Sally Kern
There’s a certain irony in the fact that Sally Kern’s outraged and outrageous comments about “the homosexual lifestyle” came to the nation’s attention during the fifth week of Lent.In many churches, the appointed gospel this week is the story of Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb. It’s an iconic text for queer theologians.
In the passage, Jesus stands outside the cave where the body of Lazarus has been placed and hollers, as the Voice of Love: "Lazarus, come out!"
When he stumbles from the shadows of the tomb, hands and feet are bound by the linens strips placed on his corpse, Jesus commands the gathered community: “Unbind him.”
It’s an appropriate story for Lent, which is a time of reflection, preparation, and turning from the human norms, powers, and interpretations that bind our perceptions and experiences.
Lent seeks to prepare us for renewed reliance on a just and merciful God who seeks our freedom and release from oppression.
Now that Kern, an Oklahoma legislator, has stumbled from the shadows into the light—feeling, perhaps, “exposed” in the ways that Lent is intended to expose human brokenness—the Christian community can help unbind her from dangerous assumptions, questionable logic, and thin exegesis.
Certainly, we can unbind her from the presumptions that she speaks unilaterally for the Christian traditions and community, past and present.
But it’s hard to know where to begin.
Should we:
- deconstruct the “facts” she cites, which appear to come from the discredited research of Paul Cameron?
- contest the ahistorical nature of her comments about same-gender-loving people?
- introduce her to the broad range of Christian understandings of same-gender love?
- clarify her broad and totalizing comments about sexual orientation, which appear imprecise and outdated?
I’d like to know, for example, if Kern was speaking about people who experience same-sex attractions, engage in same-gender sexual behaviors, or self-identify as lesbian or gay. Did her comments include those who identify as bisexual, transgender, and/or queer, or only those who are exclusively homosexual in attraction, behavior, and identity?
Kern says now that she wasn't speaking about queer folk in general.
She says she was referring to wealthy, politically active people who don’t discriminate based on sexual identities and use their influence to advocate for lawmakers (and laws) that support their views.
So maybe she’s not opposed to “homosexuals,” but to people with power who think differently than she does and choose to influence public discourse and processes?Kern's comments probably don’t meet legal definitions of “hate speech.” But I have no doubt that people die because of rhetoric like hers.
She apparently feels she is in danger herself because of her rhetoric, given the content of e-mails and phone calls she has received.
I'm troubled that some have threatened Kern or resorted to ad hominem attacks against her.
Our task as the church is to listen carefully to Kern, discern her needs, and respond appropriately and compassionately.
In the end, God is both just and merciful. For that, we—and Sally Kern—should be grateful.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Friday, March 14, 2008