Morality or Illness?

You know how sometimes, in a word or a phrase, or in a picture, or in a moment – suddenly something becomes clear? Archimedes “Eureka”? Oprah’s less durable “Aha” moment? Well, it happened to me yesterday in conversation with a friend. It was what she said that gave me that moment of clarity.

We had been discussing an article that I and a colleague had written nine years ago, in a little known Festschrift for Albert Nolan. It was called “Oil and Water: the impossibility of Gay and Lesbian identity within the Church”.

This long-forgotten article has suddenly re-surfaced the other day. It was found a by an apparently not unsympathetic cleric, who is attached to the University of Cape Town, and who is valiantly trying to “listen” to LGBTI people in the “conversation” which the church is presently supposed to be having on the Gay issue.

The article had given him quite a shock,apparently. Because it is completely uncompromising and unforgiving. Both I and my Lesbian colleague described, in some fairly graphic detail, the journey we had taken to get us to this place. We decided not to pull any punches and consequently, the piece is fairly candid.

And that was that for a very long time. It seemed to have been studiously ignored, until now, when a shocked Dean of Studies from the University of Cape Town stumbled across it and raised the alarm. He is, I understand, one of the few Evangelical Anglicans around who is willing to even consider the issue.

So, I was talking to my friend about how it is that this, out of all the things I have written and said about the Church, should become the focus of concern? I have had “controversial” views on a range of things, and I have written extensively about them. But this is the area where the alarm persistently gets raised.

The article said, in brief, that sex should not be determinative of relationship. That there are other things much more significant than sex, which determine and define relationships. That of itself, sex is not particularly significant and should not be held as the grounds to decide anything at all.

And specifically with regard to homosexuality, we argued that a church which was entirely and disastrously hetero-normative cannot expect homosexuals to simply buckle under and accept (or even worse – promote!) hetero-normative standards and ideas. Because time has proved these to be changeable things in themselves and that the path chosen by the church is both unrepresentative of the human reality and disastrous in its own right.

So, if there is to be a “discussion” or a “debate” or “listening” to LGBTI people, then it has to consist of much more than the one side happily talking to itself, while the other side stands obediently silent. If the church wants to listen to the experience of Gay and Lesbian people, then it needs to accept the possibility that its present hetero-normative paradigm regarding sexuality might be so seriously flawed as to be worthy of being dumped. And if that is not at least a possibility, then the conversation is not worth having.

My friend then made the point which sharpened my perspective. She said this: She said that the view of the Church is essentially the view of an addict. When a food addict is at a party, they will know what every person in the room has eaten; they will note each time a person returns to be buffet table and they will observe what has been placed on the plate. An alcoholic will know where the liquor is in every house they visit. They will know where the liquor store is in every suburb. They will know the alcoholic content of every drink.

It is an obsession. It is a sickness. It is something which takes over rational thinking and distorts it and twists it and produces a view of reality which is profoundly dis-ordered. It shows itself in the kinds of decisions which have been made protecting priests who are paedophiles. It shows itself in the way in which parts of the church have handled intersex people. It shows itself in the discrimination which of Gay and Lesbian people in the church routinely endure. It is an obsession. It is an illness. It is not wholesome.

It cannot be expected that Gay and Lesbian people have any responsibility to protect this obsession, or to perpetuate it. It cannot be expected that we have any reason to tolerate or entertain a system of wrongdoing which is so clearly and obviously distorted, in its view of reality.
So when the Church tells us that they want to “listen” to us – then that is what they need to do. It needs to start by shutting up and allowing us to say what we need to say. It needs to start by dumping the sanitized and doctored versions of tame homosexuals who actually believe that the homosexual orientation is something less glorious than the heterosexual one. They are the “Bantustan leaders” on the sexual map. They are the “Uncle Toms”.

If the Church is not willing to accept that LGBTI people can teach it a new and better way of being the Church, then frankly, they should just stop talking. It is wasting everyone’s time. Because the sickness lies within the Church, not elsewhere.

The article I refer to above is in:

Spekman MT & Kaufmann LT (eds) Towards an Agenda for Contextual Theology. Essays in Honour of Albert Nolan. Pietermaritzburg, Cluster Publications, 2001.

Garner H and Worsnip M, "Oil and Water: The impossibilility of Gay and Lesbian identity within the Church".

Making a saint out of Newman

I have to say, I have watched the recent scenes of the visit of Benedict the 16th to the United Kingdom, with some amazement. Besides the screams, the adulation, the mumbled apologies and exchange of pleasantries, the highlight was the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Personally, I have not a single doubt in my mind that he should be recognised. If sainthood provides the context for that to be done – then so be it, and jolly good luck to it. At university, I read his works and they inspired me. I changed my perspective fairly fundamentally because of him. As a student, I read his “Apologia pro vita sua”. And found it both moving and profound.

But until very recently, I had missed something fairly essential about the man. He had a long term relationship with another priest, by the name of Fr Ambrose St John. They lived together for a considerable period of time and it was Newman’s express wish to be buried with him.

His desire was very clear and unambiguous. On no less than three occasions, he indicated it, in writing. The last time, a few months before his death in 1890.

“I wish with all my heart to be buried in the grave of Fr Ambrose St John. I give this as my last, my imperative will.”

On the death or Fr Ambrose, Newman wrote the following:

"I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine”.

He had waited some 15 years to be buried with his beloved. This was no will-o’-the-wisp. It was obviously something very clearly thought out. It was something he wanted very passionately.

Two years ago, in preparation for making him a saint – the Vatican gave the order for him to be disinterred and to leave any remains of Fr Ambrose in situ, and to remove Newman’s remains to the Birmingham Oratory.

On opening the grave, very little was found. Some hair, apparently, and a brass plaque with his name. The coffin was a wooden one and the ground wet.

