Recently, Wesley Hill posted some wonderful thoughts here about the film Desire of the Everlasting Hills. It is a captivating documentary about three Christians who either return or convert to Catholic Christianity, leaving behind active homosexual lifestyles. There are so many wonderful takeaways, many of which Wes highlights quite well. But I want to focus on one aspect of their stories that struck me as particularly powerful: sacrificial love.
It is no secret that the theological river where I happily find myself swimming believes in a traditional, Side B sexual ethic where all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is contrary to the clear teaching of scripture. I have no qualms with the teaching. However, many times this strongly held belief can go too far, resulting in characterizations of gay people in monogamous relationships that are misinformed or worse (homophobic).
One common way I see this happen is when theological conservatives seek to discredit the love that same-sex couples feel and tangibly display toward one another. I have often heard statements like, “That gay couple doesn’t really love one another. It is simply sinful lust masquerading as love.” The thought is that if they are sinning in their expression of their sexuality, then the love that they supposedly “feel” is false, or is in some way disqualified.
This is emphatically not true of the love that the gay couples in the film displayed for one another. (Warning – spoiler alert! Skip the next two paragraphs if you don’t want the specifics…or just watch the film, already.)
For example, Dan was in a committed same-sex relationship for about a year when he began to develop unexpected feelings toward a female coworker. He found himself not only physically drawn to her, but also yearning to marry her and start a family. Not knowing what to do, he told his partner about these newly awakened feelings. How did his partner respond? He told Dan, “If you can have those dreams, if you can have that life, I want you to have it.” In other words, he loved Dan enough to put Dan’s happiness and wellbeing before his own, even if it meant losing him.
There’s more. Rilene was in a monogamous lesbian relationship with her partner, Margo, for 25 years. Their relationship ultimately ended and Rilene embraced the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality. After the relationship was over, Margo developed terminal cancer. When Rilene found out, she invited Margo to stay with her for Margo’s final months of life, offering personal care. Through tears, Rilene said, “I wanted to make sure that she knew that even though I was turning away from the life that I was not rejecting her, and that I still loved her.” This was not lust. This was sacrificial, dignifying love until the end.
I care deeply about the broader gay community and yearn to see the conversation between conservative and progressive folks advance in positive ways. However, if we intentionally ignore that type of love in gay relationships, we will never advance this conversation. Why should those who disagree with us listen to what we have to say if we willfully deny real and beautiful love given and received? The truth is that they shouldn’t. It is ad hominem reasoning at its worst, and it’s hurtful.
But in addition to being nice, affirming true love wherever it exists helps us show the beautiful depths of committed, spiritual friendship. For those of us who are painting a positive picture of celibacy, we must be able to show how the sacrificial love often experienced in committed sexual relationships is also available within non-sexual friendships. We need to be able to say, “The love that gay partners have for one another is real, but does not need to be expressed sexually to find actualization. It can also be beautifully shown within committed chaste friendships, in which others needs come first.” If we can’t offer that type positive alternative, then no one will consider celibacy as a life-giving option. And in order to present said positive alternative, we must be honest about the love that gay partners are capable of. That very love is still available within friendship!
One more spoiler from the film (for goodness sake, go watch it so you can read the whole post). Speaking of ending her relationship with Margo, Rilene says, “I also don’t want to denigrate the relationship that I had with Margo. I don’t want to denigrate anybody else’s relationship. I think that we all have a deep, deep need for love and we find that where it seems to fit most.” None of us should seek to denigrate true love. But this doesn’t mean that we must accept every aspect of a relationship wholesale and lay aside all difference whatsoever. Instead, we must be able to recognize beauty within the relationship while simultaneously disagreeing with the expression of sexuality. We must be able to hold that tension.
Rilene is right. We all have a deep, deep need for love. And that love is just as legitimately available within celibacy as it is in sexual expression. In our hyper sexualized culture, that message will turn some heads.
Spiritual Friendship 
Thank you for this. In days gone by, I was one of these opinion holders. God in a box never amounts to anything resembling love nor wisdom.
I agree with the notion that good aspects of a gay relationship should be recognized if even there is a sinful aspect to the relationship. Humans have a tendency to generalize and see things in a black and white manner. However, reality and life are usually more complex. But I believe gay Christians who hold traditional sexual ethics need to do a better job in communicating this complexity. In my blog, I’ve been trying to do just that by showing that every aspect of being “gay” is multifaceted with godly and ungodly dimensions. For instance, I recently discussed how “same sex attraction” that the orthodox churches uncritically dismiss as being entirely from the sinful nature is actually comprised of non-sexual attraction, which is generally godly, and sexual attraction, which is generally ungodly. As we better understand and communicate the complexity of the issue, I believe there will be less of a tendency to view homosexuality as a one-dimensional caricature and lead to greater openness towards people with same sex sexual attractions while still upholding traditional biblical sexual ethics.
Confessions of a Gay Evangelical Christian
coagec.wordpress.com
We all relate to these issues through our own cultural lens, obviously. Still, I wonder what Christ, in his own time and place, would have said on this topic. I wonder if Christ met a committed, loving gay couple whether he would celebrate their love while speaking against the sexual aspect of their relationship. That seems a bit disjointed to me. I am not sure that separating love and sex so clinically is a very holistic view of human nature.
The point I am trying to make is that love is a word that I think has a very different meaning in our culture than it has at other times. In our culture love justifies almost any behavior and I don’t think that is true previously. In our culture we never talk about the negatives of love. Is that crazy? Can their be negatives to love? We all know what Jesus said “If you love these more than me…”
I certainly believe that gay and lesbian people love. Obviously. Yet I think we do have to be cautious in adopting the cultural believe that love is always a good thing. Anything that draws us from Jesus Christ, in that instance, isn’t a good thing. I know people who hadn’t really experienced sexual attraction to the same gender until they first experienced love. Love led them into a same gender relationship.
Human love always has an aspect of need. Human love can lead us from our first love, from our priority to serve Christ. Human love can color our understanding of right and wrong. Human love can involve a lot of tunnel vision. Human love, can in ways, be selfish, maybe not in regard to the person we love, but towards everything or everyone else. Human love isn’t pure.
In that context I think that Christ might have the attitude that loving God with our whole heart is the first priority. Everything else falls a very distant second.
“Christ would disagree with even a loving gay couple because gays are so out of control compared to straights that if we fall in love with a same gender people then we are needy, making that love an unhealthy obsession, and being pulled away from Christ (but if straight people fall in love in the same fashion it is cool, can enhance their relationship with God, and doesn’t hinder them at all spiritually because reasons).”
That is how I read this response, anyways.
I think to read it that way is to misunderstand what I meant to say. Love can pull anyone away from Christ, gay or straight. Yet love that leans towards that which is sin (in my example I said I was referencing Jesus meeting a sexually active gay couple) seems only logically to have a greater chance to do just that. I would say the same thing about a heterosexual man who was cheating on his wife with another woman that he loved. To say their love is great but the sex is wrong, seems, in my opinion, to be a bit of a artificial separation and one that on some level misunderstands both sex and love.
This discussion reminds me of what Jesus said in Mathew 10:37.
Matthew 10:37 KJV
[37] He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
That is so strong, so hard to follow. It is amazingly strong and harsh. Nonetheless it is Christ talking…
I also think that in every human love there is something redeemable. But I agree that human love needs to be purified. It must go through God first.
Ignore Mr. Flowers. Besides, he doesn’t seem to even look at the elephant in the room of that talking-point, or rather the bonobo. Anyway, I believe that a recently elevated German cardinal alluded to the fact that gays and lesbians really do strive to love and be loved. Maybe one of you can write to him?