Taylor Swift, an American singer
and cultural icon in 2023, spoke “out against anti-queer legislation” during a
concert in early June. “We can’t talk about Pride Month without talking about
pain. There have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put [gay
people] at risk. It’s painful for everyone. Every ally. Every loved one . . .
,” she said.[1] So
much hurt. The level of intensity on both sides of the moral, political, and religious issue motivated me to go to a parade to see for myself. When I
arrived at the one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the morning, I thought the issue was mostly political; by the time the
parade began, religion had clearly trumped the political. A small but vocal group of
evangelical Christians and a larger group of young women wearing and carrying
gay flags (in part to hide the Christians) were shouting at each other in utter
futility of noise. What if people would use religion to dissolve the religious
and political anger and even tension instead of stoking them? I contend that both sides missed
an opportunity for interpersonal peace that could have grown like a mustard seed to take hold among combatants in a variety of contentious issues in the world.
The tension in the "culture wars" had been building in the United States and by 2023 was palpable. The U.S. Supreme Court’s returning the matter of abortion to the States had given Republican legislators in conservative states the confidence to pass anti-gay laws. In early March, 2023, for example, the Tennessee legislature passed and the governor signed a law prohibiting “male or female impersonators” from performing on public property or where the performances can be seen by children.[2] They are too impressionable, so the assumption went, to see men wearing dresses. One concern voiced by opponents of the law was that the content of drag shows, in which gay men (typically) dress as women and sing and tell jokes as performers, was being labeled as sexual. This raises the question of whether men wearing dresses is sexual in nature. A prepubescent child would perhaps view the dresses as costumes rather than conveying anything sexual, for we adults are the ones so preoccupied with sex. Transsexuals were afraid that police might “enforce the law against transgender people walking around in public, falsely painting them as ‘male or female impersonators.’”[3] It was not this concern that caused a federal judge to temporarily put the Tennessee law on hold, however, or that drag shows are not necessarily sexual, but, rather, that the legal language, locations viewable by children, is too vague and broad, especially given the contrasting free-speech interest of the drag-show performers. Doubtless drag performers in Tennessee felt misunderstood, hurt, frightened, and even dirty.
Also hurt was a fifth-grade
teacher in Florida who was fired after being accused of promoting homosexuality
because the Disney film she showed her class has a gay character. That a gay
character is in a film does not in itself mean that the film promotes
homosexuality or constitutes the instruction of certain gay topics, which
Florida law banned.[4] The
teacher felt unfairly treated, not only because the film does not promote
homosexuality, but also because she had received signed permission slips from a
parent of each student in the class. Furthermore, Florida's government had not instituted a process by which films could be assessed. Nonetheless, the new teacher was fired.
Meanwhile, some Roman Catholics,
even priests, were castigating the gay charity group, The Sisters of Perpetual
Indulgence, as anti-Catholic and even Satanic. That the gay men who were in the
charity group had been wearing the robes, or habits, of nuns is understandably prime
facie insulting to Catholics. Unfortunately, the human, all too human urge
to lash out without getting more information blocked the reason why the
gay sisters were wearing the nun’s habit. Wearing the habits was actually a compliment. After the parade, one of the local leaders
of the gay Sisters told me that the use of the nun’s attire was not to
humiliate the Church, but, rather, because, she told me, “We do a nun’s work.
We take care of sick people and feed the hungry. We value that.” It is a stamp of approval of what nuns do! The gay
Sisters not only valued what Catholic nuns do in charity, but also actually did
what nuns do. "We do what they do, so we wear their habit," the leader told me. The gay sisters were not anti-Christian even though they believed
that criticism of the Church was warranted. Hypocrisy is fair game to be called
out, such as in priests raping children and bishops, including Joe Ratzinger before
he was a pope, covering up the crimes to protect the universal Church, and in hating one’s enemy (e.g., gays) instead of showing
kindness and compassion as Jesus in the New Testament would. He is compassionate to a prostitute even though he views her job as a sin. He keeps her from being stoned, so would he not protect the gays from shouting evangelical Christians at a gay parade. Just as he goes to the home of a tax collector, he might even go to a gay parade even as his disciples shake their heads in utter disbelief. Would not Jesus volunteer to help the gay Sisters in caring for others, again at the consternation of his disciples?