Since discovering this, I have to say my mind has played on it a lot. I am left aghast at the sheer arrogance of it all. Newman had expressed his will in the clearest terms imaginable. Yet the Vatican decided that his body should be elsewhere. I understand that moving the bodies of saints – or people soon to be saints – is “traditional” (whatever that might mean!).

Now, obviously, I think it is at this stage impossible to prove conclusively that Cardinal (now “Blessed”) John Henry Newman and Ambrose St John were lovers. But it certainly looks likely. And one would not need to be a member of the “homosexual lobby” to come to such a likely conclusion, based on the evidence which is already at hand. Whether or not they remained celibate is another matter entirely and, from my perspective anyway, has little bearing on the substance of the enquiry.

But for the church to simply extract elements of his life which they like – and make a big hullabaloo about them and sanctify him because of them, while ignoring other equally significant elements, is sheer cynical manipulation of the facts. Indeed, the same could be said for the way that the church generally does its theology. It parades the easy bits and ignores the more difficult, as a matter of course.

But there is a problem with doing this, because eventually common sense (or science, or history) will catch up with it and expose it as fraud, as it has already, on so many other issues. The secularism of the United Kingdom, which the Pope seems to find so problematic, is in fact not only a consequence of the church’s continued fraudulent theological thinking, but represents a triumph of progress and rational thinking over idiocy and ignorance.

The only way in which this could be seen to be problematic is if one had some kind of vested interest in keeping people stupid, by denying the facts. Such as the facts about HIV/Aids; contraception; women; abortions etc etc. Oh, and did I neglect to mention the historical prevalence of gay and lesbian people within the ranks and hierarchy of the church itself?

On the tombstone where John Henry Newman and Ambrose St John lay buried for just shy of one hundred years, was written the following:

“Out of the shadows and phantasms, into the truth”.

Maybe one day, a long time from now, society will write the same on the grave of the church itself.

The things we can trust

Last night, our family went out to dinner to celebrate our eldest son turning 8 years old. Leon’s parents took us all to a Pizza place – a really nice one, which was empty enough for the kids, together with one of their cousins, to run a little wild, without frightening off too many patrons.

Gabriel had a very busy day, and by 8.30, he was tired. He came and sat on my lap, for a while (as he seems to be doing these days) and then he stretched himself out on the bench next to me, and fell asleep, his head resting on my lap.

I looked down at this sleeping child and I started to remember our 8 year history together. From that tiny 3 month old baby lying sucking his finger in the Princess Alice Adoption Home, to this fairly confident boy, whom I recently went to watch doing cartwheels around the stage.

There is nothing, no words, no sound I can make - nothing I can write or explain – which can describe these kinds of moments. Every parent knows them. They seem to be something which the depths of our human being recognises and treasures. If you do not have children, or have not been attached to children in this kind of fundamental way, you will not know what I am talking about. It is so extraordinarily powerful. It is overwhelming. It is humbling. It takes one back to the very depths of one’s own being and life experience.

I put a post up on Facebook about it and a friend replied that the picture I posted evoked in him some of his most secure childhood moments. I responded, saying that what made me really sad was that Gay and Lesbian people, generally, do not experience it. Indeed, I would have never experienced it had Leon not insisted on children.

Another friend, whom I told the incident to, and the profound effect it had on me said, “isn’t it wonderful – that complete trust”. Indeed, it is wonderful, that I can be Gabriel’s secure place – even if only for a few simple and precious moments.

Questioning my own position

So, it is now holidays. This means that the child-minder has gone off to enjoy three weeks of holiday in Limpopo – well over 1000 kms from where we are; it means that Leon and I are also on holiday; and it means that the children are not at school. It is a recipe for stress, believe me.

We have done Ratanga Junction. How can I describe Ratanga Junction? “Hell”, would be too easy. In fact, “hell” would be too kind. It is more like taking your brain out, putting it through a shredder and then putting it back in your head, while at the same time using a set of pliers to tear pieces of flesh from your body. And, lest I forget the particular form of torture they seem to have perfected at Ratanga Junction – they force you to listen to indescribable music, which is broadcast from hidden speakers in the foliage, so there is no escape.

Most of the experience is standing in very long snaking queues, full of large parents stuffing themselves on hot-dogs together with fractious, over-excited children – in the baking sun. Then what you do is, you get to go on a ride. Now let me say, right away, that nothing on Gods Earth would make me go on one of these rides. They seemed either to be so tame as to be mind-numbing, even for the 3 – 6 year-olds for whom they were intended. Or, so utterly vicious that I felt my stomach heave just watching them!

There were log boats that got dragged up what looked like mountains to me, and then left to plummet down into a water filled gorge below. (A sign warned, helpfully, that you would get wet on this ride. Indeed, said the sign, you may get soaked). There were twisting things, which seemed designed to make you throw up. There were plastic bubbles in a pond, which you got into, and into which via a kind of reverse vacuum machine, they blew in air and then zipped you up, so that you fell about trying to stand up (An extra R20, that one was). On the other hand, there were silly aeroplanes which went round and round in a circle, at different levels, depending on what you did with the joy-stick; and stupid looking miniature game viewing trucks, which were on a mono-rail.

Needless to say, my children had a ball. More than a ball. Two balls! They want to go back! Oh, woe is me!

And then today, worn out by yesterday’s fairly extreme experience, we decided to let them choose any DVD they wanted to from the DVD loan shop. The youngest boy (6) chooses something about Dinosaurs. Well and good. The eldest (8) chooses Barbie.

Now, I suddenly find myself thrown into a quandary. Why a quandary, I ask myself? If he wants to choose Barbie, then let him choose Barbie! He chose it, I noticed, in a somewhat surreptitious way. The system in this particular DVD loan shop is that you choose your DVD. Then you take whatever box is behind your chosen DVD to the counter, for them to insert the actual DVD. The box you take to the counter is anonymous, in that you can’t tell what the DVD is by looking at it. It was this box which he brought to me. Not wanting to have him watch the axe murderer, because of a lack of supervision on my part, I did my parental duty and demanded to see the actual DVD he had chosen. He pointed out Barbie.

