The Supreme Court decision on parents opting out of their children reading books with LGBTQ characters is a reminder that objecting to LGBTQ issues often falls under the guise of “religious objections.” Obviously, some material is not suitable for children, especially if it’s sexually explicit, but some of these books simply introduced gay characters.
But pretty soon, it’s possible that even speaking to, or doing business with, an LGBTQ person (or having them teach your children) could be framed as a threat to one’s “religious values.” It’s important to remember that Christianity should not be used as a fig leaf for homophobia. Moreover, many straight Christians want to be welcoming to LGBTQ people; and many straight Christian parents pray that their children will come to know LGBTQ people as their brothers and sisters. Being Christian does not mean being homophobic.
And as for threatening stories, it’s essential to remember that Jesus not only reached out to those on the margins, but that one of his most famous stories, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, was about someone from a hated ethnic group—the Samaritans were at the time despised by many Jews, because of where they worshiped God (Luke 10: 25-37).
That story, threatening to the religious beliefs of many people at the time, is nonetheless central to the Christian worldview. And it portrays someone from a hated ethnic group in not only a positive light, but in contrast to the selfishness of those on the “inside.” To be clear: Many people in Jesus’s time would have rejected the story of the Good Samaritan because of “religious reasons.”
The Baptist minister Paul Rauschenbush, who is a married gay man, noted on his Instagram feed that he fears the Supreme Court ruling could also be used to opt out of learning about “other religious people, or people who are different from you, from any background.” Rauschenbush, who is also the CEO of the Interfaith Alliance, calls it a slippery slope. “I want my kids who are in public schools to learn stories about people who are different from them.”
It’s an important point. What about a book about a Muslim family that enjoys their time in their local mosque. Is that “offensive” to practicing Christians? Or a book about a Jewish family’s experience celebrating not Christmas, but Hanukkah? Does their not worshiping Jesus pose a “threat” to Christian children?
Allowing people to exempt their children from hearing stories, even fictional ones, with LGBTQ people, can prevent them from the kind of deep learning needed to build empathy with those from different backgrounds, a key step in the development of a moral life. The biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, who recently died, said that the deep places of our lives—places of “resistance and embrace,” as he termed them—are not reached by definitions as much as by stories. This is one reason why Jesus taught in parables—stories.
More basically, Pope Francis reminded us that telling stories is an innate part of being human, and LGBTQ people deserve to have their stories told as well.
“Human beings are storytellers,” he wrote in 2020. “Stories leave their mark on us; they shape our convictions and our behaviour. They can help us understand and communicate who we are.”
Rather than looking for ways to label people as “other,” or as dangerous, we need to indeed “tell stories” about them and, better yet, get to know them as our brothers and sisters. And our friends.
