Lesbians in the Church

As the penultimate post to my blog, i felt it would be a nice idea to end with a discussion of lesbians within the church.

There are many different forms of Christianity, but i have chosen to focus on the main branches, Catholic, Anglican and Protestant. 

Catholic Church

Traditionally, the catholic church does not allow women to serve as priests. Women in the Catholic church may serve as nuns. There are very no reports available of lesbian nuns, perhaps because nuns ma keep their sexuality quiet in order to continue as a nun.

Recently, there has been a a calling for women to be ordained as priests in the Catholic Church.  So the issue of lesbian women within the Catholic church may arise sooner than expected.

Anglican Churches

Women can be ordained in the Anglican Churches and many are. There is also no issues surrounding openly lesbian Anglican priests.  Women being ordained in the Anglican churches has  lead to the recent issue of women Bishops, which was recently rejected in the UK. recently rejected. This article also explains how in 1992, women were allowed to be ordained in the Anglican Churches. However, this is just in England, and in America, the first Anglican Lesbian female bishop was recently appointed.

Above is a photo of Assistant Bishop of Los Angeles Mary Glasspool. The first openly lesbian female bishop in America and in fact in the entire Anglican church. You can read more about her ordination here.

Protestant Church

The protest church has had many women priests and bishops for a number of years. Protestant churches have been the most open about LGBT priests out of all of Christianity. Recently the Presbyterian church voted to allow LGBT clergy, the last of the Protestant churches to do so.

It Gets Better

I decided to dedicate an entire post to the It Gets Better project. For those of you that don't know, the It Gets Better project was created in 2010 to inspire hope for young LGBT people that life does get better, and they are not alone. The project does this by allowing older members of the LGBT community to share their stories of how life got better for them.

The project has an entire section dedicated to religion, and has people of all religious talking about acceptance that they can offer LGBT youths. As this blog focuses on lesbians and Christianity, below i have gathered the videos that deal with these issues.

Speaking from experience, Sarah discusses her journey as a lesbian and Christian towards and her gradual acceptance of the two. Her speech is motivational and encouraging to lesbians who are struggling with their faith and sexuality.

This It Gets Better video shows a variety of LGBT people who are all part of the same ministry in Minnesota. They offer advice to those who are struggling with the balance between sexuality and faith. Members reinstate the teaching that God made each person whole and perfect before they were even born, and that sexuality is part of this. The message from this video is that you can be LGBT and Christian, and that God will never reject a person.

The It Gets Better project has inspired many not to take their own lives as well as to embrace their sexuality. The small part that deals with faith has helped many people who feel they are torn between sexuality and religion to find a place they feel they belong.

Lesbian responses to Christianity: Positive

There are many beautiful stories of how, despite all the negativity coming from both Christians and lesbians, many lesbians have managed to hang onto, or even find, faith in Christianity, while remaining lesbian.

There are now many lesbians and Christians that are open about both their sexuality and their faith in everyday life, and many more who hold no hostility towards each other in the slightest.

Writing for the popular LGBTQ website, sisterfriends, the article Unapologetically Christian, Unapologetically Lesbian, discusses what it means to be both a lesbian and Christian. The author states that,  'I love being a Christian and i love being a lesbian because for me it's about living a life of wholeness and gratitude for all that God has done through Christ and for all that God is doing in me'. The article strongly presses the need to be true to oneself as a Christian and in ones sexuality, and is an excellent example of how one can be a Christian and a lesbian at the same time, without contradiciton.

It doesn't take long to see the abundance of websites dedicated to lesbian Christians, for example:

• www.lgcm.org.uk
• www.lesbepure.com
• www.sisterfriends-together.org
• www.christiangays.com
• www.eflgc.org.uk

Or even to find lesbian Christian dating websites, a true sign that being both lesbian and Christian is acceptable and possible...

• www.christianlesbiandating.com
• www.pinkcupid.com/christian-lesbian-dating/uk/singles.htm
• www.rainbowchristians.com

Overall, the relationship between Christians and lesbians is a positive one, which can be seen reflected in the many lesbians that are accepted as part of Christian churches.

Lesbian reponses to Christianity: Negative

There are a small amount of lesbians in the world who are anti-christian. In a recent survey, it was found that lesbians were one of the groups that had a predominantly negative image of Christians, with 30% of lesbians interviewed stating that they had a unfavourable impression of Christians. To put this into context, 11 groups were asked to provide their impressions of Christians, for example, republicans had a 22% negative rating of Christians.

Despite this, i struggled to find much evidence of many lesbians or lesbian groups who are against Christianity purely for reasons relating to being a lesbian. The majority appeared to be anti-organised religion and just happened to fall under the LGBT umbrella as well.

To me, this is a happy discovery. As a minority, the majority of lesbians sympathise with Christians who are also becoming a minority, and many others do not associate the two things together at all.

With a lack of information available on the Internet, i turned to my friends to ask their opinions, as lesbians on Christianity. Emma* said 'As a lesbian, i have no problems with Christianity. I do have problems with people discriminating against others, Christian or not'. Emma's words echo those of many other lesbians, that there is no real issue with Christianity, as long as there is no discrimination or lesbophobia.

*Names changed