The end of "don't ask, don't tell"?

Presbyterians traditionally don't like to ask one another about sexual practices. In committee and presbytery meetings, we tend to talk around the subject with euphemisms like "the issue," avoiding even the words "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender." Because LGBT Presbyterians are in fact ministers, and more continue to become
Inquirers and Candidates every year, there have been two ways of navigating the conflict: to come out, or not to say anything.

Coming out forces committee and presbytery to hear that we really exist, to say the words, and to be involved in wrestling with their own sense of a candidate's call to ministry alongside a prejudicial and damaging law. If we're in a same-sex relationship, coming out also poses a serious risk to one's own ordination process, since it
places committee and presbytery in a position where they must knowingly disobey church law in order to ordain the candidate. Even if we're not in a relationship, coming out poses a serious risk to our ordination process, because many Presbyterians believe remaining single is not really a possibility for us.

Not saying anything is easier, because it allows a smoother way through the ordination process, and it allows decorous Presbyterians the comfort of not having to raise "the issue," even if they're pretty sure one of Those People is sitting at the table with them. In some progressive and/or tight-lipped locations, it's even possible to be out to family, friends, church and presbytery, as long as we don't quite speak the words in the presence of those few individuals who might decide to bring charges.

For years we have had the luxury of a choice. Are we called to ministry and intent on just getting through the process so we can serve a church? Then we remain closeted. Are we called to ministry and also to the struggle for LGBT equality? Then we come out,
accepting the struggle and the consequences (even if it means never seeing the fulfillment of that call to ministry.)

Depending on how a series of recent presbytery actions and PJC decisions turn out, that choice may be over within a matter of months. Soon, we may all face humiliating questions about our sex lives in front of whole presbyteries. All candidates, gay or straight. Let's be honest: It's not fair. And it may deprive many candidates of the
chance to serve.

Rev. Chuck Booker-Hirsch (minister and former MLP board member) has often said while leading workshops, "G-6.0106b makes liars of us all." The effect of "don't ask, don't tell" has been to create a climate, especially among our strongest allies, where we habitually lie about important parts of each other's lives. Secrecy has become a necessary
gift for ministry. Strategies for secret-keeping have become the standard talking points of the Presbyterian left. And in the process, the real goodness, strength and wisdom of the LGBT Presbyterian community remains submerged, because so many of us are just trying to keep our heads down and do our jobs. Not to mention the misinformation, and disinformation, that prevails: with so few of us out and visible, there's less chance to combat such myths as "transgender people are really gay" and "only straight people are
capable of fidelity."

Is there a gift in the end of "don't ask, don't tell"? I believe there are three.

1. The church, especially its progressive wing, can no longer foster a culture of deception in the name of inclusiveness. Secrecy is not a gift for ministry anymore.

2. Because the question of sexual practice is firmly out in the open, the debate over G-6.0106b is no longer "Do we affirm LGBT people as ministers, or do we push them into secrecy?" Instead, the debate becomes "Do we force families to break up in order to serve the church?" The conservative stance in this debate becomes much uglier, crueler and harder for serious Christians to maintain.

3. All of us, including mono-gendered heterosexuals, will have to face public interrogation about sexual practice. Thus, mono-gendered heterosexuals who have not restricted their sexual activity to marriage will have to face the same questioning, and the same decisions about truth-telling, that LGBT people do. This represents an enormous increase in shared experience with LGBT people--and shared experience is the most powerful motivation for solidarity. If we can stand together, our movement stands to become much stronger.

These are not easy gifts. They might even be unwanted gifts. In the short term, many of us will be faced with diabolical choices in the effort to serve Jesus Christ.

In the long term, we may look back at this as the year the Sexuality Debate shifted, and the church began to embrace the full diversity of Christians.

Heather W. Reichgott