Articles in Features
Queer, Christian, and raised in a Yupik Village
Julia McCarthy grew up Catholic in a Yupik village. She graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, worked in Anchorage for a few years, and now lives in Maine with her partner. She wrote this essay about her journey as a queer person of faith on October 30, a few days before the religious conservatives of Maine voted to repeal the state’s new same-sex marriage law.
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How does that slogan go? I’m queer and I go to church – get used to it
I am a person who tries to practice my faith daily. I am a queer person who believes that we can experience mysteries that defy explanation in our daily life. I am a person who regularly attends church and believes that there are many, many paths to understanding ourselves and our relationship with the unknown. I am a person who loves math and science and logic and believes that we gain wisdom from knowledge.
My relationship with religion may seem complex to some. It is not a relationship which I choose to be very vocal about, for a variety of reasons. I’ve been inspired to try to share something of my path by the aggression I have seen directed toward a number of young people in our community and by the powerful words of our housemate, who chose to share his perspective. Thank you for reminding me that it’s important to come out in lots and lots of ways.
Spirituality and religion have played transformative roles in my life since I was born. The village culture I grew up in practiced both Catholicism (in Yupik) and a variety of ways of celebrating the worldview of Yupik peoples – dance, singing, mask making, storytelling, honoring the cycles of life. Fellowship with your community and with God was a part of my daily life in the village and imbued almost every task in some way or another. It’s how I learned to respect life, the natural world, responsibility to others, and more. These traditions are not without their challenges – most GLBTQ Yupik people I know have had both cultural and religious barriers to coming out. It was through the lessons I learned in the village that I developed a relationship with god, though, and it’s important to note that the lens through which that relationship developed was guided by the elders I loved and respected.
Throughout the rest of my childhood and into my teens I was a devout Catholic. I attended St. Nicholas Church in my hometown and, as I got older, found as many reasons to be at church as I could. My devotion to my faith set me apart from many of my peers and it was sometimes difficult for me to find community that was accepting of who I aspired to be. For a long time, I thought about becoming a nun – I felt my path to being a helping person was to be found next to God. I was confirmed as an adult in the tradition of that faith, and shortly thereafter chose to leave the Church. When I left Catholicism, I lost many of my friends. More importantly for me at the time, I lost my faith. There were a number of reasons that my relationship with God was damaged and the one reason that created a huge barrier for me in finding another community of faith was my queerness.
I was taught through declamations of supposedly loving people that the god that I had developed a relationship with throughout my life HATED me because I was queer. I learned through the behavior of my community and my peers that to be queer was to be without faith, without support, without dignity. I learned through conversations with other queer people that to adhere to a path of faith was scary and wrong, especially after understanding the damage inflicted upon queer people by communities of faith. I learned to create an armor to deflect the painful phrase “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” I learned to avoid conversations with people that had to do with any kind of spiritual belief system. I learned to hide my questions and to reject my beliefs and to keep my mouth shut so as not to offend anyone. I have watched people be shunned by their communities or live closeted in fear that they will be rejected and ridiculed if they come out. I have lost so many friends to suicide that I cannot keep track any longer. I decided that if there was any kind of higher purpose to life, it completely escaped me.
Then I met Jamez and with him I remembered what a joy it is to explore my faith. To lift up my voice in praise. To listen to a sermon and feel inspired to disagree with my faith leader and thereby learn more about who I am in the process. In this community of faith, I don’t need to make up my mind about anything to know that I have value.
When I think about the people who have been with me to explore my faith, I feel lucky to count among them people from all walks of life and all belief systems. It is not my intention to change your mind about your particular system of belief or non-belief.
I’ll tell you what I do think needs to change though:
I think more queer people need to feel safe coming out as people of faith.
I think people who are queer allies and practice any kind of religion need to feel like they can express dissent without becoming isolated.
I think people of faith who are NOT allies to GLBTQ people need to stop choosing to abuse their fellow humans with words and looks and actions.
We are complex beings, with beautiful multi-faceted identities. I want to see more love in the world, and if I can’t see that, I want to see more respect for one another.
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Tim’s testimony: The research is clear
Good evening. I live in Anchorage, I’m 52 years old and I’m gay, and I make no apologies for that. EVER. But what’s wrong with being gay anyway? Absolutely nothing.
