I occasionally listen to Oprah in the late afternoons while I'm making dinner -  I admit -  it's my way of doing pop culture research. A couple of weeks ago, Oprah had women singers on, including Dolly Parton and Melissa Ethredge. Melissa, openly a lesbian, had apparently invited Dolly to her wedding to another woman (or at least had asked Dolly what she thought about the event). And as Dolly told the story, Melissa was hesitant about Dolly's opinion, and so had asked her something like, "Do you think it's okay for gays and lesbians to get married?" And Dolly said she had responded back, in her typical exuberant and provocative way, "Well, heck ya, they should have every right to be just as miserable as the rest of us." And there you have it. Perhaps the queen of obvious heterosexuality, saying for all to hear, that she doesn't have a problem with gay marriage.

I believe the role of gay, lesbian, transgendered and bi-sexual persons in our society is one of the largest cultural issue of this time. There are certainly others: institutional racism, the abortion debate, economic justice, the environment, poverty, war and terrorism; but this particular issue seems to be on the brink of a sea change. At the risk of dividing the Episcopalian Church, they recently elected their first openly gay bishop, a man who is living with his partner. The Catholic Church has seen fit to weigh in by retrenching, restating again the purpose of marriage, procreation, and reasserting its position against even birth control, which it argues takes away from the sanctity of marriage, the only place sex is sanctioned for procreational purposes. Obvious, to me, is that, if the Catholic Church were to bend on this issue, give ground about what they say is the purpose of marriage, procreation, not only would they be opening the door to birth control but to some of the very private forms of abortion, and, perhaps, even more importantly, they would be opening the door
to changing our societal definition of the institution of marriage itself, a man partnered with a woman to have babies. The logic here, is that two men or two women cannot procreate together, so it can't be marriage and it can't be sacred.

There are other issues surrounding being gay or lesbian in our culture, and not all gays and lesbians are asking that their partnerships be recognized as marriages. But I think that most gays and lesbians would hope for some respect and some tolerance, especially institutionally, either by being allowed health insurance for their families or being allowed to visit - with family privileges - when a loved one is in the hospital – a practical way to do this would be to give some kind of legal sanction, such as marriage, to such relationships. My focus today is to talk about gays and lesbians,most specifically, but I want to take a minute to define transgendered and bi-sexual, as well. Our Unitarian Universalist position on having Welcoming Congregations, churches that openly accept gays and lesbians and others with sexual preferences different from the mainstream, also recognizes the social and justice needs for those who are transgendered and bi-sexual. (I also want to point out that Unitarian Universalist and the United Church of Christ are the only two denominations that ordain openly gay or lesbian ministers.) Transgendered is a broad umbrella which includes everything from cross dressers to those who seek a sex-change operation – and I admit that I am still a learner about this. Most transgendered people have some kind of issue with their presenting gender, male or female, and their issues cover a broad spectrum. They may feel that they are both, male and female; they may fully accept their outward gender but prefer to dress in a transgendered way, sometimes or even all the time – which does not necessarily mean they are gay or lesbian, either, heterosexuals can practice cross dressing, and so be transgendered; they may feel that their physical body doesn't match their emotional body – that they are a woman in a man's body, or a man in a woman's body. Bi-sexuals are those people who are sexually attracted to both sexes and may hold monogamous relationships with one or prefer an "open" relationship, involving more than one partner. Homosexual individuals – gays and lesbians – as far as we know, are the larger population, so I will speak primarily about them, while recognizing that there are other sexual variations as well.

