"Sexually Inclusive Christians" Celebrate Victories, Push for More

When arguing for church acceptance of homosexuality, most advocates talk about monogamy. But others are bolder.

“I am a strong ally of those in healthy, polyamorous relationships,” declared Debra Kolodny. She argued that having multiple sexual partners can be “holy.” Kolodyn was leading a workshop at the WOW (Witness Our Welcome) 2003 convention, an ecumenical gathering for “sexually and gender inclusive Christians.”

Hundreds of homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual people gathered under the “queer” banner in Philadelphia August 14-17 to urge religious acceptance of non-traditional sexual behaviors.

According to WOW’s schedule brochure, it was sponsored by the homosexual caucus groups in most mainline Protestant denominations and Dignity USA (for Roman Catholics). Other supporting groups listed in the program included People for the American Way, the Human Rights Campaign, McCormick Theological Seminary (Presbyterian), Episcopal Divinity School, Chicago Theological Seminary (United Church of Christ), and Wesley Theological Seminary (United Methodist).

According to the president of Wesley seminary, Wesley paid a fee for a table with promotional material at WOW 2003. But Wesley did not endorse or give financial support to WOW beyond this fee.

Kolodny, an author and former national coordinator for The National Bisexual Network, was leading a workshop called “Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith.” Although focusing mostly on bisexuality, Kolodny, who is Jewish, explained that she could not conclude the session without discussing polyamory.

“There can be fidelity in threesomes,” Kolodny said. “It can be just as sanctified as anything else if all parties are agreed.” But she was careful to stress that polyamory is unacceptable “if there is deceit.”

Kolodny said polyamory does not usually involve simultaneous group sex. But there are exceptions, she admitted, as she recalled a friend of hers who shares a bed with his wife and male partner. When asked by a workshop participant how polyamory was different from “recreational sex,” Kolodny responded that consensual recreational sex could be a part of polyamory. But polyamory usually involves some level of commitment and intimacy.

Noting she herself had never been polyamorous, Kolodny explained that as a busy attorney she simply did not have time to conduct the complicated “negotiations” necessary for “holy” polyamory. But she expressed admiration for persons with the time to organize.

Most of Kolodny’s talk was about bisexuality, not polyamory. “I disagree with the queer movement [when it claims] that sexual orientation is predetermined,” Kolodny said, asserting that the existence of bisexuality “challenges all that.”

“I know a lot of women who chose to become lesbian,” Kolodny said. “Love between two people is always beautiful,” she added, and should be regarded as part of free choice.

“I’m not sure we can make the case for genetic predetermination,” Kolodny stressed, saying sexual preference depends on opportunity, support, and spiritual experiences.

Kolodny lamented that the “queer” movement insists on the “party line” of genetic predetermination as part of a “political strategy.”

“The queer movement relies on, ‘We can’t help it. We’re born this way,’ Kolodny said. “It feels so safe. If you don’t say it you’re thrown to the lions and you’re evil.”

She contrasted the insistence on genetic predetermination with the teachings of Judaism and Christianity, which say: “God gives us choices.”

“Free will is essential to our humanity and essential to our being created in the image of God,” Kolodny said. She charged that denying free choice in sex preference was “perpetuating the hetero-patriarchy,” helping the “radical right,” ignoring bisexuality, and making it easier for “hate” to continue.

Rather than creating “absolute poles” of sexual preference, Kolodny said the world includes a wide spectrum of choices. She recalled the hostility of her “dyke” friends when she abandoned her strict lesbianism for bisexuality. Many homosexuals suspect bisexuals of trying to gain the “privileges” of the hetero-patriarchy by seeking sexual partners of the opposite gender.

Another workshop leader who addressed a sexual minority sometimes forgotten by the “queer” movement was the Rev. Erin Swenson, formerly Eric. Swenson is a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister and family counselor whose sex change operation made Swenson the first post-operative transsexual minister in a major denomination.

Swenson was married with children. But after suffering for years from a desire to be a woman, Swenson finally divorced and had the operation. “I don’t recommend that any one become transgender,” Swenson said. “It’s a very painful process.”

“Some people accuse me of not being a woman,” Swenson complained, citing “ultra-feminists.” Swenson prefers being called simply “Erin and a child of God” to any label. “High heels are very uncomfortable,” Swenson playfully admitted.

“Transgender people won’t come to your church unless they truly know they are safe there,” Swenson warned. Even ostensibly “gay” friendly congregations are sometimes not prepared for transgender people. “Get your church to be trans friendly,” Swenson urged. One need is for bathrooms not marked male or female.

Swenson described the United Church of Christ as “miles ahead of anybody” in making itself open to transgender people. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in contrast, declined Swenson’s offer to volunteer in the creation of church resource materials for transgender church members.

“Transgendered people threaten communities because they threaten our assumptions,” Swenson concluded. “It is threatening but also freeing.”

