"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.”

If you had done any reading on Santorum's statement and what he subsequently said (I can' believe you haven't) you would know that he - and others who agree with him - do not want police banging on doors to see what people are doing in the privacy of their houses.

I read everything Santorum was saying. He was contradicting himself all over the map.

The case he was commenting on was one where police entered the bedroom of consenting adults and arrested them for sodomy.
To say he supports those laws without the ability of police to enforce them is incoherant.

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.

It's not a straw man argument at all, but precisely what the case was about that Santorum was commenting on.

The police enter the bedroom of consenting adults and arrested them for sodomy.
Santorum's response supported the rights of states to keep things like adultery and sodomy illegal.

There is absolutely no point in his argument if these laws cannot be enforced.

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?

Go back and read my posts again. I addressed Santorum's position that adultery and sodomy etc should be illegal.

Do you believe the police should be able to bust down the bedroom doors of consenting adults and arrest them for adultery?
How about if we start stoning homosexuals and shooting women in the head on the sidewalks for unfaithfulness, like the Taliban?
That's the kind of country you want to live in?

And please don't give me these alternate purposes for making these behaviors illegal, that have nothing to do with actually enforcing the law. That is not what laws are for.

Quite a bit more than many who call themselves Calvinists and ignore Scriptural doctrine which Calvin didn't master.

From 196: Many legalistic Calvinists get the cart before the horse, believing that if man believes in Christ through faith in Him, that this usurps God's Soverignty.

You demonstrated with crystal clarity in this statement that you haven't the foggiest idea what Calvinists actually believe. I believe Warmoose sufficiently addressed the point.

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.

Please. Everybody's read these arguments 100 times.

And I'm not saying there is no merit to them. I am merely addressing the obvious and practicle implications of his arguments.

There is no need to hide them behind all these entangled and convoluted complications.

Please. Everybody's read these arguments 100 times.

And I'm not saying there is no merit to them. I am merely addressing the obvious and practicle implications of his arguments.

There is no need to hide them behind all these entangled and convoluted complications.

Please. Everybody's read these arguments 100 times.

And I'm not saying there is no merit to them. I am merely addressing the obvious and practicle implications of his arguments.

There is no need to hide them behind all these entangled and convoluted complications.

"..man's will is bound to sin and death. .."

Perhaps you may want to study about the Son of God and the work He performed. Because of His work, when we have have faith in Him, we may have a relationship with God, not by our work, but by the Holy Spirit. Man's will, when now returned to righteousness is provided numerous assets as a member of His royal family.

To deny man who is faithful in Christ that royalty, is arrogant in the face of God's gift.

All the things you mention of a man not yet saved or fallen again in sin, even though once a believer, is indeed true, except that man still has the ability to choose. That Common grace enables him to choose to accept and believe in Christ and have faith in Him.

The man who has faith in Christ is blessed and has the ability by Divine decree to choose without undue influence.

This also sets an example for the angelic domain to observe the justice in His immutable decisions upon the fallen angelic state in the past.

"..then if anyone goes to Hell on account of sin then God is demanding double payment for sin..."

Now you are beginning to reason well. No man will ever go to Hell or eternal damnation because of sin (Disobedience to His Will)(other than the rejection of God Himself in the Holy Spirit).

The penalty of sin is death, or in the Hebrew a state of separation.

If we sin, spiritually we are separated from the Holy Spirit or not in fellowship with Him. If we have never believed, then we are already dead or separated spiritually from Him because of Adam's death from the fall in the Garden.

When Christ died on the Cross, being a perfect man, body, soul and spirit, He had a perfect Spirit which could be sacrificed to make atonement for the original sin.

There are other issues regarding the body and soul, but in regards to the God breathed spirit, only upon Christ's sacrifice was it possible for a living righteous spirit to re-enter man. Given by God, the Holy Spirit, when we have faith in Him, we have not done anything which would require God to be inconsistent if He chose to enter us.

Now by remaining Soveriegn and immutable, just and righteous, the spiritual sin has been atoned and He may again breath that new life into us.

