Of course I never knew Tyler Clementi, the young Rutgers student who took his own life last month in a tragedy so unfathomably horrific that it doesn't permit adequate attempts at description. The story that has emerged so far is that Tyler was enjoying a romantic moment with another guy, while his roommate secretly streamed the encounter live on the internet. Shortly after Tyler found out, he jumped off a bridge.
Of course I never knew him, but his story demands a deeper listening than has yet been promoted or presented by our culture's spokespeople. This is not just a story about one man and two acquaintances whose idiotic prank appears to have caused such fear of exposure that Tyler felt he had to kill himself. It's a story about all of us. And we all need to listen to it.
On the basis of what we know thus far, I think we can guess this: Tyler Clementi died as a direct result of a culture of sexual shame in which institutionalized religion is the major investor. I am angry, and I am going to say something harsh and direct, but I am willing to take responsibility for it. Please feel free to respond if you wish.
If you have ever affirmed homophobia by not intervening to challenge the snide remarks that all of us have heard, you may be part of the reason that Tyler Clementi is dead. And most of the time, I myself have not intervened.
If you have ever used us-and-them language to divide sets of people into "normative" heterosexual cultures and "others," you may be part of the reason Tyler Clementi is dead. I spoke of "us" and "them" for most of my life until a friend challenged me; I still find myself slipping into old rhetorical habits, for our culture is so deeply wedded to the myth that our identities depend on dividing and conquering.
If you have ever disrespected, dehumanized, or belittled a person because of his or her sexuality, you may be part of the reason Tyler Clementi is dead.
I think I am part of the reason that Tyler Clementi is dead.
We often say in "progressive" religious circles that we want to ensure that we have a "conversation" about sexuality, that we want to create a situation where everyone feels "included"; and sure, this is a noble endeavor. But too often the premise is that those of us who are straight are merely opening a space for those of us who are gay (or LBTQQI, but more of that later) to be told that "they" are just as good as "we" are. This is not enough. It does not allow for people who identify as LGBTQQI people to be seen as good in their (and our) own right; it does not permit a true exchange of gifts between different people; it suggests that LGBTQQI people are welcome despite their (and our) differences, not that they (and we) are just as much alive with gift, made in the image of God, and legitimate as the rest of us (and them). At its best, this kind of conversation may lead to a better one; at worst, it is just another way of dressing up homophobia as reconciliation.
It emerges also in the context of a culture with a split persona: a religious one that almost always problematizes sex, and a secular one that almost always celebrates hedonism. Churches often talk about sex and sexuality as challenges to be overcome, while the wider culture doesn't seem to know what to do with sex except put it on TMZ.
Well, I am tired of the excuses we make for our prejudice and the disguises we put on our repression.
I am tired of saying, "We need to have a conversation," and then not having it.
I am tired of sexuality being reduced in religious practice to shibboleths about homosexuality and adultery.
I am tired of pretending that our bodies are not part of the selves we talk about when we seek to become more human through opening to God.
I am tired of the misplaced shame I feel sometimes when I think about my own sexuality, my desires, my mistakes, my brokenness, the memories I have of humiliation in adolescence and beyond.
I am tired of not feeling free to discuss sexuality in church as anything other than a problem. I want to celebrate it for what it has become for me: an astonishing gift from God, the space in which love between human beings, made a little lower than the angels, has the potential to find its most elegant and connected expression. The space where we may come closest to mirroring the divine relationship with the human. The space that can produce such profound happiness and is so powerful that it leaves you feeling as if you've been ripped apart.
The story of Tyler Clementi is not just about a young man and his roommate's stupid prank. It is a story about cruelty, and dehumanization, and fear, and the lack of an understanding of how human relationships can promote the common good instead of individualistic gratification.
It is a story about the role that bad religion -- most of it Christian -- has played in creating a culture of shame around sex and sexual identity in America, and the distortions of human happiness that pass for healthy religious practice.
It is a story about our complicity in this bad religion, and in these distortions.
It's a story about the end of privacy in the internet age, which could be a good thing, because we may now finally be compelled to tell the truth about ourselves: that we are broken and beautiful at the same time, and that none of us is fully who we claim to be. We are stumbling pilgrims trying to figure out what it means to be human. And if I tell you the truth about me, then maybe you might feel safer to tell me the truth about you.
And so, what will we do with the story of Tyler Clementi?
I'd suggest a handful of signposts.