For their part, from a Christian point of view, the gay sisters could have gone "the extra mile" in not only doing a nun's work, but also caring for Catholic nuns, such in nursing homes. Catholic nuns, brothers, and priests for their part could have shown up at the charity events of the gay sisters to help them and do charitable work. To be sure, volunteering to work at charities only goes so far from a Christian perspective if enemies are hated and attacked rather than loved. For unless you have love (i.e., the root of charity is caritas, or sublimated love raised high), your faith is for naught, so writes Paul, and love of enemy, such as by helping and otherwise serving one’s enemy (and detractors as well as people one doesn’t like) is the highest manifestation of love, and the most difficult. For anyone naturally finds it easy to love one’s friends and thus volunteer to help them.
Were Catholic monastics and clergy willing to help the gay sisters—to be sure, without necessarily accepting the sisters’ use of the nun’s uniform—and the gay sisters willing to care for elderly nuns and volunteer at Catholic charities, the conflict would be transcended and both ends of the dispute might be able to sense God’s presence. This is none other than the Kingdom of God as described by Jesus in the Gospels. It is the goal, and it is open to be had now rather than only after death. It is clear that both parties to a dispute are not in God's presence when both sides felt insulted and hurt, especially when they are shouting at each other at the onset of a gay Pride parade.
I did not participate in such a parade in 2023 because I agree with everything in the "gay agenda" and culture, but, rather, because gays in the U.S. felt attacked by the words and legislative deeds of conservatives in some of the American governments. Transsexuals and drag queens in particular seemed to feel hunted, and thus no longer welcome in some of the American States.
To be sure, I have some reservations about the transexual ideological agenda, such as the use of the plural pronoun they for a singular antecedent, and the banishment of the words man and woman from public discourse. Flashes of anger meant to punish "infractions" and impose an ideological agenda are inappropriate and reflect a certain arrogance, for no human being has a monopoly on truth and ideology of whatever stripe falls short. The extreme lack of tolerance for ideological disagreement, as reflected in the flashes of anger reflect the wholesale dismissal of an ideological position that is not in lock-step with the political correctness, which goes well beyond the transexual agenda.
The hateful claims that transsexuals are freaks of nature or even Satanic are in my view not justified by the transsexual ideological agenda with respect to language. Moreover, the claims detract from legitimate concerns that have not been given deserved attention. For example, I contend that a conflict of interest exists in cases in which the brain, or mind, is tasked with deciding whether that itself or the person's body expresses the person's authentic gender (i.e., whether the person is a man or a woman). This qualm is not limited to cases in which the person is mentally ill. The human mind is not unbiased with respect to itself. The assumption that the mind cannot be wrong in general or more specifically about its own thinking is false. Not even logic is objective, as certain assumptions are built-in. The assumption of objectivity or infallibility is, moreover, impious because only God is all-knowing (omniscent) and infallible. The assumption of human ideological infallibility is particularly egregious. The human mind is hardly an impartial decider between itself and the body, especially in a culture in which a mind-body dualism is held to be possible and perhaps even laudable. I've raised the point of the mind's conflict of interest with some transsexuals, who either dismiss the point or were stumped. These reactions give me reason to suspect that the conflict of interest has been exploited in a significant number of cases. Even so, I defend the freedom of transsexuals to express themselves and as they say, be the persons they are. To be sure, even the assumption that one's gender captures who one is may be reductionistic, if indeed several of one's roles go into one's identity. By the way, the singular pronoun one is gender neutral, and, if used, can obviate the problem of reduced linguistic clarity that comes with using a plural pronoun for both plural and singular nouns.
I suspect that part of the struggle for transexuals is that societal notions of masculinity and femininity at least in America are too narrow. A man may assume that he is really a woman in part because some of his attributes fall outside of what society tells us are masculine. A young man with long straight hair might assume that he is feminine and thus not really a man in part because long hair is traditionally associated with women, or a man with a high-pitch voice might think that he is really a woman. Once while visiting a university, I said to such a man that the societal norms of masculinity are too narrow. “If that is your natural voice, and you have male reproductive organs, then that voice is masculine.” He smiled and I could see relieve fall over his face and down his long hair. Male lions, after all, have manes. Short hair may in fact emasculate a man (and who wants to see a person's skull).
In spite of my reservations, which I do not inflict on binary and transsexual people as they are insecure enough in American society, I have befriended some transsexuals in order to expressly convey empathy. I have found that they crave or at least greatly appreciate emotional support, as they have come to feel so hated and afraid due to the verbal attacks and legislation of conservatives.
So on the afternoon of Easter Sunday in 2023, I stopped in at a gay bar to say hello to a transexual bartender whom I had met at a grocery store. Upon seeing me, she was so happy she gave me a hug. This told me that emotional acceptance was very much needed. It was not an easy visit for me, as young gay guys there made a point of giving me more than a cold shoulder because I was old. As I was leaving, one of them even said to his friends, "Oh good, he's leaving" so I would hear it.
