LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPSpirit |
by Tom Bohache |
Dismantling the Categories: A Place to Start
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 communitieswhat I prefer to call the queer communityhave 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 factionsmen and women, Jews, Muslims, and Christians, blacks and whiteshave 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. Many years ago, lesbian feminist philosopher Mary Daly asserted that "if God is male, then the male is God." Whenever feminist theologians (female or male) attempt to broaden the concept of divinity to include the feminine or to make religious language more gender-inclusive, it undermines the web of male control that has dominated church and society for generations. Traditionalists utter the same reservations over and over again: If one speaks of the Goddess, it weakens the foundation of monotheism, for goddess worship must involve polytheism, pantheism, and fertility rituals. If God is called Mother, somehow this threatens the Fatherhood of God, for in God's Oneness, God cannot be both. If the Divine is metaphorically spoken of as having nourishing breasts or a creating womb, this imports obscenity into religion, for the spirit and the flesh must forever remain separate. Perhaps this is the crux of the problem: Changing notions of gender, whether applied to the Divine or the Human, challenge the rigid separation that exists between sexuality and spirituality, between the sacred and the profane, between male and female. Queer people by our very existence challenge these notions, and that is why we are threatening to the status quo and to the sanctity of patriarchal society, including marriage. We dare to empower Spirit in our lives by means of (not despite of) our sexuality. Our very diversity challenges monolithic statements about divinity. We confuse categories of sacred and profane through our humor, our art, and our social networks. We mix up the notions of male and female and blur their very distinctions in our speech, our dress, and our lovemaking. Be afraid, Mr. Bush; be very afraid. 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. The Rev. Tom Bohache, Pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Rehoboth, is a speaker, teacher, and writer on the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. E-mail him at tombohache@att.net. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 13, No. 12, August 22, 2003 |