Reweaving

As its International day against Homophobia (link) today. I thought I’d write a post that I’d been thinking about for a while

Recently I was googling stuff on stuff that was queer affirming christian spirituality and I stumbled upon the true freedom trust (link) website and it shocked the hell out of me. Its a website for Christians who are “struggling” with their homosexuality basically. Its affiliated to the evangelical alliance which is the UK equivalent of the Southern Baptist Convention with the associated wingnuttery and social, political and religious conservatism (the church I grew up in was a member.)

It just makes me so sad and so angry that there are still churches sprouting this shit, that a beautiful, powerful, intrinsic part of people is just wrong, Unlike some ex gay organisations TFT are not so much about the cure but about controlling the “urge” which in practice means that people who have homosexual “urges” don’t have any close same sex friends, which I personally think is heart breaking.

As a woman who has “homosexual urges” (lol!) but has chosen freely to probably not have sex with a woman ever again I would die without my female friends and female connections, because for me same sex attraction isn’t just about sex or even just about sexuality. I would wither on the vine without female friends.

There are some really really disturbing sad testimonies on this web site that just make me want to cry, one woman is talking about how she had feelings for women but had a boy friend as well who sounds like an overcontrolling fuck wit but the fact he doesn’t seem to respect her boundaries doesn’t register with her at all

I tried to end it with him several times but he just persuaded me to carry on. I fell head over heels for my next door neighbour in halls (Jemma) … This time I really was smitten and I wrote about her in my journal. Mark found my journal and read it

Then this

My life nearly derailed in 1991 when I was 23. I met a gay Christian woman called Cath and very soon became attracted to her and the feelings were mutual. …When she kissed me I didn’t resist but it didn’t go further than that. I had such a mixture of emotions. I felt I’d come home, that I was right about my original attraction, and that this was what I had longed for. However I also knew this wasn’t what the Lord wanted for me. I’d saddened Him and I knew I could never enter a physical gay relationship, or an emotionally dependent one without offending Him.

Its so so sad that two people who loved each other deeply couldn’t be together, that she’d been told what god wanted for her, that this type of Christianity doesn’t take into account the cultural specificity or the translation errors of the scriptures. Or the fact that the bible is not in fact inerrant and that Paul (who wrote most of the passages that are used to prohibit homosexuality) was a rabid fundie with appalling gender politics.

The same woman did eventually get married to a man

James sometimes asks me if ‘I’m OK’ with my female friends and I try to tell him if they’re ’safe’ or not. God has blessed me with a circle of ’safe’ friends but I do worry what will happen if I meet someone I become attracted to.

Seriously if my partner policed weather I was attracted to any of my female friends I would flip my shit, If i want to tell him who I’m attracted to I will, if I don’t I wont, and he doesnt care any way, one of my friends who I am attracted to and who is attracted to me, when she comes to stay with me we sleep in the same bed, and he doesn’t bat an eyelid because he trusts me (my relationship is consciously monogamous) that just seems to buy into the whole “people who aren’t straight have to have no control over their sexuality” thing

Another woman writes of her “healing”

But I ran into difficulties. My childhood years had been traumatic with violent male figures and no male/female happy family life. All of my 20’s were spent in the gay scene. My ability to relate to family life, men, how to dress appropriately, was poor

Lots of the testimonies and articles insinuate that women have lesbian feelings because of abuse, if that were true wouldn’t there be way more lesbians in the world? and what does “dressing appropriately” mean?

And this one from a mother who thinks shes doing all the right things but is failing miserably

He told us how much he loved his friend, which was really hard for us to hear…My heart went out to him and we both affirmed our love for him. But we also made it very clear that we could not condone his choice of lifestyle. At one point I said the day would come when we would feel able to meet his friend. I asked Michael just one thing - if they stayed under our roof that out of respect for his Dad and me they would refrain from any homosexual activities.

This really sounds like my parents immediate response to me coming out, like “we love you but we have to point out how sin full you are being” and calling his partner his “friend” and pressing how they were such martyrs because they would be working so hard to get to a point where they could meet his partner (actauly after the initial coming out my parents didn’t contact me for 18 months but that’s a whole nother story)

On the next day I tried to talk to Michael about the pain his Dad and I were feeling and I asked what he thought we should do about it. He was honest and said he didn’t know. But he was confused as to why we couldn’t be happy for him, because he was happy now we knew. The physical pain I felt was awful - it was like a knife had been plunged into me, and a heavy weight applied to my chest.

yes because clearly your son deciding to be true to himself and maximise his life full fillment should cause you pain

And it just pissed me off that the church is so backward, so rejecting of LGBT people, so unlike Jesus would have been. How is it ever okay to reject someone who is seeking spirituality or to force them to shut down a part of themselves if they want to remain in a spiritual community.even many of the churches that are not seen as extreme are still homophobic, and growing up in an extreme church while being queer is a nightmare. when you finally do come out it doesn’t actually matter how accepting people try to be because your whole life they’ve been assuming you aren’t queer and telling you everything thats wrong and sinfull with being queer, (seriously when I was about 15 my mother told us she didn’t want us wearing red ribbons for world aids day because gay men had only themselves to blame.)

And too many of us still grow up in this, too many people kill or hurt themselves because the church makes them choose between their sexuality and their spirituality, to many people get rejected by their friends, their family, sometimes their entire community because they are being true to themselves.

However I also found this video on youtube which is awesome

And i discovered Whosoever (link) An excellent online magazine for LGBT Christians