Because of the People

Why We Repeatedly Revisit G-6.0106b(and Will Continue to Do So Until It’s Amended)Reason 1 – People!

Tricia Dykers KoenigCovenant Network National Organizer

At least one overture to amend the current paragraph G-6.0106b has been sent to every General Assembly but one since 1997, when it became part of the Book of Order in an attempt to “settle the issue” of the ordination of persons in same-sex relationships.   Until the paragraph is amended to be more consistent with Reformed theology and polity, that is sure to continue.This is the first in a series of articles exploring the reasons that “the issue” will come back to GAs and the presbyteries again and again, until amendment is made.The first and foremost reason:  Current ‘b’ with the theological/ biblical/ cultural position it represents  adversely affects the lives of people for whom Christ died:

• Candidates forced to choose between their call to serve the church and the integrity of being honest about who they are, who realize that they cannot be faithful and effective ministers if they are not open and authentic human beings.
• Moms and dads who eventually get over the pain and shame of the bogus message that their faulty parenting was responsible for their kids’ sexual orientation, and now just want their gay children to have the same respect, opportunity, safety in the world as their straight children.
• Children who sense they are different from an early age – who when they begin to figure out how they’re different pray fervently for the feelings to be taken away;  who when God doesn’t answer those prayers the way they begged for either get angry with God or turn their anger inward;  who despite never having engaged in any sexual activity get the message that they just need to repent, pray harder and when that doesn’t work fall into despair.
• Young men in prison because they acted out with violence the anti-gay attitudes of society, bolstered by the church.
• Kids who drop out of school when they cannot face another day of being bullied because someone thinks they are gay whether they are or not, and kids who live on the street after being kicked out by their parents.
• The father who thinks his son is burning in hell.
• The mother who belatedly realizes that her refusal to hear the truth of her daughter’s life led that beloved child  to commit suicide.
• The congregations who just want the leaders they are convinced God has sent them.

Actual human beings whom God loves. That’s why this “issue” won’t go away – because it’s not an abstract issue, it’s real life, and sometimes death.  Absolutely there are important principles involved, but first and last it’s the people whom we cannot abandon.  There is an enormous human cost in maintaining the stigma against homosexuality that comes from the teaching that all same-sex practice is sinful –  suffering overwhelmingly due not to homosexual practice, but to the stigma.  And it’s not just gays who suffer from it:  the spiritual corrosion that comes from harboring hateful attitudes;  anguish of parents burdened with false guilt, and siblings in conflict with each other over how to treat the one they learn is gay, so much for family values.   For LGBT persons, damaged self-image;  loneliness;  fear and even reality of rejection if one is honest,  or the toxic effects of living a lie;  the denial to some not just of the opportunity for legitimate and joyful sexual expression, but of all aspects of an intimate relationship, most of which has nothing to do with sex;  overt discrimination and violence, both verbal and physical.And ironically, some of the suffering that does result from actual same-sex practice can be attributed to the stigma of sinfulness too, for when we deny the possibility of any legitimate same-sex relationship we inadvertently encourage promiscuity, and that is dangerous and damaging.  Until the church allows for the possibility of legitimate same-sex relationships, it will be unable to encourage the values for gays that it ought to be upholding for all people – no casual sex, faithfulness within a committed partnership,  mutuality and tenderness and respect, the values that ought to characterize all relationships.  The gay Christians I know are not asking the church to lower the standards – they want to be held to the same high standards as everyone else, where the only difference is the gender of the partner to whom they have committed themselves.So much suffering inflicted because of a difference that’s as un-chosen as left-handedness – another minority characteristic that used to be vilified.  At the last Presbyterian Coalition Gathering I attended, there was enthusiastic applause for a man who related his struggles, beginning when he was a boy growing up with an awareness of being different that he could not name.  Though I would not discount anyone's story, as I listened to the self-identified "ex-gay" man I thought of the many other LGBT persons who are asking their fellow Christians to hear and take seriously their stories -- the vast majority of them with different conclusions.  Why, I wondered, would this man's audience prefer him to have suffered through the years of isolation and agonizing struggle, the self-loathing and doubt, the grief his situation caused his wife and family, rather than living in a world in which he was encouraged to accept himself from an early age and seek a healthy, fulfilling relationship appropriate to his sexual orientation?  His testimony was that he has repented and changed, which is what I hear as the goal of those who believe that homosexuality is sin, but even so there has been incredible pain…  not to mention the fact that the vast majority of mental health and other professionals assert that attempts to change sexual orientation rarely work and are strongly discouraged because they are actively harmful.*When I worked during college in the Young Life evangelism ministry to youth, our motto was “earn the right to be heard” –  in order to share the truth of the Gospel, first we had to get to know those kids, really listen to them.  Likewise, the church must take seriously what LGBT people testify about the reality of their own lives.

• What if it’s true that the church’s policy is asking people to repent of how they are made by God, or give up all hope of having a committed life partner?
• What if it’s true that the church’s position reflected in ‘b’ leads people who were taught that Jesus loves them to doubt that truth, sometimes to the point of deathly despair?

Imagine a world in which the stigma against homosexuality no longer exists, so that all of us are supported as we grow to understand our sexuality, all taught the same ethical standards regardless of the gender of those to whom we are attracted, all confident in God's love for us and nurtured to reflect that love as we relate to others, sexually and otherwise!   That’s the world the God I know in Jesus Christ wants us to build.  And I don’t take that stance in spite of the Scripture, but because of it.

*Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth:A Publication Endorsed by:American Academy of PediatricsAmerican Association of School AdministratorsAmerican Counseling AssociationAmerican Federation of TeachersAmerican Psychological AssociationAmerican School Counselor AssociationAmerican School Health AssociationInterfaith Alliance FoundationNational Association of School PsychologistsNational Association of Secondary School PrincipalsNational Association of Social WorkersNational Education AssociationSchool Social Work Association of America

Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation Through TherapyThe terms reparative therapy and sexual orientation conversion therapy refer to counseling and psychotherapy aimed at eliminating or suppressing homosexuality. The most important fact about these “therapies” is that they are based on a view of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major mental health professions. …  the idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that the emergence of same-sex attraction and orientation among some adolescents is in any way abnormal or mentally unhealthy has no support among any mainstream health and mental health professional organizations.

Despite the general consensus of major medical, health, and mental health professions that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are normal expressions of human sexuality, efforts to change sexual orientation through therapy have been adopted by some political and religious organizations and aggressively promoted to the public. However, such efforts have serious potential to harm young people because they present the view that the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth is a mental illness or disorder, and they often frame the inability to change one’s sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure.