Disclosure on Gay Fundamentalist Websites

Jeffery P. Dennis

There is no logical reason why gay and religion should be considered polar opposites, like “good” and “evil”: every religious group has both heterosexual and sexual minority participants, and every gay community of any size offers a wide variety of gay-specific places of worship.   Yet many, if not most, persons in the contemporary U.S. believe that the two communities are mortal enemies, that “homosexuality” is condemned by every theology, and that to be gay means to reject traditional concepts of God (Levitt, 1995; Burrington, 1996; Hermon, 1997; Bawer 1998; Sherkat, 2002; Yip, 2003).  Gay churches and synagogues must therefore move cautiously between two often-antagonistic subcultures, with public presentations that attempt to identify with both gay and religious subcultures without alienating either.  This study examines one type of public presentation, internet websites, to determine what strategies gay churches and synagogues use to maintain two subcultural identities.  I suggest that the sociological concept of role strain, previously applied to individuals who must take on distinct or oppositional social roles (Goode, 1960; Greenburger & O’Neill, 1994; DiPlacido, 1998), can explain discrepancies between gay theologies of inclusion and the dynamic of exclusion noted in public presentations.  

Within the last ten years, there has been an explosion of Christian sites on the web, with a smaller number of sites for Jewish, Muslim, and other believers, offering opportunities for new forms of religious affiliation and performance (Keene, 1999; Bedell, 2000; Ramji, 2001; Lord, 2002).  However, most local congregations are not attempting to create a non-localized faith community, instead they use the internet in the same way that previous generations used telephone directories, to advertise to potential congregants and visitors in their vicinity, with statements of purpose, staff information, worship times, and directions.  Gay churches and synagogues must indicate that they have a gay-specific focus and at the same time maintain affiliation within neutral or anti-gay faith traditions.  I hypothesize that gay churches in the evangelical Protestant tradition, dedicated to Biblical literalism, individual spiritual transformation, and proselytization (Synan, 1997; Woodbury, 1998), Evangelical Protestant churches will be significantly more likely than others to “closet” their gay focus with coded terms, both as a survival tactic to minimize the possibility of hate crimes, and as a signal that affiliation with the evangelical subculture is more important than affiliation with the gay subculture. 

Gay Religious Groups

            The first religious community specifically dedicated to gay people was the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, founded in 1968 by the Rev. Troy Perry. MCC has an evangelical Protestant dogma, in reflection of its roots in the Pentecostal tradition (Perry, 1992), but its formal liturgy and progressive social outlook dissuade many gay evangelicals.  As a consequence, dozens of independent evangelical gay churches have arisen, mostly Biblical literalist and aggressively fundamentalist in their dogma.  Some are organized into associations on the congregational model, such as the Evangelical Network, the Alliance of Christian Churches, and the Fellowship of Reconciling Pentecostals International .

            Few gay mainstream Protestant churches have arisen, no doubt because mainstream denominations do not officially banish gay people, or construct them as demonic.  However, hundreds of local mainstream congregations have identified themselves as “affirming,” “open,” “reconciling,” or “welcoming,” meaning that gay people are particularly welcome, and they sometimes quietly draw a gay majority (Tigert, 1996; Wilcox, 2003).  Similarly, few gay-specific synagogues have been organized, as the Union for Reform Judaism offers full membership to its gay and lesbian believers.  The World Congress of GLBT Jews is comprised of 65 organizations in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Israel, for instance, but most are social, support, and political organizations, not shuls dedicated to prayer and worship.

Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers are also unlikely to found their own churches, since they are committed to the idea of a single universal church.  However, the Ecumenical Catholic Church and other denominations are “welcoming,” and there are a few independent gay Catholic churches.

Methodology

            I located the internet addresses of gay-specific churches, ministries, and parachurch organizations through directories provided by the Alliance of Evangelical Churches, gaychristians.org, Christianlesbians.com, Dignity, UFMCC, and the World Congress of GLBT Jews.  Random sampling provided 100 MCC,  100 mainstream Protestant[i], and 30 Unitarian congregations with a special outreach to glbt persons.  In addition, snowball sampling provided 100 Evangelical[ii], 35 Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox, 25 Jewish, and 10 Other sites.[iii]

            Websites are organized as a series of interlocking pages.  The home page, is the main internet address, containing the vital information necessary for casual browsers.[iv]   A “menu,” usually on the left or top of the home page, leads the browser to subsidiary pages such as “Who We Are,” “Worship Schedule,” “Newsletter,”  “Contact Us,” and “Links.”  Each of the subsidiary pages can lead to other pages, or back again, with website architecture limited only by the ingenuity of the website designer and the stamina of the browser.

I read every page of the website, looking for the following textual cues on either the home page or on interior pages that would disclose, more less subtly, the congregation’s gay focus: a statement that the congregation is intended for glbt people; the common gay symbols of the triangle and the rainbow; statements of nondiscrimination against glbt persons; statements addressing same-sex identity and Christianity or the Bible; words like “open,” “affirming,” “reconciling,” and “welcoming”; and statements emphasizing inclusivity (that is, “Our church is open to EVERYONE”). 

            To determine the impact of external social factors on the disclosure of gay focus, I recorded metropolitan-area variables suggesting a gay-friendly or unfriendly environment: cost of living; income; poverty rate; arts availability; Catholic, mainstream Protestant, and evangelical Protestant population; Black, Foreign-Born, and Hispanic population; hate crime rate, violent crime rate, and AIDS cases (see Appendix 1, below).

Disclosure

“Disclosure” means a statement on the home page or an interior page that characterizes the congregation as composed primarily of glbt persons, or with a special outreach to glbt persons.  For instance, Christ Chapel in the Valley (North Hollywood, CA) states “Finally, you’ve found a community of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Christians!” and The MCC of the Lehigh Valley (Allentown, PA) hopes to “share Christ's love with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and allied community by the power of the Holy Spirit through bold and courageous action.”  I also counted the words gay, lesbian, or glbt in home page graphics, as when Cornerstone Fellowship (Tucson, AZ) places the words “Gay Lesbian Straight Bisexual Transgendered” beneath an image of a bridge to signify that their congregation bridges the several sexual identities.

I did not count, however, those websites which imply that their congregation’s gay focus is trivial or incidental. For instance, the First Baptist Church of Berkeley (CA) states that “We are families. We are singles. We are married and partnered couples. We are gay. We are straight. We are blind. We use canes. We use walkers. We are Boomers, Busters, and X-ers. We are toddlers. We are teenagers. We are veterans. We are resisters,” and on and on, with the “gay” hidden like an Easter egg somewhere in the middle. The implication is that though occasional glbt persons may be found in the congregation, they are overwhelmed by the heterosexual Boomers, Busters, X-ers, toddlers, teenagers, veterans, and resisters.  Similarly, Living Waters MCC (Tuscaloosa, AL) states that “members of our church include gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons,” and Trinity MCC (Gainesville, FL) notes, under “Membership Classes”:  “Since one outreach of our church is to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community, we also discuss homosexuality and the Bible.” (italics mine).

            Of the 400 gay-specific congregations in the sample, 25.8% disclosed on the home page, and an additional 9.3% disclosed on inner pages. The religious tradition was the most significant causal factor: 76% of Jewish groups disclosed, but only 46% of MCC, 19% of evangelical, 9% of Catholic/Orthodox, and 7% of mainstream (chi square 129.249, p<.0005).