No shame, no gain?

March 12, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I have written before about the toxic and corrosive effects of shame on human beings. (See for example, “Pray for the Bobbies of this world,” January 3, 2009)

I seriously think that what lies at the center of the culture wars’ battlefields is shame.

Those conservatives who spend millions of dollars and hours doing everything possible to deprive LGBT people of our rights are not merely trying to preserve rights and decency for their “traditional values” constituency. Beneath all of that strategic and rhetorical stuff they are really trying to shame us back into the closet, back into the stone age. Without shame, the reactionary and conservative side cannot make gains in these “wars.”

The battle over Proposition 8 in California is only the latest issue in these “wars.” On every other battleground I can think of in recent decades, there has been the public issue articulated by the cultural/religious right, but there has been the underlying shame-related view as well. This analysis is clumsily worded here, but I think we could devote more attention to this correlation until clarity is revealed:

Shame is a constant in the formula of the cultural and religious right. It is still thought to be a convenient tool or weapon, that can be picked up and used any time other arguments are not persuasive enough to push LGBT people into their closets. And shame, as viewed by the conservative power base, is thought to be almost self-evident. That is, the way in which they make attempts to shame us —just for being who we are, or just for wanting to live our lives with the same rights and the same opportunities as other people— is built on their conservative view that what is so shameful about being or behaving as a homosexual/bisexual/transgender person, is that it is just shameful.  Most typical of all is the attempt of the Right to belittle pride by shaming it.

Americans for Truth trying to shame the Chicago Gay Pride Parade.  Keep reading down the page to find this shocking headline: “I Was Attacked By a Homosexual Mob!”

What is self-evident about circular reasoning? That we or our behavior is shameful because, well, it’s shameful? We should, in their view, just know and admit that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. And if we’re not, that is evidence that we are shameless, which is pathetic, disgusting and shameful.

Shame is often defined as unwanted attention. Take a room full of people, single out one person and have all the others simply stare at this one person and yell, “Shame on you!!” This is the power of the majority over the minority. For centuries, the heterosexual majority has reserved this power to shame lesbian/gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and for that matter any other minority that they don’t like, simply by yelling “Shame” until the minority is intimidated enough to back down, withdraw, build a closet, or run away in fear for their lives.

This is 2009, for God’s sake. Why does shame still work as a cultural and religious gimmick, a contrived deus ex machina to rescue the conservative view from an otherwise dismal collapse? That is, after all, the other use of religion — the one I don’t subscribe to at all — when you appeal to a judgmental and cruel God to shame people when your own efforts don’t seem to work well enough. The fact that LGBT people are not sufficiently ashamed of themselves in the sight of God is largely what propels the Religious Reich to such extremes.

But the God I know and obey is the one who calls us to compassion, to love, and to take risks in order that God’s realm may come to this earth. The spiritual lights by which I try to walk are those which reveal the power of love and grace, and call all people to come out of their fear and hiding, rather than to be shamed or run from God’s steadfast love and kindness. Perhaps the most spiritual thing any of us can do is to refuse to be shamed, and to have confidence that our integrity and our conscience are leading us to change society in a positive direction.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, "The Closet", Fundamentalism, LGBT Christian, Spirituality, LGBT Rights, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »