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Cure For Love

Have you noticed something strange lately. Lutherans have gone a little bit nuts. Not since the great predestination controversy of the late nineteenth century that lead to the Lutheran Church of America (LCA) and its rival American Lutheran Church (ALC) have otherwise perfectly normal Germans and Norwegians been showing a very un-Lutheran-like thing called emotions. They have been talking about their feelings. Yes, it appears these stoic people, and I apologize if they consider this defamation, have emotions. Seems that, and this was a total surprise to me, that there are gay people walking around out there and not just the hot kind you get to watch on Skinemax on a Friday night, if your spouse is visiting their parents. Now I know what you are thinking, and I was thinking the same thing. There are people out there enjoying sex? I know, it creeps out every fabric of my Norwegian DNA, but that is not the scandal. It seems that some of them love Jesus, are ministers, and it is tearing the church apart. Now the controversy is not that they are gay. I hate to tell you this. Having spent time in a theology school, I can tell you the only place with more gay people in it than a seminary, is a Cher concert in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.

It seems that some of these people just want to be honest and open about their homosexuality and still be a minister instead of just spending long hours with their “buddies” on fishing trips. All the church wanted to do to is: allow churches with huge openly gay congregations in major cities to hire shepherds who understand and love their people just as they are. Now, you would think that the reaction to this situation, whether you are for it or against it, believe it is a sin or perfectly normal, would be the one I had. Who cares? On the district, synod or conference levels they do all sorts of things that you might not agree with. Here is the neat thing about being a Lutheran, (besides from having stylish dance moves), you can hire who you like as your pastor. Ask the person you want to hire, or just leave a copy of GQ or Guns and Ammo out, and see which one the person picks up. After that, focus on making your church a representation of God’s kingdom here on earth, feed the poor, visit those in prison, keep your people married and not cheating, and all those wacky things that most churches do not do. Case closed. Let’s get a beer. What? There is still controversy?

Maybe we need to take a step back and ask something that might seem really dumb to ask. What is the big deal with homosexuality? What I mean is, of all the things to divide houses of God, Adam playing ring around the rosy with Steve seems pretty far down the list. Adultery and premarital sex are having bigger impacts on the church than John and Jack playing pitch and catch. Just read a few studies on how well “abstinence only” programs are doing. Some good girls are doing some awful bad things to stay virgins for daddy, and going to church does not affect the numbers.

In my high school class we had a gay kid. He never openly said he was gay until many years later, but anyone walking by the closet door could spy in to see the signed picture of Liberace hanging there. It would be almost impossible not to admit that he was not born that way. He spent hours, hours, in the church singing and playing the organ, and represented the ethic of gentleness better than any of my friends. So, the kid has three options according to conservatives. One, burn in hell, but look stylish doing so. Two, spend your life alone. Three, ruin someone else’s life by marrying a straight person. Having spent my life alone, not because I am gay but because most women I meet think they could do better. It is a fate I would not wish on anybody, not even my worst enemy. As for conversion therapy, what is “someone I would not want that for my daughter to marry” for $200, Alex. Much like how you will never see a pastor say, “My church believes that a fertilized egg is a baby, to the point of standing in the way of stem cell research. We cannot bear the thought of millions of babies thawing out every day and thrown into the trash of a fertility clinic. So, my church has thousands of empty wombs of women of child bearing years, and millions of conservative women across the country, that will carry these kids to term and raise them.” You will never see leaders of the rapture right encourage their daughters to date and marry men who have gone through “conversion therapy.” I know several women whose husbands are closeted gays, some non-practicing, and it is a hard life to know that your husband does not desire you. Rationally a person can know there is nothing he or she can do about their spouse’s wiring, but low self-esteem creeps in. At best, it is a loveless, lonely life for an innocent person.

I already know what some of you are saying, “But the Bible says…” I wish it was that simple. I really wish it was. The Bible says a lot of things that we would be horrified about today. The nice thing is, most of them are ignored like a fat chick with a harelip at a Playboy party. Wives are no longer considered property. Good husbands no longer are expected to correct their wife’s foolishness with a rod no bigger than their thumb. Disobedient children are not stoned, not counting the 420 kind. The Bible believed slavery was okay. There is even an entire letter in the New Testament that is devoted to that issue. If one really followed the words of the Bible, homosexuals should be killed. Throw in a bit of genocide for some spice. (But I can hear some saying that is Old Testament. Okay. The early church was pacifist. No shotgun Jesus for them. Since they knew Christ, does not that mean real Christians should not have guns or promote our aggressive military? Not following that?)

I could go on and on for several pages with such examples, but the question still remains: why is the line in the sand drawn at the splinter in someone else’s eye? Homosexuality, a victimless sin if there is one, especially when Jesus never mentions the whole gay thing, but he does mention divorce several times. In fact, the Bible seems kind of transfixed on that, rather than what Curly, Moe, and Larry are doing in the hot tub on Saturday night. Have you noticed there are sure a lot of divorced pastors and parishioners out there? If you go after that little issue, there would be blood in the streets, because 50 percent of marriages end in divorce court, and where you spend Sunday mornings has little effect on that issue. To give you the Cliff Note’s version of the Bible, while Jesus never mentions being gay, he is kind of against divorce, really against it. I know a lot of divorced pastors out there and I do not see a movement to remove them from the pulpit or to get them kicked off the clergy roster.

The documentary Cure For Love follows four “ex-homosexuals” who are deeply Christian around. The blessing and the curse of documentary filmmaking is you never know where the story is going to lead. What you end up with here is a boring documentary with little insight or understanding of just how complicated the issue is. Two of the people involved drop out of the movement. Two others admit that they are not attracted to each other. There is more depth in the “South Park” episode where Butters goes to a camp to not be gay, and all the other campers are killing themselves. Trying to understand human sexuality is like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube with more than 13 million squares. It is a difficult issue and we need to be a lot more humble about it, and try to be gentle with each other.

Verdict: Strike Three