No room at the inn for gay churchgoers SHE belongs to a Roman...

No room at the inn for gay churchgoers SHE belongs to a Roman...

Sunday Times

The Constitution may guarantee the rights of homosexuals, but churches, mosques and synagogues take a different view, writes Jeanne van der Merwe

SHE belongs to a Roman Catholic parish in Cape Town. She is deeply spiritual, goes to Mass every Sunday and observes all the rites and ceremonies of the church.

Yet her relationship with the church, which is supposed to be her spiritual home, is plagued by ambivalence and secrecy born out of the church’s centuries-old antipathy towards same-sex relationships.

Her priest doesn’t know that she is gay, or that she and the woman who sits next to her in church every Sunday have been lovers for more than five years. She knows some priests are more open-minded than others but because there’s no way of telling how a priest would react to the nature of their relationship, she keeps it secret.

“Some years ago I formed a very close relationship with a Roman Catholic priest. We had many discussions about religion and spirituality. I grew to trust him enough to tell him that I was gay. Then he cut all ties with me,” said the woman, who prefers not to be named.

She knows her partner fears the stigma the church attaches to their lifestyle and has problems reconciling her sexuality with her religion.

“I grew up in a Catholic family and my partner is a staunch Catholic. If I had a choice I would much rather go to a [Buddhist] temple or even perhaps the Anglican Church. I feel as though I contradict my beliefs sitting in the Catholic Church,” she said.

Sharon Cox, a former Methodist, decided to opt out of mainstream churches after moving to several denominations and not feeling comfortable with any of them.

“Many of us attended church and went to Sunday school and then we’d come to a point where we are made to feel uncomfortable. We hear of how God doesn’t love us because of who we are. Invariably we are left with all sorts of conflict and struggle to reconcile who we are with what the church says,” she said.

She now belongs to a Cape Town-based branch of an international, inter-denominational Christian church that has rotating ministers sympathetic to gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals, yet she wishes she could feel at home in a mainstream church. “It’s a sad day when you have to have a special church that preaches an inclusive message. It’s sad that churches alienate people the way they do. Their message should be love,” she said.

For Muhsin Hendricks, a devout Muslim and qualified imam, the conflict between his religion and sexuality had dramatic consequences.

Six years ago, he was 29, married with three children, and a religious instructor at several Cape Town mosques.

“As a child I knew I was gay, but coming from an orthodox Muslim family it was difficult to talk about it. Instead I drowned myself in religion to block it out.

“After being married for six years I decided to come out. I had to leave my teaching job — the mosque I was teaching at was supposedly a liberal one, but they said it’s best if I just leave,” he said.

Shortly after coming out, he started building a support group for gay Muslims.

He believes mainstream Islam and sharia law’s interpretation of the Koran on homosexuality is narrow and incorrect and wants the Muslim Judicial Council to debate the place of homosexuality in Islam openly. So far, he has managed only one debate with the council on a community radio station.

“Muslims believe that when you sin, you keep silent. I say homosexuality isn’t a sin, so why can’t we discuss it?”

Called the Inner Circle, his organisation now has 40 members in Cape Town and seven in Johannesburg. Members meet regularly, pray and fast together and keep international ties with like-minded Muslims in other countries. But so secretive are gay Muslims that Hendricks’s organisation has a second tier of members — about 100 anonymous “e-members” who communicate only on e-mail so as not to be found out.

The only South African church that has been forced to confront homosexuality openly is the Dutch Reformed Church, after a minister’s partner laid charges of promiscuity against him with his church superiors.

Laurie Gaum, a popular Cape Town minister, was brought before a disciplinary hearing, which found him guilty of having a homosexual relationship and relieved him of his duties two months ago. He is appealing against the decision.

But the church’s spokesman, Johan Symington, said the church had come a long way in debating homosexuality. “In 1986 the church rejected homosexuality. But last year it said homosexuality in itself is not a sin as you can’t help being born that way. Hence we apologised to [gays] and declared that they are welcome in the church.”

But while gay people are increasingly asking why churches find it so much harder to accept their lifestyles than, for instance, divorce, mainstream religions seem reluctant to budge from their traditional views.

Gays turn away from mainstream faiths such as Catholicism, Islam, Judaism and charismatic Christian churches, which condemn homosexuality out of hand and are unwilling to reconsider their position. Instead, they see homosexuals as a group that should only be addressed with a view to “cure” them of their deviant sexual preferences.

Rowan Smith, Dean of the Anglican St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, confessed his homosexuality to a packed congregation in 1994 and was appointed dean of the cathedral, regardless, in 1998. His very progressive parish, the one in which Archbishop Desmond Tutu served for 10 years, could make such a bold move because the Anglican Church does not have a central bureaucracy that decides the whole church’s view.

Yet the tacit agreement within his church is that gay people should live celibate lives.

“The church’s position is that any relationship not sanctioned by marriage must be celibate. The question is, how do you sanction a homosexual relationship? This is the issue the church needs to address,” he said.

He rejects mainstream religion’s reliance on the Bible to justify its anti-gay stance.

“We need to move beyond using those six verses from the Scriptures to beat gay people up and rather ask, what is the church’s attitude today? The church has accepted divorce even though the Scriptures are very harsh about that,” he said.

But most of South Africa’s mainstream religions still believe homosexuality is wrong.

Father Mike Odongi, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church, said “there is no room in the Catholic Church for homosexuality”.

“The church takes its official position from the Bible. Homosexuality is contrary to nature. How does the cycle of humanity continue otherwise?” he said.

Sheikh Achmat Sedick, chairman of the Muslim Judicial Council, said homosexuality is “abnormal” and “perverted”, citing the Koran and centuries of Islam teachings.

Asked whether he was aware of groups like Hendricks’s and their feelings of alienation, he responded: “If they feel … alienated by the mainstream Muslims but would want to pray to the same God who uncompromisingly tells them that they should not get involved in such perverted lifestyles, then they are free to do so. They then have to wrestle … with the same God who gave them the necessary guidance, which they have rejected.”

Ron Hendler, Deputy Chief Rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues, said the union was “guided by Biblical law”.

“We certainly cannot accept or condone homosexuality. We aren’t judging them — it’s not for us to judge. It is a very sensitive issue and we know there’s a lot of pain around it. But we cannot say a deviant lifestyle is acceptable to our biblical tradition,” he said.

The quandary for gay religious people is that church membership is voluntary and churches are, like them, protected by the Bill of Rights.

Advocate Tseliso Thipanyane, of the Human Rights Commission’s office for economic and social rights, said South Africans had to find a balance between religious freedom and the guarantees in the Bill of Rights. “The Constitutional Court has already said the Muslim Customary Law is unconstitutional. A Christian school is not allowed to give corporal punishment, but it can say gay people are going to hell.

“The question is, where do you draw the line? You can’t ban the Bible. The Bill of Rights protects freedom of religion, culture and language, except where it infringes on constitutional rights,” he said.

“We can limit discriminatory practices, but it would be difficult to limit preaching in churches. People are free to go to the church of their choice, and if they don’t like what their churches preach, they can go to another one,” he said.