Again, while waiting to take my place in the gay parade’s line-up a few months later, I seized upon the spontaneous opportunity to minister to a transsexual, whose evangelical Christian parents had forbid him to take estrogen (i.e., the female hormone) and required him to undergo years of conversion therapy wherein he had been instructed to repress his gay instinctual impulses. He told me he felt isolated generally, and even fearful that he might be physically attacked attacked while walking in the parade. My opinion on transsexuality was not relevant; compassion does not hinge on ideological agreement. The professor in me did point out, however, that "they" is not a singular pronoun, and he went after that like a dog to a bone. At least our academic discussion got his mind off his fear. As we were talking, however, a small group of evangelical Christians walked through, announcing that everyone there was a slut and would go to hell. The clear message was that gay people are worthless. It did not take long for some of the gay young adults to reach a boiling point and start shouting at the so-called “Christians,” who fecklessly departed to across a street to take up their position. It did not take long for gay women especially to take their position directly in front of the "Christians." The battleline was set, and the lone policeman became visibly nervous and called for backup.
Shouting insults at one’s enemies is not loving them as if for their own good; such a rationale is extremely arrogant, and even self-idolatrous. Without love, especially where it is least convenient, faith is for naught. The evangelical Christians surely presumed that they were saved even as they hurled insults into the crowd rather than being kind and compassionate—yet without agreeing with the gay ideology or approving of gay sex. Perhaps people who consider themselves to be Christians hesitate to be kind and compassionate to adversaries in part out of fear that agreement would be assumed. Of course it is difficult to set the anger aside.
Attending to human needs even and
especially of detractors or enemies can help a society transcend seemingly
intractable conflicts of contending values. Attending to another person’s
physiological needs, as well as the emotional needs from being emotionally hurt
or afraid, can do wonders in relegating, or transcending, even very heated
conflicts. Attending to pain-caused represents such a different orientation
from the typical castigating of an enemy that a transformation of heart capable
of moving such a mountain would be meteoric in its importance and power.
At the location where the gay
parade was set up, the shouting match between the “Christians” and the gay
people could not be missed. I tried to model the silence that perhaps the
divine is in shouting matches between groups contending for truth. I stood on stretch
of raised cement and held the gay flag high while I silently faced the
aggressors (i.e., the “Christians). Had bottles of water been for sale nearby,
I would have purchased some and used one hand to give them to the “Christians”
while holding a gay flag with the other hand. Rather than waving the flag to provoke
anger, I would have sought quite humbly to attend to the thirst needs of the
“Christians,” who were undoubtedly thirsty after having yelled so much on a hot
day. I would have been modeling this to the gay women as much as being
compassionate to people with whom I disagree ideologically.
I hope I would have said to the
young gay women that only by helping one’s enemy can one get past the sting of
the harsh words and thus the pain and anger. “Don’t you get tired of holding
onto all that anger?” Jesus says in the film, Mary Magdalene to
a woman angered by the physical abuse that women endured from their respective
husbands. In that movie, Mary Magdalene not only is the first witness to the
resurrected Jesus, but also understands that the Kingdom of God is a matter of
transformed hearts rather than a military victory, a more just political or economic
system, or something that will not happen until the end of time. Gandhi, who
was very much influenced by Jesus’ preaching and serving others in the New
Testament, grasped the nature of the transformation.
In the film Gandhi,
a Hindu man whose son had been killed by a Muslim man in the religious conflict
just prior to the independence of India killed a Muslim boy. There is a way out
of hell, Gandhi tells the distraught man: Pick a Muslim boy whose parents have
been killed in the conflict and raise him—only raise him to be a Muslim. This
does not mean that the man must embrace or agree with Islam; rather, Gandhi’s
message is that only by helping people deemed the enemy can a person be free from
the hell that one has constructed around oneself by hating one’s enemy.
Without changing their
interpretations of the Bible, the “Christians” at the parade could have helped
the gays and their allies to get properly situated as to where to stand in the
line-up. The reactions of at least some of the gay people being helped would probably
have been a muted or stunned bewilderment, yet not to preclude a subtle
willingness to be helped by people having a very different opinion on
homosexuality. If the gays would have been too intolerant or proud to accept
the help, the fault would have been in themselves rather than the Christians. Similarly,
some of the “Christians” would likely have shown muted signs of appreciation
for receiving cool water from a man, whom they would presume to be gay, holding
a gay flag.
