The Real Threat to the Family (The Gay Pastor)

I'm getting really irritated with the ludicrous arguments people continue to use in condemning homosexuality and gay marriage as an affront to the family, and as a force that will eventually destroy the family unit in society. These arguments are stupid on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, let me deal with the extremes. Are there extremists amongst the advocates of gay marriage who are anti-establishment to the point of opposing the family unit altogether? Absolutely. They see it as a vestige of an outdated social construct, the intent of which is to hold people captive to relationships that were never chosen, to authorities that haven't necessarily earned the right to power (vis-a-vis mothers and fathers).

Now, the truth is that this is a ridiculous perspective. In fact, I don't believe that most of these extremists actually believe the foolishness they spout. To the contrary, I think they do long for a family unit, and that it is their history of hurt and disappointment that has led to their surface-level opposition to this universal structure that is inherent to our very nature as human beings--the family.

But, even if some of them truly do hate the family unit, who cares?!?! Are you going to tell me that a few kooks on our side actually characterize the vast majority of gay people and allies? Who in their right mind believes that we actually want to destroy the family? To the contrary, the very fact that we advocate gay marriage proves that we honor the family unit and desire, with all of our hearts, to have families of our own! What moron can't understand this?

I'm in the process of reading Straight & Narrow: Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate, by Thomas E. Schmidt, and I've gotta tell you, his perception of the so-called gay agenda is as uninformed and bigoted as they come. I started out reading with a certain respect for the author because in chapter 1, he made it a point to talk about the error of highlighting extreme points of view on either side and using them as an argument against the other side. I thought, Well finally, a reasonable critic. But, as I continued to read, that's exactly what this man is doing--taking extreme views and pointing them out as the intention of the gay community in relation to society.

Schmidt says, "...the homosexual population continues to rely on the procreative population for familial support, patterns of relationship and of course the production of more homosexuals. It is as if someone's spleen had declared its independence, departed through an incision in the abdomen, and then periodically returned, leechlike, to draw nourishment from the same body. Are the critics spleenophobic, or is this misplaced organ living in a dream world?"

What the hell?!?! Yeah, that's the antigay version of compassion for you. First, they claim that we're out to turn straight people gay, but then they turn around and say that we're dependent upon the straight population for the production of more homosexuals. Hmmm... Sounds to me like he almost believes that people are born gay!

And then we get to the word "leechlike". We're leeching from the family structure that we supposedly hate. We hate the fact that we have mothers and fathers. We hate the fact that we have siblings; yet, we leech off of their love, and off of the unchosen relationships that we detest so much. Oh my God!

Who exactly is living in a dream world--gay people who don't have a problem with family and even want families of their own, or antigay people (some of whom are, themselves, gay), who can't resist from caricaturing the gay community as "the evil, big-nosed Jews who are intent on either ruling the world or destroying it!" Too bad we don't have another Hitler around to exterminate these familial leeches before they suck all of the life out of the family unit.

I just don't understand the logic. We hate the family so much that we want our own families? We hate fathers and mothers so much that we want to adopt children and provide them with loving fathers or loving mothers that will support and care for them? Why can't Schmidt and those like him understand that it's not the family we hate. It's the notion that their version of the family (one father and one mother) is the only possible one that can exist, to the exclusion of same-sex families or single-parent families.

But, then again, at least the Bible is on their side, right? Wrong! In both the Old and New Testaments, the family unit took multiple forms. There were units with one father and one mother (vis-à-vis the Adam and Eve paradigm), multiple mothers in a single family unit (vis-à-vis the Jacob, Leah, and Rachel paradigm, not to mention the concubines Bilhah and Zilpah), and even single-parent households, like Mary, after the death of her husband, Joseph. Even polygamy is affirmed by the fact that only bishops and deacons were commanded to be the husband of one wife, while nothing whatsoever was ever commanded of the rest of the Christian population!

