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Church Guide (+,-,±)
Overall official position or range of
positions on homosexuality. Sym
bols indicate officially friendly (+),
hostile (-), or a “mixed bag" (±).
Contact group for gays and
lesbians—local if available;
elsewhere if not. Most groups
are unofficial and not sanctioned
by their churches.
Baptists (-)
Large Southern Baptist Conven
tion, focal point of religious right,
is militantly anti-gay; has tried to
punish local churches that resist.
American Baptist Convention,
centered in northern states, is
fairly tolerant.
cay croup “ ~
Honesty, P. 0. Box 62026
Fort Worth, TXT6115
c-rfT’"'V ostalgic memory insists there must have been a time when
I religion was predictably benign. Once a great American
Ji. compromise kept politics out of religion, religion out of
politics, and both religion and politics out of polite conversation.
Perhaps because there is no longer such a thing as polite conversation,
it is impossible today to mention either religion or politics in any
context without threatening somebody.
Gays and lesbians are far from the only people who peer
nervously over their shoulders these days when the hear words like
“Christian.” Indeed, much of what operates under that name these
days bears little resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount, or to much
else that Jesus Christ is reported to have said. We have all witnessed
how, in the hands of a Falwell or a Khomeini—not to mention a Jim
Jones or a David Koresh—religion can become every bit as autocratic
and brutal as it once was under Pope Alexander VI, or Caliph Omar,
or Cotton Mather.
Gays and Religion
Although Western religion has long reserved a particular hostility
for homosexuals, religion has for even longer exerted a strange
attraction for many homosexually-inclined men and women. Some
would suggest that, before modem religions were founded, the instinct
toward the mystical or the ritualistic belonged to women, and to
homosexual men. A number of cultures, from the ancient Mediterra
nean to the Celtic to the Native American, have regarded both as a
natural priesthood.
Even in recent centuries homosexuals have gravitated towards
religious vocations. During its second thousand years, when the
Roman Catholic Church has maintained an officially celibate clergy,
the Church gradually became the preferred repository for those sons
not able to inherit the estate, not likely to carry on the family, or whose
temperaments were considered unsuited to “normal” pursuits. Nor has
it been necessary to be a Catholic to feel that especially “sensitive”
young men belonged in the church. How many Baptist preachers (and
how many Music Directors) have been adored by the females in their
congregations because they were so “nice.”
Gay persons seem to have been quite welcome in religion so long
as a certain “don’t ask, don’t tell" convention prevailed. Generation-
after generation of homosexual priests and ministers has been
suspected or even known, but these were usually sheltered very
effectively, much as clerical child molesters have been. Even today,
many church people who consider themselves very tolerant and open-
minded cannot quite understand why we suddenly want to break that
unspoken compact—that permitted homosexuals a safe haven within
the Church, while allowing everybody else the simultaneous luxuries
of ignoring our presence and the delectation of gossiping about it.
At any rate, nowadays, organized religion is having to come to
terms with the certainty that some homosexuals have always been a
part of it, even while it was persecuting other homosexuals. The core
question is simple, though the answer may not be: is homophobia part
of the essence of Judaism and Christianity, or does it merely reflect the
bigotry of certain Christians and certain Jews?
EPISCOPAL PARISH
ASKS DIOCESE TO OKAY
SAME-SEX UNIONS
DENVER (AP)—Members of St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church wants the Colorado
Episcopal Diocese to institute a ceremony to
bless same-sex relationships.
The congregation has asked that the issue
be discussed at February’s statewide church
convention, as well as at a nationaL meeting
in Indianapolis next August.
The Rev. Al Halverstadt, St. Barnabas
rector, said it was a ‘ ‘highly inflammatory"
topic but something that needs to be
discussed.
Halverstadt favors blessing same-sex
relationships but has not officiated at any
such ceremonies.
He said priests in several dioceses around
the country have blessed homosexual unions
for the past 20 years and local bishops have
either not known or “turned their heads,"
allowing the ceremonies to go on.
St. Barnabas, a 102-year-old church with
about 150 members, has declared its
openness to “gay and straight people. We
value inclusivity and prize diversity,"
Halverstadt said.
(continues on next page)
Methodists {-)
Homosexuality considered “in
compatible with Christian teach
ing." Certain churches, known as
“reconciling congregations," are
more accepting of gays and lesbi
ans.
RECONCILING CONGREGATION
Grant Park Aldersgate
Methodist Church
627-6221
If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him.
Voltaire