Now there was a millisecond – I have to confess – when my instinct said “Barbie! For crying out aloud! Why would you want to see Barbie?!” But I didn’t. I said, so quickly that he would not have noticed the millisecond’s hesitation, “OK, that’s fine”.

Later, ruminating on the matter, I said to my partner – “Should I have shown disapproval?” He looked horrified! “No!” he said, “that’s exactly the way you would open the closet door!”

Of course, he is completely right. The moment my child detects disapproval, on my part, he will hide it. And that I would not want. So, as it is as the moment, he likes Beyoncé and dresses up like her. He likes Ballet and did it last year at school. He wears a long-haired wig a friend of ours gave the kids as part of a range of dress-up outfits. He is happy when he does these things and he does them in front of us. We have taken the carefully thought through position, that we will neither encourage, nor disallow the behaviour. That, it seems, is who this child is.

But it was my own reaction to his wanting Barbie, which was so intriguing. I am a gay man. I know about gender and stereotypes and about gender roles etc. I know about prejudice. I know about homophobia. But I want to tell you, in spite of all of that, the homophobe in me, is pretty close to the surface. It springs out and confronts me when I least expect it. I may not like it. I may not want it. I may thoroughly disapprove of it and intellectually disavow it, but it is there. And like racism, the thing I need to do, is to keep it in very firm check, so that it does not affect my children.

Return to Gay Eden

For the first time in a very, very, very, long time, I went to what was known in the 1970’s and 1980’s as a “Gay Bar” on Friday night. (I suppose, more correctly, it would be true to say that I went to a Gay Bar on Friday night that fairly closely approximates what I had experienced in the 1970’s and 1980’s). It was the Amsterdam Bar in Cobern Street, in the Cairp Tahn City centre.

Johannesburg in the 1970’s was a fairly difficult place for a Gay teenager to explore sexual orientation. Mostly because there was so little to explore! One heard whisperings of a bar which operated in Hillbrow, called the Butterfly Bar, in the Harrison Reef Hotel (I think by my time, it had been renamed the Skyline Bar). Entering the Amsterdam Bar, the other night made me remember my first experience of the Skyline Bar.

Of course, we are talking here from the hindsight and not inconsiderable experience of some 35 years or so – so I didn’t walk around the block for 15 times, too scared to go in. I wasn’t sweating profusely and wondering whether or not my paisley shirt with fashionably long collar and skin tight light green bellbottoms with a big zip in the front would have the desired impact. No, I just parked outside and went in, taking in the strange drapery on the outside of the building and the gold angel-hair curtain one needed to go through to get inside.

The moment I stepped inside, memories came flooding back to me. Because here, like so many other places I experience in Cairp Tahn, was like walking into a time warp. I remembered the absolute relief I first felt, when entering the Butterfly Bar, all those years ago. To see gay men, in numbers – not just isolated camp queens walking down a street every now again – but clumps of them, gaggles of them sitting around tables, smoking and drinking, laughing carelessly, being at home with themselves. That was a huge and fabulous relief.

The person I went with was a school friend and a regular at the bar. I was jealous of how many people he knew. He waved to this one over there. Told me conspiratorially that that one over on the other side of the bar was trying to “camp him up”. Kissed (dear God, that was a revelation and a half!) another one, who was mincing around in extremely tight pants which showed off every asset he had below his naked belly button.

I was jealous of my friend but extremely relieved for myself. Because at last, after what seemed like years (all 18 of them!) in the wilderness, I had come to a place which I could call my erotic home. And believe me, never a Saturday night would go by, after that, without me being there for at least some portion of it.

The Anaconda Bar, which was, as I remember it, near the Drill Hall, was a far seedier place – and in many ways more outrightly sexual. There was Disco music playing extremely loudly. The place was very dark. The corners all occupied with writhing couples in various states of undress. There was even an outside area where you could get a breath of smokeless air every now and again. It only opened late in the evening, which meant that the crowd would start at the Butterfly Bar and then migrate to the Anaconda.

It was, naturally under Apartheid, a very white world. Yes, it was occasionally raided by the police and these raids were spoken about in hushed tones (as several businessmen blanched and then hastily swallowed their drinks and fled). But generally, it was a fairly safe environment. Or at least, that was my experience of it.

Stepping into the Amsterdam Bar the other night, made me feel like I was back in Hillbrow in the late 1970s for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, the clientele is almost totally white. Secondly, no-one seems to find that fact in any way strange! Thirdly, and this was something I have to say I really enjoyed, there is a real sexual mix of people – I am talking of within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and (possibly even the Intersex community).

There were a good couple of Drag queens there; Lesbians of various shapes and forms; Leather boys; Fems; Butch boys; Muscle boys – you name it, they were there. Missing were the black boys and girls. And the Coloured boys and girls. And that is a strange, but not untypical thing, in this racially divided city in which I live.

I was told by a much younger nephew, many years ago, that I was really out of date, when I asked airily one day, what had happened to all the gay bars. He said that it was almost as though the distinction had fallen away and that no-one cared anymore whether you were gay or straight. So everyone went everywhere and you danced with who you wanted to dance with. And you kissed whoever you wanted to kiss. I was astonished by this and listened in be-wonderment. How the world has changed, I thought!

Well, I am not sure what clubs or bars he went to, but I would think what he was describing has never really become the norm. Homophobia continues everywhere. And there remains a real need for spaces where gay and lesbian people can just get on with what they do naturally, without having to constantly justify themselves to the hetero-dominant universe. I think we need our own spaces, just like the black management forum needs theirs. And what we do in those spaces has bugger–all to do with anyone else.

