partners? Dude, do us all a favor and stop positing fake statistics in order to support your own bigoted thinking. 
    5. “We always accept the thing that destroys us, and Obama’s homosexual agenda is the death of the black race and the death of us all if we do not stand against it.” Dun DUN DUN! Kudos again, sir. You managed to link both President Obama and gay people to the impending destruction of mankind. 

    Given that all 79 of the comments were wholeheartedly supportive of Lewis’ blog post, I’m going to wager a guest that the pastor filters out those pesky differences of opinion. Still, here are a few of the best comments in response to his post: 

    1. “The commandment was to go, be fruitful and multiply. Same sexes can not be fruitful. Right there goes to show you that you are against the will of YAHWEH.” Obviously. It just goes to show that all those straight people who are unable to reproduce are also against the will of God. 
    2. “It’s a shame that more and more African Americans are defending this lifstyle , and comparing it to slavery. I’m doing research on other countries because I’m leaving America for good and denouncing my citizenship ASAP!!!” Good plan, bro. Because there are no gay people in any other countries throughout the world.
    3. “The new trend now is skinny jeans which neither I nor my boys would ever wear nor entertain. It is just nasty to see these boys with spandex pants and to make it worst, they sag it too. No wonder homosexuality continues to rise. ”

              

               Lil Wayne: turning your kids gay since 2011. 


  2. Saturday sinners, Sunday morning: Sexuality and the Black church

    “There was no love in the church,” James Baldwin once wrote.

    The stepson of a minister and a former preacher himself, Baldwin’s literary contributions, perhaps best exemplified by his debut novel Go Tell It On The Mountain, are inextricably linked to his foundation within the Harlem churchworld. Still, the openly gay writer later separated himself from the institution, describing the church as a “mask for self-hatred and despair.”

    “When we were told to love everybody, I thought it meant everybody,” he wrote. “But no. It only applied to those who believed as we did.”

    This morning, I read this quote on the way to service at a large, predominately Black Los Angeles church. Ironically, I would later sit uncomfortably as a minister encouraged the congregation to lobby Gov. Brown to veto SB 48. If passed, the bill would revise state curriculum to include and celebrate the achievements of members of marginalized groups, including LGBTQ Americans. 

    What shocked me the most was the reaction of everyone around me: gasps of horror, disturbed murmurs as the minister warned that this bill would force children to learn about the homosexual lifestyle. As the congregation rustled through their Bible cases for paper and pens to copy down the number for Gov. Brown’s office, I glanced around the sanctuary. Out of the thousands of churchgoers, was I the only person who was horrified by this church-sponsored homophobia? 

    First, here’s an excerpt from the actual bill:

    This bill would require instruction in social sciences to also include a study of the role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and other ethnic and cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.

    Scary and controversial? An endorsement of the ‘gay agenda’? A radical left-wing revision of history? Cultural brainwashing of impressionable youth? Not so much! To me, a bill like this is saying: LGBTQ people exist, and many have made amazing achievements students should learn about. It’s disingenuous to characterize legislation that acknowledges that every history-maker was not straight as some propagation of gay sexuality. Beyond that, it’s disheartening that the ministry ignored the bill’s references to racial minorities; the irony of a Black church rallying against a law that would call for more inclusion of Black figures—and other people of color—in classrooms is not lost on me.

    On the way back from church, my parents argued with me about the bill. Their main point: Why do we have to talk about sexuality at all when we talk about historical accomplishments? We don’t mention that someone is heterosexual. Who cares, anyway? 

    You know what? As a human being who is concerned about upholding the dignity of other human beings, I care. And while a bill like this might not matter to straight people, it will matter to the millions of LGBTQ kids who are searching for images of themselves. It matters to people who have been shoved to the margins of cultural and historical narratives—who have been rendered silent and invisible, who have been told that they don’t exist, that they have never existed.  It will matter to the Black boy struggling with his sexuality when he learns that James Baldwin, literary giant, Black hero, grappled both artistically and personally with some of the same questions of racial and sexual identity. 

    It’s disappointing that this reality is often lost on the church. Like Baldwin, I don’t understand how seeking to exclude references to LGBTQ figures is conducive with a message of love. How can you seek to erase the same people you claim to love? I love you as long as you are silent. I love you as long as no one sees you. I love you as long as you don’t exist to me.

  3. Easter Sunday in the UK

    Just got back from Easter service in Oxford. It was a fascinating cultural experience, not only because it was a British church, but also because it was an extremely white church. My friend and I were the only Black people in the entire church, which I noticed immediately. 

