A Paradigm Shift in LGBTQ Equality Thinking
Good will and love are not enough
“My prayers for Callie,” the man wrote. “I was going to donate $7,600.00 to her fund but I found out her parents are lesbian. I’ve chosen to donate to St. Jude due to that fact. Sorry, I’ll still pray for her though but maybe it’s God’s way of getting your attention that she needs a mommy and a daddy, not 2 mommy’s.”
That quote comes from a story in Gay Star News about toxic reaction to a toddler with cancer whose lesbian parents turned to the public for help. Sadly, even in the face of devastating illness, people like the man I quoted object to the family’s existence, citing conservative Christian theology.
Then they take action to stigmatize and exclude LGBTQ families from full inclusion in civil society.
This is ordinary and expected.
I chose that story at random to illustrate my article. I had my pick of several. The queer press overflows every day with stories about religious stigmatization of LGBTQ people. Most are filled with genuine pathos.
Many involve incidents that are or should be illegal.
That’s what I’m writing about today —
I tweeted an LGBTQ Nation article on Saturday. I was angry and heartbroken. I wanted to share a story about injustice, stigmatization, and inhumanity.
A hungry human being was denied breakfast because her gender identity and expression run afoul of the religious tenets of Christians running a shelter they claim is open to “the general public.” The woman took live video of her expulsion, and I was so impressed with how calm and good natured she was the whole time, with how bemused and confused other patrons seemed to be as they ate their food.
Comments to my tweet reveal a need for a paradigm shift in thinking about LGBTQ equality—
At first glance, reactions look great. The tweet went a little viral, with more than 70,000 people seeing it, several thousand people clicking on the link, and about a thousand people commenting so far. Getting so many comments gives me a chance to analyze and think about public support for LGBTQ equality.
My Twitter network is largely American, progressive, and politically engaged. More than 90% of the comments I received at the time of writing came from straight, cisgender people who vote Democratic and who oppose Trump and the politics of discrimination. At last count, well over half of the comments were made by self-described Christians.
Sometimes allies can be nervous about shifting to a paradigm of full legal equality because they try to weigh consequences. That soup kitchen, for example, dishes up about 100,000 free meals a year to hungry people.
People were overwhelmingly supportive, condemning the exclusion of an LGBTQ person from a Christian charity, and condemning the “un-Christian” or “false-Christian” theologies of the people running the shelter.
Sounds good, right?
Sure! It’s clearly very important for devout and loving Christians to raise spiritual objections to stigmatization and discrimination. I’m forever grateful when I see those objections. I feel warmed and loved.
But here’s the thing: that’s not enough.
It’s not even close to enough —
You know what I don’t see in the comments? I don’t see people saying, “Hey! Isn’t that illegal? If not, it should be.” I don’t see anybody saying, “It’s never OK to discriminate against people because of their gender identities or sexual orientations. Religious beliefs are not relevant. Excluding minorities from places open to the general public must be unlawful.”
What about the non-Christians who commented?
LGBTQ nonbelievers tended to react as I expected they would, by vigorously condemning Christianity itself. I don’t blame them, but they’re a tiny minority of Americans, and their views aren’t going to drive political discourse.
Straight, cisgender nonbelievers tended to react a little differently. This comment sums it up. “Christians. What can you do?” Or this one: “This is what our world has come to. Sad.”
So, the main reactions that appear in more than 1,000 comments are:
- Conservative Christians who discriminate against LGBTQ people are bad Christians. Real Christians do better.
- Conservative Christians often behave this way. Shame on them. I wish they would do better. They probably won’t.
- Christians suck.
Not one of those three reactions is helpful. Not one of them is about to drive any positive change or make lives easier for LGBTQ people who are often cut off from full support and inclusion in society.
Let’s flip the script —
What would happen — what would people say — if a Black man or an Asian woman were ejected from a soup kitchen because of their race, based on religious beliefs? What would public reaction look like under those circumstances?
