Dear NALT Christians...We Are ALT

A few weeks ago, a new trend in Christendom lit up my Facebook feed. Christians were going to change the world, stand up for human rights, and defy their image as narrow-minded bigots...by making Youtube videos.

You may take a moment to wipe the tears of hilarity/frustration from your eyes. I had to.

It seems there is a new group on the scene, and they want you to know that when it comes to hating on the gays, they are Not All Like That. That is their catchy acronym: the NALT Christians. Inspired by the It Gets Better Project that Dan Savage and his partner started in 2010 to assure young gay kids that life gets better after high school, this group has so far posted about 75 videos on YouTube assuring the world that, fear not, we're Not All Like That.

What strikes me first is that they entirely missed the point of the "It Gets Better" campaign. What made IGB so powerful was it was a family conversation: older gay folks saying to younger ones, hey, it won't be like this forever. It wasn't gay people saying to everyone else, "Guys, we're totally cool! We pay taxes and join the PTA and curse in traffic just like the rest of you! Honest, we're not what you think we are!" No, they were talking to each other. And if NALT had actually taken Savage's advice, maybe this wouldn't be such an exercise in absurdity either. Savage coined NALT because so many Christians came up to him and said, "You know, we're not all like that." His response? "Don't tell me that, tell Pat Robertson!" Tell all the anti-gay leaders who claim to speak for all Christians. In fact, Savage didn't need to be told not all Christians are like that; his mother was both Christian and supportive of him. He already knew.

Maybe if NALT was a conversation amongst Christians, I'd be more supportive. If it were Christians talking to other Christians about why they believe--biblically, morally, spiritually, because of the presence of Christ and the Spirit--that sexuality is not an obstacle to a relationship with God, then that would be a conversation I'd be interested in taking part in. Instead, it comes across as Christians who want gay people to know that they're the good ones, the cool ones, the ones you can totally hang out with! Please affirm me and my coolness and don't lump me in with the un-trendy Christians who probably live in red states and wear polyester. The harm that is done to you is a shame, gay folks, but I need you to affirm that I am a good person! Because LGBTQ people TOTALLY have nothing else to do but shore up your confidence, NALTies. They don't have bigger issues facing their communities AT ALL. My eyes have rolled so far back into my head I'm not sure they're coming back around.

But snark aside (and it's hard to put aside because this effort is so rich with snarky possibility), I'm bothered by something deeper. I understand wanting to say that Christianity is not a monolith.  There are two billion of us, almost a third of the world's populations; any thinking person shouldn't need to be told that Pentecostals in Uganda are probably different from Catholics in the Philippines or Russian Orthodox in Moscow. I make it a point of assuming that in any group of 2 billion people, there's probably a plurality of opinion on any given topic, but I've always been a maverick. (As a corollary, I also don't assume it's every Muslim's job to convince me they're not in favor of flying planes into buildings or every black guy's job to convince me he's not a criminal.) So let's assume that message still needs to get out there.

I'm all in favor of a good theological fight (I'm fondly recalling a div school professor who referred to me as a "theological pugilist," which I took as the highest of compliments). I think we should have hard discussions and wave our fists and stamp our feet, always in the humble certainty that we may be getting this completely wrong because, let's face it, we usually do.  We can talk about why we disagree, and we can let those who are on the outside of this family argument listening in know that we have differing opinions on this subject.

But I can't help but feel that when they say "we're not all like that," they really mean "because we're better than."

We're better than those Christians who disagree with us--and who, it must be said in the interest of fairness, include a number who are indeed sometimes homophobic and hateful, as well as a number who are earnestly trying their best to be faithful to a complicated text, history and spirit. We're better than those Christians who are Republican, who are not as well-educated, who live someplace we don't like; better than those who think differently, vote differently, believe differently.

Except you're not, and basic Christian theology tells you you're not.  One of the great contributions of Christianity, I believe, is the belief that we are both beautiful and broken, every last one of us. We have the capacity for great goodness and for the depths of evil. So: NALT, you are ALT, because we are ALL ALT. We are all judgmental, we are all hypocritical, we are all petty and hurtful and shaming. We all say ugly things behind other people's backs. We worry that someone getting more means we will have less. We just do. And we can and should fight those impulses, but please don't pretend to me that you're not like me. I know you, because you ARE me. And you're a hot mess too.

