Pride and Joy @UUMarin 5-26-24

Sermon Notes:

a poem by Kathleen Bonnano:

You can try to strangle light:
use your hands and think
you’ve found the throat of it,
but you haven’t.
You could use a rope or a garrote
or a telephone cord,
but the light, amorphous, implacable,
will make a fool of you in the end.

You could make it your mission
to shut it out forever,
to crouch in the dark,
the blinds pulled tight—

still, in the morning,
a gleaming little ray will betray you, poking
its optimistic finger
through a corner of the blind,
and then more light,
clever, nervy, impossible,
spilling out from the crevices
warming the shade.

This is the stubborn sun,
choosing to rise,
like it did yesterday,
like it will tomorrow.
You have nothing to do with it.
The sun makes its own history;
light has its way.

The light will have its way.  I do believe that. 

Being an out and proud lesbian for many years now, I have experienced much joy.

I am so glad that I am gay!  Don’t you wish you were too? I know, I know, a few of you are, so you know what I am talking about. 

But most of you here, I suspect identify with the slogan, “straight but not narrow,” and this morning I want to lift up that accepting and supporting your gay friends isn’t enough. Maybe I want you all to feel just a teeny bit jealous of us.  Think about donning some “gay apparel” just for today.  Maybe we can all be “Dancing Queens” in our heart of hearts.

As much as I appreciate the reasoning behind the argument that being gay is not a choice, it also bothers me.  It can lead too quickly to the idea that no one would choose this life, that what gay people need is tolerance and pity, because, after all, we were born this way, and we just can’t help it.

I don’t pretend to understand the science behind the arguments, and I also know that many gay people have tried really hard to become heterosexual and have failed both miserably and painfully.

It may not be a choice, at least for everyone.

But I want to say clearly and proudly today, that if it is a choice, it is one I am both happy and proud to have made.  It is GREAT to be gay. 

Yeah, there is still a lot of discrimination and bias; it would be great if the larger society were much more accepting.  It would be great if we didn’t have to worry that all our progress could be swept away in a flash if an election or court decision goes the wrong way.  But it has been getting better, over the course of my life anyway, but even when it was really terrible, even when it was illegal everywhere in the world, it was still worth it. Being gay has always been a blessing.

It may surprise some of you because I am so young at heart, but I am in my mid 70’s.  I was only 15 in 1965 when I fell in love with my best friend. We were in Rainbow Girls. We would dress up in floor length formals, and conduct very serious rituals.  In 1965, the rainbow was not yet a symbol of Gay Pride – that did not happen until 1978.  I like to think the creators of it got the idea from me. Not true, but I like to think that, because I was, and still am, a Rainbow Girl. I just don’t wear floor length formals anymore.  Floor length clerical robes sometimes, yes, fancy formal dresses, no.

As young girls often do, we shared our hopes, our fears, our troubles, and our souls.  One night we hugged each other and neither one of us wanted to let go.  We knew something was happening while we held each other, but it took us awhile to figure it out.

In 1965, in a small California town, we didn’t know any other gay people, any other lesbians.  There weren’t any on TV and it wasn’t mentioned in the newspaper.

We did know that if you “wore green on Thursdays it meant you were queer.”  That was the playground taunt when I was growing up.  But what is one to do if March 17^th falls on a Thursday?  If you didn’t wear green on St Patrick’s Day, you would get pinched.  Get pinched or be queer?  Any sensible person would choose queer.

Seriously, we knew enough to know that what we were doing was not something that others thought was OK.  But we knew it was wonderful; we were, after all, in love.  I wrote in my journal the following question: “How can anything so wrong be so right?”

We were good for each other and we were glad that we were both girls.  If one of us had been a boy, our parents would never have let us spent the night together.  We had a whole lot of sleepovers in the year and a half that we were together.

After we broke up, I experimented with heterosexuality for a few years. It was OK.  I like men, but to be honest, for an intimate relationship, for a life partner, for me, women are just better.  I decided to come out and to identify openly as a lesbian in 1973.  It was a decision, a choice to lead a more fulfilling life. 