Gay images of Jesus

I love these three images, two of which are based on the famous "Consolator" of Carl Bloch (centre). I don't know where the Marilyn Monroe piece comes from, but the gay iconic spoof is from Elizabeth Ohlson-Wallin's "Ecce Homo" series.

The thing about the two alternative takes on the "Consolator", is that they both make exactly the same point. They foreground, and explicitly sexualise the adoration aspect of the painting. I suppose, in the heterosexual version, one may want to update the sexual iconography a bit, by substituting the head and body of Megan Fox, for instance. The gay one speaks a particular iconographic language of a particular, but very recognisable sub-culture.

Now, how come only certain options are available? How come the vocabulary and grammar of religious iconography has been so completely hi-jacked and owned by heterosexual imagists? Naturally, it has to do with the power of the majority. But how come, when the church talks of "listening" to gay people and "dialogue" with us, that our language, our grammar, our vocabulary is not up for discussion?

Save us, dear lord, from more resolutions

The Anglican Church in South Africa – well, more specifically, the diocese of Cape Town, has taken a resolution. It could not be described as “groundbreaking” or “earth shattering”. It is really little more than a timid little whimper. According to the Cape Argus (24/08/2009) the resolution “ask(s) the Archbishop to request the synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are in covenanted relationships (sic – how they got into these, needs some explanation, seeing that the Church itself won’t allow this), taking due regard of the mind of the Anglican Communion”(Sic!)

Clarifying the resolution, the Dean, Rowan Smith – himself Gay, said that “the mixed signal which the church was sending out needed to be clarified”. (I’ll say!). “We allow gays and lesbians in same sex relationships to become reverends and bishops but refuse to acknowledge their relationships as valid. This causes confusion and we as the clergy have no idea how to advise people”.

This seems to have been followed by other extraneous issues, like that while South Africa has a constitution which accepts civil unions between same sex partners, other countries i9n the region do not. (The resolution, you will notice, immediately, is not that these countries SHOULD have things like the recognition of same-sex partnerships, but merely noting that they don’t – causing a bit of awkwardness and unpleasantness.

Well, that really blew my hair back. Don’t know about you!

30 years married - 18 years divorced

So, today is, or (I suppose more accurately) would have been my 30th Wedding anniversary – had we stayed married. Yes, I was married, at the tender age of 21, to an even more tender 19 year old girl.

We married out of love. That I am sure of. We lived together, fairly unhappily, but with moments of real joy, for 12 years. She knew I was gay from the start. But we were brave, and young and we didn’t see why sexual orientation should get in the way of love. We went against best advice - and probably what is now called best practise - and we married, in a ceremony in the little Anglican Church where I had grown up, in Johannesburg. The flowers she carried were daffodils and I cannot see a bunch, still today, without remembering us then, and her beauty and youth and loveliness.

Her mother disapproved strongly. Her father was dead many years – not dead to her though. Her brothers and sisters were reluctant participants in the wedding – as were mine. I never really knew why they just seemed not to like me. I didn’t think it mattered much, but of course, it always does. My sister and I had a major fight the night before the wedding – but she came. My one brother, who has not spoken to me for going on 25 years now, and his purse-lipped wife, attended, then fled our lives forever. The other sent wishes.

We lived at a time of struggle. We got married in a vacation period, in the middle of my degree in Cambridge. Soon, I was to leave to finish the degree, and she was to remain behind, lonely, amongst the virtual strangers of my family – but still brave and still in love.
I had promised her that there would be men down the road of our life together. And there were. And she knew it. She thought she could cope with that, but it became clear fairly soon, that she could not. And so, my liaisons became more secretive, more closeted, more furtive as the years wore on.

We lived in a time of struggle and facing the call-up into the racist South African Army, we fled to neighbouring Lesotho, where we lived happily – probably the most happily - for 3 years. There we joined the banned African National Congress and worked underground. We saw death and destruction. We made lifelong friends. We changed from the narrow racist white South Africans that we were by birth, to liberated people. That is what Lesotho gave to us. A lifelong, precious gift.

Next we went to Britain, me as a priest, she as a teacher of English to foreign students. She met one who wanted to marry her. There was a secret romance. The problem, and perhaps the curiosity, was that he was Muslim. So, I was not alone. I have often revisited the moment I knew for sure that the romance was on (and I have no idea how far it went). Was I jealous? No, I was not. What was I? I was angry that I had not been told. That was the issue. That was the matter. That was the substance. And ever since, I have vowed never to do that to the person I am with.

And I must ask now, it is possible to live with someone, love them completely and yet have sex with others? And I must answer that I do believe it is possible. I don’t think it is easy, and I don’t think it is necessarily wise, but I do believe it is possible. And I would say to the church, so quick to judge perched, as it sees itself, on the Summit of Mount Integrity, that it is perfectly clear that monogamy is practised more in the breach than the observance. If we all just stopped the farce and admitted that, the debate would move ahead in leaps and bounds. We badly need another model. We need rational discussion about it, at the very least. Because, it seldom happens. And when it does, it just does. I see nothing morally superior in it. And if one is going to REALLY listen to gay and lesbians about their way of living this life, then the church needs not to exclude what, for many of them, is an extremely positive experience. But Ah! – I am just dreaming here. The church is frantically struggling just to accept gay and lesbian Christians as fellow sinners – let alone valuing and learning from their experience!

And so my wife and I struggled with living our lives together. There was a great deal against us. Her emotional condition was not stable and she seemed to fight the very things which would have made it more stable. I think I was too young, too full of testosterone, too impulsive – maybe even too selfish, to help her. But I have said, and not only once, that had we been more mature about things then, we would probably still be together. (And I would still be gay).

Silly, underexposed, people, with very little imagination ask me, when I tell them that I was once married to a woman, “But were you able to have sex?” Of course we were able to have sex. When you are young, it really doesn’t take very much doing. I don’t think I was bi-sexual. I think I was gay. Just married to a woman, that is all.