That new life is not unrighteous. Man, now who has faith in Jesus Christ, God the Son and His saving work, has now performed something nonmeritoriously, not a work deserving a wage, but a simple belief, a faith in Christ, which the Holy Spirit may now use to perform an effective salvation within us.

Good which we perform while in fellowship with Him, now may count towards divine righteousness. Without that fellowship, our good works are nothing but filthy rags.

The universal position that all of man's works are unrighteous fails to give credit to the work of Christ and the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your explanation. Would you mind expanding just a tad on this sentence:

Jesus Christ is nothing more than a Plush Toy Genie Jesus to the saved, and through the teachings of Dispensational Premillennialism (Pessimillennialism coined by others) Jesus Christ ironically "loves" the reprobate through remarkably profound violence and destruction.

Would that be "Rapture" stuff?

The case he was commenting on was one where police entered the bedroom of consenting adults and arrested them for sodomy.

The Lawrence case was a set-up. Three homosexuals lived in the apartment. One made a false 911 call that the other two were assaulting each other, I can't remember if he also lied that there was a gun. Then the other two committed sodomy with the door unlocked and open so the police would come in and see, arrest them, and they could take the case to court. In fact, the threesome had even tried the same set-up several times before - false 911 call, sodomy so the police would see, etc, but the cops never came at the right moment before.

To say he supports those laws without the ability of police to enforce them is incoherant.

Of course police would enforce them, but police can't even go into peoples' houses for drug use or any offenses with warrants and all kinds of legal red tape. What makes you think that police would conduct house-to-house searches for in-the-act sodomy??? All the law would do (if it meant anything) would be to keep sodomy private.

Do you believe the police should be able to bust down the bedroom doors of consenting adults and arrest them for adultery?

No. But I also don't believe that the direction our culture is going - the moral relativism slippery slide, with ANY KIND OF SEXUAL DEVIANCY AND IMMORALITY glorified, normalized, accepted, and shoved down everyone's throats including schoolchildren is going to lead to anything except 1. first anarchy, and 2. then tyranny.

How about if we start stoning homosexuals and shooting women in the head on the sidewalks for unfaithfulness, like the Taliban?

I think you need to investigate your own mind and heart, because your comments are seriously irrational.

That's the kind of country you want to live in?

All I can say is straw man.

I don't really have time to engage you on this right now. I'm leaving for Army Basic, Fort Knox, KY. Hooah! I'm pretty sure they don't allow much in the way of internet access. Suffice to say, I believe you missed the spirit of my post. What I meant was, the caricature that I painted of Calvinism as being antinomian was a fallacious argument. Of course, I don't believe that myself. I think that a Calvinist can be just as righteous as an Arminian. Trust me, we agree on more than you might possibly think. I'm not the stereotypical Arminian. God Bless.

NO>

Would you deny that giving food to a starving person is doing good ?

Do you think Jesus was telling us that no one can do good when he told of the Good Samaritan ?

Do you mean to tell us that God made man without the capacity to do good, and then was displeased with His creation when man did not do that which man could not ?

Do you really believe God created man unable to do good so that He would have a reason to sacrifice His Son on the cross ?

I say again, God created man(and woman) with free choice ;and that means each may choose good or evil, may choose to obey or disobey,and will be judged on his own choices.

Would you also care to discuss the problems caused by the Western tradition of stating the commandment "thou shall not kill" when killing in self-and national defense is ordered by God elsewhere ? I think much anguish might have been avoided were the commandment stated as "thou shall not murder", which is consistent with the rest of the Bible.

Jorge"How about if we start stoning homosexuals and shooting women in the head on the sidewalks for unfaithfulness, like the Taliban?"

pram; I think you need to investigate your own mind and heart, because your comments are seriously irrational.

You need to investigate reality, because the fact is these things DO occur under some authoritarian religious theocracies.

Jorge "That's the kind of country you want to live in?"

pram; All I can say is straw man.

All I can say is you obviously can't answer questions directly.

The fact is the great majority of people in this country agree with me, and don't want to live in the kind of world I described above.
We don't want religious zealots letting lose the sex police on the rest of Americans.

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