How Gay can become the new Black

 "When black church leaders fail to recognize the everyday, ordinary existence of African American gays and lesbians in the church and the community, at work and play, in family life and in the pews, they vitiate the forms of generative care and creativity that same-sex loving members cultivate in the black cultural life and in the black church.” -Victor Anderson

Maryland has become the 8^thstate in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage. Marriage equality is clearly moving forward in civil society. Is the Black Church going to move forward as well? There are signs, as Vanderbilt Ethicist Victor Anderson observes, that it may not.


If the Black Church continues to actively oppose marriage equality, can it continue to claim “All are welcome in God’s house” as church banners often proclaim. These banners are deceptive, because there is “fine print” that’s not even written on the banner, but part of the practice. The hidden print reads, “welcome includes adulterer, ex-convict, drug user/abuser, prostitute, thief, murderer, and all other children of God EXCEPT for gays and lesbians!”


Who could imagine that when the Apostle Paul, in Romans, asks the question, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ,” it could be the Church, and certainly the Black Church, given the history of our own oppression in this country, to be the institution separating some from the love of Christ. But that is often the state of things today.


In the Black Church it seems that one can be almost anything and accepted, as long as you are not an avowed homosexual. In 2006, after serving a Baptist congregation for more than 15-years, I resigned and came out. After I spoke truth to the congregation, a well-respected deacon approached me and said, “Pastor, I always knew you were gay, but I am mad as hell you told us!” Gay pastor seeks wholeness Since that time I was completely cut-off from that congregation.


I acknowledge that the Black church is not a monolithic institution and there are several Black Churches who are working hard to address oppression as it relates to its LGBT population. But a majority of African American church leaders are not willing to extend the liberties of civil rights to their LGBT congregants. Those same brothers and sisters that faithfully come to church, support it with their tithes and offering each week, serve the congregation’s committees and ministries, sing in choirs, teach Sunday school and sit attentively in the pews like others seeking the face of God for themselves.


The Black Church gets in its own way! The very cycle of naming and blaming marginalized people for causing their own misfortunes, discrimination and sense of worthlessness are the same tactics used to justify the mistreatment and institutionalized racism against Black people not so long ago in the United States. The saddest fact of all is that in both cases, the Bible has been the chief weapon used to justify why it is okay to believe that All humankind are NOT created equally and therefore should be limited in their access to fair treatment and respect, both in and outside of the church!

Led by the example of Jesus, the Black Church is called to be a witness and an offering to people of all backgrounds, which must include people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. This is how gay can become the new Black. There can be no real freedom until we are all free.  In order to offer empowerment and wholeness to all the people we serve, the Black Church must understand its position toward sexuality and homosexuality in terms of the ministry of Jesus, who’s Holy Spirit offers us freedom from the social boundaries and stereotypes that limit our experience as human beings.


When we decide that we are committed to the struggle for the freedom and rights of all persons in community, then we will better understand the double oppression of African American gays and lesbians in a racist and heterosexist culture.  By denying and/or condemning the issue of homosexuality in the Black Church, we are failing to minister to a significant portion of our people.


While the spotlight in Maryland may well be on the Black Church, and as Black America stands at the precipice, given the ills that plague our community, may we add to the litany of our concerns our prophetic claims as the Black Church and community for the next generation of LGBT people that are growing among us?