Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 13:16 -0400 (EDT) 
From: ErdeNunley@aol.com
Subject: Asbestos eyeglasses needed 

A letter I wrote to a Presbyterian elder, a former boyfriend (from my days of
attempting to be "straight") who's been picking my brain about homosexuality.

***************************************************************

Dear Jim:

I'm not sure I got all of your attached letter; it looked as though some of
the encoding didn't "translate" well. But I did get enough to get the
message. And I will be VERY blunt with you, as a friend and a sister in
Christ. You need also to know that I write this fighting back tears of great
pain.

Jim, I know you and Jeannine and others in the Body of Christ are really
trying very hard to deal honestly and fairly with the issue of homosexuality.
I don't want to belittle those efforts, which, if you are the same old J&J I
used to know, are genuine and sincere. Yet I found myself reading your letter
in terrible frustration, and my dominant thought was: Hasn't he been
listening, or reading, at all? 

I am not one of those who believes we must cut up the Bible into little
bite-sized pieces, glibly explain it away, or simply throw it away in order
to "do justice" on this issue. I find that attitude intellectually dishonest
and spiritually flabby. But so is the statement that "the Bible means what it
says pretty plainly." Means what, Jim? Just what DOES it say? Why is the
condemnation so "plain" to you when it's manifestly NOT "plain" to me - or to
a helluva lot of other people who've studied it far more deeply than either
of us has? Where does it say, absolutely and without any possible
equivocation, that always and everywhere, at all times and in all places,
love between men or between women is condemned regardless of the historic or
cultural context, in the same way that idolatry or murder is? Where is it,
Jim? You show me.

* Genesis 2? Anyone who wasn't looking for a justification of exclusive
heterosexuality could see that the point of the story is not the difference
between Adam and Eve - in fact, it's their similarity that the text
emphasizes - but the difference between the animals (most of whom also come
in male and female flavors) and the image of God reflected in human beings.
It's about people not screwing sheep, Jim. That much IS plain. 
* Genesis 19? Even in the most self-serving English translations, it's clear
that wasn't a Gay Pride Parade at Lot's door - it was a lynch mob! They might
as well be wearing hoods and Klan robes! 
* Leviticus 18 and 20? Come on, Jim - Episcopalians condemn you to hell for
using the wrong dinner fork, but I know the difference between "toevah" (a
ritual taboo) and "zimah" (a moral violation) when I see one - and the author
of Leviticus plainly uses "toevah" to describe the "abomination" of "a man
lying with a man." Besides, if it's homosexuality and not Gentile idol
worship that's being condemned, why aren't women mentioned here?
* Romans 1? This doesn't sound at all like a description of my committed,
faithful lesbian relationship. It sounds like the old - and, I might add,
overwhelmingly heterosexual - "Plato's Retreat" sex-swap club of the 1970s.
(Since you brought up the issue of the baths, I thought I'd inclusify
things.) But the most important thing to know about Romans 1 is . . . ROMANS
2! Whatever Paul thought of whatever kinds of homosexual behavior he knew in
his day, he thought even less of hypocrisy!
* 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy? The cultural context makes this clear: it is a
condemnation of exploitative/idolatrous sex - not of committed and faithful
love.
 
In other words, Jim: The Bible unequivocally and harshly condemns a range of
overtly heterosexual behaviors - rape, incest, adultery, fornication,
promiscuity - but NO ONE has concluded theologically that, because the Bible
condemns those abuses, it thereby condemns ALL heterosexual orientation or
expression! WHY IS IT, then, that based on passages that refer to certain
ABUSES of homosexual orientation, it is concluded that "plainly" ALL
homosexual expression, without exception, is condemned? BECAUSE. YOU. PEOPLE.
WANT. TO. SEE. IT. THAT. WAY! (Yes, I'm shouting! I want to get your
attention on this!) 

It is PROFOUNDLY AND DEEPLY OFFENSIVE to me to have my relationship with
Susie lumped in with people who "parade naked down a public street" or
frequent "disease causing bath houses." How can you say that when you both
stood in the hospital room with me as Denee died in my arms? What offends
you, or God, about my "faithfulness unto death" towards her - and that I am
just as faithful to Susie, who has been given to me by God's grace for many
more years? I can hear you saying, "But I don't mean that! I don't mean you!"
But that is EXACTLY what and who you mean: that because my faithful love in
private is directed towards a person of the same gender, it is every bit as
filthy and disgusting and nasty as promiscuous public fucking in a park
restroom "glory-hole." (I used those obscene and offensive words
deliberately, so that you can hear the starkness of the contrast.) 

When you condemn all homosexual expression without exception - the faithful
love along with the lascivious fornicating - by "hating the sin and loving
the sinner," you have put me into a cattle car, as though I were not a human
being to you. Jim, that kind of "love" could freeze grain alcohol. And it
doesn't have a damned thing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is naked,
ugly, distorted, diseased, filthy, nasty, obscene, disgusting, God-forsaken
PREJUDICE. And THAT *IS* SIN -snake-bitten, hissing, original sin: "You shall
be as gods, knowing - and judging - good and evil."