1) Focus Your Judgment in the Right Direction
We should recognize that desire is confusing at the best of times, perhaps especially during the transition from adolescence into adulthood. The same goes for learning how to behave with maturity in relation to others. So while what Tyler's roommate is alleged to have done was stupid and cruel, we should not direct our anger only at the person or people who apparently put the video of Tyler online. They are a symptom of a dehumanizing and childish culture. They are not its cause. And if we only concentrate on them, we will repeat the typical mistake of scapegoating and never face the issues within ourselves that contributed to them thinking nothing of their actions.
2) It Gets Better
If you find personal resonance with the fear of sexual humiliation, check out Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" campaign here.
3) Come Out, Whoever You Are
The semantic gymnastics that have been one of the gifts of the sexual rights movement are so changeable that I'm never quite sure how many letters I need to type to be sure I'm not excluding anyone.
L(esbian)G(ay)B(isexual)T(rans)Q(ueer)Q(uestioning)I(ntersex) is a pretty good start, but another category has been privileged to join: A(lly), which, although its status is ambiguous in the cohort to which it wishes to orient itself, to my mind means anyone who cares enough to commit themselves to be educated about the structures of injustice faced by people whom the dominant culture defines as sexual minorities. "Ally" can be a patronizing concept, of course, but I think that the more people who don't identity themselves (or ourselves) as LGBTQQI consider the A label, the sooner we will experience conversation about sexuality as something that is good for us all rather than merely stigmatizing socially constructed minorities.
Beyond that, I'd like to suggest a new category: after A comes E, because E(veryone) is affected by our sex-negative culture. We may all have been stigmatized because of our sexuality, especially those of us raised in the church. We are not sure how to make sexuality "fit" with spirituality. And so we live in a constant state of struggle or denial. Those of us who are straight could learn from those of us who are gay. Those of us who are straight might indeed yearn to be invited into a world where sexuality has been such a source of struggle that its stewards have had to learn to transform it from an invitation to suffering into a source of strength. E(veryone) belongs here.
Like I said, I am angry today, and so I apologize if I have gone too far. Or, actually, perhaps I'm not sorry at all. Maybe I'm going to get angrier. Maybe I need to. I certainly need not to forget Tyler Clementi, a young man who died because our culture made him ashamed.
I'm sorry, Tyler. I wish I'd known you. I'm sorry that I have been part of the reason you were humiliated. I am sorry that I have been so divided within myself that even though I know what it's like to experience sexual humiliation, I held onto my own homophobia because it felt safer and more known. I owe something to you. I owe it to you to be honest about myself, to stop dehumanizing others, and to do everything I can to make sure that your place in history is simple and clear: that you would be the last.
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it takes a lot of courage to admit to one's own wrongdoing even though I do not completely agree with what you said.
I do not care about other people's sex-life I only care about mine and as such a person I consider boudoir conversations beneath me.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. "
Eleanor Roosevelt
Don't most organized religions encourage some form of death for all gay "souls"?
The gay-hate oozes from the Rev Phelps "Abyss"; but "gay-bullying" from most pulpits is more subtle; done in the warmth of family and community; who say "amen" everytime homosexuality is mentioned.
Why IS homosexuality discussed so much in churches; why not pound it into peoples' minds and hearts not to be pedaphiles, rapists and murderers?
Gay children have known all or most of their lives that they are gay and that their "God", world and their families hate them. How can they possibly understand that hatred? They must feel more alone and heart broken than any of us can imagine; Thinking their only hope is to beg for forgiveness for being their natural selves.
What you are a witness to is someone that is covering up his or her own sexual urges we often call homophobia.
I know this will be very very difficult to accept but that person is in need of compassion not contempt.
They have to live with those desires every moment of their lives and these things they do others is their way of trying desperately to project those feelings away from those hidden inner desires they have.
Their relationships with the opposite sex will always suffer.
They live in a world of shame often brought on my their conditioned religious beliefs that occurred when they were very young even to the point they think secretly they are going to hell for eternity.
How would you like to carry those beliefs and concerns around for a lifetime?
Try to look past the phenomena and look at the underlying reality of that phenomenon of their aggression.
The relative phenomenal world has an underlying reality. That is the purpose of life to learn over time and experiences to be able to see these underlying realities of phenomena.
Only when we are able to see these underlying realities of such phenomena as homophobia can we truly have compassion. Compassion is understanding, not sympathy.
