Homophobia, Religion, and Racism

• • homophobia

On June 17th 2015, nine beautiful Black individuals who were having Bible study at a church in Charleston, NC lost their lives to a White, racist gunman who revealed in his manifesto that he thought Blacks were “stupid and violent.” The killing demonstrated how prevalent racism is in the U.S. today, especially in the way it echoed the 16th street Baptist Church killing of four innocent black girls at the hands of White Supremacist in 1963. It was particularly painful because the church for many Black people represents liberation and comfort, and has been and is still the location for community organizing against racial oppression. It was in the Black church that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave many of his most powerful sermons on love and justice and if you know the Black church like I do, it is where the pastor always yells “Our God is an on-time God. Now let the church say ‘Amen’ ” and the congregation would repeat the Amen.

But the church has not always been a space for love and hope for everyone, especially for sexual minorities and gender queer people. Almost a year after the Charleston shooting, forty-nine queer Latino and Afro-Latino individuals lost their lives to another deranged gunmen, but unlike the White supremacist’s suggestions of us being “stupid and violent,” many church goers have said instead that we “reaped what we sowed” and in essence deserved our deaths for rejoicing in our sinful lifestyles. In fact, many of us might recall the painful video from 2009 of the dangerous ministries of Patricia and Kelvin Mckinney as they tried to exorcise a “gay Demon” from a young Black 16 year old boy. Not long after the Orlando slaughter of the 49, a Latino Christian pastor wished more of the “sodomites would have died.” These stories remind me of the pain I had to endure, Sunday after Sunday, as my pastor said “Hate the Sin but Love the Sinner” and posited that it wasn’t homophobia he was pedaling but the “truth of God, and the church says Amen.” The positions of the church made it difficult for my Latino mother and Black father to accept me as I am for years. Hell, it made it difficult for me to accept myself for years.

The social sciences were not any better for me as a queer person of color. Sociologist Mark Regnerous, a tenured University of Texas (Austin) faculty member and deeply religious Christian man, used the auspices of “science” to conduct a well-funded yet inherently homophobic study about the dangers of same sex parenting. Despite the study being widely debunked by the scientific community, it has been cited and used in countries in Africa and in Russia as justifications for legislation that jails and murders sexual minorities. The Black sociologist George Yancey, no doubt a hero to many Black Christian academics, defended Regnerous’s work and continues to describe homosexuality as a sinful “choice,” despite the overwhelming amount of research that suggests sexual minorities have no more control over their orientations than heterosexuals. In fact he states that being Black or a woman is not a sin, but homosexuality is, therefore suggesting that sexism and racism are somehow more oppressive than homophobia. This thinking is common in the church and among numerous Black and Latino scholars. And this same religious thinking–that we somehow are choosing to engage in our “deviant lifestyles”–is what leads religious extremists like the Orlando killer to do exactly what he did.

A Gallup poll conducted in 2012 found that the LGBT identity is highest among younger, non-white, and low income individuals. Similarly, a great number of hate crimes and attacks are on LGBT peoples including many transgender women of color. We are fighting racism in our gay communities, and homophobia and transphobia in the straight community. We are fighting for our sexual worth among sexual minorities and for the right to use the restroom among heterosexuals. No matter how much time passes, we are constantly fighting.

And so today I am again getting ready to fight, and the source of my anger and pain is the many people who use the church to hide their thinly veiled homophobia and hate. And I will take this fight to the couple that tells me I have a “gay demon” while they have demons of hate and misunderstanding, to the so called Black intellectual who claims to love the sinner and hate the sin, as if the two can be separate to me, to the Latino pastor who falsely associated my love for another gay man with pedophilia, to the many race scholars who stay silent because they think they can fight racism without fighting sexism and homophobia but do not understand that they cannot. I am here to tell all of them that the blood of the victims is on their hands too, that they contribute to this hate in varying ways and that they have done more to kill us slowly than the shooter did when he snuffed out lives in mere seconds. I am mad as hell and I am ready to fight to live, because too many of my brothers and sisters have died. And while I’m on the topic of choice, now is the time for you to make a choice, to abandon your homophobic ways and join me in this fight or continue to be the bullets that filled the killer’s gun. NOW let the church say “Amen.”

Jesus G. Smith is an advanced Ph.D. student in sociology at Texas A&M University

On Pride Sunday: Reflections on Racism and Homophobia

• • homophobia, Latinos

Today is gay pride in New York City and it marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.   What comes to mind when you think of gay pride?  If you’re like most people, it’s an image of white, gay men.   Just as in the dominant straight culture, image-making in the gay subculture has been dominated by white men who have constructed their own images.   The reality is that there were Black and Latina women at the Stonewall on June 28, 1969, although you rarely hear about them.   One of those people was Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered Latina (image of Sylvia Rivera, Fall, 1970 from NYPL Digital Gallery).  Rivera, who identified as a “street transvestite” in the days before the neologism “transgendered,” was always clear about the connection between homophobia from straight society and the racism and class privilege within the gay community.  See her, for example, this video interview.

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When Sylvia Rivera passed away in 2002, her dying wish was that her community of faith, Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY), reach out to homeless LGBTQ youth.  Today, MCCNY Charities maintains an overnight shelter, 365 days a year, for homeless queer youth in New York City.  The shelter is called Sylvia’s Place and is part of Homeless Youth Services at MCCNY.

Since January of this year, photographer Josh Lehrer as been chronicling the lives of some of the transgendered teenagers that call Sylvia’s Place home. In a project he calls “Becoming Visible,” a series of 80 16-by-20-inch cyanotype portraits of these young people. Some of the photos are featured on The New York Times’ photography blog, Lens, and it’s worth your time to click through and look at the slide show.  Are these the people you think of when you think of gay pride?  Perhaps not until now.

Countering Racist and Other Stereotyping

• • anti-racism, homophobia, racism, sexism

Anti-racism protest

We like to accent here resources for dealing with various forms of racism, sexism, and heterosexism (Creative Commons License photo credit: uwdigitalcollections). Leslie Aguilar has put together an important website and book that suggests various strategies for dealing with stereotyped and prejudiced commentaries and performances that you may encounter in your daily rounds.

The suggestions include responding to racist and other stereotyped comments from acquaintances or others with a simple reaction like, “ouch, that hurts” or “ouch, that stereotype hurts.” I have suggested similar modest counters such as, “what does that mean?” or “what did you mean by that?” Or “can you explain that joke to me?”

Such counters are important for several reasons, including the act of calling out the racist, sexist, or homophobic remark for what it is–that is noting the stereotyped image, notion, or emotion in such a remark and not letting it pass by unremarked upon. By calling it out, you often keep more such remarks from coming. Calling it out also may allow a further discussion about why that remark or joke hurt, and who was hurt. We need to build such actions into regular Stereotyping 101 and Racism 101 courses at all levels of U.S. schooling.

Try out his video preview here.