Obviously, Genesis 1-2 isn't as indicative of the divine perspective on marriage as our opponents so monotonously claim--that is, unless you read it in isolation from the rest of the Bible and force commands upon all humankind where none exist in the text. Yet we're the ones who are accused of twisting Scripture.

And what about the famous argument that children need a mother and a father? On its surface, this argument is an affront to the many families that were forced to endure with a single parent, either as a result of abandonment or widowhood. Should we teach single parents that it is their Christian duty to get remarried as soon as possible, so as to recreate the structure that God requires of all legitimate families; or, on the other hand, is there some measure of grace that extends to people who may not meet the biblical ideal because of the circumstances involved?

And what exactly is this biblical ideal? Antigay Christians require a model of one man and one woman; but I've already demonstrated that Scripture, itself, doesn't contain such a rule. I would argue that the ideal has nothing to do with a person's sex, and more to do with a person's support structure. With two parents in the home, the weight of child-rearing and provision doesn't fall squarely upon one person's shoulders. Partnership is demonstrated in its best light by two people working together to provide a stable home environment, a stable social structure in which to raise children.

But, isn't it important for children to have the parental perspective of both a man and a woman? Isn't that a pertinent part of their childhood development? I don't believe that it is. The social construct of gender (man and woman) is not universal or enduring. Even since biblical times, the role of the man as provider and head of the household, and of the woman as housekeeper and helper to the husband, has morphed into a more equalized partnership in which both people contribute in all aspects of a healthy family environment. Some may claim that this is unbiblical, but if you ask me, it's a more accurate representation of the fact that in Christ there is neither male nor female. Truly, society has finally caught up with the perspective that God has always held of the divisions between man and woman--that there is no division at all! Wasn't that the pre-Fall intent, after all?

Besides, the argument always circles back to single-parent homes. Is the fact that single-parent homes have a greater chance of producing children who wind up troubled in adolescence and even later in life indicative of a need for a male and a female in the home; or is it, rather, indicative of the need of two adult figures to be present to help share the burden of child-rearing? I argue that it's the latter--that the sex of the people don't matter... It's a matter of quantity--is there someone there to help shoulder the burden? Is there someone there to help reinforce the authority of the other parent? Is there someone there to help provide a supervisory presence to children, ensuring that they aren't required to raise themselves while a single parent works his/her butt off trying to keep a roof over everyone's head?

Same-sex couples are every bit as capable of providing a stable home environment to children. In fact, one needn't theorize about it. There are plenty of living examples of such homes right now. We need only consider the development of these children.

It has been my experience that the only downside to such homes is the pressure brought to bear on children in the school system because they come from households with same-sex parents. Some claim that such bullying proves how heartless it is for parents to raise their children in same-sex households. But, it's interesting how they never consider how heartless it is for bigots to instill their antigay sentiments into yet another generation of children. It's obvious that these bully children got their cruel attitudes from somewhere; yet nobody ever calls their parents on the carpet to account for the fact that they've taught their children--explicitly or by antipathy--that it's okay to treat people in such ways. No, it's the same-sex parents who are at fault. Unbelievable!

Gay people are not the threat to the family unit. I'll tell you what the threat is. The threat is the Church's misguided efforts to oppose same-sex marriage, or same-sex adoptions. The threat is the fact that the Church is expending all of its time, energy, and resources fighting families that don't look like them, rather than trying to strengthen the crumbling families that already exist in their own local congregations. No, they're too busy picketing same-sex marriages, rather than divorce courts. They're too busy stopping families from existing, rather than preventing those that exist from falling apart.

Gay people don't hate the family. Gay people aren't out to destroy the family. We affirm family every day in the process of coming out so that our loved ones can have the chance to know and love us for who we are, as we know and love them. We affirm family every day in our pleas for the right to have families of our own. We affirm family every day by striving for the right to marry the person of our choosing. We affirm family every day by our desire to have children (via surrogacy) and/or to adopt children into our families, providing them with stable environments in which to be nurtured and to grow.

Oh no, my friends, we aren't the threat to the family. The antigay wing of the Church is!