Leading a workshop on “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Issues in the Roman Catholic Church,” Mary Louise Cervone complained that tolerance rather than justice” is the norm in America today. A former president of Dignity USA, Cervone, with her same-sex partner at her side, wondered how many “nameless men and women” must die before this country moves beyond tolerance to freedom for all people.

“Our best hope for change rests not with bishops and the pope but with Catholic people,” Cervone insisted. “Change won’t come form the top down. The Catholic people must demand freedom.

Cervone affirmed her lesbianism as a “gift of God.” She confessed she has a hard time attending the Catholic Church, because the “church is not where we find freedom. It’s where we go to hide.”

“But you can’t kick me out,” Cervone declared defiantly. “Where in religion did we get the idea that some people are more worthy than others?” she wondered.

The Rev. Jorge Lockwood, who is Global Praise Coordinator for the United Methodist Church’s Board of Global Ministries, led a workshop called “Redeeming Our Bodies, Congregational Song as a Path of Liberation.”

“As queer people, we have another way of looking at the body,” Lockwood said. He complained that churches too often are uncomfortable with the human body and suffer from “liturgical constipation.” He observed that too often people think the “desire of a 25 year old gay man for another 25 year old man is a beautiful thing,” but the desire of a 65 year old for a 25 year is “dirty.”

“We have all learned to challenge Romans,” said the Rev. Mari Castellanos, referring to St. Paul’s letter that, among other Scriptures, is critical of homosexual behavior. Castellanos leads the Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ. “We must do likewise with all texts that go against our brothers and sisters that are being claimed as the unerring Word of God.”

But Castellanos also urged the WOW 2003 audience to embrace “justice” issues beyond their own. “When we leave this earth, queer bishops won’t matter as much as whether the hungry are fed,” she insisted, to applause.

“This president and this Congress have systematically torn down the social net that sustained all of us,” Castellanos mourned. “We must lobby our government on behalf of the poor of the world. Our experience of exile has taught us compassion.”

Castellanos promised that “we will take on scary proposals such as the Marriage Protection Act. We will turn the tide that threatens to obliterate the social contract.” Echoing the name of a radical homosexual group, she insisted: “We must continue to act-up!”

Rev. Yvette Flunder, a United Church of Christ pastor from San Francisco, celebrated a string of political victories for pro-homosexuality advocates, including the election of an Episcopal Church homosexual bishop, the arrival of legalized same-sex unions in Canada, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against anti-sodomy laws.

“The Holy Ghost can break loose in an atmosphere of injustice and give us more justice in three weeks than many years!” Flunder enthused. “These wouldn’t have been miracles under Bill Clinton!” she exclaimed, citing the irony of pro-homosexuality strides under a conservative government.

The Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the predominantly homosexual Metropolitan Community Churches, asked all the heterosexuals at WOW 2003 to stand and receive applause. “Thank you!!... I know what people do to you,” he told them, saying they pay a price for solidarity with homosexuals.

Perry said he “just got married” to his male partner of 18 years, who has had AIDS for several years. He likened the plight of homosexuals who cannot legally marry to slaves who also had no legal right to marriage.

“I will not give up until every one of us can marry,” Perry insisted, comparing Heaven to attending the WOW 2003 conference.

A brief skit produced for the WOW 2003 audience showed three troubled disciples in a storm-tossed boat. One, a young woman, declares: “I am bisexual and can’t find acceptance in the gay community.” A man says, “I am a 19 year old gay. Or am I queer? And I’m Presbyterian. But I’m not sure what that means!” A third person complains she is age 22 but cannot “find a voice” in the gay community.

Then a figure representing Jesus appears, played by a young woman wrapped in the rainbow flag, which is the emblem of the homosexual movement. “Take heart, it is I,” she says. “Do not be afraid.”

Blessed Bi

It is clearly a play on the Wiccan words "blessed be."

"You tolerate that woman Jezebel."

All have the free will to choose to do good or evil, and to experience the consequences of their choices.

Free will cannot change the natural laws of cause and effect. Free will allows you to jump off a cliff but not to defy gravity.

"Please explain the date reference??"

Well, I probably should have said "approximately 1968" but it does seem to me that that's the year the lid really came off.

I grew up in Manhattan and until the mid-sixties we lived in peace, the doors of Churches stood open during the day and life was basically normal.

Starting at that time chaos of all varieties seemed to begin to flouish. Divorce was made easily obtainable, crime increased dramitcally and all the churches were locked up tight to guard against theft and assualt. Then RFK and MLK were assissinated (and even if one didn't like or agree with them brutal murder is never a good thing), we had the hippie drug/sex fest "summer of love" and it just seems to me that that's when all this modern dis-harmony started.

Now, I am aware that all the dubious philosophies propounded today have roots that go way back. But it still seems to me that some unarticulated, possible unknown, thing or force took hold of the zeitgeist in 1968 and it has held sway since that time.

But you know, I still live in the NY Metro area, which would included Philly too, broadly speaking, so maybe it's just the Urban East-coasters (and their counterparts on the left coast, of course) who have been nuts for 25 years.

