Steps to A Greater Understanding
Steps To a
Greater Understanding
About the Impact of our Religious Institutions on Mixed Orientation Families
This curriculum intends to serve as a tool to understanding how transformation within our religious institutions can occur.
INTRODUCTION
Need for curriculum and how it came about:
The undertaking of producing the video “Family Stories” was inspired when John Davis attended WOW 2000 and was a part of a workshop conducted by Mary Lou Wallner and Roberta Kreider. WOW 2000 is Witness Our Welcome, a conference for welcoming and affirming churches. Mary Lou and her husband, Bob, lost their lesbian daughter, Anna, to suicide. Roberta Kreider and her husband, Harold, a retired Mennonite minister, came to a new understanding through having to vote on inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) persons in their denomination, after having avoided facing for ten years the very compelling issue of the death of Roberta’s brother, Ray, from AIDS. Their “family stories,” chronicling how they came to understand GLBT people in a “whole new light” served as the impetus for John’s dedication to bringing their stories to a larger audience through this video. “When I first heard the stories of these two women, I knew they needed to be recorded and given a larger audience,” said John Davis, producer of Family Stories. “A young man told me when he heard these two women tell their stories, it had given him hope for his own non-accepting family, a hope that had been sorely lacking as he had contemplated his own suicide in the past.”
This curriculum, which utilizes the Family Stories video in the first session of a four-session (1 ½ hours per week for four weeks) workshop, (the curriculum can also be presented in a one day workshop format) was then inspired by the initial pre-viewing of the “Family Stories” video before it premiered. There was recognition that many churches/organizations or parents, friends and families of GLBT, who would be viewing the video, might need a “guide” to help them afterwards in addressing their feelings and beliefs. That led to developing an entire curriculum with the “guide” for the Family Stories video being included in the initial session of the four-session workshop. This curriculum is seen as an important “piece to the puzzle” for creating understanding about GLBT persons, both inside and outside religious institutions. It is our desire that the offering of this curriculum to churches and organizations, as well as to parents, friends and families of GLBT, will lead to an acceptance of the innate value of GLBT persons and the importance of their diversity as a valuable part of our society. We acknowledge that people are at different places in their journey of understanding; however, we hope that this curriculum will facilitate that journey for people who are seeking a greater awareness..
Further, we recognize that there is currently no “absolute” answer in the religious, scientific or mental health field that fully explains a cause for the sexual orientation of people, whether that is GLBT persons or heterosexual persons. Regarding being GLBT, suffice it to say that being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is quite possibly a combination of factors, including genetic, biological and psychosocial. While being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is about sexual orientation, transgender is about gender identity. Transgender persons, however, are also compelled to consider their sexual orientation, which might be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Research suggests that there is a biological predisposition to exclusive homosexuality. However, the causes of sexual orientation in general, and especially bisexuality, remain speculative and most likely rely on multiple developmental pathways. It seems most appropriate to think of the continuum of sexual orientation as influenced by an interaction of various psychosocial and biological factors, which may be unique for each person, than to think in terms of a single cause for sexual orientation (Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995).
Thus, it is not clear that being GLBT is “not a choice” any more than it has been proven to be/not to be a reasoned or conditioned choice. The point we hope to emphasize is that, regardless of how GLBT persons journey to a point in which they acknowledge, understand and accept their sexual orientation, behavior and identity, discrimination and violence, either physical or spiritual, against them as people of sacred worth, is unacceptable.
We hope that this curriculum will ignite a dialogue which leads to a greater understanding between people, showing that although a GLBT person’s sexual orientation, behavior and identity is an integral part of who they are, it is no more the “whole” of the GLBT person than it is the “whole” of a heterosexual person.
Purpose:
1) To educate people about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) persons so that people have accurate information from which to formulate their beliefs.
2) To help people understand the importance of potentially “reframing” their inner scripts, those conditioned beliefs and responses which have adversely affected an individual’s ability to accept GLBT as sacred persons, worthy of inclusion within the church.
3) To create awareness regarding the effect that anti-gay church teachings have on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons
4) To serve as a resource in assisting churches to educate its members about the inclusion and acceptanceof gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the church.
