Language Matters Part 2: The Sex Talk Edition

There are some things in life that are inevitable.  The day you wash your car, the drought ends.  The session agenda that looks mercifully short always hides controversy that runs long.  The IRS will always say I did my math wrong.  And every time the issue of human sexuality comes up at GA, someone will play the bestiality card. 

One of the favored phrases of those who oppose full inclusion of GLBTQ Presbyterians in the ordered ministries of the church is “sexual brokenness.”  Used to refer to individual lives and the contemporary world, the term “sexual brokenness” is an important one to our conversation.  Unfortunately it has been hijacked by the hyperbole of shock theology. 

It is beyond the pale to refer to faithful GLBTQ Presbyterians as the moral equivalent of sexual predators, pedophiles, etc.  Yet that is where the debate too often ends.  Fear that anything other than heterosexual relationships will cause the fabric of the universe to come unraveled.  These unhinged claims that acceptance of GLBTQ relationships will cast the church down a slippery slope toward horrors that would make the writers of Leviticus blush drown out any other arguments.

There is indeed sexual brokenness in our world, but what is broken is not loving same-gender relationships.  It is not the commitment to monogamy by two people who intend to spend their lives together.  In truth, that is evidence of sexual wholeness.   

What is broken in our world is the alarmingly high rates of frequent sexual activity and sexually transmitted disease among early and even pre-teens.  It is the devastating reality of human trafficking for the sex trade.  It is the reduction of human sexuality to a recreational diversion and the demeaning of God’s good creation.  That is sexual brokenness and that is where the church’s voice needs to be. 

We need to use our language with care and with prophetic vision to expose the real places of abuse, neglect, manipulation and exploitation in the world.  We need to use our language to speak for those who have no voice and yearn for justice.

Before we can do that, our language of human sexuality needs to move beyond the “you are a hater” or “you don’t love the bible” rhetoric.  Those who want to have a serious conversation about sexual brokenness need to move beyond the “ick factor” in response to GLBTQ relationships and begin to engage real brokenness. 

We need to recognize that our endless debates on one narrow question are distracting us from the world’s real needs.  If we learned anything at this GA, it is that the overwhelming perspective of the next generation (articulated so well by the YAADs) on matters of justice and faith goes far beyond our generations old debates on human sexuality.  They have shared their prophetic voice with us and we do well do heed it. 

Yes there is brokenness in our world, but it is not the fault of faithful GLBTQ people.  But as long as “sexual brokenness” means simply “you’re gay,” we will not be able to move on to issues of sexual exploitation and manipulation that are true signs of brokenness in this world.