"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
I just looked up the definition of hypocrisy in an online dictionary. It says that hypocrisy is "a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess." In Jesus' reprimand of the scribes and Pharisees he is telling them that they have a religious or moral appearance, but that they do not actually possess in their behaviors or hearts what they appear to be on the outside.
We have to be really careful with our finger pointing as we read this Gospel narrative. We can definitely see the hypocrisy of the religious right in their behavior towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. Yesterday we heard Jesus accuse the religious leaders of the day saying: "You cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matt 23:15). I think this can easily apply to the missionaries of hate that transported homophobia to the country of Uganda, to the point where they would produce a bill that if passed will mean that open LGBT people could face life in prison or the death penalty by hanging. It is clear to me at least, that the Evangelicals who have spread so much prejudice here in the United States, seeing that the equal rights of LGBT people are advancing have taken their message of hate to other countries. Their converts are far worse than anything they have produced here in the United States, as frighteningly damaging as Lou Engle is.
However, we too in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered communities need to be very careful to keep watch at the doors of our own hearts and minds. It is not uncommon to find one kind of prejudice or another within and among LGBT people, as surprising as that might seem. About nine years ago I refused to date a man after he announced to me that he was prejudiced against African Americans. My reason? I cannot date someone and/or form a relationship with someone who knows full well what we LGBT people go through, and feel that it is okay to deny the basic human rights of other people, based on their skin color or place of national origin. Finding individuals with some kind of prejudice in the LGBT community is not as scarce as we might think.
One of the greatest influences with in the LGBT Community is the Rev. Irene Monroe. Irene Monroe a black, lesbian and an ordained minister challenges the comfortable status quo for all who tend to feel justified in their accomplishments. Sometimes, even for myself it is very painful for me to read her material and not experience the Holy Spirit convicting my own heart. Yet, what she often writes is quite correct. For example in a recent article of hers entitled: "A Pride Event Not to Be Proud Of" Rev. Monroe writes:
Pride is about the varied expressions of the life, gifts, and talents of the entire (LGBTQ) community. But the divisions in our community during Pride Month also show us something troubling and broken within ourselves.
So, as we hit the streets all month going to various celebrations, let’s ask who’s missing from these Pride festivities and why?
For example, Black Pride dances to a different beat.
Sunday gospel brunches, Saturday night poetry slams, Friday evening fashion shows, bid whist tournaments, house parties, the smells of soul food and Caribbean cuisines, and the beautiful display of African art and clothing — those are just a few of the cultural markers that make Black Pride distinctly different.
Cultural acceptance was just one of a few things LGBTQs of African descent did not experience from larger Pride events. In these predominately white events, many African American LGBTQ revelers experienced social exclusion and political invisibility. From decades of Pride events where many LGBTQ people of African decent tried to be included and weren’t, Black Gay Pride was born.
Even as the larger LGBTQ community has begun to touch the fringes of mainstream society in the four decades since Stonewall, communities of color — straight and gay — have not come close. Quite the reverse. For example, the HIV/AIDs health issue that was once an entire LGBTQ community problem is now predominately a black and Latino one.
For another example, the white LGBTQ ghettos have developed and thrived safely in neighborhoods throughout the country. But with the income disparity between black and white LGBTQ communities, most LGBTQ people of African descent live in their black neighborhoods. And with homophobia such as it is in the black community, we cannot carve out a black queer ghetto within our existing neighborhoods and realistically expect to be safe.
The themes and focus of Black Pride events are different from the larger Pride events. Black Pride focuses on issues not solely pertaining to its LGBTQ population but rather on social, economic, and health issues impacting the entire black community. For example, where the primary focus and themes in white Prides has been on marriage equality, Black Pride events have had to focus as well on HIV/AIDS, unemployment, gang violence, and LGBTQ youth homelessness, to name a few.
But many Black and Latino LGBTQs argue that the gulf between whites and themselves is also about how the dominant queer community rewrote and continues to control the history of Stonewall. The Stonewall Riot of June 27-29, 1969, in Greenwich Village started on the backs of working-class African-American and Latino queers who patronized that bar. Those brown and black LGBTQ people are not only absent from the photos of that night, but are also bleached from its written history.
Because of the bleaching of the Stonewall Riots, the beginnings of LGBTQ movement post-Stonewall is an appropriation of a black, brown, trans and queer liberation narrative. And it is the deliberate visible absence of these African American, Latino and API LGBTQ people that makes it harder, if not near impossible for LGBTQ communities to build trusted coalitions with white LGBTQ communities.
Views on Pride are mixed — and not just along lines of race, class, and gender identity. For many, Pride represents a bone of contention. Once many thought the celebration was too political and had lost its vision of what it means for people to just have a good time. But others now think of it as a weekend bacchanalia of drugs, alcohol, and unprotected sex, desecrating the memorial of the Stonewall Riots and the chance to make a political statement.
Pride needs not be viewed as either a political statement or a senseless non-stop orgy. Such an either/or approach artificially divides the integral connection between political action and celebratory acts in our fight for our civil rights.
At its core, Pride events are an invitation for community.
They should highlight the multicultural aspect of joy and celebration that symbolizes not only our uniqueness as individuals and communities, but also affirms our varied expressions of LGBTQ life in America.
But as long as LGBTQ communities and cultures of color continue to be absent each June, Pride month is an event to not be proud of.
While it is good to be aware of the hypocrisy that is evident in the religious right, we must also be attentive to the attitudes of hypocrisy with in our own lives and community. As a gay bear who is not as young as I used to be, or thin or hair less, I have heard my share of "why must the gay community include people who look like fat living room rugs?" Yet in my own life I have had to look very carefully into my own heart when I am faced with an individual who makes me uncomfortable, and I find myself making certain judgments upon that person's value in one way or another. There are many individuals within the LGBT Community that are not all that willing to accommodate our transgendered members for one reason or another. I have said on a number of occasions that B and T means Bisexual and Transgendered and not "Broken Tail." I have also been very disappointed to hear LGBT people suggest that what the State of Arizona did with their draconian "Paper's please" law is somehow a good idea.
While the Scripture readings this week talk a lot about dealing with hypocrisy, the Proper prays that we have been taught by God to keep all God's commandments by loving God and one another. We further pray that by the Holy Spirit we will be devoted to God with all our heart and love one another with pure affection. I think those words are very important to us LGBT people in 2010. As we are facing further problems with achieving full equal rights and inclusion in society and the Church, it is ever more imperative that we also face our own prejudices with all honesty and with a desire for the Holy Spirit's grace of conversion. We cannot exactly be calling upon others to address their prejudices if we are not willing to face up to and deal with our own. We cannot ask others to admit their hypocrisy if we do not admit our own. The LGBT Community is one that is full of diversity in many ways. While we have the saying that "Diversity is our Strength" we have yet to realize that as a Community and live it with a sense of authenticity. The Holy Spirit is always more than willing to help us accept what is really amazing about ourselves, such as our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression. The Holy Spirit is also more than able to help us work at those places that are not so right with God, like our prejudices for example.
In our prayers let us ask the Holy Spirit to teach us to be more authentic in our relationship to God, others and ourselves. May we all grow in our acceptance of ourselves and others around us who may not fit into the mold of perfection that we often envision. Let us also be ready and willing to admit that often a failure to accept the diversity of others is an unwillingness to face realities within ourselves that still seems unusual to us. As we grow to accept and love ourselves and God, that love in union with the Holy Spirit should help us to embrace and love others.
O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to your with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 9, Book of Common Prayer, Page 230 and 231).
Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Oppressed, Book of Common Prayer, Page 826).
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