What I Blurted out at Wild Goose

This is the third in a series of posts about the Wild Goose Festival. Part One highlights the “good stuff” I experienced at this progressive Christian Festival held at a campsite in the hills outside of Durham, NC. Part Two reveals the anger I felt as I entered the weekend, not anger at Wild Goose or the organizers, but a deeper pain arising from duplicity and a lack of integrity by many folks within the progressive church. People have left thoughtful, insightful, and moving comments that I encourage you to read.

Perhaps the logical next post on the festival would be a critique of the Goose, the lineup, and particularly how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues and people were discussed. Since most of the people involved in the critique are friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, who I can approach directly, I have already begun to approach them individually to share directly with them any concerns, questions, or suggestions I have, and to start or continue a dialogue between now and the next Goose.

My friend, Anarchist Reverend, has written a clear, thoughtful, and what I view as an accurate critique of the Goose. He includes a list of specific suggestions to consider to make the festival more welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ folks. Check out his post.

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For me, I gave birth to some inwardly growing thoughts that I articulated at Wild Goose. Of course I worried that I was just going to lay an egg as I ruminated over these thoughts and tried to organize them in my head and my mouth leading up to my one hour presentation. In this post I want to lay out what I said or at least tried to say during my Saturday afternoon presentation at the Storytelling Tent. This will be a LONG post but not exhaustive, so if you attended, and remember something else I said that I don’t include, please feel free to add it in the comments section.

I determined that even with all the anger and pain I felt (see previous post) I wanted to present fun and engaging excerpts from my one-person plays. I performed a scene from Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House and a scene from my new play, I Can See Sarah Palin from my Window!, a comedy about cancer, misogyny, and hospitality.

The centerpiece of the performance portion of my presentation included scenes from Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible, performance scholarship about gender non-conforming characters in the Bible. These are positive portrayals of queer folks in the scripture who transgress and transcend gender rules in regards to gender presentation and gender roles. They are the most important people in some of the most important stories in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. As I performed the scenes and talked about others I did not have time to perform in full, I provided exegetical support for my views and did Biblical magic tricks of sorts taking well-known stories and revealing queer folks hidden in them. People responded afterwards, “I never saw that before.”

And indeed one of the purposes of the work is to raise visibility for people oppressed by society and the church. In so doing I speak about being an ally to transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, gender non-conforming individuals. I mentioned November 20th, the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the violence regularly perpetuated against trans* folks, particularly female identified/presenting people of color.

I talked about justice within the LGBTQ rainbow collective and how shocked I was to see within our communities people get treated differently based on what they look like, what they have, what they do not have, their race, gender, gender identity, gender presentation, age, and even their orientation with the oppression and dismissal of bisexuals by many gays and lesbians.

And then…I had 10 minutes that I reserved to speak freely, out of character, as myself, without dramatic scenes to scaffold me. Although I was a performer and not a speaker at the Goose, I had something to say directly to the audience about social justice for LGBTQ people and the church.

The main thing I explained for the audience is why LGBTQ rights, full inclusion, and equality represent a uniquely special social justice issue for the Christian church in the USA today. Below I outline three reasons:

1. In Christian communities and institutions we have a responsibility to be informed and act regarding a variety of social justice issues. Economic justice, prison reform, capital punishment, immigration rights, environmental concerns, racial justice, etc. (I will talk about the special nature of justice for women in the church below.) BUT Believers, church leaders, and Christian institutions are RESPONSIBLE for much of the legal, social, and religious oppression of LGBTQ folks in the US today.

Churches and Christians, acting as agents of Christ, using religious language, wielding the Bible as a weapon have strategized, lobbied, funded, articulated, and consistently aggressively practiced the oppression of LGBTQ people. “We” as members of Christian churches and institutions in the US are responsible for this issue and the people oppressed in a way that is quite different from the shared responsibility we have on the social justice issues I have listed above. The oppression of women in most churches, male privilege in the pulpit, the invalidation of rights and slander of women in society perpetuated by the church and anti-women, patriarchal theology serves as another injustice that the church has taken a direct role in creating and supporting.

