The New York Times has an article about the continued resistance to gays and lesbians by the Black Church that got me thinking of some of the teenage boys I work with.
“No homo.”
If you’ve spent any time around young black boys of late you’ve probably heard the term more times than you care to count. Basically, it’s a blanket, catch-all ‘get out of jail’ free phrase that automatically purges anything the speaker says of its homosexual over or undertones. So, for instance, you say something like, “I threw the ball at his head.” Immediately after (or before) you add “no homo” in order to make it clear to the listeners that you had absolutely no homosexual intentions. I’ve listened to conversations where both speakers literally preface every sentence they utter with the phrase. Making sure anything that might be construed as gay is purged from the record is a tedious undertaking. It requires the speaker to be aware of everything they say and how it could be interpreted by the group no matter how seemingly obtuse. What never even crosses their minds is that one of them may in fact be gay. The irony, of course, is that a good deal of their behavior could be categorized in the same family of “gay behavior” that they so vigilantly guard against in their speech. If anyone was to ever document how much time these boys spend primping their hair to make sure every wave is in place, how much body spray they splash on themselves after showering, how cognizant they are of the latest fashion, and how cliquish they tend to be whenever they’re amongst each other, they’d probably be surprised to discover they aren’t much different than their stereotyped idea of a “homo.”
Even being suspected of being gay is considered the mother of all marks against a young black male. He would rather appear ignorant, insensitive– whatever is necessary to preserve his untainted heterosexual self-image. But I don’t blame these boys, my boys. They’re acting in accordance with the cultural mores that have been handed down to them through the religious institution known as the Black Church. Their disregard for homosexuals is rooted in the backbone of black American culture so much so that even those who do not go to church, who shun it, are impacted by the Church because of its aggregated authority throughout the community.
Given its enduring influence, the Black Church’s failure to fully embrace gays and lesbians as members of the community compounds the confused mind-sets I see in these young men, and calls into serious question the Church’s status as moral messenger to all of America. Remember, the Black Church led the struggle for civil rights by championing the Social Gospel– the belief that only by applying Christian principles to social problems could society be redeemed. Also remember that one of Dr. King’s closest allies in this struggle, Bayard Rustin, was both gay and communist. In relying on arguments like the protection of the institution of marriage, today’s Black Church parrots its white evangelical counterpart’s denunciation of homosexuality. In relying on a strict reading of the Bible’s admonishments of homosexuality, these same churches engage in a bad faith rendering of a text that was once used to oppress their ancestors. Instead of forging relationships with gays on common-ground issues that all marginalized people are faced with in America (healthcare, poverty, education) they distrust and disdain the growing prominence of gays and lesbians in the black community. Also, they slip into a politics of most-favored minority, implicitly accepting the role of protector of their turf against all challenges to the throne. Meanwhile, the churches that have embraced gay and lesbian congregants have done so at the expense of a diminished membership. Congregants would rather travel elsewhere than practice their faith in a “sissy church.” It’s a sad, telling story of hypocrisy and fear, the more so because the ones who suffer most – boys still testing the boundaries of their sexuality and nurturing paralyzing stigmas about what it means to be gay – haven’t even scratched the surface of their anguish.
3 Comments
March 27, 2007 at 3:47 pm
While I believe that everyone has the right to “be” anything they want to be in terms of their sexuality and preference, deriding the Black churches for not supporting “gays and lesbians” is outright slanderous. There is no religious doctrine that preaches or practices that “gay” is religiously correct. The church is correct by not embracing a lifestyle that is clearly against any and all religious dogma.
March 27, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I don’t know if I was arguing that the church should preach the “correctness” of a gay and lesbian lifestyle so much as I was pointing out the hypocritical arguments used to defend their positions– the protection of the institution of marriage and the Bible’s statements on homosexuality.One of the points I think the NYT article makes clear is that the attitude towards homosexuals is typically based on fear and that once people get beyond their barriers (through personal experience rather than religious conversion more often than not) they can get past feeling threatened by homosexuals, and can thereby become truly radicalized voices for social change. Even Pastor Wright in Chicago (Obama’s pastor) has talked about the limited thinking he was operating under when he spurned gays and lesbians. His church, now thousands strong, embraces all seekers of faith, which would seem to be the purpose of religion and the distinguishing quality that sets it apart from a regular old organization of people.
March 31, 2007 at 2:21 am
What does one mean when they say that gays are not accepted in the church? Sometimes people equate “acceptance” with the “condoning”.
The church accepts (or at least should accept) “murders”, “adulterers”, “liars” & “homosexuals”, however, it doesn’t condone murder, adultury, lying and sexuality.
So, HNIC, i’m interested in knowing whether you are advocating that churches accept homosexuals or homosexuality.