Rationale:
The Road Map to Understanding
Sexuality is the interrelationship of cultural, psychological, ethical and biological dimensions. All of us, from birth to death, are sexual beings and our sexuality is an integral part of who and what we are rather than what we do, manifesting itself either positively or negatively. Our sexuality encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as sexual identity and sexual behavior. These aspects, along with the role of GLBTA (Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders, and Allies) in the church, have been tearing apart our religious institutions at the seams. This has been, however, a necessary process in the evolution of the church as it comes to terms with the importance of our sexual self in relationship to our spiritual identity. Walter Winks says “The issue of homosexuality threatens to fracture whole denominations, as the issue of slavery did one hundred and fifty years ago. We naturally turn to the Bible for guidance and find ourselves mired in interpretative quicksand. Is the Bible able to speak to our confusion on this issue?” (Wink, 1996)
The inclusion of “self-affirming” vs. “non-affirming” or “hidden” gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) persons is specifically explored because the latter are already accepted in the church, but “only” because they are not “known.” Most recently, however, GLBT persons have found that being honest and authentic about “who they are” and identifying themselves and coming out of the closets, which have been hammered shut for centuries in churches, has brought tremendous consequences. Because many GLBT remained closeted in the past, there was not a big divide regarding the inclusion of GLBT persons in the church. In other words, you can’t get divided over a topic/issue that is not even discussed. In the past thirty years, however, the discussions have ensued and they have become more and more impassioned on both sides. A number of organizations for inclusion and affirmation, such as Dignity (a gay Catholic organization), More Light (a Presbyterian group), Reconciling Ministries (a United Methodist group), and Lutherans Concerned for Gay People, have been lobbying their respective denominations. (Carroll & Wolpe, 1996). Looking at the other side, we are also hearing rumor of potential splits within entire denominations, not unlike those that took place when slavery was the driving issue. Invariably, when sensitive issues of today which are very similar to those of the past, strike at the emotional heart of people, operating out of “conditioned” and “scripted” beliefs often initially leads to drawn out battles; however, if history proves itself to be consistent, people one hundred years from now will be exclaiming “They did what? Are you serious? They sometimes didn’t allow a person to become a member of a church if they ‘knew’ they were GLBT? They didn’t allow GLBT people to marry? They fired GLBT people from their jobs? GLBT persons could be denied housing? Parents disowned their children? Churches carried signs proclaiming ‘God hates Fags?’ ”
Part of the current dilemma is that churches, as well as society, are often lacking in knowledge and understanding as people embrace one of the most important tasks in life ... integrating our spiritual "soul selves" with our sexuality. In that vein, most have been “victims of untruth” at one time or another. In general, we have not known how to appreciate, recognize and understand the enormous potential of this integrated component of ourselves and the impact it has on our lives. Organized religion has not had a history of supporting this integration, even for heterosexual people. The Bible, on the other hand, is very sex positive. Transforming ourselves, and affirming that our sexuality is an important part of who we are, becomes a potential and powerful fuel for changing the hearts and minds of society. When we accept ourselves, acceptance or the lack of acceptance from others will not have as big an impact and we will be free to embrace our spiritual selves.
Knowledge, highly valued in most areas of our lives, meets resistance in the area of sexuality, particularly within the church setting. The differences between various terminology and evaluation of how each of these impacts us as spiritual beings, inside as well as outside the church setting, are important elements toward creating understanding and awareness. It is important to affirm our sexuality, gain knowledge and insight into the areas of sexual orientation and gender roles/identity, and simultaneously recognize and respect that our values are sacred.
Historical background:
Religion has long been considered a bastion of anti-homosexual teachings and beliefs. In reality, though, only traditional Judaism and Christianity have strongly opposed homosexual behavior. Only the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, and Reconstructionist Judaism have openly accepted homosexual clergy (Clark et al., 1989) Historically, laws against homosexual behaviors, have stemmed from biblical injunctions against same-sex contact, and have been exceedingly punitive. People with homosexual orientations have been tortured and put to death throughout Western history, In the American colonies, homosexual people were condemned to death by drowning and burning. In the late 1770’s, Thomas Jefferson was among the political leaders who suggested reducing the punishment from death to castration for men who committed homosexual act (Katz, 1976).
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality began to shift in the early to mid 1900’s. The belief that homosexual people were sinners was replaced to some degree by the belief that they were “sick” (Esterberg, 1990). The medical and psychological professions have used drastic treatments in attempting to cure the “illness” of homosexuality. Surgical procedures such as castration were performed in the 1800s. As late as 1951, lobotomy (brain surgery that severs nerve fibers in the front lobe of the brain ( was performed as a “cure” for homosexuality. Psychotherapy, drugs, hormones, hypnosis, shock treatments and aversion therapy (pairing nausea-including drugs or electric shock with homosexual stimuli) have all been used to the same end. (Kaiser, 1994; Katz, 1976)
In reality, the research of several decades contradicts the notion that homosexual people are “sick.” The first major research to compare the adjustment of nonpatient heterosexual and homosexual individuals found no significant differences between the two groups (Hooker, 1967). Further research has supported these findings (Isay, 1989; Mannion, 1981; Wilson, 1984). Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg summarized that “homosexual adults who have come to terms with their homosexuality, who do not regret their sexual orientation, and who can function effectively sexual and socially, are no more distressed psychologically than are heterosexual men and women” (1978, p. 216). In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality per se from its diagnostic categories of mental disorders. Heterosexist bias still remains a concern in mental health and family therapy research and treatment (Clark & Serovich, 1997; Tyler et al., 1997).
Research
In the most comprehensive study of the causes of sexual orientation, undertaken by Alan Bell, Martin Weinberg and Sue Hammersmith of the Kinsey Institute (1981), the results indicated that all the environmental explanations are inadequate and are not supported by the data. Their study included 979 gay men and lesbian women and a comparison sample of 477 heterosexual men and women. The interviews took 3 to 5 hours each and included approximately 200 questions about the person’s childhood and adolescence; the questions were designed specifically to allow the researchers to test all the major theories that had been proposed as explanations for the development of sexual orientation.