Say you disagree, say you think the Christians who condemn homosexuality are wrong and are reading the Bible wrong, say it loud and strong. But don't say you're not like them. You violate the communion of the Church and you deny your own fallible humanity when you do.

And by the way, if you want to know what transformation and grace really look like, you won't see it in a Youtube video, but you might be lucky enough to meet my mom some day. Her best friend since high school--a friendship of close to 50 years now--is a lesbian who has been with her partner for about 35 years, almost as long as my parents have been married. Joan was the only bridesmaid in my parents' wedding. She and my mom used to make teachers cry. On one occasion, Joan pretended she was sick to stay home from school, then called the school pretending to be my grandmother in order to pick my mom up so they could drive to the beach in Joan's convertible.

I don't know when Joan came out to my mom, but I imagine it was gut-wrenching for both of them. We used to tease my mom because she once said, when my sister asked "but what do lesbians DO," "Sweetie, I don't know, I just pretend they're roommates who share recipes." That was probably 20 years ago. I think they had some rocky years in there. They kept talking, though, even when it was just a birthday call or a Christmas card.

Fast-forward several years. Mom went up to Vermont in August  to visit Joan and Suzi, who got married in September after DOMA was overturned. Was she going to the ceremony, I asked? She said she wasn't, because her trip to see them had been arranged before the DOMA ruling came down and it was too late to change her flight. But in the quiet of their house, when just the three of them were there, my mom asked them to say their vows for her.

I cried, standing on a street corner in New York City, when she told me that story. That is so far out of her comfort zone, but she loves Joan and Suzi and she wants them to be happy. She is not theologically convinced that homosexuality is God's plan for human sexuality; but she loves her friend and accepts her fully. And Joan accepts my mom. Suzi mentioned on this trip that my mom was the last person Joan came out to, after she'd come out even to her parents, because she was so afraid of losing my mom's friendship. "Did you think I was that much of a judgmental bitch?" asked my mom, who is known amongst her close friends, and her distant ones, for being a straight shooter. "Oh, Susie, Joan doesn't think that about you at all," Suzi said firmly. "She thinks you're principled. She *admires* that about you."

Tell me that's not grace. I'm a moral pygmy next to Joan and my mom.

It's moved my mom politically a bit; I think she favors civil unions, or at least wouldn't vote to oppose them. She wants Joan and Suzi to be able to make end-of-life decisions for each other.  When my dad said staunchly that he wouldn't go against the Bible and vote for something so unbiblical, my mom said, "Well, you don't know any gay people." Not true, Dad blustered; he has gay acquaintances at work. "Fine," Mom amended; "you don't LOVE any gay people."

And that's the game changer, isn't it? YouTube videos won't change anything. Trying to get a gold star for being NALT won't do it. But getting into the messy incarnational reality of people who aren't like you but who are, actually, exactly like you just might. That's where you'll find the grace and transformation.

That's where you'll find Joan and Susie and Suzi. And those broads are worth knowing.

An Open Letter to Phen

Phen is 17 now and will start his last year of high school in two weeks. How on earth that happened since he was a lap child about six months ago is a mystery for the ages. As the adage goes, "The days are long, but the years are short." 

I wrote this letter to him after the verdict came back in the Trayvon Martin case, because he was angry and scared and talking about getting a gun. Sigh, 17. I couldn't pull my thoughts together without putting them on paper first--twas always thus--and he is used to getting notes and letters from me. So this was a letter to him, never intended for public consumption.  My friend Rémy believes it should be read by more than Phen, though he is the audience who matters most. But I have succumbed. The letter follows.

Dearest child o’mine,

During the Zimmerman trial, I often found my eyes drifting to two framed photos of you on the bookshelf. In one of them, you are about ten years old. You are asleep in my bed in your soccer jersey, clutching my old teddy bear. You are still wearing the green wristband that meant you had successfully swum the length of the swimming pool and were allowed to go down the big slide. Your top teeth have just come in and your face still has the soft curves of childhood.

