I have been struck lately and encouraged by the emphasis of many in the movement on approaching our struggle for equal rights from a position of the "moral equality" of LGBT persons. While it may (or even should) seem so obvious a notion as not to require even mention, it is a departure from the basis on which my early activism was informed, the consensus approach then being one of "moral neutrality" or even irrelevance. The distinction may not be so obvious, but for me it is as profound as that between "tolerance of sexual diversity" and "gay pride."
As a religious person, it is made even more profound by the fact that my religion involves both a faith and an ethic. The subject also touches upon the question I have been asked here, and elsewhere, with some regularity. How can I remain faithful to Catholic teaching, even to the point of dedicating my life to a career serving the Church, given its hostile position toward gays and lesbians, among others?
Very few, I suspect, truly believe in absolute equality of all moral systems. Most of us who gather here surely consider a society as morally defective which subjugates women even more than does our own, is even more oppressive toward racial and/or sexual minorities, or gives little if any heed to the will of its people. We speak with a voice of moral authority, and even moral certainty, quite often here against wars of aggression, and other atrocities, and rightly so.
Yet, many if not most of us also aspire to ridding ourselves of any vestige of xenophobia, nationalism or cultural supremacy, as diligently as we have worked to shed any trace of racism, sexism or homophobia which may have been instilled within us by the majority culture. These are moral judgments, and I think worthy ones, but if we are truly honest with ourselves we must admit that there is implicit in them some sense of moral superiority over those who have not become quite as enlightened as the average Kossack.
When we use a certain tone of voice when describing a person as "closeted," or "passing," are we not making a moral judgment with respect to that person as an individual, and for that matter, all who have similarly decided to exercise their right of privacy to a greater degree than we may think they are entitled? It seems to me this is the essential basis for the controversies over when, if ever, outing an individual is appropriate. It's intrinsically a moral question. (Please don't get me wrong. I support "Coming Out Day" as enthusiastically as anyone here, and abhor the hypocrisy of those who actively oppress their GLBT brothers and sisters while keeping their own sexuality hidden safely in the closet. Yet another moral judgment of my own.)
So, we all make moral judgments, both with regard to our own actions, and those of other individuals and groups. This might seem on its face to undermine our claim to a goal of moral equality. Philosophers deal with this seeming contradiction by speaking in terms of "an assumption of equality," acknowledging to one degree or another that some moral decisions are, in fact, less sound than others, but that some preponderance of evidence should be sought before coming to that conclusion in any particular instance.
Which brings me back to the recalibration of our sights from seeking "moral neutrality" to what I consider the more profound and meaningful ideal of "moral equality." When I first began to examine such ideas, as a young gay man with profound emotional wounds, and aspirations to a vocation which seemed far out of reach, our society was still one in which even the slightest tolerance of sexual minorities would have been a quantum leap forward. I devoured Oberholtzer's Is Gay Good? Ethics, theology and homosexuality when Westminster Press first published it in 1971, and for the first time was introduced to the work of The Rev. Troy Perry, although it would be a few more years before I actually met him. (A more contemporary discussion of the subject can be found in Luke Timothy Johnson and Eve Tushnet's essays on Homosexuality and the Church published in the June 2007 issue of Commonweal)
It is somewhat sad to recall how grateful I was to find officials in my own Church who were willing to consider my sexual attraction to other men as "irrelevant" to my chosen vocation. The question should not have even arisen, and, of course, they were wrong. Anything as essential to one's very being is bound to color his or her life's work, whatever that is, in some very significant ways. But so deep was my longing for even mere tolerance, that insisting upon full recognition of my value because of, not just in spite of my sexuality would never have occurred to me. It's probably a good thing, too, as I would have been tragically disappointed.
Now, I have fairly good reason to believe that there are at least some, and probably many, reading these words who will conclude that I, myself, suffer a defect in moral judgment by virtue of my willingness to embrace any Faith, let alone enter a career of service to and through a Church which so tragic a history with respect to the oppression of sexual minorities, and still holds as part of its official teachings a belief set which includes precepts and rules so odious to the GLBT community. Perhaps they can understand, however, how such reactions feel eerily similar to those I would receive from Christian fundamentalists reading the very same words, but for quite opposite reasons. There the judgment would be that I am plagued with a moral defect which deludes me into accepting homosexuality as in any way compatible with the laws of God and nature. Different sides. Same coin.
Indeed, as a Catholic, I am bound to the authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals. As a Priest, I have no license to teach or minister except as an extension of the faculties of my religious superiors and in accordance with their will. These are severe strictures, and necessarily give rise to some rather serious crises of conscience. However, these limitations are not absolute, although they may at times be enforced as if they were. It is up to the individual to come to terms with balancing the relative weight of the longstanding doctrine of Primacy of Conscience with recognition of and fidelity to the continuous teaching authority and discipline of the Church. The Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on Religious Freedom summarized the principle as:
In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order that he may come to God, for whom he was created. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.
For a more thorough discussion of conscience in the context of Catholic social justice activism, I would commend those interested to Father Frank Brennan's paper, "A Catholic Social Conscience: Can it be Reclaimed in Our Time?" which I find an excellent discussion of its subject, although perhaps I'm simply enamored by his use of the term "troublesome priest" as a self-description. (The link is to the Google cache version, the original website of its publication appearing to be offline.)
