(Queer) Varieties of Religious Experience
Kyle was born in Texas, and has lived in DC for 14 years. He loves his coffee, watches too much tv, and wishes he read more. He blogs on Land of Trolls at landoftrolls.com.
Many things fascinate me, but few things fascinate me as much as religion and spirituality. I am curious about the religious life and rituals of people, their beliefs and their practices. I want to know whether their religion emphasizes spiritual attainment, or if it emphasizes rule keeping and conformity. I want to know how people express the deep longings of their hearts, and whether the religion they practice encourages that expression or tends to squelch it. And I want to know how their LGBT folk fit into the dynamics of their religion.
I grew up in a fundamentalist family. We didn’t just attend church; we were active participants in the life of our local congregation. I even went to a Christian college. I was so deeply engrained with my particular religion that I did not come out until I was in my early 30’s. Nevertheless, even before I accepted being gay, I had already started questioning the tenets of the religion of my youth, and I had already started exploring the beliefs and practices of others. Since coming out, I have continued to explore and search.
I venture to say that it still holds true that most LGBT folks who come from a religious background suffered in that background. Although there are more accepting and welcoming religious environments now than in the past, religions in the United States – not to mention most of the world – still treat LGBT folk with contempt, if not harshness to the point of death. For many, this harshness leads many to abandon religion completely after coming out. And in abandoning religion, they also don’t think about a spiritual life either.
Religion doesn’t necessarily foster spirituality, and spirituality doesn’t necessarily require religion. In fact, spirituality doesn’t require a belief in God. Although I continue to believe in God, I respect those who do not as well as those who simply say they do not know whether God exists or not. For instance, I understand that in its basic form, Buddhism is rigorously agnostic. The existence of God is a non-issue relative to the practices that are supposed to lead to enlightenment.
As for my personal journey, I have experienced a few different spiritual paths since coming out, and I have studied a few others. Yet I have not found a religious home. I don’t think this is because of my sexual orientation. The LGBT community of DC has a wide variety of religious homes/families to choose from: the Quakers, Mintwood Zendo, the DC Radical Faeries, All Souls Church (Unitarian), Al-Fatiha, Bet Mishpachah, Axios, etc., to name just a very, very few (and no slight was intended by any omissions from the list). I love visiting various LGBT and LGBT-friendly religious and spiritual groups, but I have never been able to stay with one for any length of time. I believe it is because my personality is relentlessly heterodox (the only kind of hetero I’m capable of!). I have to be free to roam, mentally and spiritually – it’s my personal spiritual burden. But I have great love, respect, and even envy for those who have a settled religious and spiritual home and family.
I’ve introduced this topic to The New Gay because I remain curious: How do you see religion and/or spirituality in your life? Have you given up on religion entirely? Have you also passed on spirituality as well? Or have you found a way to pursue religion/spirituality as a happy, out LGBT person? What advice, if any, would you pass on to another spiritual seeker?
11 comments:
I describe myself as an Atheist Catholic. I grew up with Catholic traditions, and on Christmas Eve (and at other highly Catholic-y times), I like being part of those traditions. I like the sense of history and rules that pervade the Church, and how the Church has been part of my family's own history for centuries. Just stepping into a cathedral is amazing.
That being said, I don't actually believe in god at all. I treat Catholicism as I treat being German, something kind of in the background which is a part of who I am but not something that actively plays a part in my daily life.
Oh, and its the reason I feel ashamed about everything as well.
You might give the UU's another try. They support and encourage heterodoxy. Are you anywhere near Fairfax? The minister of the UU congregation in Fairfax used to be my minister in Nashville, and she's amazing.
(I'm a former UU -- former only because there's no congregation near me here in Austin -- and I practice Buddhist meditation.)
I am Catholic. Please no jokes or bottom comments. I know it's tempting. Anyways, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, and my diocese was much more relaxed than I found in Central PA or Virginia. I came out to my youth group when I was 17. They were fine with it. They were excited when I started dating.
I went to college in Central PA, and I found the Catholic diocese far more harsh. When I moved to the DC area, my roommate and I would go to the Catholic church south of Pentagon City. We were the only 20 somethings in the room. And after every homily, we felt like we needed Prozac.
I love Catholicism (major exception being the current pope), but some areas interpret it differently, which taints its beauty.