How would you like it if I blithely equated your family with the hookers on
Harry Hines Boulevard, the porn rags, the XXX video stores that litter the
landscape boldly with "your" heterosexual filth? Is Jeannine a Vegas
showgirl, a tramp in a bar? Are you a pimp, a sleazeball on the make? Are
your children bastards? That's a VERY public face of heterosexuality, too -
it's not all "purity" and "family values." Gay Pride is once a year - but I
see disgusting public displays of rampant heterosexual fornication EVERY DAY
OF THE WEEK: on television, in the movies, on billboards, in magazine ads . .
. naked male-and-female limbs intertwined and in my face, all the time. Are
you willing to be held accountable to me and to all homosexuals for
everything that's done under the umbrella of opposite-sex sexuality? I didn't
think so. Romans 2 applies here, my friend - "Therefore you have no excuse,
whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another
you condemn yourself. . ." A "two-way street," indeed!

If you don't "hear anyone in the homosexual community condemning some of the
highly offensive behavior that some in the gay community have indulged in,"
it's because YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! HEAR ME NOW, BELIEVE ME LATER: Every
single year, in every city, there is a fight among us lesbigays over Gay
Pride. Every year for as long as I have known that I was queer, we have
squabbled over the drag queens and the half-naked leathermen and the topless
Dykes on Bikes. Did you see the articles in Bay Windows, the Boston gay
paper, about the man exposing himself on stilts and the Lesbian Avengers who
simulated sex on a rolling bed? The headline read: "Pride parade marred by
lewd incidents." That's pretty condemnatory, isn't it? The lead editorial
reads, "Gross stupidity at a great parade." Firm enough for you? Here are the
titles of all the letters-to-the-editor that week: "Score one for the radical
right" . . . "Shame!" . . . "A wonderful day - except" . . . "Embarrassing
incidents" . . . "Vulgar displays at Pride." Only ONE letter defended the
behavior - and that was a self-serving piece of political correctness from
one of the offending lesbians. This is in Boston, mind you, not Dallas.
Boston - and "The People's Republic of Cambridge," the most liberal cities in
the most liberal state in the country.

No, you don't read the gay papers, do you? You read the Dallas Morning Nazi,
with comments from a few P.C. "gay leaders" (who don't reflect the totality
of opinion among homosexuals any more than Marge Schott does among baseball
fans), and you think you've "heard" the univocal gay "community." 

***

You speak of not being "comfortable with the idea of homosexuals being in the
leadership of our church." Wake up, Jim - THEY'RE ALREADY THERE. In their
dozens, if not hundreds and thousands. They've just been forced to lie and
hide and split off part of their lives in order to answer God's compelling
call to service. Is that what "you people" want? A "comfortable" church, lead
by liars, is preferable to an "uncomfortable" church whose leaders tell, and
live, the truth? An "unready" church wallowing in "studying issues" is
preferable to a church ready to proclaim the Gospel to all the nations -
including "Queer Nation"? "I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I
wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation
3:15-16). God deliver us from the Laodicean captivity of the Body of Christ!

***
I am not an "issue." I am a person, a woman, a Christian, and an ordained
servant of the Church, who wakes up every morning with real feelings and real
problems. So does Susie. You can't intellectualize that away. I won't be
"studied" until I disappear from sight, or until you become "comfortable"
with me. I am an incarnate human being, and like our incarnate Lord, I
present you with a choice: Believe, or do not. Like Peter before the
Jerusalem church, I present you with a choice: Believe that God accepts my
Christian life even though my "lifestyle" is "Gentile," or do not. Like Paul
before Agrippa and Festus, I present you with a choice: Believe that the
Gospel means what it says, or do not. There is "chronos"-time, the daily
round of the hours, and there is "kairos"-time: the moment of decision. This
is a "kairos" moment in the life of the Church Universal, a moment when we
decide whether to be faithful to the Christ who said "whosoever believes," or
to a culture that makes exceptions and qualifications for the "comfort" of
the prejudiced. "Choose you this day whom you will serve": the culture of
death, or the Lord of life.

You asked about the fallout from the Righter decision. No, there have been no
"mass defections," although the homophobes are "breathing threats and
slaughter" in their Sauline proportions. We will "study" and "debate," just
as you Presbyterians will, and as the Methodists will - not the Southern
Baptists, of course, they just excommunicated Mickey Mouse for consorting
with "homos . . ." I have a sign in my study that sums it all up.

Remember: 
The Church goes through four stages of response to any challenge to its
tradition.
First, we pretend the challenge isn't there.
Then we argue vehemently against it.
Then we admit exceptions and qualifications.
Last of all, we insist that's what we REALLY thought all along.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Maranatha.

Jan+