Take a second and think about that —
Would people be talking primarily about theology? I don’t think so. I think they’d dismiss religious concerns out of hand and move on to demanding justice. They’d talk about lawsuits and criminal sanctions. Some of them would take action.
I don’t mean to say that things would automatically get better or that homophobia and transphobia would start to melt away. I’m talking about a mindset. I’m suggesting that people overwhelmingly choose to discuss theology because they think full LGBTQ equality isn’t settled yet.
That’s the paradigm shift I’m talking about —
LGBTQ people and (especially) allies need to move past justifying equality and move toward expecting and enacting equality. We need to move past acting like religion matters in terms of treating human beings equally.
LGBTQ people are not included in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that’s a big problem. Our equality at law varies from state to state. The Movement Advancement Project calculates that only 41% of American LGBT people live in places where discrimination in housing, employment, and public accomodation is illegal.
South Dakota, where Isabella Red Cloud was denied breakfast, is one state where discrimination in public accomodation is perfectly legal. The managers of that soup kitchen had every right to throw her out for being transgender.
That’s a huge problem.
Speaking of huge problems —
In Michigan, a pediatrician refused to take care of a 6-day-old baby because her parents are lesbians. In citing her Christian faith as justification, the physician broke no laws and violated no codes of ethics that resulted in sanctions or penalty. The Trump administration is all set to publish new rules to make such discrimination more legal and more prevalent.
Know what isn’t a huge problem?
Huge majorities of Americans and even large pluralities of conservative Americans believe that LGBTQ people should be treated equally under the law. They don’t think Isabella should have been thrown out of that soup kitchen, and they don’t think doctors should be allowed to withhold treatment based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
It’s time to translate these majorities into action —
It’s time to stop talking about theology, to stop assuming that religious beliefs matter in terms of treating people decently, and to start making and enforcing laws. It’s time to pass the Equality Act and stop tolerating discrimination and stigmatization.
Most advocates and activists have already shifted the paradigm. Lots of ordinary LGBTQ people have too, though by no means all. Allies are often nervous about shifting, but without allies, LGBTQ people can’t win. The numbers don’t work.
Sometimes allies can be nervous about shifting to a paradigm of full legal equality because they try to weigh consequences. That soup kitchen, for example, dishes up about 100,000 free meals a year to hungry people.
What if legally enforcing full equality puts them out of business? Isn’t it better that they feed masses of needy people even if Isabella has to suffer? That might be a complicated moral question in theory, but it hasn’t proven to be one in practice.
Charities are not going out of business in states that enforce equality at law —
The Salvation Army, one of the largest charities serving homeless people in the United States, has changed its policies to stay on the right side of the law in every state that bars LGBTQ discrimination. They claim to be changing their positions across the entire organization. While that claim is controversial, one thing is for sure. The Salvation Army is going to obey the law, and they aren’t going to go out of business.
The same can be said about Christian adoption agencies —
For example, faced with changing legal realities, Christian child services agencies in Michigan are now accepingt LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents rather than going out of business
One agency put it this way:
“We are disappointed with how this settlement agreement has been implemented by the state government. Nonetheless, Bethany will continue operations in Michigan.”
That’s what paradigm shift accomplishes —
It’s time to change our thinking and realize full equality is in reach. It’s time to achieve rather than justify. It’s time to stop accepting that small minorities of religious people have a say in how even smaller minorities of traditionally oppressed people get treated.
People have a right to practice their religion. They should have that right. That doesn’t mean they have the right to hurt people. It doesn’t mean a shelter open to the public gets to deny breakfast to a peaceful transgender woman.
And in my dreams?
It means that the man I started this story with, the man who thinks nothing of delivering a toxic religious lecture to the parents of a gravely ill child, would be afraid.
In my dreams, a real paradigm shift would freeze his fingers at the keyboard out of fear of what his neighbors would say to him.
