Dear Seminarians: What about that homophobia?
An Open Letter to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in my hometown…
My name is Diepiriye and I grew up in Louisville, but now live in New Delhi, India. Some say that I left Louisville as soon as I finished high school, and left America as soon as I graduated from college, and never went back, because I am running away from something. This used to be an idea I rejected. Yet, as I continue to look at the extreme level of hate directed towards me — and people like me- while some good people have stood by - I can no longer deny that I am running. I decided to leave Louisville as a child because of the bullying. That’s exile, that’s not pleasure travel, though I have made the best of it and have a happy life.
I am a sissy. To be clear, let’s use the language that Christian kids taught me, growing up. in the Bible Belt: “Sissy, faggot, girly, sugar in his pants.” These are some of the terms that Christian kids used in our Christian town, and Christian adults stood by and watched. No one protected me save for my family, who also made sure I attended a safe, liberal school where I was embraced. I count my blessing each day.
Other than rejecting hate as a basis of operation, perhaps the only reason that I do not hate Christians in return is that luckily many Christians, like my grandparents, are able to embrace Jesus’ message of compassion, above the sentiment of judgement. I was loved wholeheartedly at home, but the dominant ethos of Louisville is clearly one that is quite consistent with the Southern Baptist disdain for homosexuals; I never felt safe in my own hometown because of the justification for anti-homosexual rhetoric, which effectively invited bullying.
At 16 I was fortunate enough to encounter a local gay youth support group. Interestingly, two peers in that group grew up in Southern Baptist homes, one was the son of a preacher. At sixteen years old, their parents became aware of their gayness and kicked the kids out of the house. Yes, I’d like to repeat that Southern Baptist parents kicked their sixteen-year-old children out of the house and initially cut all ties. How’s that for following the life and teachings of Jesus? Kicking kids out, just like that, and back to church n Sunday to have their pastor validate their actions from the pulpit. No matter how much of hating the sin you preach, it’s the sinners whose bodies lay there in the caskets at your mantles, should you even grant us a burial, since this, too is at your discretion.
I believe that your church's promotion of ‘family values’ valorizes the cruelty that sissies are subjected to as kids in schools and as professionals on jobs. I find this inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus, and am just curious as to how you cannot see how your devotion to heterosexualizing the Bible leaves room to spur on hate crimes, and here I include both the many Tyler Clementis, but also those who drop out of school because of the pressure, and end up walking the streets at night turning tricks for married men. Or how many get married and lead a double life? In your attempts to preach the gospel, you’ve made clear that it’s OK to hate on homosexuals. By simplifying every sharp turns towards granting gay rights as anti-Christian, you provide Christian laypeople the ammunition to excuse themselves for their cruelty towards us, to excuse the cruelty they teach they kids to express in schools, and so naturally this carries over into policy and popular culture.
How are voters mobilized by churches over gay rights as a wedge issue, yet, for example, poverty is a wider problem for all Americans, or our public schools are failing masses? There is no balance. There is no way to say ‘hate the sin and love the sinner’ in this socio-political climate. To be clear, it is not my aim to debate the nuances of Christian scripture, which is clearly an unsettled matter among your own ranks. I do, however, suggest that it is wholly inconsistent to preach intolerance when bloodshed is the direct outcome. It is inconsistent with the life of Jesus, and seems to only focus on his death, his sacrifice, which seems a bit easy for your practitioners to not have to consider how Jesus actually lived in a world of contradictions. No one is called upon to build peace in your world, where again, the evidence on this matter are the numerous dead gay bodies piling up in America, and they are getting younger and younger. Yes, dead gay bodies are getting younger.
You are responsible and yet remain in the shadows, unaccountable. How many more dead gay bodies will you tolerate before compassion and genuine love of queer men and women takes a clear priority over whether not YOU and your faith agrees with our existence? Where’s the Jesus that hung out with sinners and not just the self-righteous. Where’s the theology that embraces diversity at the fundamental level instead of squashing, eliminating, segregating and scorning anything NOT just like you? Where’s the fearlessness to not only confront change, but to accept that the way things were may not be the way things should be?
Until your church sincerely advocates for gay rights protections, including anti-discrimination legislation and intimate relationship and parenting parity, then you will continue to not only plant the seeds of hate and duplicity in your practitioners’ hearts, but fertilize the next generation of leaders who, like some of the kids I encounter even now, simply cannot stand to be in the room with a sissy, cannot take a sissy seriously on any job, and finds each and any way to discredit us without even taking the opportunity to see our humanity. That’s your preaching that’s doing that and it’s gone viral with a smile and heavy dose of entitlement that stinks of arrogance more than humility. From my perspective, that’s pretty dehumanizing of a practice. Come back to the human side.
Sincerely,
A local son of the south.
New Delhi 2011.