Getting divorced was not pleasant for either of us. I doubt it ever is. One of the abiding benefits for me was that I stopped smoking. Somehow, it was the divorce which enabled me to do it – I have no idea why. Another positive was that I realised I could not live under the cloak of lies which the church demanded from me any longer. I could not keep silent about who I was, and so the divorce carried through to the church as well. And I actively went about looking for a male life-partner. I advertised, and I found one. And it was a happy thing.

And so looking back, I ask myself, do I regret it? Do I regret spending 12 years of my life, married to a woman? I think there was a time when I did, but that was caused mostly, by hurt and anger. My hurt and anger. But that did stop. We both did find lives for ourselves. And, remarkably, we have managed to stay in contact.

First, that contact was openly combative. Then it was competitive. Then it was calmer. And now it is slightly guarded, but affectionate. There have been times, even, when it has been supportive and caring. I am extremely glad we have that. I am glad to be able to connect with someone, whether it be by text message, or by call, that knows those 12 years of my life, like no-one else. Someone who knows me, like nobody else, because of that. Someone who has had a profound effect on me, because of that. I am glad we did not have children, because then our continued contact would, in all probability, be involuntary.

And so, looking back, from the hindsight of some considerable history, I am glad to say that those 12 years are not years I regard with horror. More with pride and some healthy nostalgia. And I am glad that the springtime daffodils still remind me of her.

Looking like your gender

The major controversy which has arisen, concerning the gender of South African athlete Caster Semenya has raised interesting (and rare!) public debate about the issue of gender. The fact that she looks like a boy, runs like a boy, sounds like a boy - but isn't a boy - is the point at issue. Add to the fact that she is black, and we have the contents of a really interesting debate but sadly, without really taking her feelings about the matter into account.

She is, after all, an eighteen year old. And eighteen years old is not old. I cannot imagine being eighteen again, and having my gender being the topic of public debate. But surprisingly, and so much to her credit, I heard her on the radio, saying she was extremely comfortable about who she is, and the public needs to get used to it - in words pretty much to that effect.

In my job, working in 2010 World Cup social legacy, I frequently encounter women who are built like men and who play soccer. There is, however, something quite close to a conspiracy of silence which operates around them. What I mean by that, is that the subject of gender, gender typing and especially sexual orientation, appears to be considered something which should not ever be raised and so we never do. With some of them, their build and their demeanor is, fairly obviously atypically female. But that fact is never alluded to or acknowledged. There is a sense in which, surely, that is the way it should be! In the sport, first and foremost, they are soccer players. Secondly, they are women. The way they look as women is really not the point and has very little to do with anybody else.

Nevertheless, as I have mentioned, even though the atypification is there and it is obvious, it is a taboo subject. And that makes me a bit suspicious about what the real motivation is. Is it that we are all completely relaxed about it? That we, as South Africans are so free from gender typification that discussion on the matter would be superfluous? That would be nice, but I doubt it. Is it, possibly, that lurking behind every woman with a manly body, is a Lesbian? I am sure that this could explain at least some of the avoidance. Or, is it that the possibility of being intersexed is so profoundly unpleasant to most people, that it cannot ever be considered, let alone discussed?

I read some time ago, that the proportion of intersexed people in the human population could be as high as 1% of live births. Now, that is astonishingly high and, if it is even vaguely accurate, it means that the issue of intersexuality is a prevalent and very well hidden secret in our society.

Caster Semenya has established herself as the fastest woman on the planet in the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in Berlin, Germany. She ran the distance in one minute 55.45 seconds. Immediately, there were questions about her gender. Suddenly, the matter of intesexuality and intersex people were the topic of conversation on the radio and the television in a way that has simply never happened before.

And, as the discussion developed, yet another element arose, that of her colour and her origins. The argument was (inaccurately, as it happens) made that had she been white, the issue of her gender would not have been raised. The shadow of Sarah Baartman loomed large - the woman from the Eastern Cape who, because of the (then considered) odd shape of her body, was taken to Europe and put naked on display for the amusement of European audiences.

For the first (and maybe even the second aspect) I think our country owes a great debt of respect and gratitude to Caster Semenya. This whole business could not have been easy for her. And she has dealt with the extraordinary level of hot air and genuine debate with dignity and restraint. The country should be hugely proud of her because of what she has achieved, not only on the track, but also in this extraordinary debacle about her gender. As the Colleen Lowe Morna, executive director of Gender Links said: "We should celebrate Semenya on her return not just because she is bringing back a gold medal, but because she has refused to conform to societal norms and expectations."

And the issue of Sarah Baartman should not be simply dismissed, as I have sometimes heard it, as a matter of "dragging race into everything". What happened to Sarah Baartman could be described as a defining moment in the history of South Africa. A Khoisan woman, with bodily features which were not typical of Europe, was captured, enslaved, hauled off to Europe where she was stripped of her clothes and her dignity, prodded, poked, displayed and used for titillation and entertainment, turned into an alcoholic and when she died, had her brain and genitals pickled and kept on display in a museum in France. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the treatment of this woman has had the most profound effect on our people - and will do forever.

And it is this memory, deep in the soul of the nation, which has given rise to the accusation that the demand to test the gender of Caster Semenya is the same mindset which displayed and examined Sarah Baartman. It may be. But that is not to say that therefore, we in South Africa can simply sweep all issues of gender, sexual orientation and intersex under the carpet of silence.

Picture: Caster Semenya (Oliver Morino, AFP)

Homocentric images of the last supper

Three very different images of the "Last Supper" - all, I would say, with their own integrity - all making a point for their time. The first one is of 'Bears', clustering around a drag queen (as Jesus). The second is also homo-erotic - but with women as the focus. The last is the well known Michaelangelo.

