Sermon: ADVICE FROM THE CLERGY : On Faith and Homosexuality

The Psalmist wrote, Hine Ma Tov U’Manim shevet kulam gam yachad --”How good and pleasant it is for all of us to dwell together.” For so many, celebrating our gay and lesbian family is only a political statement. But we who have gathered together today know better. Coming out is not only a political statement. But a statement of faith: faith in yourself, faith to be who you are, faith that you understand what the Divine One wanted you to be.

So today we say together: We are proud to be lesbians and gay men, proud to be bisexual. Whatever our sexual orientation, we can exclaim ourselves, out from behind the hidden secrets of the closet into a new dawn of this lesbian and gay pride festival.

How grateful we are to be here together. Hine Ma Tov u’manim .

And so on this day of coming out, on this day of faith and pride, of taking the message home, we must learn to celebrate all of who we are.

And we are here this day because we want to throw off the very last closet of our community. The last closet is the acknowledgment that we too, as gay and lesbian people, are people of faith. We want to walk out hand in hand into the dawn of a new day in our gay and lesbian community and say we are lesbians who believe in the divine, the holy. We are gay men, who celebrate the spirit of God. We are a community that finally will acknowledge its deep spiritual needs. Not simply in an unorganized and haphazard fashion. But that we can, despite a few fanatics of the radical right, reclaim our religious heritages as our own. Jew and Christian, Buddhist and Moslem, Religious Science, Unitarian, Wiccan, the many expressions of spiritual and religious living. The last closet on this lesbian and gay pride weekend is the closet of faith, the closet of the spirit.

Understandably, there are those who say it is impossible to reconcile the religions of the world with being gay. So many of them classify homosexuality as a sin. Many have oppressed our peoples. Yet, so many of the religions of the world have also begun to see the light. They are beginning to understand that sexuality is not something to be dictated or superimposed but is as natural as the sunshine on our faces and flowers blooming in the spring.

On this lesbian and gay pride weekend, as we celebrate our family of pride, we must come out to celebrate our faith. It is our belief that we lesbians and gay people are God’s people. We must say today and everyday our belief that a lesbian life can be a holy life. We must share our belief with everyone that a gay life can be a sacred life, a morally upright life.

We cannot let others take our faith away from us. We cannot let others define the nature of our being. We cannot let others dictate our lives and our loves.