GCN Radio - October 10, 2005
Transcribed by Vombatus

To listen to this episode, visit http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio

[GCN Radio Intro]

JUSTIN: Well, hello! It's Monday, October 10th, and we're here with another edition of GCN Radio. Hi everybody, I'm Justin. Brian is not with us today because he's doing fundraising for the radio station he works for. And that's awesome for the radio station, but it's bad for us, because Brian normally is here to co-host the show with me, and normally he also edits the shows. For those of you who aren't aware of how we set this up, I'm in one part of the country, Brian is in another part of the country, and we record the show long distance every week, and then he edits everything together. Now, I am not an editor, so that means that you're going to have to listen to me sort of live. Live, raw and unedited. And when I screw up, it's just going to have to be goofs in the show, because there's nobody here to edit it out. I apologize in advance for that. Hopefully this will help everyone appreciate the work that Brian does to bring the show to you every week, and if you do have any positive things about the show, I know Brian would love to hear those. So please do send them via e-mail to Brian. His e-mail address is gcnradio@gaychristian.net. So please do take a moment to write to him.

Now, you may have noticed as well that our shows are normally on Friday, and this is Monday. We don't normally do our show on Monday. But the deal is, we couldn't do a show on Friday, because not only was Brian doing fundraising, but I was out of town. So we were both gone and there was just no way it was going to happen. I've actually been out of town for the better part of the last week or so for a couple of different reasons. Most recently I was at a retreat for Evangelicals Concerned--every year they have a preaching festival with Dr. Roy Clements, who comes from the UK to preach several sermons, and I have to tell you, if you've never listened to Dr. Clements preach, it is just absolutely fantastic. He will inspire you and educate you and I find him very engaging and very interesting to listen to. These are not just boring dry sermons. We're actually privileged to have several of his sermons up on the website, and we're going to have the ones from this weekend up on the website soon as well. So make sure you visit that over at http://www.gaychristian.net/audio, and you can listen to some of the sermons that he has preached. They are tremendous and they will be so helpful to you in your spiritual walks. I encourage you to listen to those.

So, yes. What else do we have going on around here? Well, in addition to the Evangelicals Concerned retreat I was just attending, most of you have already heard earlier this week I was in Los Angeles to tape an episode of the Dr. Phil show. If you're not aware, Dr. Phil is one of the highest rated syndicated talk shows in America. And he is doing a show on sexual orientation issues. So I got to be a small part of that, I was not a major part of it, but I got to be a small part of it and sit in the audience and talk a little bit on camera with Dr. Phil about ex-gay ministries. There was a guy there who was representing ex-gay ministries saying it is possible to go from gay to straight, and as any of you who listen to the show should be aware, I do not believe that it is possible to go from gay to straight. There are many people who have tried it and failed, and I don't believe that ex-gay ministries work at all. Brian and I have discussed that in previous shows, so make sure to give those a listen. So, I got to talk a little bit about that and to promote GCN. I don't know how much is going to make it to the final show that gets aired, because of course these shows are edited, and I really can't say much more about the behind the scenes stuff, because when you go on the show, you have to agree not to talk about that sort of thing. But I can basically tell you that the show is about homosexuality, and that my part in it is very small. But I did get to promote GCN so I imagine we'll be getting a fair amount of traffic from that. The show will be airing on October 19th, which is a week from this Wednesday. So, if you watch Dr. Phil, be watching for that.

So yes, what else? We've got a question of the week to talk about--you see, I just don't even know. Without Brian here, I'm completely lost. Question of the week is the next thing on the agenda. Last week we asked the question: What is the most difficult thing about being gay and Christian. So I wanted to let you hear some of the responses. This is a phone in response from Brandon, so let's listen to what Brandon had to say.

BRANDON: Hi kids, this is Brandon, from Springfield, Missouri. I find the most difficult thing about being gay and Christian is seeing the body of Christ suffer. Some of my brothers and sisters in Christ choose to ignore me or just actively reject me. I believe that the body of Christ is meant to be a wonderful mixture of diverse people, and by excluding anyone, it become less vibrant and less alive. We literally have one part of the body saying to another, "You're not needed. You're not a valid part of this body." And because of that, I think that the entire body suffers. So that's the most difficult part for me: seeing the body of Christ missing the potential of what it truly could be.