I now feel that I am a 'Dogma' Catholic. I only get excited to go to church when I am home with my family.
Great post!
I am a Queer Witch, for sure. In fact, I've taken active vows to further Queer Spirituality in whatever ways I can, because I believe that Queer people are not just some pretty ornament on the planet - we are actually vital to it and humanity's health.
See an interview with African elder and scholar Malidoma Some about his culture's spiritual beliefs about Queer folks:
http://www.menweb.org/somegay.htm
I would encourage any Queer person to come at spirituality from a couple of angles. One is to be your own priestess. Create your own sacred time (meditation, prayer, yoga, ritual, etc.) and listen to the yearnings of your own heart. What does this tell you about who you are as a spiritual being? It is our birthright to connect to the divine within and without us, so give yourself that permission to open up and experience Mystery in whatever forms come to you.
Secondly, do some research beyond the crap that most religions peddle about us. Try Randy P. Conner's incredible "Blossom of Bone: Reclaiming Connections Between Homoeroticism and the Sacred" (or his book on Queer Creole traditions). Or works by William Roscoe. There's a lot more out there than you might suspect with research that is scholarly, credible and really empowering.
Thirdly, find like-minded/like-spirited folks and allow these conversations, practices, etc., to blossom.
Thanks for writing so eloquently about a topic that informs everything I see and do.
not to get all bill maher on everyone, but i'm just so glad i was raised a heathen. i wasn't baptized, circumcised, made to give testimony, forced through catechism, or otherwise indoctrinated. and having grown up in a town with at least as many draft-dodging hippies as christians, i'm very wary (weary?) of any new-agey takes on "sacred ancient rites".
having said that about hippies, i honestly think that there are things i've learned about reality and perception, and what the hell, the universe, that i probably wouldn't have realized without psychedelic drugs (for the record, this was years ago). even weed actually. carlos casteneda may have been onto something.
I was raised Mormon, and I found the level of control and deception exacted by that church on its membership to be so disgusting as to turn me off to religion for good. I have friends who subscribe to more liberal religious views that insist that's a shame, and that I should give it another shot, but it really doesn't hold any interest to me. I'm happier, now, as a non-religious person, than I ever was as a religious one, so I don't really have any incentive to consider it.
I was raised as an Orthodox Christian, in a family where church was part of life every day of the week. Our church was much more of a community of Eastern European immigrants than anything else, so there was a large aspect that was cultural and social more than religious. I'm also a Catholic school kid, all the way through college, which has resulted in a weird mix of views on certain issues.
I still consider myself Orthodox, and go to church nearly every Sunday. But there are a lot of things about Orthodoxy specifically and religion generally that I absolutely abhor. Misogyny, homophobia, and racism just to name a few. I haven't come out to any of my church friends, many of whom I know would NOT be ok with it.
I've had very stern conversations with myself where I insist I would never want to belong to a religion that would condemn me to hell for loving someone. But I keep going back anyway. I think it's because I'm so connected to the cultural part of the church that it would be hard to let go of entirely, and because I've developed a more personal spirituality (also heavily influenced by social justice - blame the Jesuits).
And I'd echo that it's disappointing to me that I don't meet more church-going gays. I like to have someone to sit with on Sundays.
I pray to the universe and "believe" in it's infinite vastness.
Conventional religion is based on power, hegemony and partriarchy. Religion and it's institutions (papacy, divine right monarchy, war, etc) were invented to amass power and control others.
The difficulty I have had with all the fine religious groups you mention is not their principles but their adherents. We live in a subculture of people who have survived religious abuse and have emerged damaged. It is not transcendent for me to go to a sacred space with those whose motivations aren't spiritual enlightenment but redemption from an oppressive religious past and release from their own resultant self-loathing.
To the anonymous who talked about oppressive religious past. Well put! I find very often people are coming from a place of shame, degradation and the need for redemption (thereby suggesting there's inherent sinfulness going on).
Whatever happened to ecstatic joy, right?
I will go to services with you, Regan.
@Regan - may I recommend visiting an Axios service? A friend of mine is one of the organizers, and he is a wonderful person. I plan to visit them again soon myself.
@Greg - Thanks for your insights. I have the Conner books; they are interesting and informative. My experiences with pagan and creole religions were mixed at best, and I decided they weren't a good fit for me personally.
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