Just how gay are we?

That title for this post is an odd, awkward question, especially in a very conservative community. On the national level, on the Diocese level (north half of Ohio, for us) and locally, we're very welcoming toward gay, lesbian, transgendered, and queer people, but visitors often have trouble seeing it. I wonder why.

Part of the reason, I suspect, has to do with age. People who were born 40+ years ago grew up in a very different environment than today. For just one small example, the popular entertainer Liberace won a libel suit against the British newspaper The Daily Mirror when they ran articles claiming he was gay (homosexuality was illegal in England at the time). There were almost no positive gay role models until recently, and even now, in the American Midwest, it is not too difficult to find ideologues who scream terrible things at the gay community. Little wonder that middle-aged and older gay people try to keep a low profile.

And simple age has something to do with it too. As a college teacher, I know that 18-year-olds in general try out all kinds of self-expressive personal styles, but tend to settle down a bit by the time they are 25. It's not a sexual orientation thing. Everyone does it. That means that a church such as ours that is middle-aged and older just is not very flamboyant. Especially on a Sunday morning.

One speaker at a conference for gay Christians said, "We're just not that interesting. We take out the garbage like everyone else."

I don't know much about the personal lives of very many priests in our diocese, but without much trouble I can name one who is transgender and several more who are gay or lesbian. The interesting thing is that their sexual orientation is not the most interesting thing about any of them. Is Father X a decent preacher? How is Father Y's parish building program going? Is Father Z's partner still struggling with grad school? But to the casual observer, their sexuality is an absolute non-issue.

It's pretty much the same at St. Matthew's. As a relative newcomer to the parish, I listen to the comments people make and I tend to store away the most remarkable ones. About the only comment I can remember anyone making about sexual orientation around here came from one of the older women a couple of years back: "We just don't have enough gay people in this parish."