JUSTIN: Alright Brandon, thank you so much for that response. We also had a number of responses through our website. I regret that I can't read all of them to you, because there were some really great ones, but I'm just going to hit a few of them.

Mark wrote that the most difficult thing that he experiences is, "The risk of the unknown when dealing with other Christians." He says, "I'm very careful who I'm willing to connect to to minimize the possibility of rejection."

David writes "The most difficult thing is being looked at with suspicion by both communities..."--I assume he means both the gay community and the Christian community--and then he adds, "resulting in not feeling that I can ever fit in with both communities."

Katie writes that the most difficult thing for her is "when people ask if you are both gay and Christian, and then say that it's impossible."

Joel says, "The most difficult thing is finding a place to belong and to contribute in the world." He adds, "however, I doubt that there is any group on the face of the planet that is more in tune with what it means to experience God's unconditional grace."

Karen says, "Before I can commune with God in a time of solitude, I have to silence the voice in my head that tells me that I'm unacceptable to God, an abomination, because I'm a lesbian."

And Alan says, "Being rejected by many in my Christian family whom I love so much" is the most difficult thing for him. He explains, "Mainly my mother and one brother and his family. I'm writing this several years after having come out to them. I've sent them much literature, websites, books, etc. on the subject hopefully to educate them, to no avail."

These are of course problems that so many of us have faced. Being rejected by our friends, our church community, and other Christians that we know as well as sometimes being rejected by other gay and lesbian people because we are Christians. A lot of gay folks don't understand why would you be gay and Christian. If you're gay, why spend time with a faith that doesn't seem to accept you. And of course, we have a very difficult time convincing people on both sides that being a Christian is not incompatible with being gay, that the Bible does not condemn gay and lesbian people. But it's so easy to what they call 'proof text', to pull a passage out of the Bible without understanding its cultural and literary context. And then misuse it to condemn gay and lesbian people. But I think that anybody who really understands the issues, even those who believe that the Bible condemns same-sex behaviors, would still agree that the Bible does not condemn gay and lesbian people for being who we are. And of course, within GCN the question of whether the Bible condemns homosexual relationships is something that not everyone agrees on, but we're all together because all of us are gay or gay-affirming and Christian.

I want to take a moment to talk about an article in Time Magazine. Those of you who subscribe to Time or who have stopped by your newsstands may be aware of the fact that today, October 10th, today's edition of Time, has as its cover story "The Battle over Gay Teens". Of course, as you can imagine, this is increasing the amount of publicity that the issue is getting this week. The article is, I think, fairly balanced. It tries to talk about things from multiple perspectives. And it indicates, at least in the opinion of the author and some of the folks who are quoted in the article, being a gay teenager is quite a bit easier today than it was some years ago. There's also some discussion in here about re-orientation ministries, or ex-gay ministries as we call them, and again, that's something that we've talked about before on the show. They just don't work, but that doesn't stop people from trying, and of course many of us have tried ourselves and we understand why that's the case--why people would try that. So I wanted to ask this question: "In your experience, what's it like being a gay young person?" It doesn't have to be just a teenager, but being a gay young person, what's that like? Now for those of you who are still young, however you wish to define that, you can answer based on what you experience everyday in your life right now. Those of you who are--shall we say--'young at heart' may want to think back to your experiences when you were younger, or the experiences of people who you know who are young now, and what do you think? What's it like being a gay youth? Is it easier, being a gay and young today versus some years ago, why or why not? And when you answer the question be sure to tell us how old you are and where you live, because I think that makes a difference. And you don't have to be specific; obviously if you're in the closet, you know, we don't need to know what city you live in. But let us know what country do you live in, do you live in a small town, in a big city... because that makes a difference I think. So let us know what you think, what's it like being a gay youth, do you think it's easier than it used to be? Do you think it's easy or still difficult? What do you think about what Time has to say about the article, if you've read it. So that's the question for this week and don't forget you can answer the question by giving us a call toll-free in the US or Canada, and that number is 1-888-GAY4GOD.

