A conversation in a gay bar changed my opinion on sexuality

This is the story of how I changed my mind on sexuality. 

I was visiting Boystown, one of the first officially-designated LGBT neighbourhoods in the United States, while recording interviews for a BBC World Service documentary, later broadcast as God and Gays: Bridging the Gulf. 

The project centred around the work of an evangelical author, Andrew Marin, whose 2009 book, Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community had prompted widespread discussion about the extent to which orthodox Christianity should engage with LGBT culture.  

Marin’s approach was unusual, to say the least. Several times each year, his foundation would hire out the largest gay bar in the neighbourhood, and host an evening of open conversation which he called a ‘Living in the Tension’ gathering. Anyone, with any perspective on Christian faith and sexuality, was welcome to attend. The only proviso was a commitment to respectful dialogue and careful listening.  

For the purposes of our radio documentary, we were re-creating something akin to the flavour of such a gathering, interviewing a range of people who represented the different perspectives that Marin regularly encountered. And it was at this moment, with a microphone in hand on the dancefloor, that I realised I needed to confront my own prejudice about Christians and sexuality.  

The conversation that changed it all

This was the summer of 2011. On top of making the radio documentary, I was also one year into training for ordained ministry in the Church of England. 

It is probably worth saying that I began theological college with fairly standard liberal views on sexuality. But as we recorded our interviews in the heart of Chicago’s LGBT community, I realised that I was hearing a range of perspectives that confounded my neat certainties. If part of being a liberal meant honouring everyone as they shared their story, I had to face my own hitherto dismissive personal attitude towards those championing traditional sexual ethics.  

First, I heard from Will, an openly gay pastor in the United Methodist Church. He spoke movingly about resolving a ‘creative tension’ he initially felt, between his calling to ministry and his sexuality. He now lived openly with his male partner and their pet dog. 

But sitting opposite him was Brian. And what Brian was about to say did not compute with my view of Christian flourishing. He told me that he had always known himself to be gay – but because of his theological convictions he had chosen to marry a woman, and had since fathered a child. He said that falling in love with his wife was “an experience that I can only say was through God himself bringing my wife and me together.”

A story such as Brian’s was one that I was prepared to report dutifully, but for which I had no personal sympathy. I regarded such an approach as a denial of his own sexuality which seemed the opposite of fruitful. But if I was as liberal as I claimed, how could I be so casually dismissive of his position? 

I had long regarded evangelical churches as places of judgemental exclusion for gay people. But here was Brian offering an entirely different perspective, of the kind that later would be given increased prominence in a British context through the ministry of Living Out. Brian was not denying the reality of same-sex attraction, but rather proposing a different lived response to that human reality.  

A deeper exploration

At a Harvard Sexuality Seminar I was attending while in the US, such questions were being faced by an intriguing group of emerging scholars in their twenties and thirties. We comprised three straight (married) men, one trans man, and nine lesbians. There was an immediate sense of friendship and collegiality in the group, which led to a deep honesty in conversation both within and beyond the seminar. I learnt much about the internal dynamics of LGBT culture within the United States at that time. The women participants spoke of deep divisions between lesbians and gay men, which meant that lesbians in Boston held a ‘dyke parade’ on the eve of Gay Pride, which happened to fall during our seminar. We all joined the parade as a group. 

There was one story shared at this time which proved as pivotal for me as meeting Brian on the dancefloor. One woman participant shared her fear, and her tears, about the fact that her female partner had recently started binding her own breasts, and was exploring having a double mastectomy as she explored a change of gender identity. A complicating factor was that at the same time she was pursuing IVF via a sperm donor. The participant in the seminar was trying to come to terms with the fact that her own identity as a lesbian would be profoundly changed, if in a few years’ time she and her partner presented to the world as a straight couple with a child.  

It was a particular privilege to hear this story, told in an environment of trust and mutual support. But as I returned to the UK, I couldn’t help but ask myself whether the scenario that woman was facing, considered alongside other deeply personal stories shared within the group, really represented an authentic expression of ‘life in all its fullness’. Over the coming months, rather to my surprise, my continued study of Christian Ethics led to my being fully persuaded by the existing teaching of the church on sexual ethics.  

Rethinking what it means to flourish

I share this not because I necessarily expect you to agree with my change of mind, but because I want to underline that what has stayed with me ever since is the deep challenge presented by the widespread perception among LGBT people that the church is inherently uncompassionate and uncaring towards them. This had previously propelled me towards a more inclusive sexual ethic. But in the course of making this documentary, I had met two kinds of people who confounded my expectations: those living joyfully and (in their own words) flourishing within the bounds of a traditional sexual ethic; and those living with fear and confusion (in their own words) when embracing the opportunities of a progressive vision. 

I absolutely accept that these two individuals do not represent the whole story, but their stories are valid and significant as part of it. In the Western church of our day, these questions about sexuality and gender identity are often the most challenging debates within the church. In Compassionate Orthodoxy and Sexuality – Seeking Grace and Truth in Disagreement (Grove Books), I explore whether there is a way to hold together the compassion of Christ towards all people with the traditional teaching of the church, and whether a commitment to ‘compassionate orthodoxy’ can offer a conceptual way forward in the damaging disagreements we face.