Since “WE” are directly responsible for much of this oppression, WE are required to provide a clear, vocal, assertive, and sustained commitment to justice regarding LGBTQ people and gender equality.

2. While the “gay issue” is being discussed and LGBTQ issues are included as agenda items, we queer folk are in the room and have been for a long time. We are in community with the straight, gender-normative church majority. We are sisters, brothers, and others sitting in the pews and doing ministry and justice work. Looking at demographics most people acknowledge that women represent more than half of most congregations and denominations. (As much as 60% and more in some places, although the percentage of women in ministry is far less than men in these same churches.) In regards to LGBTQ folks we may be the largest minority population in the white Evangelical and the emerging church movement.

In other words–“We are the Other among You.” And while it is essential to respond to needs and concerns of people around the world and in our neighborhood, we have a special responsibility towards family members within our homes. We are not a distant other. We are your sisters, cousins, pastors, wives, children, students, friends in the fellowship of the saints. LGBTQ folks are the spiritual family members in need among us, and to say “I Love You” while remaining inactive and unresponsive to the needs of LGBTQ not only undermines our communion, it questions our very claim to be Christian.

3. I need to be free to serve. (and this a point I made during Jay Bakker’s discussion three hours after my own presentation.) As a gay man, I am liberated in my mind, my theology, and my relationship with my delightful partner, Glen Retief. BUT since this LGBTQ issue remains and has not been seriously addressed by most people in the Evangelical church and the Emerging church movement, since it is still AN ISSUE among many Christians, I am not FREE to plunge my creative, intellectual, soul energy into other social justice issues.

Many LGBTQ people live distracted by the oppressions we face. We live encumbered as we look out for each other. In most places we are not protected on our jobs, in our housing, and elsewhere. We live in committed relationships as “legal strangers,” and within the church most often as second-class citizens. We care about many social justice issues. We are engaged in educating ourselves and contributing to the work of racial justice, economic justice, the environment, and much more at home and abroad, but we are not yet able to act freely because we have to explain and justify our very existence to the people with whom we do justice work. Denying us an equal place, just like denying women an equal place, churches have impoverished themselves. LGBTQ folks will continue to do the work. We will continue “to have church” even if it means leaving the places that are not willing to affirm us. But many of us long to see the resources, time, energy, and people addressing LGBTQ issues freed up so that we can move forward.

Will we ever be completely free or equal? From looking at racial inequality and the oppression of women in the USA, we understand that there will always be on-going justice work. We know that we are a population with an intersection of oppressions and privileges that we need to address. We need a long-term commitment to justice for all. For LGBTQ issues this means that Christians committed to social justice need to state their support, educate themselves, and include LGBTQ justice on the mission statement and risk offending anti-LGBTQ forces. They need to move beyond good intentions to informed action. They need to listen to the stories of LGBTQ within their own groups and take them seriously.

It means that the people who privately support LGBTQ equality and inclusion need to come out and state their support publicly, speak openly as allies, and give the world and the church notice that this issue is settled–“We believe in justice for all and will no longer enable people to remain stuck on this issue.”

October 11 is National Coming Out Day. How about everyone in every church and Christian institution who believes that queer, transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay people should be treated as equals and fully included, publicly announce their support and commitment to justice. Every emerging church leader, every pastor, Christian singer and worship leader, Christian college professor, every Sunday School teacher, and executive director of Christian organizations, every speaker and author–everyone. And in so doing create a crisis for the publishing houses, the Christian conference organizers, the Protestant church in the United States and beyond. Perhaps some speakers will be uninvited. Book contracts will be lost. Ministers will be asked to step down. Justice work can be costly. Folks like Jay Bakker know this, and after losing so much because of his commitment to justice for LGBTQ people, he now fellowships in some of the suffering we have endured for decades by our brothers and sisters in the church.

