Taking GLBT Rights to the Pulpit
Clergy for a Fair Houston joins the battle for a city nondiscrimination ordinance
by the Rev. Robert Schaibly, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston

The teaching that homosexual behavior is a sin is a prejudice hidden under the fig leaf of religion. Biblical literalists do not take literally most of the teachings of the Bible. Certainly there are fundamentalists who have gotten a divorce, for example. Do Christian literalists keep a kosher home? Do they avoid shellfish and pork? The same Holiness Code in Leviticus that prohibits homosexual relationships also says children who curse their parents are to be put to death; that the punishment for adultery is death; that the punishment for incest is death. May we expect a citywide referendum demanding the enforcement of all these?!

The writers of Leviticus tried to bind together a disparate people surrounded by diverse cultures and religions. The Book forbids haircuts and permits holding slaves as long as they are from foreign countries. It says we are not to sow fields with two kinds of seed, not to wear garments made of two different kinds of material, not to harvest fruit trees until the fifth year, not to have sex with a woman who is menstruating. How seriously can we take this today as a guide for living our lives? It is in this same context that homosexual behavior is forbidden. This is because the people of that time knew homosexuality as pederasty and temple prostitution, and no one is contesting the moral wrongs of those.

There is no commandment against homosexual behavior but there is one against adultery. None of the prophets addresses the issue. Jesus himself says nothing about it. But what glee some ministers take in saying, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Have you noticed they never go on to admit, "It was these heterosexuals who were responsible for the expulsion from the Garden of Eden!" No, we never hear that part, do we?

Soon the Houston City Council will vote to add sexual orientation to the list of categories for its nondiscrimination ordinance for city employees. We who are happy to see this happen will probably have to confront one referendum seeking to repeal it, and perhaps another that may try to prevent insurance benefits ever being given to anyone not biologically related to the city employee or the employee’s married spouse. In the interest of justice we must all act to prevent these from passing on November 6.

All the world’s religions have a variant of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or in some wordings, "Do nothing to others you would not have done to you."

Coming together in this spirit, a number of religious leaders have gathered as Clergy for a Fair Houston. We support the City Council’s nondiscrimination ordinance in employment. We want to be sure the people of Houston know that not all religious leaders are antigay. We want to prevent any repeat of the 1985 experience by organizing now. We think social acceptance has changed markedly and would like to advance it further. We hope many congregations and/or their governing boards will support the inclusiveness of the Houston City Council’s decision.

We have three actions in mind. We want something visible. We want a printed statement signed by clergy that says to be religious, to be a good person, one does not have to be antigay. And we want to stimulate discussion in churches through adult classes to provide a point of view that has gone unspoken, and hence unheard, in much of Houston.

The Visual Statement. Two weeks before Election Day we plan to wrap yellow ribbon that says "Hate-Free Zone" around as many church and temple buildings as will welcome it! The board of the congregation I serve–First Unitarian Universalist Church–has voted to do so. Ask your church and synagogue leaders now to get permission for this. PFLAG has offered to provide the ribbon. (Contact me at Bob@firstuu.org.) We want Houstonians to hear the message that spiritual values preclude hate and require us to be fair in employment. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," said Martin Luther King.

Clergy Statement: The clergy on the planning committee have drafted a statement we hope all sympathetic clergy in Houston will sign, and which we will then publicize in the media:

"We come from many faith traditions and communities so we ourselves obviously have different ideas. We are residents of a great city and citizens of a nation that guarantees constitutional freedoms and protections to all. Discrimination in the workplace is immoral as well as economically costly. We respect the diversity of the world in which we live. In our various faiths we find support for laws which protect persons from discrimination. Hatred and prejudice are not family values! Therefore we urge Houstonians to defeat any attempt to limit equal rights in employment. We support the goal of equality, dignity, and respect for all people."

We make a point of identifying ourselves as clergy because there are so few clergy and so few churches that will stand for simple justice for gay people. If clergy will not take a stand, neither will congregations. As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."

Religious Education Classes: Third, we want to work through our congregations by means of adult education programs and youth programs to teach about this issue in discussions. Some of our denominations have published materials that will work well to get the conversation going.

We are also announcing to all GLBT people who are hurting from preachers who revile them, congregations that reject them, and denominational assemblies that vote about their very existence, that there are religious groups in Houston where anyone can affirm the values called religious and find healing and hope. There is a refreshing and positive spirituality in the world.

Living out our message of love and justice, health and wholeness, requires progressive religious people to stand up and be counted. These may not be the best of times, but these are our times, and we shall make the best of them!

The Rev. Robert Schaibly is a graduate of Michigan State University and Harvard. He has studied psychology and Zen Buddhism extensively. For 19 years he has been minister at First Unitarian Universalist Church, where10 years ago he and his partner, Steven Storla, a college English teacher, had a commitment ceremony.