So now let's transition a little bit from talking about gay youth to talking about gay parents. Brian recently conducted an interview with Judith Snow who is an author who has recently written a book about what it's like to have a gay parent. So let's listen in on that interview. Here's Brian with Judith Snow:


BRIAN: Joining us today is Judith Snow. She's the author of How it feels to have a Gay or Lesbian Parent, a new book just recently published. She's a licensed therapist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thanks for being on GCN Radio today.

JUDITH: Thanks for having me.

BRIAN: I appreciate you sending me a copy of this book. It's a very comfortable book to read, it's written in very plain spoken words by a number of kids who have gay parents, or one of their parents is gay. Tell me about what inspired you to write this book.

JUDITH: Well, you know I worked with children for many years, but how it really came to be was that two of my good friends, who are both gay dads, were experiencing some problems with their ex-wives and their children were in the middle of it. And they were being disparaged for being gay, in front of their children, so both of them came to me at separate times. But one of them said, "What do I say to my kids? I mean, she's telling them these awful things about me and maybe there's a book that you could offer them to read that would normalize some of their feelings, they could identify with other sons and daughters of lesbians and gays..." And so I went looking for a book for my friend. That was probably late 1999, beginning of 2000, and I thought I could just pull one off the shelf, but I just couldn't find anything. And one of the bookstore owners said, "Well, I guess you're going to have to write one!" And that's when I said, "Okay, well I will."

BRIAN: Necessity is often the mother of invention.

JUDITH: Yeah, yeah.

BRIAN: I was curious because these stories were so in the language of the people writing them. How did you go about gathering these interviews, or these stories?

JUDITH: Yeah, good question. I actually had written sixteen interview questions, so I knew what I wanted to ask them, but I first called the director of the Triangle Association here in Michigan, Jeffrey Montgomery. And he was wonderful and said, "Well, you really need to speak to Collage." And I said, "Oh, who are they?" And he said, "The Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere." I was delighted to know there was a specific organization, and from that point I e-mailed a number of Collage chapters in the US. I don't remember that I heard back specifically from the chapters, but I think me e-mails went all over the place because I received responses from, for example, a lesbian mom in Houston who said, "I'm part of a parents group here. We have twelve kids that want to interview for your book." And shortly thereafter I get an e-mail from two dads in Tulsa, Oklahoma saying, "We have six kids between us who want to interview for your book." And the kids sort of came to me and then I ended up going to them and it was pretty amazing how this whole thing unfolded. So there's probably about seven different states represented in the book. It wasn't really real planned, it was just those willing I did their interviews and that's how it happened.

BRIAN: What are some of the central issues in conducting these interviews that you were able to glean that these children face?

JUDITH: What I found was that the sexual orientation of the parent was not the issue. The issue was what they had to endure because of it. Namely, harassment, discrimination, homophobia, "is it safe to tell my peers that I have a lesbian mom or a gay dad?" Because they have their own kind of coming out process and those were really the issues. I mean, kids love their moms and dads, period. There's just no question about that, so I wasn't expecting that the sexual orientation would be an issue. However, in speaking about the book, frequently people think that it is. But really it is not, it's everything surrounding that that makes it difficult for them.

BRIAN: One of the stories that you referred me to is about Jared, who's a twenty-six year old and in high school kids would stop talking whenever he came into the room because they just didn't know what to say to him about having a gay dad.

JUDITH: Yeah, pretty amazing. And Jared's story is very much about religion. He went to a pretty conservative Christian high school and was raised to believe that if you're gay, you go to hell. I think that everybody at the school... I mean, I don't think they knew what to say to him, it was certainly an issue, but he went through a very difficult time. But his story is pretty demonstrative of how religion can be very hurtful with the whole matter.

BRIAN: Absolutely. And that's really tough. Now, what kinds of things would you say have been helpful. I mean, this is obviously a tough issue. What are some hopeful signs?

