CAMPSpirit

These days the news is full of stories about issues of importance to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities. Same-sex marriage has been legalized in Canada; the U. S. Supreme Court has overturned sodomy laws as unconstitutional; the Episcopal Church in the United States has called its first openly-gay bishop. All of these stories are of course good news; nevertheless, if one looks beneath the surface, it becomes clear that the GLBT communities—what I prefer to call the queer community—have much to do, and that we should not breathe a collective sigh of relief just yet.

Indeed, the backlash has already begun. President Bush has seen fit to pontificate about how "the sanctity of marriage" must be preserved from the inroads of marauding homosexuals, "sanctity" being equated with the union of a man and a woman. I seriously doubt that a country that would not pass the Equal Rights Amendment will embrace gay and lesbian rights (including marriage) anytime soon. We see this in our own state of Delaware, where politicians and citizens alike are suspicious of anti-discrimination efforts and muddy the waters with talk of "special" rights.

Gay and lesbian studies professor Byrne Fone, in his history of the concept of homophobia, notes that:

…few social groups have been free from the effects of prejudice, but most warring factions—men and women, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, blacks and whites—have been united in one eternal hatred: detestation of a particular group whose presence is universal. Religious precepts condemn this group; the laws of most Western nations have punished them. Few people care to admit their presence among them. This group is, of course, those we call homosexuals... Indeed, in modern Western society, where racism is disapproved, anti-Semitism is condemned, and misogyny has lost its legitimacy, homophobia remains, perhaps the last acceptable prejudice. (Fone, p.3)

In seeking to eradicate homophobia and empower equality for all people, I believe we must first work on overcoming the sexism that is rampart in our society. If women were honored and seen as fully equal to men, there would be an erosion and perhaps even a disappearance of homophobia. This is true because hatred and fear of homosexuals is rooted in the dishonoring of women and the feminine. Gay men are seen as gender traitors because they "act like" women or "want to be" women; lesbians are viewed as disrupting the rightful place of women, which is literally and figuratively under the man; bisexuals are those who cannot make up their minds; and the transgendered subvert nature by changing their physiognomy and disrupting accepted notions of gender.

As a matter of fact, each person in the queer community in her or his own way disrupts gender expectations just by virtue of who we are, and this is why we are perceived as dangerous to those who worship the status quo. We are not invested in maintaining what it means to be a "real" man or a "real" woman; we do not insist that women be submissive to men or that men stay out of the domestic realm. Consequently, we are perceived as launching an assault on the "sanctity" of marriage. When Mr. Bush uses that phrase, it is code for traditional gender roles and expectations. If gay and lesbian people were allowed to marry, the institution of marriage would be shaken, because we would challenge long-held notions of patriarchy, as well as definitions of masculinity and femininity.

When one looks at traditional Western religion, it comes as no surprise that patriarchal values and male dominance are enshrined, for the monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have imaged the Divine as exclusively male and have banished the Divine Feminine.

Let’s examine our words, our actions, and our principles to ascertain how we can eliminate sexism and separation in our own community before we seek to take on the larger society. Let’s play with the idea of incorporating the Divine Feminine into our rituals and our spirituality and thereby creating wholeness and holistic consciousness, as Eastern religions have always done. Let’s dialogue with one another about our sexuality, our spirituality, and our gender. For when we do so, we not only honor those who identify as women; we are making the world a safe place to be whoever and whatever we are, in diverse combinations as manifested in our individual bodies, minds, and spirits.