In shouting that gay people are worthless rather than helping them on a human level, the “Christians” missed an opportunity to preach to the gays. Destructive and short-sighted values and behaviors, rather than being gay per se, are rarely seen outside of the gay "community," which itself may be more of a wish than a fact given the salience of individualistic values that exclude that of other-concern. I’ve heard enough from gay men on how they treat each other and the bases on which they value each other to know that they really need some sermons on love thy neighbor as oneself. Obviously this does not apply to every homosexual, but my claim is significant enough that it characterizes the American gay culture (and perhaps those cultures in other countries). Rather than using a blanket Old Testament abomination approach in which homosexuality itself is deemed sinful, the conservative “Christian” preachers could urge gays to be more Christlike in how they esteem and treat each other. For in this respect gay culture had become ripe for constructive criticism by 2023.
In the “dating” (really looking-for-sex) online sites, for example, gay men can be quite brutal to guys who are deemed old or ugly. How dare such an inferior even message “hi” to one of the self-determined gods on earth. The criteria for being of greater value include being thin, muscular, and "hung," which means having a big penis. Even though physical attributes can be expected to be given a lot of weight when the purpose is limited to sex, the hypertrophic emphasis can be seen in how gay men with more attractive physical attributes regard and treat other, inferior gays. Bluntly telling guys that they are ugly without provocation or that "fat" or "guys over 40" will be blocked just for messaging "hello" points to anger and extreme disrespect based on physical attributes. How dare you contact me! You should be contacting guys on your level. From the standpoint of kindness, the first are actually last. Furthermore, the obsession on seeing nude photos, especially of dicks, and the attached ultimatums on gay sex sites can also be good fodder for preaching. So too are profile statements such as, "No black men; just a preference." To be sure, I've been told that some black men have statements excluding Caucasian men. I've also been told that it is not uncommon for gay men under 35 to demand payment for sex from men over 50. The passive-aggression in demanding payment from men presumed to be out of shape or simply older is insulting to the latter. Perhaps guys who are into older men should be charged too. When the men actually meet for sex, after having "met" online, how a guy rejects another based totally on appearance can be brutal. A man might see the man walking to the door and refuse even to open it, pretending not to be home and instantly blocking the guy online and by phone number. The choice is as feckless as it is needlessly cruel. Alternatively, the host could open the door and say that he is sorry for the other's inconvenience the other isn't his type after all.
The willingness to be unnecessarily cruel is a salient feature of American gay culture. This squalid quality should be isolated for criticism rather than flown over, whether in blanket condemnations of homosexuality as itself being a sin or in wholesale ideological defenses of homosexuality by conservative and liberal clergy, respectively.
The cruelty itself is startling. In “threesomes,” for example, in which three guys meet to have sex, if two of the guys are more attracted to each other than to the third, the two feel no compunction to make sure the third is not treated as the “third wheel” (i.e., the odd man out). In fact, the two men may be just fine with not even touching the other man, even if he is the boyfriend or even husband of one of the two! In the song, Luck Be a Lady Tonight, Frank Sinatra sings that a lady doesn't "wander all over the room, blowing on some other guy's dice." I had a girlfriend once who did that, and I refused to marry her because of it. "Let's keep the party polite," Sinatra sings. It is not polite when two gay guys in a threesome text to each other while the third guy is in the room in order to plan out how to trick the third guy into thinking that the session is over. Tell him you’re leaving, then leave, and he will leave. Then come back. I've heard of cases in which a man will even participate in such a secret scheme to get his boyfriend out.
Incredibly, no guilt seems to accompany such betrayal because the physical attraction of the moment is all that matters in that value-set. Such indifference to hurting another human being is nothing short of pathological; at the very least, such cruelty reflects a malignant egism or self-centeredness and the lack of a conscience. This is good fodder for sermonizing.
I’ve also been told that on the sex sites, and presumably at gay bars too, it is common for boyfriends and even husbands to cheat on their partners. The gay men who have told me of the sheer extent of this behavior admitted that it is probably more prevalent among gays than straight couples. I suspect, moreover, that the importance of what the other gay guy provides sexually is elevated in the selection of a boyfriend and husband. A gay man in San Francisco said once told me that a gay guy typically does not return to the same guy for sex because it is generally believed in that gay culture that there are so many gay men that there is probably someone who satisfies more items on one's list of sexual "likes" list. Another gay man, who was married, told me that that city is not good for gay couples, as there is more temptation to cheat for the same reason. This can be expected in cultures in which sexual attraction is allowed to be be so important even in relationships. To be sure, there are exceptions. A good friend of mine from college told me decades later that sex is about 10 percent of his relationship with his partner. So I am describing a dysfunctional (i.e., superficial and too cruel) culture.