I must hasten to state that clergy in other Christian traditions are given different degrees of autonomy, yet another reason not to view so disparate an entity as Christendom as anything remotely resembling monolithic. There are even denominations in which a member of the clergy could be subjected to Church discipline for not being gay-affirming enough, although I must admit it is difficult for me to imagine the moral conundrums that situation might entail, it being so foreign to my own experience.
I have agonized over numerous personal moral quandaries. I have been admonished for some of my writings which were perceived as challenging Church doctrine, despite the fact that I am scrupulous in my attempt at couching even the slightest of my opinions which favor change in the Church in terms which acknowledge her assertion of authority to the contrary. I have skated on the edge of several boundaries, and yes, crossed the line a time or two (more often by inadvertence than intent, a natural consequence of playing so close to the precipice for all but the most sure footed). I have certainly concealed at least my intentions, and sometimes my actions from those in authority over me, when to do otherwise would have violated what I judged to be an even more urgent moral imperative.
I know from intimate conversations with secular colleagues that such dilemmas are not unique to us Christians. I have served as a sounding board for friends who have no religious inclinations whatsoever as they wrestled with competing moral demands according to their own consciences. They, like I had, found some pertinence in considering how a lowly Fifth Century monk resolved the issues which tormented him when he had to conclude that his superiors, to whom he had bound himself under a vow of obedience, had themselves fallen into grievous error which tainted their otherwise authoritative demands on him. Saint Vincent of Lerins looked beyond the moment, and the current consensus, to ideas which had endured for centuries. Individuals in authority may come and go, but the purpose and mission of an endeavor can endure and more naturally evolve if we take time to examine and commit to them.
I am probably the only person here who has also had the experience of being both picketed and heckled by members of Act Up! Among the many ironies of that occasion was that I had to plead with ecclesiastical authorities to reconsider the order they issued me forbidding my participation in the event which prompted the protest. The occasion was my having been invited to participate in an inter-faith panel discussion as part of a series exploring ways in which faith communities could better serve members of the LGBT community. The topic for the particular evening was the refusal of most to bless same-sex unions in any manner, let alone open religious rites of marriage to such couples. This was long before the issue came to the public attention at all broadly, and marriage was certainly not a high priority among activists in the movement at the time.
The Church did not want me to participate on the basis that the topic itself questioned the very definition of one of the Seven Sacraments of the Church, arguably one of the most sacred and fundamental tenets of the Catholic Faith. Act Up, on the other hand, saw the question as an attempt by a group of heterosexist religionists to impose a straight model of monogamy as a norm onto gay and lesbian relationships. I was egged on my way into the meeting hall, and once the program started, was vilified for positions I do not hold (and many which are not officially held by the Church, either), and shouted down when I attempted to clarify my position and that of the Church I was there to represent. I was clearly being judged on moral grounds, and for offenses which were purely imaginary. This is not a situation which LGBT people should find at all unfamiliar territory. It was disheartening, and yes, more than a bit painful, to be receiving it from both sides. I'll admit I was not only shaken, but shed more than a few tears when I got home that evening.
What wounds I may have felt I suffered that night have long ago healed, and the disappointment over a missed opportunity to hear and be heard toward the ends of stronger mutual understanding are now but a distant memory. Nor is the episode offered to discuss the relative merits of civil or religious marriage, and whether either conforms to a truly queer ethic. It is merely an example of how any notion of moral equality can elude both the oppressor and the oppressed, and both would do well to contemplate the concept and do some self-examination with respect to better integrating it into our very selves. Can we become readier to bestow that which we demand? I hope so.
A few weeks ago, when I introduced myself to y'all with my first WGLB diary, I alluded to feelings in relationship to the various communities to which I belong as often akin to that of being on the outside looking in. My faith community and the society at large would prefer not to embrace any aspect of me which bears any mark of my sexual orientation. The GLBT community is often less than accepting of me as a person of faith. Both apply stereotypes to me which do not fit, and each makes assumptions about me in which, despite serious self-examination, I can find no validity. In both cases, it is hard not to feel that I am being denied a presumption of moral equality. Given that experience, I feel an obligation to avoid similarly judging others. That, too, is a moral decision, and an ideal to which I am sure I will certainly fall far short more often than I would hope. Obviously, none of us can live without making judgments, whether practical or moral. The question then becomes by what standard, and once that is determined, to what extent we can justly apply it. I'll continue to work on both. I'll even try to presume your moral equality whether or not you agree or reciprocate. Fair enough?
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Have you signed our petition to encourage the World Cup organizers to honor Eudy Simelane and all of the South African women who have suffered "corrective rape" at the hands of homophobic thugs? The 2010 FIFA World Cup is being held in South Africa and Eudy was raped and murdered in part for her love of the game of soccer/football and in part for her living an open life as a lesbian. We're only at 131 signers to date. PLEASE take a second and add your voice!
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Each week between now and the end of March we will add a poll to the end of each diary for you to select your favorite GLBT candidate or ally running for office. The five winners will be added to our ActBlue fundraising page. The leaders each week will be removed from further polling and guaranteed a spot on our page. The first week NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was chosen with 33 out of a total of 78 votes. Last week Senator Barbara Boxer of California was selected with 13 of 52 votes. If you have preferred candidates not seen on the lists, suggest them in the discussion below and we'll add them at a future date. Not only will we consider GLBT friendly candidates but also folks running to replace established homophobes. Thanks.
This weeks diary provided by jgilhousen.