The research on homosexuality is very clear:
Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality. Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals.
This is from The American Psychological Association’s “Statement on Homosexuality” from way back in July 1994.
The Church also teaches understanding and compassion toward gay and lesbian people. In their 1976 statement, To Live in Christ Jesus, the American bishops wrote, “Some persons find themselves through no fault of their own to have a homosexual orientation. Homosexuals, like everyone else, should not suffer from prejudice against their basic human rights. They have a right to respect, friendship, and justice. They should have an active role in the Christian community.… The Christian community should provide them a special degree of pastoral understanding and care.” In 1990, the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops repeated this teaching in their instruction, Human Sexuality.
When I discussed this ordinance with my family who lives in the Deep South, I was surprised at a comment I received from my sister-in-law, a woman who lives in rural North Carolina. She wrote “this is about fundamental decency towards each other and if one doesn’t have that type of basic respect for another human being, all of the religion and political views in the world are meaningless.”
Before I run out of time I would like to state that I enthusiastically support Ordinance 64. Please vote YES…. all 11 of you!
Obviously some disagree with me and I’d like to address a few of their objections:
Including sexual orientation as a protected class, grants “special rights” or privileges to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. This is factually incorrect because the legislation protects every person without exception, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or, sometimes, asexual.
Including sexual orientation will criminalize any religious speech that presents homosexuality as a sin. This is factually incorrect because in the U.S., speech attacking a minority group is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Hate-crime legislation does not inhibit speech, it only is applicable if a violent crime has first been committed such as attempted murder, assault, aggravated assault, etc.
Including sexual orientation as a protected class is invalid because such classes must be reserved for innate, unchangeable, unchosen factors in a person’s life, like race, skin color, sex, degree of permanent disability, etc. This is not a defensible argument because religion has traditionally been included in hate-crime and human rights legislation. One’s faith identification is certainly changeable and chosen. Also, according to the vast majority of mental health therapists, human sexuality researchers, the Roman Catholic Church, liberal faith groups and some mainline faith groups, sexual orientation is neither changeable nor chosen.
Sexual orientation and gender identity may be words that cause unease or fear for individuals who have not studied the issues, and this is exactly why major civil rights changes usually come from legislatures, judges, or executive decree rather than by popular vote.
Take slavery for example. Late in the 17th century, Leander, a Roman Catholic theologian wrote:
It is certainly a matter of faith that this sort of slavery in which a man serves his master as his slave, is altogether lawful. This is proved from Holy Scripture…It is also proved from reason for it is not unreasonable that just as things which are captured in a just war pass into the power and ownership of the victors, so persons captured in war pass into the ownership of the captors… All theologians are unanimous on this.
Is it difficult to guess what a “vote of the people” would have decided about abolishing slavery in those times?
On women’s right to vote: In March 1884, Rev. Professor H. M. Goodwin wrote in the New Englander and Yale Review, Volume 43, Issue 179:
Before committing ourselves to one more radical and irremediable error, and plunging blindly into this gulf of women’s suffrage, it will be well to pause and see whither we are going, and what this new movement, or ‘reform’ really signifies; whether it rests on a true principle or a shallow and pleasing fallacy, and whether its results are likely to be beneficial or disastrous. This whole movement for female suffrage, is, at least in its motive and beginning, a rebellion against the divinely ordained position and duties of woman, and an ambition for independence and the honors of a more public life; as if any greater and diviner honor could be given to woman than those which God has assigned her; as if the sanctities of home and the sacred duties of wife and mother, with all their sacrifices, were not a higher sphere and a truer glory—a glory she shares with the world’s Redeemer—than the vulgar publicity of the polls and speech making, or the campaigning, or even the Senate and the bar.
Were women allowed to vote in 1884? In some places yes, but in many places not until the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified by the states in 1920.
It was only 42 years ago — on June 12, 1967 — that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying non-whites. The decision also overturned similar bans in 15 other states. Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America’s 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970.
Opinion polls show overwhelming popular support, especially among younger people, for interracial marriage, but that’s not to say acceptance has been universal. Bob Jones University in South Carolina only dropped its ban on interracial dating in 2000; a year later 40 percent of the voters objected when Alabama became the last state to remove a no-longer-enforceable ban on interracial marriages from its constitution. The US Supreme Court, not a vote by the majority of citizens, is what has allowed several of my friends to be married today.