As a straight person, I'm also aware that my perspective is heterosexual, which means that I may be accused of being heterosexist, someone who defines their straightness as normal and perhaps superior to those with different lifestyles. In fact, our whole culture can be accused of being heterosexist. Part of our challenge in becoming more welcoming and open to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is to understand that our views on sexuality have been formed by our society, which includes many deeply held prejudices against homosexuality.
While we ponder this morning the broad spectrum of human sexuality, science is learning more and more about how we are programed for our gender and our preferences. We know today, for example, that there are more than just two simple genders, male and female, that there are people born with genetic variations that keep them from being simply male or female. The debate about what causes homosexuality continues, genetics or environment, or both, and, since we don't really know, I tend to side with the anecdotal stories that define the reality of the lives of many gays and lesbians,
many of whom say they knew, whatever the cause, that they were somehow different from very young ages.
I would like us to view this issue today through three different lenses. The first is our homophobia, especially if we are straight, although gays and lesbians also have been imbued with homophobia, which often teaches them to be ashamed of themselves or to hate themselves, leading to a particularly high teen suicide rate for gay and lesbian youth. The second lens I want us to look through, is how we go about cultural change, especially in the realm of our sexuality, and the third lens (my theological lens for today), is freedom – in this case the freedom to be who we are.

There may be a few of you out there today, who are not the least bit homophobic. You weren't raised in West Texas then, like I was, and you didn't go to a southern Baptist church for a while, like I did when I was a young girl. Being a pansy, or worse, was something I remember hearing on the playground from the time I started school. A friend of mine from Midland is now openly gay and partnered with another man after going through a miserable marriage and a court battle to gain joint custody of his children. But he could not have been openly gay when we were young. Two other young men I knew left for New York City as soon as they graduated from high school.
When both of my daughters had been born, I examined my early learned racist attitudes, which also were part of my upbringing, and realized that I would be fine if either married someone from a different racial or cultural background. The fear of how my parents would react, and perhaps even myself, had definitely kept me from dating a young black man I had known in college. After applauding this generational shift within myself on racist attitudes, I remember saying out loud, though, that I hoped that my daughters wouldn't be lesbians.
Why? someone asked.
And then I realized that I was still homophobic, even though I had become a good, practicing Unitarian Universalist by that time. I knew I had to work on this attitude and change it. I did that by becoming very involved in my church's Welcoming Congregation program, and was vice president of the board in 1996, when First Universalist Church of Denver voted to become an official Welcoming Congregation. The decision was not unanimous, and the homophobia echoed through the questions that some raised at the congregational meeting:

Who wants a gay or lesbian teaching their children Sunday School? That'll drive visitors away.
What if we become a gay church?
We're already welcoming to everybody - why do we have to single out the gay community to be particularly welcoming toward?

I learned so much in working with the Welcoming Congregation curriculum that I hope that Prairie will soon offer it. Chris Zanoni, a trustee on our board, is studying the program and will make a recommendation to the board, which may then present a proposal this spring at our congregational meeting. The program requires a church to spend at least a year, if not two, holding classes and lectures and discussion groups on gay/lesbian/transgendered and bi-sexual issues. Everyone confronts their homophobia and, hopefully, overcomes it enough to realize the genuine inherent worth and dignity of all people, including our gay brothers and lesbian sisters. Then we can be an openly welcoming church, a safe place and loving community for those who have been shunned by other churches and stigmatized by our society.

That's one way to confront homophobia and it's also a way to model social change, which gets to my second lens: how do we bring about social change, especially in the realm of our sexuality? Journalist E.J. Graff, a lesbian with a partner, has written a book called What is Marriage For? In it, she explores the institution of marriage and how it has greatly changed over the centuries – although it may sound like it's never changed listening to some religious rhetoric. She makes the point that marriage is a social construct, and so its rules and norms differ from country to country and culture to culture. She also points out that people on both sides of issues over the centuries have argued their points of view because they are passionately concerned about the very fabric of society and the legacy they will leave to their children. Marriage has not always been about love or happiness. It has been mostly, instead, until the 20th Century, about transferring property and having help mates in labor,
about inheritance and having enough children to support the family. That's one reason why lesser developed countries still have such high birth rates – not only do so many children die, but children are needed to work on the farms and to support their families. The institution of marriage, as we know it today in this country, has been transformed, Graff says, by democracy, capitalism and the rise of egalitarian values. We are, as another way to put it, rich enough to argue about it now.

In every generation, where there has been great social change, and the institution of marriage has changed, there has always been a backlash, but the backlash is almost inevitably to changes that have already informally taken place and been generally accepted. Women could not own their own property until beginning in the 19th century in this country – and when they could, that dramatically affected the institution of marriage – women did not have to have a man to have their own possessions, their own wealth and property. In the 20th century, women finally won the right to vote, and later won the right to control their own bodies and their own sexuality. They could use birth control. Marriage, in real practice, stopped being just about procreation, although it certainly remains the primary way people have children, and marriage became a "home for the heart,"as Graff says.

