I have been ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 35 years. About 12 years ago, I experienced an awakening -- I realized that the confusing feelings I had had all my adult life came from being bisexual. Through the process of coming out as bi to myself, my loved ones -- husband, teenage sons, brothers, father -- and friends and colleagues in the church, a number of questions have risen to the surface as those most frequently asked.
I thought it would be helpful to others to share those questions and my answers here.
1. Aren't you really a lesbian who can't admit it?
The world I was born into had only one option for me: being straight. Even though my uncle from California visited every fall with his "friend," no one in my family clued me into what was really going on. I finally figured it out on my own by college. So now there were two possibilities in my world: straight and gay.
After dating and marrying my husband, with the vow to grow together faithfully in love, I would occasionally experience heightened feelings for a woman. Confused, I began to ask myself whether I might be a lesbian. By that time in my ministry and church life I knew a lot of lesbians and from my conversations with them I found that I just did not feel that I was exactly the way they were. Primarily, I loved my husband deeply and felt that we were right together. I had no words to capture my experience. I lived with confusion.
I would say it took about 10 years of the word "bisexual" being used in my world before I had the momentous click of consciousness -- bisexual described me. The confusion melted away.
I am not a lesbian. I am not a straight ally. I am a bisexual woman who has always been capable of loving someone of either gender, but who joined in love and continues to build a life with a wonderful, caring man.
2. How can you claim to be Christian who believes in the Bible when you live a promiscuous lifestyle?
In April, my husband and I will celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary. We have fulfilled our vow to grow together faithfully in love. We have raised two wonderful sons who are now in their 20s and establishing themselves in the world. We support one another in our professions. We have renovated our house for our old age with ramps, large light switches and lever door handles. We walk our dog together around the neighborhood every afternoon.
Honesty about being bisexual is one aspect of being fully faithful to my husband and also to God. Both know me better than I know myself, really. When I came home to my husband and told him, "I finally figured it out -- I'm bisexual." He said, "That sounds about right as I know you." God knit me together in my mother's womb. Both also know that I am faithful to the covenants of love I am blessed to have with my husband and with Christ.
With gratitude to God for the years now written in the Book of Life, knowing God helps us every day, my husband and I continue to keep our wedding vows to one another.
3. How can your husband stand for your confession that you are bisexual?
It is really not my place to speak for my husband. I can say what he has said to me. He has told me that he was touched by my realization and happy I shared it with him. He said that, unlike straight women who commit to one man out of all the possible men in the world, I have promised to love him out of all possible people in the world, both men and women. In this sense my coming out as bisexual made him feel extra special. My husband's perspective was and is a blessing to me and tells you a little about why I love him. He values my honesty and faithfulness and loves me for who I am.
4. If you're married to a man, why does talking about being bisexual matter? Aren't you just seeking attention?
Being honest with yourself, your family and God matters. I lived through years of confusion and it has been extremely healing for me to be honest about who I am. All of us are challenged by the life-long task of integrating our spirituality and our sexuality that leads to wholeness. Fully understanding and claiming my being bisexual has contributed immensely to that integration and has given me a sense of wholeness that feels like a graced gift from God. With anyone of any importance to me, it simply feels dishonest to pass as straight.
And I expect there are many in our world who are as confused about their feelings as I was. "Bisexual" is still not a word that is very commonly understood or accepted. If my honesty about being bi helps one person come to greater self-understanding, then I will have fulfilled my desire to love my neighbor as myself, as Jesus teaches us to do.
5. How can you, as a bisexual minister, be a teacher and model of morality, especially sexual morality, to the young people in the church?
For me, as a Christian, the heart of all morality is love and compassion. The essence of sexual morality is loving commitment. These are the values that I work to pass on to my own children as a mother and to the young people in the church as a pastor. I suppose you could say that my life's way, which I have shared, has been a model of these teachings. I practice what I preach.
Were a young person in my congregation to hear about my being bi and come to me to ask about sexual morality and being bisexual, I expect I would say this:
God says to us, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." (Jeremiah 1:5). God knew me and loved me before I was even formed. God chose to make me bisexual. And God wants me to live a life in harmony with the laws Jesus gave to us. We are to love God and love our neighbor.
God's loving covenant with us is the model for the covenant of love we eventually may make with another in this life. The blessing that comes from meeting that life challenge -- to grow in love with another -- is available to us all, including to me as a bisexual.
I pray that would be helpful.
