voices*
Waiting On The Great Awakening
OREGO N'S LGBTO N EW S M A G A ZIN E
OCTOBER 21. 2011
—
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to speak
at a town hall forum on our community’s re
sponse to a plan by Seattle-based evangelical
mega-church, Mars Hill, to move into South
east Portland. By now, most of us know what
went down: Q_Center held talks with church
leaders, many in our community expressed
outrage over that decision, many others of
fered support, and I wrote a strongly worded
column about evangelicals that thrust me into
the middle of the debate, making me an unof
ficial spokesman for Q_Center’s opposition.
Somewhat begrudgingly, I marched down
N W 21st Avenue that very wet, very dark
Wednesday evening, finding my way to the
Process W ork Institute, an educational facility
specializing in—you guessed it— process work.
If I may offer a crude definition, process work
is a fancy way o f referring to conflict resolu
tion. (I’m guessing, though, they do much
more than that.) Ever flirting with tardiness, I
arrived seconds before the event’s scheduled
start time; the building, daunting from the
outside, looked like something out of a Frank
Lloyd W right retrospective. O r perhaps my
nerves made the building grow.
Whenever I’m faced with slightly uncomfort
able situations, I can’t keep the sweats at bay, so a
public speaking scenario really wreaks havoc on
my glands. The night’s facilitators, who moon
light as expert therapists, established ground
rules from the outset. Since my skepticism was
already in overdrive, I cringed a bit when they
talked about honoring diversity, respecting dif
ference and acknowledging unspoken feelings
(they called them “ghosts”) in the room.
Calm eluded me and, for a time, I felt like I
was trapped in an old Saturday Night Live skit,
with an exaggerated version o f Terry Gross at
the helm. Not helping matters were flashbacks
to my last true engagement with therapy—
failed efforts to salvage a deteriorating rela
tionship. That things devolved even more
spectacularly mid-therapy has since made me
irrationally wary.
A strange thing happened as our panel fin
ished mapping out positions and the audience
began sharing their stories. Not long into the
conversation, I stopped caring and noticing I
represented the minority view; I stopped worry
ing about whether talking to Hill people was
futile; I didn’t care who was right or wrong (no
small feat for me). I listened. Obviously a town
hall forum that broaches religion attracts a par
ticular demographic; that night was no excep
tion. But those present weren’t evangelical Hill
people (none came); these were gay Christians,
M
o f Emily Rose, I was awake for three days.
Years dedicated to studying theology and
burying my head in texts helps keep most in
doctrination at bay, as did a rather lengthy, tor
rid love affair with Richard Dawkins and athe
ism. That process (one might call it ongoing)
lent to some rather hostile feelings toward.
Christianity. So it wasn’t much of a stretch for
me to realize I have probably done my share to
make queer Portland an often frosty place for
queer Christians.
I realized, too, how lucky I’ve been. I’ve never
had to explain my beliefs to my peers; being
generally noncommittal and always exploring is
relatively easy, save for the deprogramming
part. Gays who believe in God and go to
church? They’re treated, often at best, with un
warranted, unfair unease. As I knew throughout
my exchange with Q_Center, we don’t have to
agree about everything to afford each other
some respect. So why doesn’t this courtesy ex
tend to gay Christians? O f course it does— and
should, even if they don’t drink or go out as
much as some o f us. Besides, why exclude our-
selves from an entirely new dating pool? W ho
knows what bounty awaits? it]
Unitarians and congregants from the Metropoli
tan Community Church— and probably else
where. A community I’ve never known well.
As conversations veered away from Mars Hill,
participants delved into personal territory— and
I noticed a repeating theme. After discussing
broadly shared wariness toward fundamentalists,
they talked about their experiences as gay Chris
tians, specifically about coming out Christian to
other queers. They talked about being judged for
their faith, and how judgment occasionally mor
phed into ridicule— at bars, in social settings, al
most everywhere. Already facing a hostile world
at large, this passionate, loving, intelligent part of
our community faces an impossible conundrum:
straddling faith and sexuality.
Like many, I spent my formative years in an
intense evangelical situation. Like Rick Perry, I
was taught to believe in angels, demons and
spiritual warfare— along with a real place called
hell reserved for faggots and dykes and lots
more end-of-the-world, book-of-Revelation-
type stuff. Remember that May 21 Armaged
don prediction? Close friends and I spoke in
secret about faint, nagging worries that every SN L jokes aside, I have nothing hut love fo r
thing we were ever taught might be right. And the talented people at Process Works. E m ail
the demon stuff? After I watched The Exorcism daniel@justout.com.
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