You've spoken the hard, complicated truth. My struggle is in how to use that unspoken but common (to many gay people, and increasing numbers of non-gay people) awareness to take action. I am a peaceful soul by nature, if not a little bit impatient as well. Of late I have used the the occasion of our lost young gay countrymen (lost at their own hands, not those lost fighting our wars overseas) to engage in dialogue with local pastors. It is not easy, and leads to a surprising amount of fear for someone who prides themselves on being pretty fearless (will some crackpot at the church stop by when I or my partner are here alone and put a bullet in our head, or throw a rock through the window to prove the points you made so well). But I think it must be done. We can lobby for legal protection until the cows come home but if the font of this hate is not turned off we condemn our country's gay grandkids to the same wasted time and resources that we currently endure. I guess what I'm saying is, keep the awareness in mind for the reasoning is sound, but make sure the compassion you mention is joined with action, words, truths exposed. I have been gently sharing my life with the local megachurch pastor and it feels as small and gentle as a seed, but as potentially powerful as a giant redwood tree.
It's gotta be one letter for each of the 600.000 souls that were present when JHWH conceived of the Torah. Which, coincidentally, has roughly 600.000 letters.
In particular, you can't possible have a QQ in there.
But we'll get somewhere, eventually.
One thing about anything to do with very real injustices and very real crimes happening to very real people, whether LBGT or perceived to be... Is that you hear a lot of *uselessly-abstract* 'suggestions,' like 'Get rid of religion,' 'Abolish marriage entirely,' Or I guess, 'Add 600,000 letters to the alphabet and say, what, that many people have souls?'
That's not helping the kids or our society. That's just ignoring the problems and the people and the dynamics and proposing things that go no further than that bit of chirping.
I am saying: if you have any evidence whatsoever in the best reading of the sources of your faith that allows you to think even for one second that you can sit and watch homophobia happen in your church, then step forward.
For you shall be counted and it will be made sure that you are NOT one of the 12,000 souls that are saved.
Got it?
As a queer person though, I am bothered by the response of "It gets better." Sure, I take frustration in that concept from a standpoint of privilege, being that I'm now out, my parents haven't disowned me, and I still retain much of my Christian faith. But that wasn't always my journey. In fact, when I was told it would get better, my life got much worse. "It gets better" encourages queer youth to look to the future, when they too can live out of the closet and be proud of their queer identity, but how far into the future do they have to look? What are we doing to make it better NOW?
Instead of making awful YouTube videos, telling kids to simply sit around and wait for it to get better, why would you not instead encourage people to actively make things better. Go out, burn something down, tag a wall, do drugs, become sober, have sex, WHATEVER. Sometimes, it simply does not get better.
This me being angry and writing in response to that anger. Be angry people. Please. And let that anger cause radical change.
This is not about an either-or. I was a 'fighter,' and I helped a lot of my fellow students get through, while trying to get myself through. Such fighting wasn't enough to get everyone through, especially not a few 'silent' ones.
Sometimes, it *doesn't* work out: sometimes there's just too much stacked against one, sometimes, you take your best thin shot at running the gauntlet the world leaves you to run, and sometimes you get your tail kicked. Sometimes they claim this makes you tougher, ...Sometimes it just breaks things.
But everyone deserves to know that it can get better: in a lot of ways it *is* better than when I was a kid: the haters may be more aware, too, and more intense about it, but kids like I was are also less *utterly alone.* Some preachers and politicians want to use us for scapegoats *and* force us back into silent isolation, but they aren't *assumed* to be the only voice or only possibility, either.
Courage isn't about everything necessarily being *easy,* in areas most conformist straights take for granted, but it *is* about hope. And possibility.
I see little so *awful* about the Youtube videos.
Even anger needs hope, or else it's just rage. And a lot of good kids turn *that* inward.
Is preaching hope the best approach to a person confused, depressed or contemplating suicide? Or is it expressing the feeling of understanding, empathy, a willingness to listen, put an arm around my shoulder or hold me? In the "it gets better" videos I watched, never once did anyone mention it was so bad that they contemplated suicide. To see and hear some of these perky videos could even isolate a confused, depressed or suicidal person further.
But, it's better than nothing and they are giving out information for contacts. Hopefully, there will be young people who benefit from this particular style of presentation.
And I agree with Vincent that healthy anger is an appropriate emotion to encourage in queer people. Anger at the bullies, anger at indifferent parents and teachers, anger at religious leaders and politicians, anger at the media using homophobia for profit, anger at a dysfunctional society. At least anger is indicating a sense of empowerment, a possible active response and a functioning ego...all of which are diminished to nothing, by forces either external or internal, in a person depressed or contemplating suicide .
Comparing Gareth's and the reverend's opinions I have to say that the intellectual smugness of the priest is revolting. It is as if the Catholic Church is not responsible for the prudery it instils within its flock and the hatred that very same prudery generates. In accordance with the reverend's own narrow world view it is the homosexual who should get help from an invisible sky fairy in the form of a prayer rather than Catholics abandoning their wicked ways.
As I said disgusting!