UPDATE:
Thank you for the thoughtful, honest dialogue. Based on a few of the comments on this piece, I want to clarify this important point: I have been faithfully married to my husband for 30 years. We have been committed to each other, only. I look forward to reading the continued discussion here. Peace, Rev. Janet Edwards
Follow Rev. Dr. Janet Edwards on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RevJanetEdwards
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As a Presbyterian pastor myself, I have always said that I could stand for the ordination of a gay or lesbian person who yet recognized God's commandment for sexuality and committed themselves to a life of celibacy under the command of Christ.
Thank you for the thoughtful article and the validation. As for the tired old stereotype of bisexuals being greedy amoral animals who can only sate their voracious desires with frequent group sex, attraction does not equal action. Even the most straightlaced fundamentalist will admit that it is possible to be attracted to someone other than your spouse- how does the gender of that person effect whether or not you act on that attraction?
Practically, the relationship-minded bisexual has far fewer options than a straight or gay person. The list of men who are not threatened by their female partner's bisexuality is short. The list of lesbians who accept a bisexual partner is shorter.
It's pretty simple- bisexual people exist. we would like straight people to stop being mean to us. We would also like homosexual people to stop being nasty as well. Those of us in opposite sex relationships would like it if people would stop kicking us out of the LGBT tent, so to speak, because the straight people kicked us out too. It's cold and lonely out here.
It's showing for free right now at: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/8063/Call-Me-Malcolm and on their FB: www.facebook.com/callmemalcolm
Coming out for me is about authenticity like you said in your video and I too find it important to be visible because it just might help someone else who is struggling with confusion about their sexual orientation. Thank you again!
I believe we can't bury our heads in the sand, and this pastor has made the right choice in identifying part of herself but choosing to abide by God's design for marriage. But, it seems that she is confusing her sinfulness with God's intention. She has not sinned, but she does have sinfulness that tempts her with an affection for women that would be sinful if acted upon. By God's grace she has been faithful to the marriage covenant by being obedient to God.
Yeah, ignore everything Jesus said to focus on Paul's text.
"it is apparent that through pride and our refusal to leave God on the throne, we choose immoral ways and then he "gives us over" to those desires. "
Well, Paul's text is about idolatry, and the "giving over" in Romans 1 is in response to idolatry. The interesting thing is that Paul uses the word "physikos", which means innate nature or instinctive or inborn. So when Paul describes people being given over and abandoning their innate sexual nature to have sex with people of their own gender - Paul is talking about heterosexuals who practice idolatry. Paul is not talking about homosexuals, or bisexuals.
Now, anti-gay theology has but one purpose - to enable heterosexuals to feel superior to homosexuals (and bisexuals). That is the sin of pride. Essentially, when you declare that homosexuality is a sin, so you can denigrate GLBTQ people, you are rejecting God as the source of your self worth, and building your self worth on your perception of being superior to GLBTQ people.
In other words, the belief 'homosexuality is sin' is a form of self- idolatry that takes the place of a real relationship with God.
You, by the way, seem to be confusing your intention with God's intention. That is also self-idolatry.
You, by contrast, have accused JPaul Norton of being prideful, of idolizing himself, of ignoring Jesus' own words, of rejecting the self-worth that God could give him, and of denigrating an entire class of people.
Who feels himself superior, based upon both comments? The contrast couldn't be more stark than it is. That you are so flippant ("Yeah," and "You, by the way,...") makes the contrast even more riveting. You hasten to judge and to speak with disrespect. JPaulNorton lovingly speaks a word of caution but yet, without any sense of judgment of Rev. Dr. Edwards, whatsoever. He doesn't attribute to her any rebellion against God. You attribute this to JPaul. He feels she is confused about one point, but is obedient. You feel he is willfully disobedient.
Who is seeking to feel superior? It's pretty clear, and it's not JPaul.
JPaul, thank you for being the role model that we should all be when seeking to offer a course-correction. (And Darr, course-corrections are not inherently wrong. I would venture to say you have offered these to people, yourself.)
So in this "parable of the good homosexual" ("Samaritan" and "homosexual" necessarily being interchangeable if the parable is to keep its meaning), Jesus does not demand that homosexuals convert to any religious system or repent of their "sinfulnes" before they can be thought of as "good" - or, more importantly, before they can be "good". Christian homophobes wish to add to Jesus’ parable a twisted requirement of their own: that the homosexual can only be "good" if he performs those things which Jesus does not require of the Samaritan: to "convert" from his "sin" of ‘samaritanness” .That's the "Christian" homophobes' message: to distort Jesus' parable by adding a homophobic requirement utterly foreign to Jesus’ intention. Sad cases indeed, these "Christian" homophobes.
No. Actually, the point of the story is to answer the question "who is my neighbor".
Luke 10: 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. . . ."