Relative to heterosexual relationships, I believe that there are proportionally more “open” relationships, meaning that both men in a relationship agree that they can have sex separately with other men. Still other couples want to "play together" by bringing in a third man. The gay culture approves of both arrangements. I contend that it does so because of the overwhelming importance of sex in gay relationships generally. Given the importance given to sexual gratification, such separate sex risks the boyfriend or husband going to the other man. Gay men in couples whom I have spoken with seem not to understand why emotional intimacy is weakened in cases in which either man has sex with other men separately. Even in sharing a man, feelings can easily get hurt if the third man is more interested in one of the boyfriends or husbands and the latter lets himself ignore his partner during the session. Preaching is indeed needed and would be of great value to gay men in open relationships, as the perils thereof seem not to be known or respected among gays.
One gay man told me that a man’s sex drive is such that expectations of monogamy are not realistic. I suspect that this opinion is widely held by gay men. An open relationship and even cheating have to be accepted, realistically. I beg to differ; the loss of emotional intimacy and the potential for hurting the other person are too great. I've been told it is common for gay couples to “play together” with a third guy. Astoundingly, a couple (e.g., boyfriends) might go to a third guy’s home, and one of the boyfriends may even participate with the third guy in excluding the other boyfriend from the action and even collaborate in secret with the third guy to get rid of the other boyfriend! At least in America, the gay "community" can be fairly criticized for being too comfortable with the infliction of emotional harm and even betrayal without any taint of guilt. Clearly there is a lot of room for preaching from a Christian standpoint wherein God is love, which manifests between people. Such preaching is not going to be done by conservative clergy who ironically miss the arrogance and meanness in the gay "community" by merely making the blanket statement that homosexuality itself is a sin, or by liberal clergy who refuse to criticize internal gay culture because those clergy are primarily ideological defenders of diversity.
How might conservative clergy
reach gay men? Perhaps by volunteering in a HIV clinic, for instance, or at a gay parade or event, insight could
be gained on where preaching is really needed from the standpoint of loving rather than betraying one’s neighbor. Furthermore, perhaps in showing compassion toward gay men, conservative clergy might come to value compassion to one another and thus not be so mean and
hurtful. Perhaps feeling the kindness of Christian clergy (and laity) might rub off on the gay men who are so callous towards each other and so single-minded on immediate sexual gratification.
Perhaps clergy who view themselves as allies of the gay community might divert their attention from ideology to religious experience. Such a pivot could provide a basis on which to assess the gay community critically and challenge it. Such clergy would urge gay people who are very compassionate to lead the way in extending their kindness to people with whom they strongly disagree. Perhaps at a gay Pride parade, for example, such gay people might be oriented to satisfying the thirst of even a shouting "Christian" on a hot day.
At the gay Pride parade that I attended in 2023, the young gay women and their allies could have shown the “Christians” that gays are not all bad, worthless, or dirty. Perhaps the "Christians" would have discovered that in being cared for by the lesbians that sexual conduct does not exhaust the soul, and thus how God judges it. Perhaps the young gays could have acted in charity, whose value is greatly increased when the intended beneficiaries are people whom the young gays don't like or agree with. Seeing by example how the the way of Jesus could be applied, the angry "Christians" could perhaps have been healed, and thus been in peace rather than anger and arrogance. In the Gospels, Jesus accepts Matthew even though he is one of the hated tax-collectors, and Jesus goes to the house of the Roman Centurion, whose faith, Jesus says, has cured the man’s slave. It is significant that Jesus does not rail against Matthew or the centurion as being evil or impure; instead, he serves them even though they are outsiders, for even they are capable of being loved. Sometimes this has to be experienced in baby-steps, such as in offering water. It is water, after all, that often symbolizes purity or renewal in religion. Like a mustard seed, small acts of human-to-human kindness can have large impacts, whereas two contending parties voicing conflicting values are typically static rather than dynamic.
[1]
Shruti Rajkumar, “Taylor
Swift Breaks Silence And Condemns Anti-LGBTQ Bills During Eras Tour,” The
Huffington Post, June 3, 2023.
[2]
Matt Lavietes, “Tennessee
Governor Signs First-Of-Its-Kind Bill Restricting Drag Shows,” NBC News,
March 2, 2023.
[3] Ibid.
[4]
Isabel Rosales and Jaide Garcia, “Florida
School System Has Closed Investigation Into Teacher Who Showed Disney Movie
With Gay Character,” CNN.com, May 23, 2023.
