.

Sermon Index

Gay at Last - A Gift of God

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 8th of October 2000

In The Truth Shall Set You Free, Sally Lowe Whitehead tells of her 20-year marriage to Michael, which ends when he comes out as a gay man. It is, of course, a time of tremendous upheaval for both of them. But their relationship does not end. She remarries, he forms a long-term same-sex relationship, and they remain close friends. Even their new spouses become good friends.

Whitehead offers Michael the last chapter of her book. He begins with these words, which resonate with so many other stories I have heard:

As a confused 18-year-old, I made a commitment to ignore my homosexual desires and thrust forward into marriage and fatherhood. Always thinking that I could control my feelings for other men, I attempted to live a life that ultimately crisscrossed the worlds of heterosexuality and homosexuality. I anguished over the guilt and shame that a possible confession might bring to my life. The stark realization was that if I came out, life as I knew it would crumble and disappear. So the threat of this happening continued to hold me emotionally and spiritually captive. Early in their marriage, Michael and Sally turn to fundamentalist religion, although he had been raised as a Roman Catholic and she as an Episcopalian. But even the most rigid religion could not overcome Michael=s attraction for men. They turn to building a family, raising six sons and a succession of foster children¾ but immersion in family cannot overcome this attraction, either. Finally, Michael turns to therapy. This, at last, allows him to come to terms with who he is. He writes: When I came out to Sally ... I immediately felt a sense of relief and freedom. Those feelings soon turned to fear of the next step ... But from the moment I finished telling her my secret, my anguish was dispelled by her extraordinary love and acceptance. Some of you here today have lived through this experience, in coming out yourselves as gay or lesbian, or bisexual, and a few as transgendered. Perhaps some of you are going through it now. And many of us have felt the pain of these struggles in the lives of our children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, or our parents. Our lives are complex, in more ways than we could ever have imagined when we were very young and dreamed of marrying and Aliving happily ever after.@

What we need in these struggles is affirmation. All too often, the church has condemned. So the first thing I want to express this morning is my conviction that God loves us all. God loves us, gay and straight alike. I=m not going to try to give this a Biblical foundation. With me, it=s simply an article of faith. It=s how I read the life of Jesus, and my own life=s experience.

I simply have not found in the life of Jesus any readiness to condemn those whom the society of his time condemned. The judgments of Jesus were against those who failed to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked¾ those who failed to love.

And though my own life=s experience with gays and lesbians is short, I have found it profoundly moving. The love I have witnessed in the same sex couples I have married is the same love I have seen in other couples. Indeed, sometimes I feel it is stronger, because they have come through so much rejection, and their love has required so much courage, yet it has survived and grown.

And so I see this love as a gift of God. I want to affirm it. It is good.

We need this affirmation all our lives. Growing up is never easy, for anyone. It=s incomparably harder if we are gay or lesbian, bi- or transsexual. In a culture that only celebrates love between men and women, we desperately need to know that we are not alone when we experience our first feelings of attraction for others of the same sex, and that it=s okay. We need to know that we can form loving, faithful relationships, whatever our orientation or expression. G/L/B/T folk are not the only people who have to struggle to affirm who they are. But who else is bombarded with so much disapproval? Who else is rejected in the name of God? Who else, on coming out, risks being thrown out of their families? I will never forget the story of one of our members, who on coming out to his family was offered a suitcase and a bus ticket to anywhere he wanted to go¾ one-way.

We need affirmation, but if we=re gay, it=s hard not to grow up plagued with self-doubt and guilt. It=s hard not to want to be somebody else¾ somebody straight, somebody Anormal@¾only, in the end, to discover that we can=t live someone else=s life.

Yom Kippur begins tonight. For Jews, this is a time for self-examination, repentance, and forgiveness. We as goyim may fruitfully do the same. If we are straight, let us examine our participation in our culture=s homophobia, repent, and make amends. If we are gay, or lesbian, bi- or transsexual and have absorbed this homophobia, let us repent, and then forgive ourselves, for our denial of ourselves. Then, with pride, let us join hands and celebrate. Let us, all of us, affirm each other as brothers and sisters and live in the grace of God.

Our children, often, can show us the way, if we have been faithful with them. At the end of her book, Sally recalls a day, sometime after Michael came out, when their 16-year-old son Tim came home from his high school soccer game. Not knowing who they were, a friend, he said, had looked up in the stands at Michael and his new partner, Craig, huddled together against the chill air. AHey, Tim," his friend asked. "See those two guys sitting together up there in the stands?@

AYeah,@ Tim had said.

AWell, they look gay to me.@

AYou=re right,@ Tim said. ABy the way¾ the guy on the right? He=s my dad.@

Looking back, Michael writes:

For a long time I dreamed of a life that I couldn=t imagine ever really experiencing and looked for someone whom I couldn=t believe actually existed ...

Then, one day when I wasn=t even looking, that man walked into my life and I fell hard in love ... Together, Craig and I have made a home and a life that neither of us ever thought we would have ...

... If someone had told me 25 years ago about the course my life would take, I would never have believed it ... From my ... experiences with [Sally] and Craig and the boys, I have learned that a shattering upheaval can lead to a new wholeness ...God replaced the despair and doubt that I experienced for so long with a deep sense of inner peace and a conviction that however brutal life may seem, such times, when faced with honesty and love, can lead to a fuller, more abundant life ... I am at last at peace and I have no regrets.

May we find such honesty and love. Whoever we are, may we find the courage to come out and live the lives we were meant to live. May we find peace and the life abundant.

NOTE:

Whitehead, Sally Lowe. The Truth Shall Set You Free Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.