    A few observations:

    1) No one was dressed to the nines. And it’s Easter Sunday. If you’ve ever been to a Black church on Easter Sunday, you’d know that Easter is basically a fashion show! 

    Nothing says ‘Jesus is risen’ like a pink three-piece suit

    2) There was no percussion in the music. At. All. Some of my American friends weren’t fazed by this, but I couldn’t get over it. No drums. No clapping. Not even an old lady in a big hat dancing out in the aisle, shaking her tambourine!

    3) The prayer leader said a prayer for the Queen, as well as Prince William and Kate Middleton’s upcoming nuptials. I’m sure many churches in America also pray for the health of the heads of state, but can you imagine some of these conservative evangelical churches praying for President Obama’s wellbeing? 

    4) The pastor made a reference to “worthless Lehman Brothers stocks” and my friends and I just smiled sheepishly. Oh, you mean that global financial meltdown our country almost caused because of our insatiable greed? Oops! Our bad!

    All in all, I enjoyed the service. People were pretty nice, and we talked to a British college student, who asked us a bunch of questions after she discovered we were Americans. (I still can’t get over this whole people-know-I’m-not-from-here-as-soon-as-I-open-my-mouth thing. Curse these Yankee accents!) But I hope to do some church-hopping while I’m here. I really want to find a Black church. We passed a Baptist church last night, which opens up a whole bag of new questions. What do Black baptist churches look like in the UK? Given the American Black church’s deep roots in southern culture and slavery, how has the Black church tradition developed here, without that legacy? And do I get to wear my pink three-piece suit?  

  4. Praying the gay away

    If you want to read something depressing, check out ex-gay testimonies.

    Many Christian ministries love to publish them as a smug response to the LGBT community’s assertion that they were born this way. See, they argue, you don’t have to be gay. You can stop being gay right now. You just have to try harder. Pray harder. Be straighter. 

    The irony here is that church testimonies are supposed to be tales of victory. This is how I got over. This is how I was brought through. But there’s nothing victorious about ex-gay testimonies. Instead there’s something profoundly devastating—at least to me, as a Christian, as a feminist, as a human being.

    In “My Path to Lesbianism”, Diane Mattingly lays out a rather dizzying argument about how her misogynistic attitudes, which stemmed from her resentment toward her mother, somehow turned her gay. She first noticed her attraction to women when she was in the sixth grade but she didn’t act on her feelings until long after high school and a series of “very promiscuous” stints with boys. 

    My first encounter with a woman gave me the most intense sense of belonging and connection I have ever felt. It is hard to explain just how enveloped I felt during that first encounter. I felt a sense of relief I had never felt before. I felt like I had finally found that sense of home within my soul I had been missing.

    Wait, is this the article where you’re telling me that being a lesbian is bad? Because what you just described sounds awesome. Who doesn’t want that type of intimacy with someone else? But then Mattingly drops the hammer: she later dismisses this encounter as “an emotionally dependent relationship that had nothing at all to do with love.” (Nothing to do with love? Did you read what you just wrote? It sounded like a page ripped out a Harlequin novel!) Mattingly is sparse with the details of her ‘recovery’, but after a few confusing paragraphs about reclaiming her “aborted femininity”, she pronounces herself cured. 

    Somewhat surprisingly, in “No Easy Victory”, the anonymous author, unlike in the other articles, still identifies as a gay man. He describes his growing awareness of his sexuality, from early childhood to secret high school crushes, an “almost overwhelming” attraction that resulted in depression and suicidal thoughts. But still, even after he became a Christian during college and began a relationship with a woman, his “sexual orientation did not change.”

    And that’s what I wish I could be: normal. I’ve tried to change, tried to become heterosexual, tried just about everything to do so! Counseling, therapy, prayer, healing—you name it. But for all my trying, all I’ve managed to do is control the behavioral manifestations of my sexual orientation. God has given me the power to live a fulfilling heterosexual life, together with the grace to live with the fact that I’m still homosexual. It hasn’t been an easy victory. There are times when maintaining this dichotomous life is nearly overwhelming. 

    Now this article just made me want to cry. It’s not the fact that it’s so heartfelt and sincere. It’s also the idea that this is someone who has come to terms with his sexuality but continues to grit his teeth and try to remold himself into something that he’s not. Despite the title, this article isn’t victorious: it’s profoundly sad. 

    So, brief re-cap. Gay Christians, these seem to be your options.

    1. Stay in the closet.
    2. Renounce gayness, live heterosexual life
    3. Accept gayness, live heterosexual life in spite of it

    Each of these options is more depressing than the last. It’s just beyond me how anyone can think that a loving God would prefer you to live a life of secrecy and shame rather than a happy and fulfilling life loving another and loving who He created you to be.

    Christian magazines proudly publish these ex-gay testimonies and use them as evidence that you can ‘pray the gay away.’ But do you know what they actually prove? How desperate we are. The lengths to which we will go to be found acceptable. The crushing weight of our own shame. 

  5. The Good Fight

     

    As a kid, I grew up in the Catholic Church—not the stoic, high-roof, stain-glass window type but the metal folding chairs, linoleum floor, community-center variety. There weren’t even pews. Not that that bothered me any. Some Catholics are really intense about things like that—they want that Vatican feeling—the Latin mass, although they don’t understand the language, slow, dirgeful hymns, and incense. Lots and lots of incense.

    Not me, man. I didn’t need the place to feel particularly holy. I liked my church. I made friends there. I joined the choir. I also went to CCD—catechism class, where you sit after school for a couple of hours, read parables in a church-issued workbook—like a coloring book, but way less fun—and learn about how to be a good Catholic. I never took much of that to heart. Catholicism to me always seemed to be a lot about appearances. This is how a good Catholic looks. This is how a good Catholic behaves. Kneel here. Stand up there. Sit now, stand now, repeat these words at this time. I believed in the overall message, but I was never set on actually joining the church. My mother and my oldest sister are confirmed Catholics; my other sister and I never went the distance, and my father, well—he never seemed too keen on the whole Catholic thing in the first place.

    While I was in middle school, we left the Catholic church and started commuting to my dad’s church, a nondenominational, predominately black megachurch in Los Angeles. Between there and the church I attend at Stanford, I’ve learned a lot about Christianity as I’ve grown up. But I have a confession to make:

    I have issues with the mainstream, religious Christian.

    Coming of age in the Bush era, where our political discourse was hijacked by generations’ old culture wars, has soured the perception of organized religion for me and many others in my generation. It disgusts me that Jesus, who was such a radical and, dare I say, progressive figure in his culture, has been kidnapped by religious fundamentalists who try to mold His legacy into one that serves their political aims. It disgusts me that Christianity, which has historically championed for the weak and defenseless, has been co-opted by the party of big business, wealth, and privilege. It’s backwards. And it’s disgusting to me that so many religious people ignore the gospel’s precepts about leading through service, helping the least among us, not judging each other, or, most importantly, loving our neighbors, while continuing to fly under the Christian mantle as they scream epithets at scared girls in front of abortion clinics or prevent LGBT or other gender-nonconforming folk from obtaining basic civil rights.

    In church today, the preacher was criticizing Christians who become enthralled in culture wars to further prop up their own self-worth. While I agreed with this argument, one thing he said gave me pause.

     “Even if you’re focused on Christian objectives,” he began, “fighting homosexuality, anti-abortion—”

    Whoa.

    Fighting homosexuality? I glanced around the room, but no one else seemed taken aback by this phrase. Maybe I’m just naïve, but what struck me was the assumption that this was true, the unchallenged notion that a Christian objective should indeed be to ward off the gays. I don’t want to fight homosexuality. In fact, I think LGBT cultures have enriched “mainstream American culture” for the better. But does this make me a bad Christian? Am I not fighting the good fight against guyliner and glitter?

    I guess what I’m saying is that I feel odd sometimes. I can’t tell if it’s just me, or something larger, more indicative of the times. Is it a generational gap yet to be bridged between the firebrands currently in power—old-school fundamentalists rallying about God, guns, and gays—and the up-and-comers in my generation, who consider the environment, global poverty and disease, and other social issues areas of concern for the church? Or am I just an oddball, on the fringes of two societies, ostracized by fellow progressives who think my religious beliefs are antiquated and frivolous, as well as by Christians, why might just as easily damn me to hell for supporting a woman’s right to choose, for wanting to protect our planet, for finding gay love equally beautiful.

    If conservatives can rage about needing to “take back their country” from all us foreigners and elitists and minorities and secret Kenyan Muslims, then I’d like to take back my religion from all of them. To all of you who have convinced generations of what a “good Christian” looks like—steamrolling piles of CDs, banning offensive books, picketing clinics, keeping women in their place, attacking gay people, condemning and judging anyone who does not think or act or even look like you—yes, all of you, I’d like my Jesus back, please. Yes, Jesus—you know, the rabble-rouser, the radical, the revolutionary, the feminist, the community organizer who sparred with hypocrites, ate with sinners, and defended the poor and weak—yes, that Guy. 

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A grad student's musings on school, art, culture, and life