I'll start this entry by saying that I don't know exactly where I am going with it - it hasn't been thought through like my other entries but by the time I finish I hope that I understand a reaction I had a couple of weeks ago and maybe both of us can learn from it?
It was my birthday and to celebrate my partner invited four of our friends to dinner at Sampaio - my favorite Brazilian restaurant in Austin. We all know each other, some better than others, so I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing, fun conversation. We are all gay, fairly liberal politically, literate, educated, well-read and skilled conversationalists - what could go wrong?
Religion. Maybe that's the biggest source of difference for us and in hindsight perhaps something we should have avoided. It started innocently enough; we were talking about relationships - the six of us constituted two single guys and two couples. One of the single guys, let's call him Jay, said that he made a pact with a single straight female friend of his that they would both be in a relationship before the end of the year. He is still single and had just attended her wedding earlier that afternoon. He is a gifted story teller (and published author) so he made the story very entertaining and funny.
I fancy myself somewhat of a story teller too so I told the true story of a similar pact made twenty years ago. I made the pact/commitment with a single straight female friend on New Year's Eve - before the end of 1987 we would each have a husband or at least a serious boyfriend. She got engaged that year to a guy she met at church - he was in the choir, Knights of Columbus, etc. etc. a good Catholic boy with one small problem - he was GAY - of course she did not see it and I still don't know if he knew when they first started dating - fortunately someone figured it out before the ceremony. I got into a relationship that year too - my boyfriend was GAY of course but turned out to have a small drug problem - make that big drug problem - so we ended the year single again but decided that we shouldn't make any more New Year's resolutions! But I digress...
When I told the story about her fiance, one of my friends (let's use Scott for his fake name) who is a recovering Catholic said, "Who ever heard of a GAY Knights of Columbus member?" Everyone but me and Terry (fake name) laughed. Terry didn't laugh because he was not only a member but had been the president, head knight or whatever of KoC in his church.
Terry calmly explained the purpose and reason for existence of Knights and all the good service things they did etc. etc. It was only a little awkward and I don't remember how we segued into some serious questioning of Terry about his Catholicism. Of the six of us three are still involved in church but none of us are in the denomination of our parents except Terry. He was pressed a little about his ability to attend a church that is so openly and blatantly hetero sexist and homophobic in our opinion. He did a good job of calmly answering questions until he said that because he is not in a relationship he has no problems fully participating in his parish church life BUT if he were to get into a sexual relationship he would stop taking communion because he would be breaking a "rule" of the church and as a member he was committed to following the rules.
Most of us were speechless - here is a highly educated (Ph.D.), gay man in the company of five other gay men saying that gay sex is an acceptable reason for being barred from the sacraments of church? That the church as a physical manifestation of God is right when it says that a person expressing his/her God-given sexuality is bad, wrong, unclean, etc. etc.? I've read about internalized self-hatred but I never saw it and frankly did not expect to see it in someone so smart and so educated.
I became very quiet because I did not want my birthday dinner to become some kind of huge fight about Catholicism, homophobia, self-hatred, etc. but I really wanted to free Terry of this oppressive way of thinking. While I was thinking of what to say the conversation moved on. There was a different "atmosphere" at the table, it felt like we had to be more careful and reflective instead of just talking freely like before. The evening ended soon enough and of course there have been multiple follow-up conversations among subgroups of the dinner always excluding Terry from the conversation.
So if you've read this far what do you think? We all care for Terry and we all think that he would be happier if he changed his way of thinking BUT is it really any of our business?
It was my birthday and to celebrate my partner invited four of our friends to dinner at Sampaio - my favorite Brazilian restaurant in Austin. We all know each other, some better than others, so I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing, fun conversation. We are all gay, fairly liberal politically, literate, educated, well-read and skilled conversationalists - what could go wrong?
Religion. Maybe that's the biggest source of difference for us and in hindsight perhaps something we should have avoided. It started innocently enough; we were talking about relationships - the six of us constituted two single guys and two couples. One of the single guys, let's call him Jay, said that he made a pact with a single straight female friend of his that they would both be in a relationship before the end of the year. He is still single and had just attended her wedding earlier that afternoon. He is a gifted story teller (and published author) so he made the story very entertaining and funny.
I fancy myself somewhat of a story teller too so I told the true story of a similar pact made twenty years ago. I made the pact/commitment with a single straight female friend on New Year's Eve - before the end of 1987 we would each have a husband or at least a serious boyfriend. She got engaged that year to a guy she met at church - he was in the choir, Knights of Columbus, etc. etc. a good Catholic boy with one small problem - he was GAY - of course she did not see it and I still don't know if he knew when they first started dating - fortunately someone figured it out before the ceremony. I got into a relationship that year too - my boyfriend was GAY of course but turned out to have a small drug problem - make that big drug problem - so we ended the year single again but decided that we shouldn't make any more New Year's resolutions! But I digress...
When I told the story about her fiance, one of my friends (let's use Scott for his fake name) who is a recovering Catholic said, "Who ever heard of a GAY Knights of Columbus member?" Everyone but me and Terry (fake name) laughed. Terry didn't laugh because he was not only a member but had been the president, head knight or whatever of KoC in his church.
Terry calmly explained the purpose and reason for existence of Knights and all the good service things they did etc. etc. It was only a little awkward and I don't remember how we segued into some serious questioning of Terry about his Catholicism. Of the six of us three are still involved in church but none of us are in the denomination of our parents except Terry. He was pressed a little about his ability to attend a church that is so openly and blatantly hetero sexist and homophobic in our opinion. He did a good job of calmly answering questions until he said that because he is not in a relationship he has no problems fully participating in his parish church life BUT if he were to get into a sexual relationship he would stop taking communion because he would be breaking a "rule" of the church and as a member he was committed to following the rules.
Most of us were speechless - here is a highly educated (Ph.D.), gay man in the company of five other gay men saying that gay sex is an acceptable reason for being barred from the sacraments of church? That the church as a physical manifestation of God is right when it says that a person expressing his/her God-given sexuality is bad, wrong, unclean, etc. etc.? I've read about internalized self-hatred but I never saw it and frankly did not expect to see it in someone so smart and so educated.
I became very quiet because I did not want my birthday dinner to become some kind of huge fight about Catholicism, homophobia, self-hatred, etc. but I really wanted to free Terry of this oppressive way of thinking. While I was thinking of what to say the conversation moved on. There was a different "atmosphere" at the table, it felt like we had to be more careful and reflective instead of just talking freely like before. The evening ended soon enough and of course there have been multiple follow-up conversations among subgroups of the dinner always excluding Terry from the conversation.
So if you've read this far what do you think? We all care for Terry and we all think that he would be happier if he changed his way of thinking BUT is it really any of our business?
Comments