Phen, age 10

In the other, taken a few months ago, you are tall and lean, your six-foot frame draped over a chair while you play on your phone. The baby curves have melted away, leaving the angular face of a young man: high, chiseled cheekbones, a strong jaw, clear dark eyes. You’re wearing a hoodie.

Phen, 17

You are 17 in that photo. You are Trayvon Martin’s age.

It is not possible to have observed this case without some measure of emotion, I think. What I want to talk with you about—what I hope this will spark as a series of conversations—is the specific elements in this case, and the bigger sociopolitical issue around it. You are angry. That in itself is rare; you are sometimes petulant, occasionally angst-ridden, but rarely angry. You are actually quite even-tempered. It’s not that I don’t want you to be angry; I want you to be angry about the right things, and to direct it in the right way.

First, the case. The hysteria surrounding it has obscured all nuance, and legal cases rest entirely on nuance. Remember that because of our federalist system, the legal system is different depending on what state you live in. We live in Texas, which means you can get the death penalty for crimes for which other states would only give you a life sentence. Similarly, Florida’s laws are unique unto Florida. Zimmerman claimed self-defense. In most states, someone who claims self-defense must prove that he was indeed under threat. This means the defendant would have to take the stand and the prosecution would have the chance to cross-examine him. In Florida, if a person claims self-defense, the burden is on the prosecution to prove that it was NOT self-defense. It has to prove a negative. The defendant does not have to take the stand. Those cases are virtually unwinnable, which is why the state generally declines to prosecute them.

You have heard the phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt.” That is what the prosecution must prove: that events happened in a particular way beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s a high bar, as it should be. Taking someone’s freedom is a grave thing, so we tilt the system in favor of the defendant: the right to counsel, not to incriminate himself, to have the state prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It should be hard to convict someone. A liberal justice system rests on the presumption that it is a graver offense to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty one go free. The truth about this case is that there is a lot we don’t now. We don’t know who threw the first punch. We don’t know when Zimmerman pulled his gun. The only person who could have contradicted Zimmerman’s story is dead.

This decision was not the result of a racist jury. It’s not Medgar Evers’ trial replayed 50 years later. It was the illogically logical outcome of Florida’s laws and the way self-defense is defined there.

You may have noticed the prosecution didn’t talk about race. They made some opaque references to “profiling,” but race was not central. Most white people do not now how to talk about race. And we have the privilege of choosing not to if we so choose; we can choose not to think about it at all. When forced, our speech is labored and our tongue sticks to our mouths. Try not to hate us for this. We were taught very early that race was not to be spoken of, that it was far too volatile a topic to be broached. We do not have a vocabulary for it. It is one of our great failings.

Phen in his unfortunate cornrows period, circa 13. But SO CUTE, no?

A lot of people hoped the jury would ignore the law and follow their conscience. It sounds nice, but it’s a dangerous proposition. It’s called jury nullification, and it means the jury chooses to ignore the law. That might sound appealing in a case like this, but the face of jury nullification has far too often been the 1960s civil rights cases in which all the evidence was ignored because a white jury just didn’t believe it was right to convict a white person for killing a black person.

But the specifics of this case are not why you are angry and why I cried. That is a much broader, more complicated, more painful picture.

At its heart is the fact that the justice system has not worked well for black people. That black bodies have not been counted as worthy as white bodies. Our heavy history, particularly in this Southland I love so much and which is the only home you remember, infuses every aspect of our lives and, therefore, of this case. We are a land swimming in blood. It is our original sin. And I use that word intentionally: I want you to know, Phen, as the person who first carried you into a Sunday School room and who cried at your baptism, that our country’s racism is a grave, grave sin, one that should drive us to our knees. It is a sin against you. Don’t ever let anyone call it something less or cheapen it. Zimmerman’s racism—the thoughts and preconceptions that drove him to follow Trayvon, to pursue him, to confront him—was a sin. But so is the socialization that led him to believe that was true without questioning it or perhaps even being aware of it. In the South, we all have bloody hands.

Phen, left, age 6, with brother Cesar, 9.  I CAN'T EVEN.

First time at sleepaway camp. Yes, he labeled himself in the photo.

