Homophobia in God's Name

This June, Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is coming to Cambridge to supplement your education with a fact you are not likely to learn in your classes: God hates fags. Westboro Baptist—the Topeka, Kans. church infamous for its anti-gay demonstration at the funeral of hate crime victim Matthew Shepherd and for maintaining the website www.godhatesfags.com—announced last month that it will be picketing the commencement ceremony of Harvard Law School to protest the school’s proposed ban on offensive speech.

While the presence of such extremists on campus will provide a convenient caricature of the religious right for us to snicker at, it also forces us towards a more serious evaluation of just how far we are willing to go in opposing homophobia. Even though WBC may be a bunch of deranged yahoos, the ban on offensive speech remains a bad idea. Although we may have trouble articulating where we draw the line, the fact is that most of us have at least drawn it.

The same cannot be said of mainstream Christianity in this country. Nobody is better at sending mixed messages than mainline American Protestantism. Most denominations preach some variation on the “hate the sin, but love the sinner” maxim. Homosexuality is sinful, but come on in anyways—just keep quiet about it.

The Presbyterian Church is deeply divided on the issue, currently allowing gays as members but not as elders or ministers. There have been several dramatic instances of church leaders being forced to resign their positions after it was discovered that they were homosexuals.

The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, which sets the official policies of that denomination, is full of seemingly conflicting statements. “Since the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers or appointed to serve in the United Methodist Church” is soon followed by, “We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons.”

In both denominations there is an ongoing struggle between liberal and conservative factions on the issue, and some predict it will eventually lead to an official split in the latter organization. It is time for Christian officials in this country to grow up on this issue. Anyone who accepts homosexuality as an inherent trait (as all serious and responsible science suggests) must also recognize the injustice of chastising people for homosexuality. Although scientifically indefensible, conservative Christian claims that homosexuality is “curable” present the only logically coherent answer to such objections.

Our society rightly celebrates that it judges people on the basis of their actions. As such, by teaching that homosexuality is sinful, churches ensure that any “love” their congregants profess for homosexuals will be condescending and superficial at best. The roots of Christian homophobia lie in ancient Levitical laws, the applicability of which to modern society is clearly dubious. There are simply too many other parts of the Bible that Christians no longer believe for us to be able to pretend that contemporary Christian anti-homosexuality is not inspired by secular homophobia.

In the case of Protestant churches in America, the problem is not that they are unable to articulate where they draw the line of tolerance, it may be that they have yet to draw the line at all. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” simply does not make sense when dealing with inherent traits. Nor can churches expect gay and lesbian congregants to continue to accept the second-class membership of being excluded from leadership positions.

Thus there are two options left to churches, and both would probably be considered extreme by mainline standards: the route of liberal churches such as the United Church of Christ, which allows its congregations to adopt “open and affirming” positions, whereby all people, regardless of sexuality, are allowed “full membership” including leadership; or the route of conservative churches, like the Southern Baptist Convention, which is unambiguous in its distaste for homosexuality and its practitioners.

Continued contradiction on the issue makes it clear that homophobia is making its voice heard within the Christian establishment in more places than Westboro Baptist. Christianity has been on the wrong side of too many issues in the past—from slavery to civil rights to women’s suffrage—for progressive Christians to remain quiet on this issue. It is time to draw the line.

—NATHANIEL A. SMITH