"More importantly was Christ's reaction to the Samaritan woman at the well who was living with a man who was not her husband and the woman caught in adultery - both he forgave and said "go and sin no more". "
No, the important part of that story was what Christ said to those who judged her:
John8: 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Sexual orientation is, as far as anyone can tell, is inborn. If you are religious, inborn = the way God made you. As near as I can tell, glbt folks are no more or less moral or promiscuous than any random group of Frat Boys. Gay men have more partners, well, straight guys have more than women, now take the horndog factor and exponentially increase it because you now have males with males. No one studies bi-sexuals, and we are rare IMO because anyone not good at self honesty and analysis will go straight and never realize the same sex attractions.
I totally understand the Reverend's long journey to realization. In my thirties, I realized the "crushes" I had on a couple girls in high school.were because I was bi, not straight. But many guys turned me on, while the girls were rare. I knew the ancient Greek views on bi-sexuality, but never related them to me until I met and fell in love with a woman.
If you are straight and are surrounded by the opposite sex, do you just jump into bed with all of the potential partners? No, and the simple fact of being bi doesn't in any way indicate jumping into bed with all of your potential partners. Or wild orgies. Or whatever you are imagining. I haven't spent much time fantasizing about other people's sex lives since I was an adolescent personally.
But even if you accept that 27 percent have inborn sexuality to your satisfaction, or even one, ...that blows away your own claims to some absolutes about judging classes of people 'sinners' and the like.
Very well said.
Life flows from moment to moment without distinctions imposed from outside sources.
You are that which ultimately cannot be defined.
Fro many people, myself including, sex is about a great deal more than just pleasure. When my partner of 14 years and I make love, it is about emotional and spiritual intimacy, and vulnerability, and emotions like love, joy, appreciation, as well as passion, pleasure, and particularly, the joy of making another person happy.
My Gods, man. Maybe if you didn't *treat* it as base and dirty and selfish, you'd have a more enlightened perception and experience of it.
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Very easy now, a little bit rough later on!
If you believe God created you and knew you before doing so, that means exactly what she said: GOD CHOSE TO MAKE HER BISEXUAL. If you have problem with that, take it up with your God and your bible.
Alcoholics have an alcoholism gene - but this doesn't mean they HAVE to go with that.
There is now evidence for a pedophile gene. http://worldcrunch.com/there-pedophilia-gene/4032 But it's not necessary for them to release their sexual urges at the expense of children.
It's not necessary that society accept homosexual marriage.
In physical health, we are sometimes born with bad genes, and we should ideally try to fight these bad genes. Why do you then feel that a gay gene HAS to be good and fine just because people were born with it? And that they should share intimacies when it is obvious their bodies were not made to go together? Sometimes genes that go against the ideal for our bodies are not necessarly good or beneficial. GOD CHOSE (to use your caps) me to have the diabetes and alcholism gene, but unlike others in my extended family, I have chosen to stay away from alcohol and I exercise almost daily and have kept diabetes at bay. I'm not saying this to make it seem as though I'm perfect, bec. I'm not. But I'm just saying: the existence of a gene for gayness doesn't mean automatically that it's a good thing that should be celebrated.
You assume wrong about my race. My mother was ¾ Cherokee, ¼ African American (runaway slave). My father was 7/8 Apache, 1/8 German. Nail me for the German blood if you want. People on this site will tell you I can be prickly with white people.
The ‘minorities can’t be racists’ arguments because ‘racism must involve the use of power to oppress’ was scripture in the 60’s and 70’s. Put it to rest. Racism is the belief that race determines certain traits and capabilities. They often are, but need not be negative. (blacks are so athetic! Indians are such noble people!) It’s necessary for being a racist, but different from it too. .
And don’t misquote me. I didn’t say we were hard-wired to reject humans, I said ‘others’.. We humans are creatures who categorize. We do it incessantly, with everything. “Like me- not like me” is hard-wired into us. “You are not part of my group”. That’s not an inherently hostile thing. It’s an observation.
EVERYONE, is shaped by and a product of their environment. EVERYONE. It’s unavoidable. That’s not even open for argument.
So what pre-conceived notions about race made you read my post and conclude I was white? Clearly, you’re working off some sort of racial stereotype.
Oh, and I’m not smoking anything and biology was my favorite subject in school.
No. It goes against the way some people interpret a few passages of the Bible, raped out of context and translated erroneously.
But Paul actually uses the word "physikos" in one of those passages, and physikos means innate or instinctive nature - recognizing sexual orientation - and making his remarks in Romans 1 about heterosexuals who abandon their heterosexual orientation, and not about homosexuals or bisexuals.