When you were about 12, the fine-boned features of your adult visage just starting to emerge from your baby face, I talked with you for the first time about growing up. This wasn’t the “your body is changing” speech or “you will start to feel strange new feelings for girls” speech. This was the talk about how you were reaching an age at which people would stop seeing you as a charming little boy and start seeing you as a menace. About how it didn’t matter that your hoodie said “Harvard” on it; they would see a young black man in baggy pants and a hooded sweatshirt and they would not see the young man who excelled at math and played a mean game of chess, whose intricate footwork on the football field was a byproduct of a childhood spent on soccer fields, who still watched cartoons and could deliver a killer line without cracking a smile. Certainly they wouldn’t see what I saw when I looked at you, all your earlier selves, like a Russian nesting doll: the tiny boy who brought his church craft projects to me, the child who wanted to be carried on my hip, who stomped on the sidewalk so his Buzz Lightyear shoes would light up; the first-grader with missing teeth, the sturdy fullback on the soccer team, the kid who slept every night curled up against my back, the 11-year-old sick with a fever who nevertheless leapt barefoot into the backyard when Boston got its first snow and then screamed at the unexpected cold. They wouldn’t see any of that. They would see a potential troublemaker. They would see a menace to society, not the extraordinary gift I know you are.

Phen, in Harvard hoodie on the Wellesley grounds, age 12.

Talking to you about that felt like stealing your innocence. You hadn’t had much experience with injustice at that point. You were in a high-performing school in which all of the students and most of the teachers were black. The white people you knew were friends of mine. Your world had been a pretty friendly, welcoming place.

But it would have been at best naïve and at worst negligent not to let you know that the world will see you differently, judge you differently, because you are black. I needed to be sure you were prepared. I wanted you to know how to deal with the police if you were ever approached by them: be courteous, don’t run, always keep your hands in view. These behaviors are second nature to you now.

What is so terrifying about this case is that it demonstrates that it’s not just the police I have to worry about anymore. Now it’s anyone who might think you look daunting and who might be carrying a concealed weapon—which is to say, anyone. Thirty years ago, Zimmerman would have been convicted simply because he was illegally carrying a weapon, and he would have gotten the stiffest possible sentence because that gun acted as an accelerant in a confrontation that ended in death. Concealed weapon laws didn’t exist. Lax gun laws and laws that encourage people to escalate rather than diffuse a confrontation ensure tragedies like this will happen.

This is worthy of your anger, Phen. This toxic combination produces lynching under another name. Was Zimmerman racist? Probably not in the KKK-sense, but in the sense that almost every white American is racist, of having absorbed on a cellular level the idea that black men are dangerous, I’m sure he was. That in itself is only part of the problem. The fact that he had a gun in his hand and could pursue and act on that impulse, one that he may not even have been consciously aware of himself, is the real problem. That is worth fighting, Phen. That is worth struggling and donating and VOTING (you can register on your 18^th birthday).

I don’t want you to hate Zimmerman because I don’t want you to give him the power to warp your character. You are an open, confident, trusting young man. You are trustworthy. You are honest. You give people the benefit of the doubt. You stick up for the underdog. Someone like Zimmerman can’t be allowed to make you less than you are.  In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (which I know you’ve read, but you should read it often—like Les Miserables and Anna Karenina, you will see something new every time), King talks about watching racism warp his children’s sense of their own worth, damage their character as they learned to hate and distrust. I want to keep that poison away from you. I worry about keeping your body safe, but I worry about your spirit just as much.

My wild child

 With all that said, Phen, know that what I have always said still holds: there are no excuses. Things are not fair; you will encounter obstacles others will never know. It’s not an excuse. Rise up, work tirelessly, live passionately. Much of life is not in your hands, but who you are—you get to choose that.

As I watch you move with feline grace, notice how long and graceful your fingers are, how tall you’ve become, I’m reminded of the Maya Angelou line: “I am the hope and the dream of the slave.” You are indeed. You are also the hope and dream of parents who risked everything to try a new place in the hopes it would be better. And you are the answer to a prayer I wasn’t audacious or imaginative enough to pray when I was 24. You are so wildly, lavishly loved by so many people, and there are no excuses for not being your own marvelous self.

I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.

Christmas Eve service