Three years ago this summer, just two weeks after leaving the church where I had pastored for 25 years, I went to the Pride parade in Vancouver. You don’t really get a chance to do much else on Sunday mornings than attend church when you are a pastor. Truth be told, that is not the only reason that I had never attended a Pride parade.
First, there was the view of the parade that was common in many evangelical churches. Suffice it to say that the view was that the parade was about excess, depravity and deviance. The images that were featured in the bolstering of such a view were those of sexual frivolity, nudity, inappropriately lavish costumes, and in your face flesh and sex.
Second, there was a softer kind of judgmentalism. This entailed people saying that they did not hate gay people, but that the parade was way over the top. Expressions in this argument included the trope that heterosexuals don’t flaunt their sexuality like that so what is the point of gay people doing it? There was also the argument that it was not children or family friendly. Evangelicalism often upholds an idol labelled as family values. As is the case with most idols, the actual thing is a distraction used to control people. How much can you say that family values really matter to you if your champion is a person like Donald Trump? I think that there are thousands of reasons beyond those of morality to be wary of narcissistic, amoral people like Trump, but the fact that so many evangelicals continue to support him does, at least, demonstrate that the “family values” claim used so vociferously against political opponents is an idol that many of the leaders of the movement know can be used to mobilize the masses in their favour. Anyway, I digress.
Back to why I had not attended a Pride parade until three years ago. I did not really agree with any of the first three reasons, though years ago I may have not countered the softer judgmentalism as much as I should or could have. I never preached an anti-gay, watch-out-for-the-gay-agenda, this-is-an-example-of-the-moral-decline-of-our-culture, etc. sermon. My faith, and what I knew of Jesus, did not align with such self-congratulating vitriol. I knew that some pastors regularly preached such sermons and I thought it to be not only wrong, but lazy. Even today, I know of pastors who consistently and sometimes angrily preach against homosexuality. It happens that some of these men (the ones I know of are men) have close relatives who are gay and though they don’t tell their congregations such, their sermons seem to be directed against these family members. I do know what it means to have a person or a small group of people in mind when preaching. I always tried to guard against this. It is a high disrespect of the pulpit to hold it hostage for your personal battles and insecurities.
There is one more reason that I had not attended a Pride parade until 2019. I didn’t want to upset people at my church. I feel that this is a motivation of love, not fear, though I know that not upsetting some people means that I might be neglecting others. The way I saw it was that I was employed by a church that came from a history with a clear view on the matter of homosexuality (they were against it). It was not my right, as an individual employed by the church, an individual who had influence in the community, to force my view over theirs. Believe it or not, many conservative Christians have moved long distances in their views. Most of the people I knew, including those who would seem to be most anti-gay, actually held nuanced views and were much more open than many would have assumed. They also granted me the space to believe what I did and to even talk about it in conversation. I loved these people in a way that meant I wanted to help actually support them in their consideration of changing perspective. This is not always easy. The way I saw it was that I did not want to hurt them. Of course I know now, much more than I did then, that by such a course of action other people were being hurt. This reality is one of the often present tensions in pastoral work. It makes the work fraught with the possibility of upsetting at least someone most of the time, but it also gives the work a vitality. It becomes a space for prayer and for the seeking of wisdom.
So, two weeks after leaving the church that I worked at for 25 years I attended my first Pride parade. I loved it. I was in tears much of the time. It was colourful and loud and celebratory. I am a person who does not mind crowds and joyful music. In the end, heaven is a city. There was not much that was in your face at all during the parade. Just enough, or perhaps not enough. It was more corporate than edgy. That which was edgy seemed to be offered up as an invitation to move from shock and judgment to a critique of our own moralisms. Watching that parade I remember being most struck by the people (and this is by far the majority) walking relatively quietly amidst the noise. These people might be holding a banner or a placard or even just walking in the parade. I thought about many of them might have faced condemnation and judgment in their upbringing just for who they are. Many would have been told that God was against them, that they were unacceptable to God. Now, they were walking in a parade, in public, down the street of a major city and people were lined up cheering them on. I saw the love of God in this. I was at a Pride parade not in spite of my faith, but because of it.
Of course there are things that you might not like at Pride. You might find some things to be upsetting or too much, or things with which you disagree. I think to myself though, if that is my standard, that I won’t attend anything where I will encounter something upsetting or over the top, or something that I disagree with, well then I could never go to church again. If I were to count, I think that church might often have more upsetting things. After all, in church, people claim to speak for God or tell us what God thinks of this or that or the world. Anytime someone expresses their view and says that it is also God’s view, that’s at least walking the tightrope of offensiveness.
This year was the second time I have attended the Pride parade. The two year break was due to the pandemic, not due to some moral second thoughts. My Christian faith matters to me as much or more now then it did when I was pastoring the church and the work that I do aims to help articulate a hopeful, non-divisive faith. This year, people that I attended the parade with included two friends who were in the youth group when I was a youth pastor decades ago. One of them was raised in hyper-conservative household with a dominating, judgmental, moralistic father. If he ever attended a Pride parade it would be to hand out tracts about sin and damnation. The other was someone who never came out as gay until he was 34 years old. His family, though conservative Plymouth Brethren in background, have really done the best they can to grow and love him not matter what and to aim to emerge from the sub-culture of particular views of family and church.
Mostly we just enjoyed the parade. It was a sunny beautiful day and there were many scenes that made us cry. There was a woman right beside us on the parade route who wore a homemade sandwich board sign that said, “Free Mom Hugs”. One of my friends asked her about it. She said, “Many people who come out about their sexuality for whatever reason, don’t receive hugs from their families. That’s what I am here for. I’ll give the hugs that some Moms are still unable to give.”
Business was steady for her for the entire parade. Person after person in the actual parade would see her, walk out of the procession and hug her. Most were joyous and happy, but some carried the weight of emotion. A couple people seemed almost unable to let go.
God bless her.
True light reflected.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this potentially divisive issue. I have never understood true Christians being against a valid form of love between two consenting adults. Of course, I was raised in a conservative Catholic home, so was exposed to this discrimination from a young age. So much damage has been done to people in the name of Jesus over this issue and that is so sad. I was not allowed to say goodbye to my dying mother nor was I allowed to go to her funeral because of my sexual orientation. That is not the sort of love Jesus taught. Hopefully as we grow more civilized, one day we can simply accept all people as God's children, enjoy our differences, and bloom where we're planted. Thanks for doing your part to allow this to happen! And I'm glad you enjoyed the parades - I haven't been to one in many years but they are a lot of fun!