Being Welcoming and Affirming is Always Age-Appropriate

Walking up a snowy hill today after a group sledding outing, I was talking with an Episcopalian friend about her church, and about why many former Catholics I know can no longer stomach the Catholic Church but find the Episcopal Church a welcoming alternative. Bridger was walking alongside us, listening, and he asked why some people were leaving the Catholic Church. I leaned down and told him the first thing that came into my head on the fly: "Well, historically the Catholic Church has hurt and mistreated a lot of people, like gays and lesbians."

"Oh," said Bridger. Temporarily satisfied with that answer, he moved on to the business of scooping up some snow to eat.

"Do your kids understand about gays and lesbians?" my friend asked me in an undertone.

"Well, I don't know how much they understand, but it's something we talk about. I mean, we have so many gay and lesbian and bi friends and relatives, it can't help but come up. It's just part of life," I told her.

My friend shared some of the struggle within her church over what being "open and affirming" means, and how far it should go. Some congregants question whether they should be openly affirming homosexuality in front of the children. Is it age-appropriate? Will it confuse the kids?

Here's what I believe, and what I told my friend today.

What I believe is that kids need to hear open and affirming messages about sexuality, hetero and homo, much earlier than we may realize. In the memoirs of writers like Paul Monette, Mark Doty, and my old teachers Barrie Jean Borich and Elizabeth J. Andrew, in the stories of my GLBT loved ones, I hear how our culture's pained, uncomfortable silences around sexual "difference" cause so much hurt and confusion. We shouldn't shove sexual subjects in kids' faces, obviously, or willfully expose them to images or words that are way too mature for them to handle. But I think there is a way to tactfully, appropriately set a tone of acceptance very early--before children start to form negative stereotypes about others or to draw conclusions about themselves that they're too embarrassed or afraid to talk about with their grown-ups.

The first time a friend of mine had "the talk" with her young daughter, she explained about sexual feelings, "Most of the time, men feel those kinds of feelings for women, and women feel those kinds of feelings for men. But sometimes men feel that way toward men, and women feel those feelings for other women, and that's OK and normal, too."

Nothing especially explicit. Nothing inappropriate for the curious five-year-old her daughter was.

Her daughter beamed. "Mom," she said, "you're the greatest."

It's never too early for that kind of conversation, as far as I'm concerned. It's the kind of message that I think could provide a girl who wonders why she's more crushed out on the girl next door than the boy a huge measure of reassurance and relief--a message that could help her get on with the business of fearlessly being herself. It's the kind of message that might help a kid stop and think before he calls a buddy "faggot" as an insult. What my friend said is just the right thing to say, no more, no less, and I think the more churches that get in the business of saying it, loud, often, and with great joy, the better.

In the car on the way home, Bridger, Cass, and I talked a little more about what my friend and I had been discussing on our way up the hill. I talked about how some religions have taught that it's bad to be gay, even though homosexuality is just a part of people that they're born with, like their skin tone, their eye color, their hair texture, their voice. I talked about how those sorts of teachings have led to people losing their jobs because they're gay, not being able to bring their loved ones home to family gatherings, just plain not being able to tell the truth about who they are.

There are people I know and love--and many others I don't know, of course--who live in a state of legal, civil, and cultural uncertainty and ambiguity when it comes to their families. They do not have the safety nets and rights that straight people take for granted. There are people who have been married for decades even if the state of Minnesota does not legally recognize those unions as marriage.

What's indecent isn't talking about homosexuality in church. Heavens, no. It's that people like me do so little about an injustice we can see so clearly right in front of us.