As I stated yesterday in my blog, I have known fear that has kept me in the closet, kept me silent, kept me dishonest. But I have also discovered the power of coming out, of being clear in one’s conscious, of living with integrity and authenticity.

I appeal to you as friends. Greater love has no one than this that one lay down one’s life for a friend.

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What I Carried into Wild Goose

Yesterday I wrote about the wonderful experiences I had at Wild Goose–the good stuff. It was so good in so many ways, but I arrived troubled and even in the midst of all the “good stuff” I wrestled with difficult feelings during the Festival.

In the four months of preparation leading up to the Wild Goose Festival I mostly felt anger. Inside me I carried a tightly wound rubbery ball of emotions–anger, bitterness, cynicism. These feelings lived with me as presently as our two cats on bad days, Wally and Emma, demanding our attention and reminding us of their existence, shedding their fur on the furniture and vomiting up the dinner after adamantly pestering Glen and me to feed them. I could not shake off the strong feelings that nudged and clawed at me.

The Wild Goose Festival and the staff organizing the event did not provoke these feelings and the daily nagging I felt. In fact, I was thrilled to have been invited well over a year before the event took place. I looked forward to seeing friends and to presenting in front of lots of people who did not yet know my work. Still it was the preparation for this event that stirred up the strong feelings.

Growing in me was a quiet steady rage towards public Christian leaders and how they have dealt with “the gay issue.” I felt deeply troubled by how they had responded to the oppression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people (LGBTQ.)

Now I am not talking about the outright homophobes who strategize and lobby against, picket, and shun LGBTQ people and our supporters. I am not talking about the people who promote or provide treatments or ministries designed to annihilate our orientation or gender identity/expression. No doubt I have strong feelings about the actions of these people, their relentless slander towards LGBTQ people and their commitment to treat us less than human. But these were not the people who inspired the mess of emotions that caused my throat to constrict when I began to talk about their actions and my neck and upper back to tense up when I read stories on-line.

It was NOT the outright opponent to LGBTQ inclusion and rights who was getting under my skin. Rather it was my own friends, the people who told me they were on “my team” who provoked me. These are the people–pastors of churches, theologians, public speakers, Christian leaders, the new movers and shakers of the emerging church, who privately assured me that they have no trouble with LGBTQ people. They are privately on-board with marriage equality and LGBTQ rights. But publicly their stance is not nearly as clear and firm. Publicly they communicate that they are not yet sure, they are still working it out, or “it’s really not my issue.” Some perform a position of being still confused about the issue. Some may genuinely be confused and not 100% on-board. And along with them are many more like them who I do know not personally not but I suspect hold back on their public support of LGBTQ people. As my friend Brian Gerald Murphy said to me, “For some of these people it’s that they’ve never made thinking about LGBT concerns a priority, if they did, they would quickly realize it’s OK to be gay (because they are smart and rational.)”

Coming from a Conservative Evangelical tradition, I do understand the dilemma these friends of mine and leaders like them face. These folks work in a religious political system that will punish them, shun them, remove them, deny financial support, dissolve their book contracts, and drive them into the wilderness if they pronounce any clear positive support for full equality and inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church and society. They work in a highly charged world that strictly monitors dissent.

As I have raised questions, they and their supporters offer explanations for the incongruity between private and public stances regarding LGBTQ issues. They explain that the cost is too high. They explain that they are getting into places that I, as a gay man, could not get into. They explain that in their own way they are moving the conversation along. They say they are waiting for the ideal moment to reveal their support. They say they are working within the system to reform it. They say that the opportunity to address other social justice issues will be compromised if they come out in support of LGBTQ people. They say they are building bridges. They say, “I really wish I could do more.”

And in some ways they may be right. They move in and out of a highly charged world where they feel compelled to be strategic–wise as serpents and gentle as doves. The group Sojourners, a sponsor of the Wild Goose Festival, has employed such a strategy for over 30 years. I can see how it may have made sense then and even five years ago.