Marriage has become an individual journey today about love and intimacy, although practical problems, like money, can still dominate, and having children still adds great responsibility. So, marriage was not about love and intimacy, not all that long ago. And homosexuality was not always that damned, either. That's why, I believe, there is so little about it in the Bible, and much of what there is, definitely lends itself to interpretation. Philosopher Christine E Gudorf, in her book, Body, Sex and Pleasure, Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics, points out that in ancient Rome, male homosexuality was widely practiced, and many men believed that their best relationships, including intimate relationships, were with other men. Marriage to women was necessary, remember, as the way to have children and pass on your inheritance. But women were definitely not considered your equal, if you were a man, in any way. Changes for the cultural standing of women have been slow, but, as Graff says in her book, most changes became institutionalized after they have already been accepted within the mass of people. She hopes that the acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships is close to having this kind of general societal endorsement.

If marriage is about love, intimacy and happiness – if relationships are about love and happiness – I believe many are becoming much less likely to judge two people for seeking that happiness, even when their relationship is homosexual or some other variation. We already have come to believe, by and large, in an equal ethic when it comes to individuals, an equality between men and women, and most of us – and now I'm talking about a much larger us than simply Unitarian Universalists – don't want to tell other people how to live their brief lives upon this earth.

This brings us to my third lens – freedom, or freedom in just or right relationships, at least. This concept of freedom is bigger than simply saying, I deserve my personal or individual rights. True freedom is about allowing enough tolerance and peace to let others live their lives, too. This is why we have freedom of religion as well, and why it's so important not to let one person's religious creed
define what is right for all. I am passionate about this issue because I believe the true concept of freedom is a deeply held, universal religious belief and should not be constrained by religious dogma.
This kind of universal freedom, for example, also recognizes the plight of the poor and the right of all people to live in decent homes with access to basic human needs, such as food and water.
I respect the right to differ, religiously, but no one religion should control how others live in a just relationship – a responsible, loving relationship, meaning one that does not cause harm, but one that brings wholeness to another. This is not an all-out, anything-goes freedom, either. Pedophilia was prevalent in ancient Rome, too. I'm glad that adults having sex with children is now illegal and unacceptable behavior. Our sexuality should promote our inherent worth and dignity – we should not be exploited nor abused nor taken advantage of when we are young and vulnerable, any more than women, or men, should be raped or abused at any time in their lives.
I have talked so much about marriage today in the context of gay and lesbian relationships,
because a deep, loving commitment with another is what so many people seek, whether straight or gay, and that's what most of us hold as our definition of marriage today: a deep loving commitment to another. In some of the Protestant denominations struggling with this issue, many will say that a person can be gay or lesbian and still be loved by god, but that they cannot have a sexual relationship with another of the same sex – they must remain celibate, in other words, to stay in good standing with the church or god. This greatly twists, it seems to me, what it means to truly accept the inherent worth and dignity of another and to allow that person to have the freedom to seek a just relationship; that's why gays and lesbians should be allowed to establish good marriages or unions, I believe, just like any straight person, and they have the right to be just as miserable, too. The shift of making marriage about love, instead of property or procreation, has not been all good, either; it has, no doubt, also led to our high divorce rate as well.

What's needed in this our time that we live in is a deeper understanding about what love is, what relationships are, what rightness and justness means in the context of relationships, and how people should be given the freedom to choose their life partners in a free and responsible way – and how all of this now effects the institution of marriage. Despite religious blinders, marriage has changed dramatically in the last 100 years or so, but our thinking and rhetoric and religious institutions have not kept up very well. If marriage is now a home for the heart, then we must, as a free society, not only contemplate how everyone deserves such a home, but we must more deeply define for ourselves the nature of relationships – including what a loving and just family looks like. And we must learn to support one another, build just communities – especially in our churches – as we struggle to provide this kind of love and freedom to everyone. AMEN