Depending on one's prejudices, each will have their own triggers for the viewer. 'Bears', for instance, are a particular sub-category of gay culture. The fact that most of us gay white men end up bears, is either a sad (or a happy) reality!

The wymyn in the second picture, I will grant you, look a bit as though they are extras for the set of "The L-Word". But pictured as they are, and clustered in this traditional pose, they make a particular point.

The thing I wonder, is not why would straight people find these images offensive - as they probably would. What continues to confuse me, is why Gay and Lesbian people would - (which, in my experience of showing them, they often do). The answer lies, I would think, in the complete dominance of explicitly hetero-normative imagery in the Christian church, even when the theme itself lends itself to homocentric interpretation, such as this one.

Doing the best I can - Gay parenting - the trials - the joys.

I have just spent the last two hours trying to work out why my ADSL isn’t working. I have tried this and tried that. I have switched this off and switched that off and on again. And it was only when a cousin phoned on my cell, complaining that she couldn’t get through on the landline, that I realised that our youngest son, Joshua (5) (“bin Laden” – so dubbed because of his extraordinary propensity for death, mayhem and destruction) has been up to something. Like phoning America, or planning a coup in Guatemala.

My life could have been quiet. I sometimes imagine myself getting ready for early retirement now at a cottage near the sea, reading a book, doing a course in astronomy – whatever. Instead, I am defending my ADSL line against attack, shouting because Joshua bin Laden has drawn with indelible ink on his wall and inside his cupboard, and worried about some of the often rather peculiar behaviour of our oldest child, Gabriel (7).

Let me start at the beginning. My partner of 9 years, Leon, was broody from the day I met him. And when your partner says they want children - achingly, desperately, completely – you either shake their hand firmly and wish them a nice life, or you get used to the idea. I had never considered children. (Well, I suppose I might have, briefly, when I was married to a woman – but the thought soon perished, along with the marriage.) And suddenly, at the age of 45, I was faced with some extremely uncomfortable prospects: Nappies! Projectile vomit! Teething! It is, you will agree, rather strange, when most other Gay boys in Cape Town are driving around in cabriolet splendour and planning their next holiday on a little known Greek Isle with beautiful local waiters.

Well, it happened. First, 4 month old Gabriel. We learned the ropes. We stayed up at night. Leon, my partner, read all the books. (I looked longingly at the sedatives). Gabriel was, and is, a quiet child. He bonded spectacularly with Leon, and regarded me as an obstacle to his unfettered relationship with his other father. In six years, not a great deal has changed. Leon is still this child’s raison d’être. I am still the mild encumbrance. But we get along.

From the earliest days, there was something innately feminine about Gabriel, evidenced, not only in his focussed attachment to Leon, but also in the fact that he seemed more interested in things unusual for a boy. We have chosen to let him make his known decisions and to go his own way. We neither encourage, nor resist. We simply allow him to express his preferences, as far as birthday gifts are concerned, as far as things he like to do, (like dance) – as far as what he likes to wear.

When I was in Ghana a few years back, I saw a really unusual pair of furry sandals. I just knew Gabriel would like them, and I was not disappointed. They were certainly a bit strange – typically Ghanaian – but strange to the South African eye. They had strips of yellow fur – long yellow fur – for the straps. (Our equivalent would be something like doggie slippers, or sandals studded perhaps with diamante). They were difficult not to notice. However, Gabriel chose to wear them to school, and said to me the next day, that some of his friends had laughed at him (I wasn’t surprised!). I said to him, “Look – what you need to be concerned about, is what you like, and what you think looks and feels right. You must never allow other people’s opinions to dictate who you are and certainly not what you want to wear-” – or, you know, words to that effect. I could see he was listening to me. And I have to say, I have never been more proud of him than when the next day, completely unprompted by me, he wore those same gaudy sandals to school again!

Joshua, on the other hand, couldn’t care a damn what anyone thinks anyway. As Gabriel is reticent, so he is forward; as Gabriel is shy, so he is bold. As Gabriel is artistic, loves dance and seems perfectly comfortable on the stage, Joshua will one day, probably be a good prop in Rugby. They could not be more different. And what one hears is that this is often what happens, even with biological siblings.

Joshua, from the word go, was a free spirit. As the tiniest baby, if you teased him, he would not hesitate to give you a sharp crack on the chops. He knows what he wants, and most of the time, he gets it. He is also an extraordinarily happy child. He loves danger, he thrives on thrills. One day, I am sure, he will indulge in the most extreme of sports. (As I write, he has decided to take advantage of a beautiful mild pre-spring day, by leaping into a freezing cold swimming pool!). He loves everyone, indiscriminately and seems to have very little shyness. I am quite sure he gets his own way on the playground.

We noticed, after moving to Cape Town, from Johannesburg, that it took exactly three weeks for Gabriel to adopt the most broad of the local accents. So he will say things like “Naaaa-ooooh!” for “No” and “Chuldrrin”. Joshua, on the other hand, didn’t adapt at all. He just carried on with exactly the same accent he had before. Somehow, from somewhere, he doesn’t need anyone’s affirmation, or acceptance.

Nevertheless, despite his cheery disposition, he has one or two behavioural habits which concern us. At the moment, we are trying to make sure that one day, when he is fifteen, that he will have no fear to tell us whatever his problem is, no matter how serious. We both expect something, sometime and all we want is that he will not fear to take us into his confidence and ask for help if and when he needs it.

In the beginning, when Gay adoption was still a new thing, there would be the questions, the occasional stares, the occasional insensitive questions to the children, like “Where is your mommy?” But, by and large, these don’t happen anymore – (though I must say, Cape Town is really another, rather underexposed planet which seems to revolve entirely on its own axis!). A long time ago, we were sitting at the dinner table, and Joshua suddenly started talking about his mommy. His mommy this and his mommy that… We all looked at him slightly puzzeled. It was Gabriel who shut him up by yelling “YOU DON’T HAVE A MOMMY - YOU HAVE TWO DADDIES!” - and, really, that was the end of that!