But times are changing quickly. Public opinion towards LGBTQ people and issues have shifted dramatically, and the new generation coming up are vastly different from their parents on this issue. Also, the Church has had the opportunity to hear and see many many LGBTQ Christians living their lives openly, and serving powerfully. We have come out. We have engaged with our pastors and friends in person and on Facebook. They have witnessed the undeniable fruits of the Spirit in our lives, and they better understand the horrible consequences of homophobia, transphobia, and sexism as a result of our testimonies. Some outright deny us the right to exist freely in the world and Church, but the strident homophobic voices are quickly becoming the extreme and decidedly on the wrong side of history.

My anger grew and expanded as the time approached for Wild Goose. I experienced feelings of injustice springing up between Christian leaders and me–the ones who privately believe one thing (or say they do) yet publicly hide this belief. And in my anger I think I may have recognized something in their actions, something long familiar to me.

As a gay man I have known fear. It ruled me, paralyzed me, kept me inauthentic and self-hating for years. I felt that I would be more valuable to the world if I presented as a heterosexual and a gender-normative “masculine” man. I feared the rejection of others, the loss of privilege, the change that would come crashing in on me and the ministry I wanted so badly in the church I loved. So I lived bound and gagged. We called it “The Closet” back then, a miserable soul-sucking place that hungrily lured us to deposit secrets, integrity, and freedom in exchange for acceptance.

In speaking with my partner, Glen Retief, about these feelings welling up in me, choking me as we drove to Wild Goose, I explained, “I feel upset about the lack of integrity that some of these leaders have. How long can they live with this conflict in their integrity?” At last I gasped, “It’s unfair.”

And we arrived, and I felt more angry than when we left home. I felt concerned about my presentation two days later, worried that I would just stand there and rant and call people names and meltdown. Yet I could not deny the feelings. As a Quaker, I have learned to be still, to hold things up to the Light without grasping or dismissing. I recognized that I could not ignore my feelings or judge them. I needed to simply let them be as I entered the grounds, attended the talks, listened to others even as I felt an ache within me and deep distrust. Still I wanted to be clear, not of the anger, but clear and cool in my mind about the issues and most importantly about what I needed to say when it came my time to speak.

{Tomorrow I will post some of what I shared from the stage at Wild Goose, this “thing” that has been growing inside of me.}

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I’ve Been Goosed

goosed–past participle, past tense of goose (Verb)
1. Poke (someone) between the buttocks.
2. Give (something) a boost; invigorate; increase: “goosing up ticket sales”.

This past weekend my partner, Glen Retief, and I attended the Wild Goose Festival not far from Durham NC. We set up our Victorian house-sized tent on-site and camped out as we interacted with friends, met many new ones, and engaged in a variety of conversations around faith, identity, theology, social justice, and the “Church.”

In some ways the time served as a mountain top experience for me, and I left with feelings of euphoria, hopeful anticipation, and contentment. I also carried less positive feelings that arose from discussions around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer issues and concerns. Tomorrow I will post a longer blog entry exploring some of these painful feelings, but first I will share some of the good stuff because overall I found I had a positive experience.

Some Good “stuff”

1. People: Ah, I got to hang with people, some friends old and new, others public figures who currently address issues meaningful to me. We spent quality time together talking, comparing notes, sharing our lives, arguing, challenging each other’s thinking, building community. That does not happen often when I attend other conferences or present at universities. The relaxed atmosphere, the time to hang out, the beer tent (which unlike the UK Greenbelt festival was nearly empty most times except during the wildly popular Beer & Hymn Sing,) the campsite, the various booths, and the cafe allowed us space to connect on deeper levels than what happens at many gatherings.

Some of the folks with whom I connected include the Anarchist Reverend, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Brian Murphy, Matthew Beams, Paula from PSR, Walter and June Wink, Vicki & Leah, Phyllis and Sam Tickle, Jay Bakker, Seth from Denver (we talked Watercourse Restaurant, gender, and stinging nettles,) Hugh Hollowell, Bernie Newton, Kirsti Reeve, Stephen Dotson, Chad Holtz, L.Callid Keefe Perry
David Lamotte,Tiffi Nikole, Pete Rollins, Andrew Marin, Ryan Hines, Kristin Rawls, Matt Ward, Justin Lee & the folks at GCN, Noah Nielsen, Ted Swartz & Co., Gareth Higgins, and so many more.