Specifically, the researchers concluded that:
1) Parental relationships seem to make little or no difference in whether one becomes heterosexual or homosexual (as had been proposed in psychoanalytic theory).
2) Homosexuality does not result from labeling by others (the sociologists’ notion)
3) Homosexuality does not result from early unpleasant heterosexual experience (as proposed by learning theory); i.e. lesbians were no more likely to have been raped than heterosexual women were.
4) Homosexuality does not result from an early positive homosexual experience in which a boy or girl is seduced by an older member of his/her own gender (as proposed by learning theory)
Having shot down all the standard theories, Bell, Weinberg, and Hammersmith did reach some positive conclusions. Two are particularly important:
1) Sexual orientation seems to be determined before adolescence. The implication to be understood here is that there does not need to be a “fear” regarding the potential of an adult being a “bad influence” on young people simply because of their sexual orientation.
2) It is likely that there is some biological basis for homosexuality because none of the standard environmental explanations was supported by the data. They actually collected no biological data, however, and this conclusion amount to no more than speculation. The main point to understand from this study is that we simply do not know what causes sexual orientation. Also, a good theoretical lesson to be learned from this somewhat frustrating statement is that homosexuals do not form a distinct category any more than heterosexuals do. There are probably as many different kinds or “types” of homosexualsas there are heterosexuals and the “commonalities” formed would cross the homosexual/heterosexual divide. (Shibley & DeLamater, 2000)
Group Interaction
Group interaction fosters an environment that normalizes each person’s feelings, perceptions and fears, allowing them to discuss the conflict which they are feeling in a safe environment. Being given permission to talk about the difficulty they are having as they experience GLBT people of faith and their attempt to reconcile these experiences with what they have been “taught to see” and “taught to know” and “taught to accept” is a new opportunity for many. Often what many have “discovered to be true” about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith through their interaction with them conflicts with what they have been “taught to believe” about GLBT.
The majority of people in society still believe that homosexuality is wrong. This belief is the basis for much antigay prejudice. In some cases this prejudice is so strong that it results in hate crimes and harassment. Inside our religious institutions, this antigay rhetoric has lead to an inability to accept ourselves as people of worth and has resulted in “spiritual violence.” This term refers to the antigay teachings which demean and denigrate GLBT people and their relationships. Children in this world who grow up and discover that they are GLBT are not taught to love themselves. They are taught to hate – not hatred of others, but hatred of self. And hatred of self creates a rift in the love-relationship continuum. How can you claim to love God if you do not love your neighbor and how can you love your neighbor if you do not first love yourself? The entire tapestry that is the God-human relationship become unwoven when the human utters the words “I hate myself.”
Many will say “But we love you … we love the sinner and hate the sin. When were you taught to hate yourself?"” It occurs when those who happen to be GLBT are called "“abominations." That burns the soul in a way that is unimaginable. It occurs when gay, lesbians and bisexual are told that their lives could never be pleasing to God until they become heterosexuals and transsexuals are told they are perverted and should remain in a physical state which is inconsistent with their mind and soul. It happens when the long-term relationship that GLBT strive for and celebrate are labeled “counterfeit alternative relationships.” (Strode, 2000) It happens when GLBT are told that they are depraved individuals for being same-sex attracted. At the 1996 Southern Baptist Convention, the following resolution was passed stating, “Even desire to engage in a homosexual relationship is always sinful, impure, degrading, shameful, unnatural, indecent, and perverted.” The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says “I see the modern attempts to normalize homosexuality as a threat not only to the moral equilibrium of the culture, but to the very survival of society.” It occurs when churches continue to celebrate their own sexual orientation/gender identity as a good gift from the creator and declare to GLBT that their sexual orientation/gender identity is sinful and needs to be forgiven or sick and needs to be cured. Many religious institutions rejoice at the breakup of GLBT relationships and weep over their faithful unions. Is it any wonder that GLBT people feel “spiritually violated” at the core of who they are with this type of rhetoric and teaching?
Intent of this curriculum
History is clear that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons have always existed. Additionally, they are also members of our families and have served in our church communities. We understand that reconciling what we believe about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons will entail a struggle for many due to the teachings of the church, some of which have stated that GLBT are “intrinsically disordered” These teachings are what we refer to as “misinformation” and “untruth.” When GLBT are then told this “untruth” about themselves, this constitutes “spiritual violence” against them because it demeans and denigrates them and can lead to a spiritual rupture in their soul. This spiritual violence is prevalent in our society and hurts the entire church community. The inclusion and acceptance of GLBT people, calling for the elimination of spiritual violence, would require at least three things:
1) self-acceptance by GLBT people (coming out as self-affirming)
2) acceptance of GLBT people by heterosexuals (decrease in heterosexism and decrease in homophobia)
3) welcoming and affirming church structures
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