Children at Gabriel’s school asked Leon why he was pink and Gabriel brown. They seemed to be satisfied with the explanation that he’s adopted. And what does “adopted” mean? It means that his mommy couldn’t look after him and so she asked us to look after him for her. So that makes him really special, because we really wanted to have him live with us and be our little boy.

So now, we can point to a whole network to which they belong, which was much more dispersed in Johannesburg, from where we moved. Here they have loving grandparents, an uncle, an aunt and cousins their age. They belong to a family that loves then and will always care for them. And we make the effort to see them all regularly, so that the kids can all get to know one another as family. And I am pleased to say that it seems to be working very well.

The social worker told us, when we were limbering up for our first adoption, to expect that the child would have “abandonment issues”. She was most emphatic. “All adopted kinds have abandonment issues,” she said. “Yours will be no different”. And I think she was right, though it’s hard to say exactly how the thing manifests. It is perhaps in Gabriel’s extraordinary need for Leon; in Joshua’s surprising fear of the dark and his nightly 2 am trek from his bed to ours, his hating it when you are lost in the car, his hatred of a closed door. These are things which are not, in themselves exceptional, but when placed alongside other things, then seem to us to add up to “abandonment issues”.

Now, the thing is, should we be getting worried? Should be getting therapy? Should we wonder if we are not doing enough? Nah. I don’t think so. My philosophy about childrearing has been, and still is, fairly straightforward. What we are giving them, is the best we can. This is their package in life. They are black, we are white. Most parents are heterosexual, we are not. Most kids have a mommy and a daddie, they have two dads. That’s the package they have been given and they need to learn the tools to deal with whatever life throws at them. And that, nothing else, is the very best thing we can do for them. Their lives are what they are going to make for themselves. Our role is to enable them to make good choices – I don’t even say the best choices, just good ones.

On the question of being a parent, I have come to a fairly simple conclusion. I have decided that the world isn’t what it seems at first glance. It isn’t divided between rich and poor, black and white, north and south, gay and straight. My great discovery is that it is divided only once – between those who have children and those who don’t. Those who don’t may well be very nice people, but there is something so essential, so critical to their existence, that not to know it, is a kind of non-being.

Because this is the truth. If you let them, children give you back - pressed down and running over - a contentment that nothing else can. Even when I am screaming at Joshua for doing something so completely and utterly dangerous and crazy, I know that I love this child completely. And when Gabriel, on the rare occasions that Leon isn’t around, will come and cuddle next to me, sucking his thumb and starting to fall asleep, I know that this is more than mere words can dare to express. It is a bond forged deep in the human psyche. It lies buried in some unfathomed region of the brain and it bursts to glorious life, when a child enters your world and takes it over.

When I see primped gay boys sitting at coffee shops around Cape Town, looking delicious and lovely, I sometimes ask myself what is different between them and us? I was never the natty dresser. I was never the theatre diva or the intellectual guru. I have, mostly, just trundled on with my life, and been Gay as well.

With children, that all changes in a flash. Because a baby doesn’t care whether you are Gay or not. Babies want nappies changed and food put in their mouths and sleep. Their needs get a bit more complicated as they grow up, but there is seldom any debate on who does for whom.

So, Gay or Straight, Lesbian, Transgendered, Bi, it really doesn’t matter at all to the child. All they need is love and care. And for that, they pass no judgement on you, just so long as it is there.
Surely, these things will get more forgrounded as they get older – but we have decided not to bother about that, until it happens. And in the mean-time, to spend quite a bit of time and energy on helping Gabriel and Joshua on how to cope with under-exposed people around them in a way which hurts them as little as possible

Gay identity

"NOW THEREFORE, I, BARAK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists."

Now, there is a thing! - "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month"! I have to say, as a South African, I find the idea rather strange. I mean, what would one compare it to? Could we have a "Black Pride Month"? Or, if one is talking minorities, a "White Pride Month"? It all starts to look and sound rather absurd.

Now, it is true that most of the time, other than the fact that we do not share commonality with the rest of society, being Gay or Lesbian, (or whatever) is frequently the ONLY thing which binds us together. And in the end, one needs to ask, does it even do that? Is it not really a figment?

And when I start to compare lifestyles, and political persuasion, and ethics and things like that - I find , often, I really don't want to be in that group at all! Yes, we may be Gay, or otherwise engaged sexually, but that is hardly a reason for being together - unless there is some other unifying factor.

Like, for instance, oppression of one kind or another, or persecution, or unequal opportunities, or hatred. But then it is - or at least it should be - a joint effort. Being Gay, or Lesbian, or Bisexual or Transgendered, or Intersexed (or even heterosexual!) is just what we are, as human beings. It is not worth forming a sub-culture over, any more than red-hairdness might be.

To my mind, it plays into the prevailing prejudices of society to want to, or need to, separate off in this way. I think it has a place - for the purposes of lobbying, cajoling, pressuring. But the problem is, that it frequently then becomes an end in itself, not a means to an end.

Obama has been criticised fairly strongly because he has not done away with the ability of individual states to take their own decision restricting same-sex marriage. In his campaign for the White House, Obama had pleged to repeal the Defence of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognising same-sex marriages and enabling individual states to refuse to recognise such marriages performed in other states.. The Justice Department has filed a brief, in opposition to a federal lawsuit, which argues that the law is unconstitutional, saying that the Act "reflects a cautiously limited response to society's still evolving understanding of the institution of marriage".

Now, at first glance, this looks pretty cut and dried. How is it that there is not simply one position, for everyone? Surely that is what one would expect in a liberated, free society? But there is, of course, another argument - one which is being played out at the moment - in a much smaller arena, in the Anglican Church.

Here it is argued, that we need to " take our people with us". I would think, from the brief of the Justice Department, that much the same perspective (and caution) is being applied. What is meant, is that one has to keep the bigger prize in focus and take small steps to get there.