JUDITH: Well, you know, I think that all the groups that are here in the US are wonderful, that support and affirm gay and lesbian parents and kids that have gay and lesbian parents. You know, groups like Collage is a wonderful organization, and they have a website and they're national, and they do all kinds of things: family weeks, workshops, education, they do a lot of advocacy. Then you've got Family Pride Coalition, Straight Spouse Network, you've got in the schools GLSN, gay straight networks. You know, all of these organizations that are really doing a lot to affirm, to educate--you know, so much of it is that people are uninformed. I mean, they sort of hold on to myths, they don't understand. So many people that have issues surrounding this don't even know anybody that is gay or lesbian. So there's a lot of education that needs to happen... and I see it, I see it happening. When I go around and speak I'm encouraged by how many people don't discriminate and think it's wrong to do so.

BRIAN: Now that you've written the book, and the book's been out not long... when was it published?

JUDITH: It's been out just a year, it came out in August of 2004.

BRIAN: Do you feel that it's helped people already?

JUDITH: You know, I sure like to think so and I've had some really nice comments from people. And from parents, too, that have read it and have said, "Wow, it's really great to see what kind of issues my kids are dealing with." Even educators. I've had people read this book that you never would have guessed to read it and have said to me, "You know, I really learned a lot, I just didn't know much about this." This isn't some big huge issue... it is because it's made one, but really it isn't. Sexual orientation of a parent isn't relevant with regard to parenting.

BRIAN: I'll save my big question for last. I'm famous for saving these big questions to the end. We were talking last week when I first met you over the phone about what is it that's causing families to break up over one of the parents being gay, and it seems as though, to me, that one of those parents at the time that he or she got married, they thought that they could learn to be straight. Or they thought that because their church or their society tells them they have to be straight, they're going to shove their homosexual desires aside and try being straight for a while. But then after a time they realize that that's just not possible, that's just not who they are. Do you think that one of the reasons that divorce due to one parent being gay is due in part to their inability to come out at an early age, and isn't that really what when need to be talking about is trying to encourage people to live authentically from the very beginning?

JUDITH: Oh, absolutely. I do think it's a factor, and I think we can encourage people to live authentically, however I think the world needs to get with the program and make it easier for people. I understand why someone would try to fit into a straight marriage, a heterosexual world, it opens up the door of privilege to many things, and you aren't cast aside... I understand it. As a society, we need to embrace all people, whether it is nationality, or sexual orientation, to make it safe for people to live authentic lives. Because frequently it's not safe at all and I would never blame anybody for trying to make that work. But at the same time it's sad, because no one should ever have to do that, no one should ever have to fit into a place that doesn't fit for them. But I think it's our society that necessitates that for some people.

BRIAN: Right. And to a large extent, our Christian faith, the Church has been hurtful, so hopefully with books like yours that share stories and examples and provide validation, and the work that we're trying to do over at GCN, to let people know that God still loves you no matter who you are...

JUDITH: Right, that's very important. You know, it makes me want to mention to you another book that comes to mind. And I'm actually meeting with him soon, because we're kind of kindred spritis, but there is a book named What God has Joined Together: A Christian Case for Gay Marriage, by Dr. David Meyers. It's absolutely outstanding and is research-based. I just feel I need to mention it because it is so relevant to this discussion.

BRIAN: Those are pretty much the questions I had... wsa there anything you wanted to add?

JUDITH: No, just that I am very happy to be speaking with you and to your audience, and just... I'm with you.

BRIAN: Well, we're with you. We're glad you're out there doing a good work.

JUDITH: It's been a privilege and a pleasure.

BRIAN: Thanks for being on our show today.

JUDITH: Thank you for asking me.

JUSTIN: Well, thanks to Brian and Judith for that great interview and all that great information. And that's going to wrap it up for this edition of GCN Radio, live and raw. With me, Justin! You can, you'll hear.... Blah-de-la-blah! You see what happens when shows don't get edited: I get tongue-tied and you normally don't hear that part. You can listen to us every week. We of course have the podcast you can subscribe to and episodes you can download, and all of that information is available on our web site at http://www.gaychristian.net/gcnradio/. And hopefully next week Brian will be able to join me and we'll have a show ready for you on Friday, and who knows what it's going to be about. I don't know, but you'll find out along with Brian and me on Friday. But until then, thanks for listening and have a great week.