So in summary, your YES vote on Ordinance 64 will help ensure that ALL citizens of Anchorage are treated fairly, equally, and without discrimination. Thank you.
Mike’s testimony: I will fight for liberty
Like Kat, author of yesterday’s testimony, Mike is a young adult who spoke in favor of the ordinance. Bent Alaska is happy to report that many Anchorage youth support LGBT equal rights. — Editor
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As a fantastic orator, Mark Hamilton, once said, “Responsibility means that if you have the ability to respond, then you have the responsibility to speak.” I will take a moment to remind all present of the words in our great Constitution, “That all persons have the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and are equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities, and “protection under the law.”
The essence of this matter is not what one religion or what one advocacy group feels, but whether We, as Alaskans, can allow inequality to persevere. Denial of the rights of an entire minority is beyond morally reprehensible. It is something I cannot, in good conscience, sit idly by and watch happen in my city.
I want to make it clear: I do not seek to force or push my opinion on others, merely to be free from their persecution against myself, against my brothers and sisters, against our children, and yours.
The protection of a minority from the tyranny of a majority is one issue each and every Alaskan ought to be proud of. I won’t ask you for Liberty; I will scream for it, from the mountaintops, from city hall, from the steps of your courtrooms.
I will fight for Liberty because I know better than most that Freedom is not Free, and because it is the American thing to do. I urge you to vote “yes.”
I would like to end with a quote from one of my first letters to the Editor of the ADN, as it is still pertinent today:
The religious right would like to resort to ad-hominem attacks on us and other illogical counters to our arguments. Well, frankly all this religious hoopla has no place in a secular argument; it doesn’t matter what your Bible says in a debate over how the laws of our country (or city) ought to be. What matters is right and wrong, and that their oppressive policies and limitations on our God-given freedoms are wrong.
Gayle’s testimony: The Catch-22 of discrimination
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Night after night we are lumped together with murderers, drug addicts, liars, thieves and prostitutes, and told we will be judged like them. We have to sit here and listen to bias because we must wait our turn to testify. This in itself is a form of cruel and unusual punishment. We wait our turn because we believe our civil rights need to be guaranteed with this amendment.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are largely an invisible minority. Many who have read scripture have said that they know people who are gay and lesbian and are invisibly patting themselves on the back for being nice to a gay person and for their “conditional” love. What they do not see is that they interact with us every day. We are your bankers, teachers, doctors, bus drivers, stylists, students, social workers, artists and sales people. The next time a stranger smiles or says “hi” on the street, or your life is made easier by someone doing a good job, ask yourself “Could they be gay?” How many times have you asked a nice young man if he “had a girlfriend?” If so, your hetero is showing. Instead, how about saying, “Is there anyone special in your life?” We live, eat, play, pray, and work invisibly; and we choose to reveal ourselves only to those we trust because rejection is painful.
You have asked for specific instances of discrimination, but that in itself is a Catch-22. Because there are no protections for GLBT people as a class, there are no agencies that can take their complaints of discrimination. Because there are no cases on file, it then follows that discrimination does not exist. That is the circuitous logic of Catch-22. The claim that these are “special rights” shows the degree to which GLBT people are seen as “so out of the ordinary” that their claim to ordinary rights seems special. Last assembly meeting, you believed Chief Huen when he said that his department needed the 12 hour posting for homeless camps as a tool for his department to use. Believe me when I say we need this amended ordinance as a tool for the protection of our civil rights.
You cannot appease those that oppose this ordinance with rewrites and exemptions. Therefore, I propose that you write the amended ordinance with language that protects the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community. And then vote “yes” to pass it.
And by the way, the woman who testified ahead of me (yesterday’s post), in a week and a half we will celebrate our 32nd anniversary.
Julie’s testimony: 5 Misconceptions about Ordinance 64
First of all, I want you to know that it has been extremely painful for the GLBT community to sit through these hearings being verbally assaulted and denigrated by the religious opponents of Ordinance 64.
You may have heard what I am about to say, but it bears repeating, to get us back to the original proposal.
Misconception #1: Our opponents claim they hate the behavior, not the person. This is the first of many misconceptions the opponents cling to about my community. They do not know us. I am a Lesbian, and it’s not what I do, but who I am. My emotional, social, romantic and sexual energies are linked to women. If I were to be celibate for the rest of my life, I would still be a lesbian.
