Extrapolation

Extrapolation 

© Melina Magdalena (2012)

Dear C,

I am writing to you about the effects of your behaviour on my Beloved. I hope to appeal to your intelligence – even if in doing so, I shake your faith. Forgive me for saying so, but it would seem to me that your faith could use some shaking up – why else have you come to be part of the congregation that has welcomed you?

I have never heard her utter such a howl of anguish and defeat. “It’s not safe anymore. I’m not safe there. I can’t be who I am!” This was as she hung up on your timid homophobic tirade.

“I’m a sinner too,” you told her, implying that your sin is equal to hers, but meaning that you are unable to shift a fraction closer to accepting that she has as much a right as you do,  to be part of the church you both attend; that as a member of the same congregation, she deserves your respect and consideration; and that as a volunteer who has been working with the young people of the congregation for more than three years, you can be sure she’s got their best interests at heart.

She tells me that the congregation accepts everyone, pretty well unconditionally. As well as refugees and Australians of every colour and class, it’s a congregation that embraces murderers, paedophiles, rapists, wife-beaters, people who have never been paid for a day of work in their lives, druggies and parents whose children have been removed for their own safety.

Do you count yourself as one of those sinners? Are you hiding something of such grand, evil and criminal proportions? Doesn't it make your skin crawl, to think that you share a proverbial pew with such persons? Did you think that being a Christian is the same as being a nice person? Believe me, it doesn’t work that way. Here’s another eye-opener – believe it or not, some nice people are not Christians at all. I’m one of them.

Faced with your hatred of her, and her fear that the congregation is unwilling to face up to and deal with the issue, My Beloved feels that so-called acceptance equates to an uneasy tolerance, bordering on censorship. Your hatred is due to the fact that her partner (me) is another woman. And what of so-called Christian Love?

Fancy telling her that it was inappropriate to ask a young person from the Sunday School to read out that particular prayer at the Intergenerational Service? It was a prayer that said worshippers were welcome, whether gay or straight. It was a prayer that appeared in the materials provided for Sunday Schools. She didn't make it up! Never mind that in the places those young people came from, people are routinely killed for being homosexual. Is that what you want for My Beloved? Do you think she deserves to die, because she chooses to love another woman? That's not very nice. What’s wrong with you?    

My Beloved grew up in a conservatively Christian family that was probably theologically not too different from yours. She knows where you are coming from. She has been dealing with this crap for almost two decades. Can you even imagine what it feels like, to be betrayed by your own body, to be so frightened of something you discover about yourself, that you bury your feelings deep, and spend every waking moment preoccupied by the urgency of concealing a hateful, dirty, frightening secret?

Letting anyone into that space leaves you open to a rejection so profound, that there is almost nothing you can build around yourself for protection, or to bargain your way back into acceptance by the fold. It took 10 years before My Beloved’s mother was able to accept that her daughter is a lesbian, that it’s OK, and that she is still a child of God.

Your attitude makes my skin crawl. I realize that you believe me capable of forcing you to have sex with me. You think I’m a rapist. You think My Beloved is a rapist who wants all the young people in the Sunday School to be homosexual. How ridiculous!

Your belief that lesbians are sexually attracted to all women is mistaken. It’s not true! Do you also believe that as a heterosexual woman you could fall in love with any and every man? Would you consent to marry any man that was chosen for you by some authority figure; be it pastor, grandfather, guru? Is that fair?

The Bible promotes arranged marriage. Many non-Christians around the world today still believe that arranged marriages are the way to go. No more than killing homosexuals, is arranged marriage the way we do things in Australia, whatever our belief system.

When My Beloved and I got married, we didn’t have the approval of the Australian Government. We didn’t do so with the approval of any church or synagogue (I’m Jewish, by the way). Our marriage ceremony was profoundly meaningful and moving. We performed the ceremony publically, in front of a large gathering of friends and family. Since that time, we have made our home together; we have striven to uphold the promises we made to one another, and we have had a child together. We live quite ordinary lives, with a mortgage, a cat, a garden and we work for a living. We hope to get some chooks during the next school holidays. We keep bees.

We didn’t have to get married – we chose to marry each other. So what do you make of that? Are we perverts? Are we dangerous? Are we a threat to the structure of society?