On the one hand, one cannot but agree. Of course, the best scenario is that there should be consensus on the matter. But on the other (and I am afraid this is the trump card in the debate), it is not as though one is arguing about what colour to paint a room, or when to serve tea. Human lives and human dignity is the issue here. And if it is wrong that state is unfairly discriminating against some people - prolonging the discrimination is not a satisfactory solution.

I think the church is a slightly - but only slightly - different matter. Because there, unfortunately, one has to deal not only with the soft bedding of hypocrisy, which the church has made for itself, as well as the difficulty of years of really questionable theology. Neither of these is insurmountable. At least in South Africa, we have our Constitution as one of the sweet fruits of our struggle. It is a sad truth that many in our churches continue to struggle with some of its contents, such as the issue of sexual orientation. I have no doubt that we will eventually get there. It may take a long time. And the probability is that a lot of people will be alienated from the church because of the time it is taking. But, like divorce, and women priests - we will get to the obvious place eventually.

And hopefully, we will all eventually, as humankind, reach a point when being gay or straight is as irrelevant and unremarkable as the colour of one's eyes.

Queer Images of Jesus

When a book starts with the words ‘ “Lets make love,” the Holy Spirit whispered while I was praying…’ (and the “I” mentioned is Jesus), one can be fairly certain that one is not going to get quite what one is used to. And so it is - precisely as one does not expect. Jesus in Love. A Novel, by Kittredge Cherry is an extraordinary book, just by virtue of the subject matter.

The basic subject matter is Jesus. Now in that, there is nothing extraordinary. Trillions of books have been written about him. Trillions more will doubtless be written in the future. But this novel – because that is what it is – is groundbreaking both in genre and in content, in a way that few of the other of the trillions of books about Jesus have and will be.

Jesus is presented as a sexual being. A multisexual, polysexual, bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual being. A being who at one and the same time can experience sensual and erotic love for his disciples and for Mary of Magdala and for the Holy Spirit. He is a being not limited by tradition, or censure, or what people might think of him. He is free to be what he is, wherever he is and with whomever he is with at any time. He is - very succinctly, according to the book - God and this multivalence which is expressed sexually, follows from that position.

Now, before mother and father Grundy start leaping for their pens, slings and arrows and other assorted weaponry - to say how disgusting and distasteful they find this, I would urge them to first read the book before commenting on it. Personally, I did not find it disgusting, or distasteful, or, to be perfectly frank, terribly shocking, but I am fairly certain I don’t represent the majority in this. Cherry is a devout (and I wish to underline that word) Christian. She also happens to be a Lesbian and she writes from the depths of Christian devotion. She is terribly careful to remain true to the way in which she reads the Gospels. Doubtless, it is not the way most people read the Gospels, but she remains true to the text, certainly in terms of chronology. It is emphasis which she stretches and broadens. Where there is a hint, she makes it explicit. Where there is the merest possibility, she makes it an opportunity.

And it is this which I found difficult. Not because I was offended by it, but because it reads a bit like a sort of first century Soap Opera. I could almost see the fades, hear the music, see the scene shifts, read the dialogue cues. I found that strange and disconcerting and in the end, difficult to relate to. Now, I hasten to add, I find all Soaps – as a genre – difficult to relate to. Indeed, I watch none. So, I am, perhaps, not exactly the intended audience. So, after the first few pages, I found myself dealing with the book with much the same reaction as I have to Soap Operas – negatively. But that is, perhaps, my own particular prejudice.

God is surely not heterosexual. And gender assignments made by humans to the divine, are surely human constructs at best. At worst, they are baffling and disorientating and confusing. But more than that, a hetero-normative world view simply distorts reality and then seeks to impose that basic distortion onto God! It is too silly for words!

Cherry’s latest book is much more accessible. It is called Art that Dares. Gay Jesus, Woman Christ and More. It has a variety of images of Jesus on the one hand, as Gay or Lesbian and on the other as a woman. I think these images would be, in the main, deeply shocking to most common or gardinal heterosexual Christians. They will probably be denounced as blasphemous, because they differ very strongly from the traditional images of Jesus which we are all so used to.

They come from a rooting in a theology of the Incarnation – God becoming flesh – representative of all flesh, not just some flesh. Not just white flesh, or black flesh, or Chinese flesh or French flesh. Not just healthy flesh, or normal flesh, or male flesh. The point being, Gay and Lesbian flesh, and certainly the flesh of a woman, is part of what the Incarnation is about. And one would go on to say that if it is not about all of that, then it is about very little indeed.

There is a very clear “evangelical” message in the variety of images, from a variety of artists which are portrayed in this book. To some people being Lesbian or Gay is a wonderful thing. It is a thing to celebrate. It is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. And if that is the case, then our image of God, in the shape of Jesus, should surely accommodate that celebration. Because, lets face it, some of the epithets applied to the Christ figure, lend themselves very well to a Lesbian or Gay (or Womynist) interpretation. He was despised and rejected. He was treated as a curiosity in the Synagogue. He was an outsider in very many ways. He was crucified and left for dead. His view of God was thoroughly rejected by the orthodox people of his day. He was more comfortable consorting with the rejects of society than the acceptable. This is the experience of many Gay and Lesbian Christians, the world over

So, Kitt Cherry’s books are extremely important. Just because they thumb the nose at the prevailing and dominant sexual hegemony within the Church. And let’s make no mistake about it, that hegemony is pretty powerful and pretty strong. It is going to take a lot more books like this to make any difference. Hers are a very brave and very creative first bunker in the ongoing battle for liberation.

The books are:

Kittredge Cherry, Jesus in Love. A Novel., Berkeley CA, Androgyne Press, 2006

and
__________ , Art that Dares. Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More, Berkeley CA, Androgyne Press, 2007