Because of that choice, I was lucky enough in 1975 to fall in love with my dear Anne.  It has been good, not perfect, no one’s life is perfect, but Anne and I have had a very good life together.  It will be 50 years this coming January.  She is my sweetie now and forever. We had 3 children together, children that always knew they were wanted.  Lesbians don’t tend to get pregnant by accident.   Having children was a choice, one I would definitely make again.  We now have a wonderful bonus in our little granddaughter. 

So if being gay is a choice, like becoming a mother, it is one I would make again.

Frankly, being gay is so great that heterosexuals really should be jealous of us.  You may have heard the line, “Men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”  If you are part of a same gender couple, at least you both live on the same planet!

Seriously, there are still so many gender related cultural attitudes and approaches to life that it is just easier to understand and get along with someone of the same gender.  There is also the fact that we are still a male dominated society, cursed with the dreaded patriarchy, so within same gender relationships, the external power differential, including earning capacity, tends to be much less.

If you live with someone of the same gender, you also don’t have to argue about whether or not to put the toilet seat down.

If you are close to the same size, you can even share clothes without anyone else noticing. 

But if Anne suddenly started wearing purple instead of her usual browns and grays, someone might notice.  What can I say?

No two people, or couples are exactly the same, but gender roles tend to require a lot more negotiation in heterosexual relationships.  Our oldest son, when he was about 12, made the comment that he liked having two moms partly because it gave him the freedom to be who he was.  He could like cooking, he could like doing yard work, and could just be whoever he was. He wasn’t locked into a stereotypical gender role just because he was a boy.  He’s heterosexual and the woman he lives with has expressed appreciation for his non-patriarchal approach in their relationship. 

Studies show that children raised by same gender parents turn out pretty much like other kids do with the small, but not insignificant difference, that as adolescents and as adults they are more accepting of all kinds of differences. We need more people like that in the world.

When our kids were small, the other mothers we met would often comment as they saw us both changing diapers and dealing with the kids that they would love it if their kids had an extra mom to help with all the mothering duties.  Not that men can’t do those things, and not that there aren’t some dad’s, both straight and gay, who are awesome at all the nurturing tasks, but for at least most of those women, their husbands were just “helpers” and the childrearing duty was not fully shared.  They said they were jealous and I think they really were.

There are also all the straight women friends who, when their relationships with men just didn’t seem to work out, have told us that they wished they were lesbians because it just seems a whole lot easier.  They were jealous of what Anne and I have together.

Jealousy can be a good thing.  It is much better than tolerance, and it is certainly better than disgust.

The point of this sermon is not, however, a recruiting effort.  No toaster ovens will be handed out if you join up (a really dated joke from the old Ellen show), Yes, I think it is great to be gay; it makes me happy.  It brings me joy. But even if straight people have it harder in some ways, they can be happy too, and the real message is that we all need to find the good that is in each of us, in each of our lives.  There are advantages and disadvantages to almost everything. There is nothing wrong with being straight. Love is love after all.

A lot of things have and will break our hearts.  There is so much that we would change if we could, about the world and about our own lives.  There is loss, and there is grief, discrimination, and oppression. There are tragedies of all kinds in life. Most of us would like more of something in our lives.  More time, more money, better health, better weather, more peace, or more excitement, there is always something that we think will make our lives better.  I’d love it if we had real equality throughout the world.  I would love it if all churches were as accepting of diversity as this one is.  We can work for the changes we would like to see.  But in the meantime, let us count our blessings.  Let us be happy with who we are and what we are doing.

Each of you has positives in your life.  Recognize them and celebrate them.  Celebrate who you are, a complex human being with a complex life.  Know that there is a river than runs in each of our souls; we are all somebody.  (We are going to sing that hymn at the close of this service)  Real joy comes, I believe, from being our authentic selves.  Don’t get stuck in the negative messages.  No one is less than anyone else.  We all have inherent worth and dignity.  Relish it, enjoy it, be who you are. Be happy.  Be gay, even if you are straight. Love fiercely and love well.

We have only to remember that “the only measure of our words and our deeds will be the love we leave behind when we’re done.”

Stay on the side of love.  Choose to stay on the side of love.  It is the only thing that really matters.  Amen and hallelujah!