Misconception #2: That sexual orientation is a choice. Psychologists tell us that sexual orientation is formed very early in life, by complex factors of nature and nurture, and that there is little to no choice about it. Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation, but no one suggests that it is a choice.
Misconception #3: The “gay agenda.” We do have an agenda — to gain equal protection from discrimination and live healthy, happy lives.
Misconception #4: There are cures or treatments for homosexuality. Since homosexuality is not an illness or a disease, there is no need to talk about cures.
Misconception #5, the biggest misconception of all: Passing this ordinance will result in a loss of rights by those opposing it and will create special rights for the GLBT community. Neither of these premises is true. Discrimination is not a right nor a freedom, regardless of the beliefs from which it stems, so it’s not something that can be taken away. The GLBT community would gain equal rights, not special rights.
I believe in freedom of speech (and being responsible for the abuse of that right),
religious freedom (but not forcing those beliefs on others),
and the separation of church and state, or city in this case.
The religious testimony has turned these hearings into a stage for judgment rather than a fight for civil rights. Let’s get back to the basic issue here: the need for GLBTs to be in included in the anti-discrimination ordinance.
The testimony the first night of the hearings and thereafter from members of our community should have provided enough evidence to show the need for Ordinance 64, but if that isn’t enough, have you been hearing the rhetoric and messages of our opponents?
I urge you to pass Ordinance 64 with language that protects the entire GLBT community. Thank you.
Pamela’s testimony: Existing law does not protect
Pamela Kelley, attorney and UAA Justice Center Professor, prepared the following testimony on AO-64, which was first posted here. Her actual testimony varied from these notes to address a case that was applied incorrectly by an opponent. Kelley’s explanation of that case (Oncale) is also worth reading and is posted HERE.
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Thank you – Madame Chairman, members of the assembly, Mr. Mayor. My name is Pamela Kelley. I am a member of the Alaska bar, no longer practicing but now teaching undergraduates about the law. I live in Anchorage. I signed up, belatedly, to testify because I think the state of the existing law has been obscured during the public comment already taken.
Federal, state and local laws overlap in the area of equal rights in employment, public accommodations and commerce. The first inaccuracy I hear repeated in these chambers is the idea that existing law already provides the protections that the proposed ordinance would cover. It does not.
The Constitution’s equal protection clauses, at the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, limit actions by the government – not private acts of discrimination. Nor are federal statutes helpful.
In Title 42 of the United States Code, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended reaches the area. Federal law here identifies those classes of persons against whom discrimination is illegal to include: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. None of those terms – including “sex” as defined – reach lesbians, gays, bisexual and trans-gendered individuals. But that only sets the minimums. The state of Alaska law may reach additional classes. Upon examination, however, it’s apparent that the Alaska Human Rights Act does not expand the classifications to cover this.
AS 18.80.220. protects against discrimination based on: race, religion, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, marital status, changes in marital status, pregnancy, or parenthood. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not identified as protected classes by state law, either.
The second category of comments that is legally inaccurate suggests the proposed ordinance confers special rights. One of two things might be going on here. Either some might be confusing the concept of non-discrimination with affirmative action. Or, some erroneously consider equal protection a kind of zero-sum game.
First: Discrimination occurs when one possessed of differences from another is rejected by that other, solely based on that difference. Only certain forms of discrimination are illegal under state, federal and local law. Same treatment as everyone else – despite differences – is the foundation of equal rights law.
Different, in fact preferential, treatment is what is at the basis of affirmative action. Affirmative action is a term used to describe programs and policies that provide preferences in benefits or contracting to a protected class to make up for historically discriminatory practices directed at that class. Obviously not the ordinance.
That leaves me with the “zero sum game” fallacy. There is no finite pool of rights to which equal protection applies. Our religious neighbors, in the free exercise of their religion, as a constitutional right, are not released from their obligations to comply with the law. The right of free exercise of religion does not prevent the law’s application when the doctrine of a freely chosen religion suggests members violate public laws. The simple example is the prohibition against illegal drug use that continues to apply to a person even if her selected religion views such use as sacramental.
Equal protection laws are aspirational, in a way. I hope my home town aspires to accept all of its people for exactly who they are and will apply the law to them equally.
Thank you.