Just what do you think of our child? Should he be ashamed of his family? Should he hide the fact that he has two loving parents? Should he come to church each Sunday and expect that his Amma is denigrated and made miserable because she loves me? Should he in turn, learn to hate his mothers? Should he be made to listen to homophobic comments, so-called jokes, and other forms of cruelty that attack his identity and make him feel invalidated? Or maybe he just shouldn’t expect to find a welcome at the church you go to? Maybe he can’t be a Christian, like you?

I am putting words to your hypocrisy. You are probably so flabbergasted by the thought of lesbians having children together that the effect of your attitude on our son has never crossed your mind. You are far from kind and so close to cruel; definitely not nice.

And don’t you think we thought long and hard about all of this before we embarked on the journey of conceiving and bearing this child? What kind of world do you think we want for him?   

You may style yourself a sinner, but My Beloved gains nothing from such confession. She is not in the same league with you. The internal and external battles she has fought and overcome in order to stand where she stands today, as a married, Christian lesbian mother, are victories that you do not understand. You don’t even want to go there. Isn’t that just a bit pathetic? Do you have a backbone? Do you have a brain?

If God wants anything for you, it is that you be free; that you treat all of God’s creation with respect and lovingkindness.

There are people for whom the idea of lovingly touching a human being of the same sex is horrible. These people are full of fear and hatred. Their feelings are perverted – we call these people homophobic. It is possible to move beyond homophobia to a place where you don’t need to be a lesbian in order to accept that some other people are lesbians; that some other people are gay; that some other people are bisexual; that some other people are transgender; that some people are asexual; that some people are intersex.

There is a place that you could move to, where you no longer feel so threatened by people who in one single aspect of their being; their sexuality, are not the same as you. But no one expects you to change your views without a lot of effort and willpower. And we all know how very frightened you must be feeling. It’s not nice to feel that way.

The Bible condones a whole lot of things and it condemns a whole lot of things. To accept The Bible in its entirety as the Literal Word of The One True God is to accept a document that encompasses humanity, with all of its foibles, mistakes and crimes, as well as its breath-taking capabilities and beauty. God does not require you to make sense of every little word – only an insane person could possibly make sense of every word of The Bible, because inherent in The Bible, are as many contradictions, changes of mind and mood, and expression of character, as are possible amidst human variety. 

You really need to get past the arrogant idea that you comprehend The Bible as the Literal Word Of The One True God, because you can’t. You just accept what other people have told you to accept. You are stubbornly blind to so many of its other aspects and perspectives.

Not so long ago, in Australia, homosexuality was a crime punishable by law. That is no longer the case. You can say to me that Australian Law has nothing to do with God. Let me ask you this though – what other behaviours that are condoned in The Bible, are now considered to be unacceptable or even criminal acts? It’s an easy question – trawl facebook for a few moments and you will find memes that supply you with multiple examples, such as polygamy, slavery, incest and rape. You tell me that because homosexuality is condemned in The Bible, it can never become acceptable for a Christian to be homosexual. Is it acceptable for a Christian to be a rapist? A slave-owner? What hurts more? And who made YOU the judge?  

As a Jew, I can confidently tell you that Jews don’t follow the Old Testament commandments anymore. We do not sacrifice animals and birds and fruits of our fields. There are many things about Jewish lives that fail to follow the Literal Word of The One True God. This is fact not only for such radical Jewish Lesbian Feminists as MYSELF, but also for Jews who consider their practices to be orthodox. In saying this, I am deliberately interfering with the possibility that you will think I have no credibility in picking holes in your faith and belief system. Your values and your lived theology suck. You need to do some work on them.

The fact that My Beloved defends your right to express your views and not be shut down for your homophobic views proves her commitment to justice, which is one of the pillars of her faith.

Oh – do I sound angry? Yes, it’s actually not Unchristian to get angry any more than it is typically ethnically Jewish of me to express myself in this histrionic, blunt way. It’s just me. And yes I am angry, Connie.  You are not being very nice, and whether you realise it or not, you are also threatening other people in the congregation that has welcomed you. I do not know you, but you have hurt My Beloved deeply, made her feel vulnerable and displaced in a way that she really doesn’t deserve. Did I mention that I love the woman?

Kind regards,
Melina Magdalena