Seriously, if we let the pecksniffs make the determination they will make everything but straight sex (no foreplay) in the missionary position in the dark with your clothes on with your legal spouse during a time when conception is likely a sin and preferably a crime.

No foreplay!!

Gee, I learned a new word today...."polyamory".

They do come up with some doozies, don't they?

Wonder how soon this catchy appelation will come up in the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.

Leni

All have the free will to choose to do good or evil...

Isa 64:6 But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Rom 7:18-19 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Care to amend those words? Or is Scripture lying?

It's not a good thing to quote scripture in the attempt to support a position in opposition of the meaning of scripture.

Those verses you quoted were spoken from a position of someone who was experiencing true humility and unworthiness before God. They do not mean that people should give up trying to serve the will of God, if that's what you're trying to imply.

Well, I probably should have said "approximately 1968" but it does seem to me that that's the year the lid really came off.

I've seen very interesting statistics - I may have them somewhere; I'm REALLY bad at computer use and so it's hard for me to save or find anything, :( - but the social fabric actually began to fray at the same time TV became available and widely watched. Every soical indicator - crime, divorce, sexual immorality, unwed motherhood, and some others - were at a basically flat line until the mid 50's. The watching of TV and all those social ills went up at the same rate at the same time.

The mass indoctrination of population? What are the values, beliefs, and philosophies of the small group of people who write the TV shows, produce them, and write the "news"? A tiny percentage of the population is feeding the minds of the vast majority.

BTW, I've had a TV a total of about 1 or 2 years in the last (figure it out) - since I left home at 16 (early 50's now.)

Now returning to the article. I bet that it would be impossible to find a true five point Calvinist who teaches that the saved can engage in the hedonism and vile perversity that regularly is tolerated and accepted in the FWT community. The passages referenced above are prooftexts that indicate that many of those who claim to "believe in Jesus because of their own Free Will" will also use that same free will to believe anything else that they want to believe.

I can see that you have a lot of knowledge concerning finer points of various Christian sects, that I am ignorant of, so I would appreciate it if you could explain your position more clearly, in slightly more simple layman's language, for people like me who are not knowledgeable about the FWT people and five point Calvinists. I apologize if I misunderstood you in my last post to you.

I am not trying to be challenging, I am out of my field of understanding when discussing Christian sects.

Let's face it. Americans are not going to put up with a Govt that decides it is going to become the sex police and regulate what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

I can't understand why you insist that Santorum's statement - and the many Americans who agree with him - want to have police on a "seach and destroy" mission against behavior which is practiced in secrecy. This is a straw man argument. The whole purpose of anti-sodomy laws is to keep such behavior out of the mainstream, out of the public view. That way fewer people will be seduced into it, and if such sodomy practitioners try their skills in, say, public bathrooms they can then be arrested. Why don't you see this? Why are you so attracted to the idea of sodomy and/or same sex acts being protected?

Yes, He gave man free will. Now how will you use that gift? In obedience to Him or in sin?

Yes, God gave man a gift and you are trying to steal it or destroy it.
You must be very proud of yourself.

So9

Speaking of trans-sexuals and poly-amory, an interesting thing I learned from the Jerry Springer show is that trans-sexuals like to date and sleep with only heterosexual males. It was actually a Springer-worthy segment when a gay guy came out and said he was about to tell his trans-sexual lover that he's really not straight. My head was spinning. These people are so F'ed in the head and soul.

"BTW, I've had a TV a total of about 1 or 2 years in the last (figure it out) - since I left home at 16"

You are indeed a rare bird. My brother was like that, he never had a tv. Me, I have the TV on all the times, except in the mornings before I go to work, but I don't actually watch it. It's like the "hearth" to me.

He clearly addressed the issue of privacy when it came to sex between consenting adults in the context of the sodomy case...and warned about the "dangers" of saying adultery and homosexuality were OK. Now unless he was advocating the sex police busting down the bedroom doors of consenting adults and arresting them for acts of adultery and homosexuality, then his point is moot. And he should have thought before he spoke.

Not true, Jorge...his comments were aimed at the anticipated Supreme Court ruling. It was speculated that, much as Roe V Wade was decided upon a "constitutional right to privacy," anti-sodomy laws could be overturned on the same basis. He correctly said that if anti-sodomy laws could be overturned on the basis of a "privacy right," then no law limiting sexual activity could pass constitutional muster. That includes pedophilia, polygamy, incest, and animal sex.

This is not the same as supporting anti-sodomy laws. Justice Thomas said that while he did not support anti-sodomy laws and considered them to be "stupid," he could find no basis for declaring them unconstitutional.

Those controls were already in place before drugs were made illegal in this country. Did you even read my post? I said, "Trust me, I don't refrain from drug abuse because certain drugs are illegal, nor would I start using them if they were legalized. Social opprobrium, a love for my family and my own body are what keep me from abusing myself with drugs. It has nothing to do with the laws passed by corrupted legislators."

Sorry to be the one to break it to you...not everything is about you, and not everybody thinks the way you do. There are people who are restrained by questions of legality.

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