The church and homosexuality has been issue that has dogged us for centuries, up till today, no one can find a common ground on which both parties can stand on together without offending one another.
On the flip side of the coin, what we term the religious right have through the centuries, prosecuted, lambasted and spread untruths about the gay community and the way we lead our lives.
We see this happening on a local level - in Singapore - in the recent debacle in the local media about PM Goh's remarks, and as certain churches scrambled to take adamant stands, lashing out against any support shown towards gays and lesbians and going on a "war path." Some churches have even gone as far as sending anti-gay letters to the press calling for the continued criminalisation of homosexual activities and encouraging members to write to the press and their MPs.
As part of that anti-gay movement is the "you can change" movement, a movement that believes homosexuals can change. While there is nothing if someone does want to do so, the premises on which this ministry stands on calls for a lot more explanation.
Of late, the movement of large charismatic churches has been rapidly growing and spreading in the island. For the uninitiated, the charismatic church is no moderate church. It is one where each and every member is brought up well rooted in the family of God, and one's belonging to that family of God is very strong, an intense spirit of corporate-ness, as much as the desire to serve God, is inculcated in everyone.
My boyfriend serves actively in one, in a high profile ministry as a pianist playing for worship services. He has been a member for the past six years.
My boyfriend's friend, who is also a fellow Christian in the same church and who knew about his orientation, wanted to find out the church's stand on it. In doing so, when asked at point blank by his pastor who this was about, unintentionally 'outed' him to his church.
While his pastor came back to him saying that the church accepted him as he was, and that he could still serve then, they would have problems with him serving if he was in a long-term same-sex relationship.
We were faced with a heavy decision, or at least my boyfriend was, to choose between wanting a long term same sex relationship, or to serve in his church's ministry.
Inadvertently this began the process of him coming out spiritually, to himself and to the people around him. This spiritual coming out is vastly different from merely coming out to one's church; it is coming to terms with one's sexuality within the boundaries of your religion and finding rest in a certain place.
As if the pressure from his church wasn't enough, everyday for the past month, my boyfriend faces immense pressure from his family as well because his family members are conservative Christians.
I know all of them show their concern and love by advising him the only way they know how, and what they think is best for him, and you really can't blame them for their miseducated views on the entire issue. It is the product of years of indoctrinating themselves on the only information available to them, and deferring authority to religious rights leaders simply because they were the only authority on the issue then.
However, I'd wish they didn't pressure him the way they are now. His mother, who has never even met me (and has since banned me from their household asking her son why he "puts himself in the way of temptation!"), lectures him everyday about it, says she is praying and interceding for him; his brother, who is gay friendly and whose best friend is gay, cannot accept his brother for who he is because as his sibling, he is 'concerned.'
His church leaders do not pressure him directly, but everything they say and do, their encouragement, their concerned 'talks' do just that.
We tried the 'breakup' option for four days, for he rashly thought that it would be best to hurt me once and for all, and not drag me into this. It proved to be the worst four days of our lives.
So slowly, piece by piece, we are mending our relationship, nursing our broken hearts, trying to recapture the joy and the honeymoon period 'normal' couples go through.
Normalcy is a word I miss these days.
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Current social norms and culture have made it such that we go through three phases of 'coming out', and in a gay Christian's life, this is especially magnified.
First we deny our orientation and create huge closets for ourselves. Huge pressure from religious right churches and leaders add tremendous pressure to ourselves to stay hidden in that closet out of fear, derived from what I would call Sodom and Gomorrah preaching.
However, we soon realise that there are like people out there and we then seek them out. And as we get exposed to the community, we soon realize that it is important to come out and have people accept us as who we are, and usually closeted, repressed gay Christians come 'flaming' out the closet as such, this gay pride mode normally fueled by the gay community.
As we begin to accept ourselves and come out, and the people around us begin to accept our orientation, nonchalance takes over as one's orientation is as given as much as his hair colour. This happens as we move on to realise that there is nothing to be really proud about, because you know what, we are no different from anyone else. The only difference between me and a straight guy, for example, is that I pursue guys in short shorts, he goes after girls in short skirts. Other than that, we are pretty much the same.
At the moment, my boyfriend's church is trying to reconcile their position on this as well. The pastoral team has listened to both sides of the argument, researching both pro-gay and anti-gay perspectives, reading material my boyfriend has passed to them. They had also arranged for a 'getting to know you' session with Safehaven, a local Christian gay organisation. However, there is still much deliberation and indecision and up to this point, they as well as my boyfriend and I, feel that it still is a very gray area which requires more exploration and definition.
Simply put, no one knows where God stands on the issue of homosexuality. The religious right and its leaders who are devoutly anti-gay, are, I feel, miseducated and ignorant about certain issues, for example, the context of words said in the Bible. And that said, the pro-gay camp, which is just as devoutly passionate about its cause, sometimes 'fits' the Bible to suit their purposes. Both sides of which, my boyfriend and me are not comfortable with.
* * *
And so, this is where my boyfriend and I are now, struggling to find that ground on which we can firmly stand to express our love for each other and within the boundaries of the Bible and the church.
One must understand that this isn't so much about the church at large, much less a 'David versus his boyfriend's church's issue. While I have addressed the painful process of coming out to one's ministry, and accountability to God's family as another aspect, this odyssey remains a very personal one. The road ahead of us is perilous. We have no idea if any resolution will ever be attained, or whether the struggle will consume 'us' along the way.
I'm just glad we've got each other as we go on this together.
This article is dedicated to his family and everyone else who does not understand us. I hope this helps.
As a gay person, do you feel welcomed in your church? How do you feel about being gay and Christian? If you are not a Christian, what do you think about the way churches are handling the gay issue? To share your thoughts and experiences, please click on the forum link below.
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