2. Glen:

(not sure why WordPress is turning Glen onto his side.)

After 13 days driving from PA to OH to KY to TN to GA to FL and finally to NC one, might assume my partner and I would grow homicidal toward each other or at least fed up by the time we reached Wild Goose. Wonderfully this was not the case. We travel well together and after so many excellent conversations, meals (Flacos with Jerrica in Gainesville YUM!) experiences (floating for three hours down the Ichetucknee River!) and over 2500 miles in a car, we arrived at Wild Goose with tenderness and closeness towards each other. I felt pleased to have Glen immersed into a Christian world that is both familiar to me and at times downright scary. His experiences as a white South African non-Evangelical liberated queer are distinctly different from my own, so he entered Wild Goose with a dispassionate curiosity that I found refreshing.

At Wild Goose I vented to Glen about LGBTQ issues, mulled over essential questions, received feedback before and after our presentations, and supported each other. I also felt surprisingly comfortable with public displays of affection between us. I come from a funny Italian-American family that has always been warm but rarely physically affectionate. Perhaps because of that and years of repressing my own desires, I often feel constrained to express physical tenderness in public with Glen. At Wild Goose I felt surprised at the comfort and ease I had in holding Glen’s hand, leaning up against him, giving him a peck on the lips, putting my arm around him and such while moving in and out of the crowd. I sensed that the majority of people present had no issue with two men or two women expressing physical affection with each other in that space. The experience at Wild Goose was much enhanced for me by the presence of Glen. You can read Glen’s blog post about his time.

3. The weather: No one can take credit for this of course (although I would not be surprised to learn that Gareth Higgins prayed to several deities for clear skies) but the weather held out for us. Dry, clear, and not overly warm.

4. Venue: Other than the music from the Main Stage leaking into the Storytelling Tent, I have no complaints about the venue where I performed on Saturday at 5:00 PM. The Wild Goose staff set things up to my specifications, the space was adequate for the crowd that gathered, the sound system was excellent, and the stage was ample. I felt thrilled to have an hour to present whatever I wanted however I wanted.

In a later blog post I will write specifically the message I had to say from the stage. I did a “clips” show with excerpts from various plays. I performed the opening scene from Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, the Sodom monologue from I Can See Sarah Palin from my Window!, and from Transfigurations, my play about transgender and gender non-conforming Bible characters, I performed the scene about Joseph (presented through the perspective of Esau,) some new content about the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8, and at the request of Nadia Bolz-Weber, I shared about “the man with the pitcher of water.” After some specific remarks about LGBTQ rights/inclusion/justice, I took one question, and then ended with “The Identity Monologue.” (Check out Ryan Hine’s blog mentioning my performance and a video clip)

5. Other: I enjoyed most of the music I heard (although I did not sit down to listen to a single performance, just from a distance. The food was delicious particularly those yummy ice pops and the Indian food. The beer was plentiful (they always run out at Greenbelt.) The booths were plentiful and for me shared interesting and important information. I regularly visited my buddies at the Gay Christian Network (GCN) booth, and I took away resources from two organizations exhibiting. (I am a minimalist in spite of living in a large tent.)

– CBE International “is the largest evangelical organization providing biblical resources on the shared authority and service of men and women.” CBE focuses on gender equality, something that surprisingly I heard little about at Wild Goose.
– Blood: Water Mission a “grassroots organization that empowers communities to work together against HIV/AIDS ad water crises in Africa.

As I stated above I a mostly positive experience at Wild Goose. What left me feeling sad, angry, confused? I will blog about that tomorrow, and I may talk about it on the Queer and Queerer Podcast which I will record with Zack Ford tonight.

What about you? Were you Goosed too? I would love to hear about your experiences at Wild Goose.

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